Bradley Berman

McKinsey, the management consulting firm, yesterday published “The Road Ahead for e-Mobility,” a major 2020 study about EV adoption. To gain its insights, researchers conducted surveys with 11,100 consumers, including 1,200 EV owners. Recent years have brought progress with the technology, the number of available vehicles, and expanding charging infrastructure. But McKinsey called consumer demand the “last big unknown” for e-mobility.

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After GM’s official dedication yesterday of its Detroit-Hamtramck plant strictly for electric cars, Electrek spoke with Mark Reuss, the company’s president. We wanted to hear directly from GM leadership about its level of commitment to quickly deliver on multi-billion-dollar, global EV plans. Here is an edited version of Reuss’s discussion with us and a small group of reporters.

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It was hardly a secret that Detroit-Hamtramck would be GM’s assembly plant for electric pickups and SUVs. But with the official announcement moments ago, the American auto industry made a big leap toward its EV future. GM’s storied Detroit-Hamtramck plant ­– where 4 million vehicles have been built over 35 years – from now on will produce nothing but pure battery-electric models of a size and shape most favored by American consumers.

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Genesis, Hyundai’s luxury brand, this month officially unveiled the GV80, its first sport-utility vehicle. It will launch in South Korea powered by a 3.0-liter six-cylinder diesel engine. However, Genesis said it would have three crossovers. MotorTrend reported this week that the third Genesis SUV will be an electric vehicle built next year on Hyundai’s new dedicated electric platform.

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Herbert Diess, VW’s chief executive, made electric cars the theme of his Bloomberg interview today from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Diess heaped praise on Tesla as leading the way on EVs and car connectivity. But he emphasized Volkswagen’s giant scale as the means to one day become the world leader for electric cars. He said the transition to EVs is still “an open race.”

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Volvo is reporting “several thousands of firm orders” for its all-electric XC40 Recharge, after recently opening online ordering. US consumers can now reserve the XC40 with a $1,000 refundable deposit on the company website. The first customer deliveries of the XC40 Recharge P8 are scheduled to begin later this year.

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German police raided Mitsubishi offices on Tuesday in the latest diesel investigations. That’s a black mark for the troubled Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi alliance that has been working on electric vehicles. Nissan owns a 34% stake in Mitsubishi.

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Total, the French multinational oil giant, announced yesterday that it will install and operate up to 20,000 new public EV charging points in the Netherlands. The company is aligned with Shell and BP in making big investments in electric-car charging infrastructure.

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The Trump administration is trying to weaken fuel-economy standards and kill California’s ability to set emissions standards. But today at the Washington Auto Show, the Department of Energy said it would fund nearly $300 million in new research for EVs, biofuels, and hydrogen.

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As Electrek reported, Cruise yesterday unveiled its van-like, self-driving, all-electric vehicle. For the past four years, Cruise (a GM subsidiary) has been repurposing Chevy Bolts — including its four-generation self-driving Bolt that doesn’t have a steering wheel. But now GM’s Cruise has the Origin.

The two essential things to consider is that the Origin is the first of many vehicles built using GM’s up-and-coming new EV platform. Second, GM and Cruise want to build the vehicle on a massive global scale.

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Volkswagen has monumental plans for EVs across the globe. But Americans have yet to get an in-person glimpse of the production version of the ID Crozz, the company’s first major EV for the US.

That will change in April when the ID Crozz (aka ID4) is unveiled at the 2020 New York Auto Show, just months before the model goes on sale.

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The last of the first-gen Fiat 500e electric minicars left US dealerships in 2019. But it’s coming back in about a year with an updated style and an expected range of about 125 miles. That’s not a lot, but relatively consistent with a breed of small Euro-chic EVs like the Honda E, BMW i3, and Mini Cooper SE. Besides, small electric cars like the Fiat 500e might be the only segment that Tesla is ceding to the competition.

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Canoo, the LA-based company making lounge-like EVs for monthly subscriptions, opened its waitlist today. Submitting your name to the waitlist signs you up to become one of the first customers for Canoo, which arrives in 2021. Joining the no-obligation waitlist is free.

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Global auto sales dipped to about 90 million last year. That’s down from more than 94 million in 2018, and 95 million the year before. Even as forecasters point to continued declines in the overall auto market in 2020, we’re already seeing signs that electric-vehicle sales are set for a steep rise.

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In a Tokyo press conference today, Subaru outlined its long-term plans for technology development and reducing carbon emissions. The company will continue to “evolve” core technologies, like its Boxer internal-combustion engines. Reuters also reports that Subaru is strengthening ties with Toyota on developing new technologies. That could result in a new co-developed all-electric SUV ­– but not until 2025.

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With the rise and fall of battery-swap company Better Place in 2013, the prospect of mass-scale swappable EV battery packs in the US fell by the wayside. Tesla abandoned the idea a few years later. The big problem (among many) was a lack of common battery standards across multiple automakers. Battery packs need to be the same size and shape. That’s an issue that could be solved in China, where strong state control can dictate standards.

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BMW will close its main Munich plant this summer for six weeks. That will allow the company to retool and modify more than one-thousand robots to get ready for production of the all-electric BMW i4 in 2021.

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Volkswagen has one of the industry’s most ambitious EV plans. The company is targeting cumulative production and sales of 22 million electric vehicles by 2028. By that time, the group said it could offer as many as 70 electric models. That’s still not soon enough, according to CEO Herbert Diess. To accelerate its electric-car and self-driving programs, VW will cut resources devoted to fuel cells. Will it be enough?

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Volvo last year announced that it will produce an electric version of its XC90 crossover starting in late 2022. The company will build the XC90 EV at its factory northwest of Charleston, South Carolina, where it currently produces the S60 sedan.

As a sign of its commitment to the electric SUV, Volvo this week said it will build an adjacent battery plant to supply the XC90 and other future EVs.

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Building codes are a labyrinth of national, state, and municipal rules. While California since 2015 has required new homes to have the necessary conduit and service-panel capacity for EV-charging, guidelines in the rest of the country are spotty. That could soon be fixed because the International Code Council (ICC) – which provides widely adopted best practices and standards for construction ­– approved putting EV-readiness in its latest guidelines.

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Two weeks ago, the Hyundai Motor Group said it would invest $87 billion to produce 23 EVs by 2025, with about half of them as new, dedicated electric models. Kia filled in some of the details yesterday when CEO Han-woo Park presented the brand’s EV plans for the next five years or so. Kia says it will offer 11 EVs by 2025.

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Mercedes-Benz India says it will sell a full lineup of its EVs in India. The all-electric EQC SUV will be the first to go on sale, starting in April 2020. At a launch event, Martin Schwenk, managing director and CEO of Mercedes-Benz India, said the EQC “will be the first dedicated luxury electric brand in India.”

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A recent Chevy bulletin sent to its dealers makes the all-electric Bolt model eligible for about $10,000 in lease incentives. Bolt buyers in San Francisco could get another $1,400 bonus, resulting in a three-year lease for the 2020 Chevy Bolt LT for $169 a month, with $2,219 due at signing.

GM is trying to reverse the two-year downward trend in Bolt sales, especially before the last $1,875 in federal credits ends on April 1.

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In the past couple of months, we posted about how Toyota and Honda execs say there’s no demand for EVs. But those companies have favored hybrids over battery-electric cars for years. Now BMW, historically gung-ho about EVs, apparently joins their ranks. “We see BEVs mainly on the west coast and parts of the east coast, while the rest of the US will continue with conventional gasoline engines,” said Klaus Froehlich, BMW’s R&D boss.

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