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
The Mustang Mach-E will be rolled out to dealerships across the US starting in late 2020. But Ford is not waiting until then to train technicians to service the all-electric SUV. The company developed a virtual-reality training tool with Bosch, the tier-one supplier, to get the training started sooner rather than later.
Cody Thacker, the chief of Audi of America’s electric-vehicle initiative, said the pace of EV adoption will rapidly increase in the next couple of years. He delivered his remarks at the Economic Club of Chicago last week.
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This year is a critical year for EVs in Europe, where automakers are struggling to meet more onerous CO2 regulations. So we’re keeping an eye open for electric-car introductions at the 2020 Geneva Motor Show, which opens for media on March 3.
The EVs at Geneva give a sneak preview of what’s coming to European roadways. However, so far, we’re only seeing four noteworthy pure-EV introductions – including the return of the Fiat 500e and Europe’s first Chinese EV on the market.
Daimler CEO Ola Källenius this week said that meeting 2020 and 2021 stricter emission targets in Europe “will be a challenge.” That could mean big fines for Daimler.
Despite the struggle, Källenius said that he would not reduce prices for the company’s Mercedes-Benz electric cars. “We need to act in an economically rational way,” he said. “It is very important to achieve adequate prices on these cars and not to destroy the pricing levels.”
Skoda, the Czech subsidiary owned by Volkswagen, announced today that its first new purpose-built EV will be called the Enyaq. It will use the Volkswagen Group’s MEB platform, which also underpins the ID Crozz electric SUV that goes on sale in the US later this year.
President Trump’s 2021 budget released Monday calls for canceling the Energy Department’s loan-guarantee program for advanced auto technology. In that program, Tesla in 2010 received a $465 million loan that helped the company produce the Model S, launching the company into the mainstream car market. Tesla’s loan was repaid in 2013.
Lordstown Motors was considering a $200 million loan from the same program – the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program (ATVM) – to develop an all-electric delivery vehicle and pickup.
Hyundai kicked off 2020 by announcing an $87 billion effort to develop dedicated electric vehicles. Today the company announced that part of this EV expansion will include a collaboration with electric start-up Canoo to co-develop an architecture for compact and sub-compact EVs.
Hyundai is promising 11 new dedicated EVs by 2025. The company expects the new platform using Canoo’s skateboard architecture to simplify the EV development process and lower costs.
Ford is still about 10 months away from delivering the first Mustang Mach-E vehicles to US dealerships. Jason Mase, Ford’s electrification marketing strategy lead, told Electrek that the company is now helping dealers get ready with the necessary tools and training.
A Mach-E vehicle will go to 2,100 dealership showrooms for test drives across the US. But Mase expects most of the first-year output to go to reservation-holders, rather than walk-in buyers who will likely join a waiting list.
Here’s one for the “find an EV non-problem” file. Nissan cites research that says 60% of parents with children under age 2 lull their kids to sleep by taking them on a drive. The Japanese automaker claims that the “soothing sound frequencies of an internal combustion engine are the biggest contributor to a child falling asleep in the car.” In other words, a non-polluting EV like the Leaf won’t get the job done without piping in combustion noise.
On a recent trip to Detroit, we spent a few minutes with Tim Grewe, GM’s director of battery cell engineering and electrification strategy. The company has a robust and expanding battery-cell R&D program and testing facility. At the same time, GM announced a new joint venture with LG Chem to build an Ohio-based battery gigafactory with 30 GWh of annual capacity.
General Motors will be relying on Grewe and his team to deliver battery solutions for the GMC Hummer EV and a growing list of future GM electric vehicles. Here’s an edited version of our interview with Grewe.
Verv Auto Sales on Highway 965 in North Liberty, Iowa, will have its grand opening tomorrow. When the ribbon is cut, owner Jason Hall and his staff of two will only have a couple of plug-in hybrids available for sale. But Moxie Solar, the sister company, has a fleet of nearly 10 EVs that it’s willing to sell as Verv builds out its inventory.
That’s a modest start for Verv, but as we reported last month, there are big chunks of the US only now beginning to attract early adopters. Verv Auto Sales represents the EV movement now reaching heartland communities.
EV sales were forecast to grow by about 35% in Europe this year, as the EU implements more stringent rules on CO2 emissions. Those forecasts correctly identified the direction of electric-vehicle sales. But based on January sales numbers in Germany, the continent’s largest car market, we could see much bigger gains compared to a year ago.
BEV sales in Germany last month were up 61%, and plug-in hybrids shot up 307%. That’s in a German car market that saw a 7.3% reduction in overall car registrations year-over-year.
Ford has been relatively quiet about the Mustang Mach-E since it’s unveiling in LA in November. So Electrek met with Darren Palmer, the product chief for Ford EVs, to learn where things stand. Palmer said that the Mach-E is “close to sign-off” for vehicle engineering. And he confirmed that Ford will hit the 300-mile range target for the long-range version.
Palmer also revealed that the company has allowed a few Mustang enthusiasts to take it for a drive. And he talked about how Ford’s EV team is already looking ahead at future electric models, which sounds like an all-electric Explorer or Escape could be in the works.
While the EV revolution is in full swing, the shift to highly automated driving is still at least a few years away. That self-driving future got a tiny bit closer this week after a modified all-electric Nissan Leaf completed a difficult 230-mile journey autonomously in the UK.
The journey began at the Nissan’s European technical center in Cranfield in southern England and ended at its Sunderland factory in the northeast.
General Motors outlined its EV strategy yesterday at the company’s Capital Markets Day. GM President Mark Reuss confirmed that the first vehicle to use GM’s next-generation electric architecture will be badged as a Cadillac. It will be unveiled in April.
Reuss emphasized that GM’s flexible architecture can be applied to a wide array of segments. “Nobody we know has this combination of these levels of flexibility, speed, and scale,” he said.
Luxury automakers BMW and Mercedes-Benz are both pursuing robust rollouts of EVs. But the two brands also consider EV markets to be uncertain in the next few years. Their respective strategies for dealing with that perceived uncertainty are different.
BMW is integrating the production of EVs, plug-in hybrids, and internal-combustion cars on the same assembly line so it can dial EV volume up or down. Meanwhile, Mercedes is building dedicated EV platforms and a global network of battery plants, even as it reduces the short-term output of its first electric SUV.
The General Motors team dedicated to electric vehicle infrastructure is looking beyond the early-adopter market to when mainstream buyers are buying and charging EVs. Electrek spoke last week with Rick Spina, vice president of autonomous and EV commercialization, and Alex Keros, lead architect for EV infrastructure. They believe “normal” in the EV world might not be here until 2025.
Toyota and Panasonic announced today an agreement to jointly develop EV batteries starting in April. The new company, dubbed Prime Planet Energy and Solutions, will develop prismatic batteries for sale to other automakers. The joint venture, which will be owned 51% by Toyota, will have more than 5,000 employees.
General Motors this morning released the full 30-second television commercial for the upcoming GMC Hummer EV, after teasing short clips earlier this week. While the ad doesn’t reveal any more details or images of the vehicle, it formally introduces NBA star LeBron James as the pitchman, complete with a one-minute, behind-the-scenes video.
It’s been widely reported that the Volkswagen ID Crozz, the company’s first purpose-built EV sold in the US, will be an all-wheel-drive electric crossover. The specs, based on the concept version unveiled in China in 2017, are 302 horsepower and 332 pound-feet of torque. Meanwhile, Autocar reported today that a GTX version of the ID Crozz will be a special, high-performance, all-wheel-drive version. So maybe everybody has been guessing about all these specs.
Dirk Abendroth, the chief technology officer for tier-one supplier Continental, knows a thing or two about electric vehicles. Before joining Continental a year ago, he headed electric powertrains for the BMW i3 and i8. He also served as vice president of powertrain and autonomous driving at Byton.
Now, from his vantage point as CTO for one of the top five global auto suppliers, he told Electrek, “Electric mobility is a real revolution.” He listed the reasons why that’s true: reduced CO2, new design possibilities, and a radical shift in manufacturing.
Earlier this week, Electrek spoke with Mark Reuss, GM’s president, about the dedication of the company’s first all-EV manufacturing plant. Our first question to Reuss was about why GM sides with the Trump administration and against California emission standards. He replied that GM’s motivation is about one thing: avoiding further investments in conventional hybrids, instead leapfrogging to an all-electric future.
General Motors is officially entering the electric pickup race with the GMC Hummer EV, a possible answer to Tesla’s Cybertruck. The company released clips today from the Super Bowl ad, titled “Quiet Revolution,” which will run on Sunday during the big game. The ad juxtaposes the power and speed of the vehicle with its ‘quiet-ness’. The ad doesn’t build to a crescendo but to complete silence which should be quite interesting for the GMC/Hummer audience.
Electric cars are commonplace in California cities and other key US markets. But as the Greater Baton Rouge Business Report indicated last week, many US states, including Louisiana, have barely begun to make the shift to EVs.
“Interest is nearly nonexistent,” said Matt McBrayer of Royal Automotive Group. “The vehicles are a viable option, but there needs to be more interest in the car for more people to understand that.”