Bradley writes about electric cars, autonomous vehicles, smart homes, and other tech that’s transforming society. He contributes to The New York Times, SAE International, Via Magazine, Popular Mechanics, MIT Technology Review, and others. https://twitter.com/bradberman
Shares of Ford hit an 11-year low this week. Newly appointed Ford COO Jim Farley said the company has a “sense of urgency and crisis” on Wednesday at a conference for investors in New York. The big question is if these challenges, and the need for higher near-term profit margins, will affect the company’s EV plans.
International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) today reports that there’s a “good chance” that vehicle manufacturers will be able to meet their 2020/21 CO2 targets in time to avoid paying any penalties. The new optimism is based on incoming January 2020 data. In one shining example, the average CO2 level of new cars in France dropped from 113 g/km in December to 96 g/km in January, a 15% improvement in a single month.
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The world’s biggest electric vehicle battery maker, CATL, will invest up to $3.7 billion to quadruple its production capacity for lithium-ion batteries used in cars and storage systems. In today’s report from Japan’s Nikkei, the financial publication tied CATL’s announcement with its plans to supply batteries to Tesla.
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) this week published a study comparing emissions from private car trips with journeys via Uber or Lyft. Researchers also looked at the broader impact of ride-hailing on other types of urban travel, including public transportation, biking, and walking.
The top-level finding is that ride-hailing trips today result in an estimated 69% more climate pollution on average than the trips they displace. The solution? Electrify Uber and Lyft, and share rides on those services.
Electrify America, the Volkswagen subsidiary, announced today that it’s investing $2 million in solar-powered EV charging stations in rural California. The investment in charging stations that are not tied to the electrical grid will expand access to EV charging opportunities for drivers in rural areas.
It’s been a couple of months since Kia’s South Korean headquarters released “Plan S,” the brand’s EV and mobility plan. That plan set a target of a half-million annual global EV sales by 2026 with a worldwide lineup of at least 11 all-electric models. Electrek checked in with Steve Kosowski, manager of long-range planning and strategy at Kia Motors America, to see where things stand for North America.
It’s widely assumed that future self-driving vehicles will be purely electric. However, the CEO of Argo AI, the self-driving company primarily backed by Volkswagen and Ford, raised doubts today about the business case for robotaxis as absolutely all-electric from Day One. Bryan Salesky, Argo’s chief executive, conveyed his views while speaking with the Verge.
Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess told the Financial Times that the company wants an in-house climate campaigner to fight for environmental initiatives. He said the candidate would be given access to top VW executives so the company stays on track with reducing emissions and producing electric vehicles.
Renault has sold nearly 4 million units of its gas-powered Twingo city car. That experience over nearly two decades taught the French automaker what makes a winning Euro-chic city car. Renault will try to leverage those insights with the all-electric Twingo ZE. The formula is urban maneuverability and a 22-kilowatt-hour battery pack that can fill up in an hour at a Level 2 charging station.
The speculative list of Volkswagen electric cars keeps growing. The latest is a new all-electric sports car, as reported today by Autocar in the UK. In about five years, the first of a lineup of VW electric performance cars would borrow the “ID R” name from the company’s racing concept car.
Last Thursday, the body of the last Chevrolet Impala inched down the assembly line at GM’s Detroit-Hamtramck plant. Employees gathered around the car, snapping pictures of the final internal-combustion vehicle to be made at the storied Detroit plant. It will roll off the assembly line this week.
Porsche this week opened a showcase of the EV-charging future at its plant in Leipzig, Germany. The facility has 12 350kW DC fast-chargers and 4 22kW AC chargers. The total capacity is 7 megawatts, making it Europe’s most powerful rapid-charge park, according to Porsche. EV drivers, regardless of vehicle brand, can use the facility free of charge through March, before a standard charging plan takes effect.
Researchers at the University of Michigan this week published a paper titled, “Strategies to Limit Degradation and Maximize Li-ion Battery Service Lifetime.” The goal was to examine the best strategies for extending battery life, including for EV batteries. In the project, which was conducted in cooperation with the Responsible Battery Coalition, an industry association, researchers compared the owner’s manuals for electric cars with academic research.
The world’s biggest gains in EV sales this year are expected in Europe. That’s because automakers face hefty fines if they don’t meet fleet-average CO2 emissions that increased in 2020 and continue a steep rise in the coming years. A new report from PA Consulting, a global consulting firm, shows that Europe’s 13 top auto manufacturers will face more than €14.5 billion in fines. Electric-car sales are increasing but not fast enough.
Geely, the China carmaker behind Volvo, Polestar, and Lynk & Co, was rumored this week to be making a $300 million investment in Nio. Reports about the investment come from Yuguan Cheshi, a WeChat-based media outlet. That’s only the latest in a wave of rumors about how Nio will emerge from its financial woes.
The myChevrolet mobile app allows drivers to do things like remote starts, unlock doors, and gain access to vehicle data. The app’s Energy Assist feature for Bolt EV drivers has been available since 2017. But GM over the past few months has been enhancing its features, including the presentation of dynamic information about a public charger’s status.
The company wants the myChevrolet app to become the only app a Bolt driver uses, but that might be a hard sell.
Last week, Daimler CEO Ola Källenius said “it will be a challenge” meeting 2020 and 2021 stricter emission targets in Europe. That left the question about how the maker of Mercedes-Benz vehicles would get below 95 g/km of CO2 (with 95% phase-in for 2020) to avoid paying steep fines. In an email to Electrek, a company spokesperson said it “plans to quadruple the share of plug-in hybrids and fully electric vehicles in total sales in 2020.”
If the 200-plus miles of range offered by a Renault Zoe EV aren’t enough for a long-distance trip, just latch on a 60kWh charging-on-the-go trailer in order to more than double its electric distance. That’s what EP Tender, a French startup, hopes that electric-car drivers will do with its proposed product. The company went back to the drawing board after offering internal-combustion charger-trailers for several years.
Volkswagen has promised 20 new EVs by 2025. Most of these models combine an “ID” prefix with a double “zz” in the name. There’s the ID Crozz crossover coming later this year to the US and the ID Buzz van to follow. VW unveiled the ID Vizzion wagon at last year’s LA Auto Show.
The UK’s Autocar reported today that VW will also introduce the off-road-oriented ID Ruggdzz in 2023. Volkswagen told the publication that it wants to create a line of electric models “with the same timeless and classless qualities as the original Beetle.”
BMW had a good year in 2019. The brand sold 324,826 vehicles in the US last year. That’s an increase of 4.4% from 2018, according to Wards Intelligence. But to keep that momentum, BMW leadership – meeting with its franchises at this week’s NADA conference – talked about making a big national push of its new, pure EVs starting to arrive late this year.
Nearly 1 in 5 cars in Bergen, Norway’s second-largest city, are fully electric. The reality that such a place exists has sent oil and fuel-retail companies to Norway to prepare for the disruption ahead.
London’s Financial Times reported this week that Canada’s Couche-Tard, a multinational company with about 15,000 convenience stores, is using Norway as a “laboratory” to study a future without gas stations. Couche-Tard replaced fuel pumps with EV chargers in some of its Circle K gas stations in Scandinavia.
Dealerships are often the weakest link in the EV marketing pipeline. An automaker can run flashy, expensive ads about EVs at the national level – but when consumers respond with a visit to a dealership, they too often get turned off by disinterested or ill-informed sales folks. Volkswagen is taking steps not only to avoid this problem but to fund EV dynamic marketing at the local level.
Alan Day Group, a network of three UK dealerships, said that the first 35 all-electric Volkswagen ID3 cars will arrive around March 28 or 29. That’s according to ThisIsMoney.com, a financial website. However, Volkswagen confirmed with Electrek that the schedule for the first deliveries remains summer 2020.
Larry Hutchinson, CEO of Toyota Canada, spoke last week at the opening of the 2020 Canadian International Auto Show in Toronto. His comments were captured by Driving.ca’s David Booth, who characterized Toyota as “the industry leader in electrification” and “the biggest, most successful, and most environmentally conscious traditional automaker.”
Hutchinson expressed Toyota’s commitment to reducing carbon emissions. But, he argues, that mandating automakers to build more BEVs and trying “to convince drivers to buy them” won’t achieve the world’s climate goals.