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 quest for the Democratic presidential nomination will heat up in 2020. So it’s a good time to look at what the leading candidates say about electric vehicles. We focus on the front-runners: Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Andrew Yang. Here’s a sampling of quotes and position statements. For fun, we share what we could find about the vehicle each candidate drives. EV fans, who gets your vote?
Imagine walking into a traditional car dealership and having the salesperson take you straight to the EVs. When you ask about the gas cars with lower price tags, the dealer explains that electric cars have a lower total cost, among many other benefits. Why is the dealership pushing electrics? Because it would get a big bonus for selling a vehicle with lower CO2 output. This is precisely what will happen at PSA, Nissan, and other dealerships in Europe starting in 2020.
Germany’s Manager Magazine reports today that Volkswagen is struggling with software problems for its ID3 all-electric car. According to the report, the ID3 will be built for months with an incomplete software architecture that could affect up to 20,000 electric cars. These units, intended for sales in Europe and not the US, will require a manual software update.
New patent applications are flowing for upcoming all-electric pickups. The future electric F-150’s front trunk can be accessed without opening the hood. The F-150 will have multiple battery-storage compartments, creating the possibility of individual motors for each wheel. The Rivian RT1’s tailgate has multiple hinges for greater flexibility, and an extra battery pack could be added to its cargo bed. All kinds of possibilities open up when you ditch the engine.
Tim Echols wants his fellow Republicans to wake up to the benefits of electric vehicles. Echols, a member of Georgia’s Public Service Commission, is not happy that his state quashed state-based EV tax credits in 2015. That led to a nearly 90% drop in the state’s electric-car registrations. And Echols tried unsuccessfully get Washington to extend federal EV tax credits. But he’s not giving up the battle.
If an EV doesn’t need a conventional engine and transmission, then why does every electric car on the market pretty much look like a gas-powered vehicle? That’s the question being asked by Canoo, the EV company actively re-thinking vehicle design for a new age of shared and connected mobility. We spoke with Canoo’s powertrain chief, who told us that the Canoo doesn’t use a battery enclosure.
Dave Versical, chief of editorial operations for Automotive News, believes the 2020 outlook for electric vehicles is weak. In his commentary piece published yesterday, Versical reports that auto executives speaking with him privately are using terms like “carnage” and “Armageddon” to describe the EV sales landscape for 2020. Has somebody been breathing in exhaust fumes?
GM was planning to introduce one or more new electric vehicles at CES next month. But the company said it failed to meet the deadline because of the United Automobile Workers’ (UAW) strike, according to Motortrend.
The delay is not stopping GM CEO Mary Barra from making a push on autonomous vehicles (AVs) while nixing future plug-in hybrids. “All AVs should be EVs,” she said.
Hyundai Motor India today kicked off a drive of the Kona Electric to the base camp of Mt. Everest. The trip will cover 435 miles and reach an altitude of 17,000 feet. The Kona EV is the first electric car to reach this height at Mt. Everest. But the drive takes place against a backdrop of nearly non-existent EV sales in the world’s fourth-largest automotive market.
Nissan sales in Europe fell 24% so far this year. To help make a comeback and meet stricter efficiency rules, Nissan is revitalizing its European SUV lineup with plug-in hybrid versions of popular crossovers. Diesel versions are going away. Meanwhile, the new Leaf version for Japan gets a list of tech upgrades, including better EV navigation.
A persistent concern among some EV drivers is the long-term health of the battery. All batteries lose some storage capacity over time. But how might that degradation affect your driving range a few years down the line? To help answer that question, we can now look to Geotab, a leading telematics-fleet-management company with access to a lot of EVs. Lo and behold, the losses are minor.
We should have seen this coming. It’s been no secret that the heavy-but-compact 2020 Mini Cooper SE electric hatchback has a 32.6-kilowatt-hour battery pack. And that the lenient WLTP cycle pegs the 2020 electric Mini’s range starting at about 146 miles. But Mini is nonetheless warning the web that the Mini Cooper SE will have an EPA rating of about 110 miles on a single charge.
EV critics often cast doubt about waste associated with used electric-car batteries. What they overlook is recycling efforts as well as the second use of batteries for stationary energy storage. The latest of many projects to deploy used EV batteries in buildings was announced today by Mitsubishi.
In Europe, sales of pure electric and plug-in hybrid passenger cars are expected to grow 35% in the first nine months of 2020, according to BloombergNEF. That’s a much faster rate than we’ll see in North America or China, the world’s biggest EV markets.
Volkswagen released an audio file of the sound its ID3 EV will make. The sound, developed by composer Leslie Mandoki, will be used as an integral part of VW’s entire electric-vehicle brand.
Christian Meunier, Jeep’s global president, was in New Zealand this week making big EV promises. He told Australia’s WhichCar that Jeep will be “the greenest SUV brand in the world.” If his name sounds familiar, Meunier was at the helm of Infiniti this year from January to May 2019. In that role, he said the next wave of Infiniti vehicles would be either plug-in hybrid or pure EV.
The small Toyota Aygo, launched in 2014, is the company’s only car sold in Europe without a hybrid option. When a new version of the Aygo arrives, it could leapfrog a hybrid and take on a full, battery-electric powertrain.
GM controls about 70% of the large sport utility market in North America. Profit margins on large fuel-thirsty SUVs can be as high as 30%, or more than $15,000 a vehicle. The company yesterday unveiled bigger-than-ever new Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban models, claiming that profits from the SUVs will fund its investment in electric cars.
The simplicity of packaging electric motors directly into wheels is alluring. The possibilities for this solution date back a century to the earliest EVs. Several technical and economic challenges have held it back. (See unsprung mass.) But the latest company to tackle the problem is picking up speed. Haaretz reported today that Israel’s REE, an EV startup, is now raising money based on a $580 million valuation.
Electric vehicles with large cabins suck up a lot of energy by running heat and AC. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory believes an EV’s climate control system can reduce the driving range by up to 50%. So Ford engineers in Europe are experimenting with psychological tricks that make passengers feel hotter and colder without actually depleting range.
Nissan announced Monday that it outfitted a Leaf electric vehicle with thousands of LED holiday lights. The cool thing is that all those lights are powered by the EV’s regenerative braking. Sure, it’s a stunt – but it illustrates a good point about an EV’s ability to reclaim energy on the road. And it’s done in the spirit of the holidays.
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The Toyota Motor Corporation will launch its first all-electric Lexus in 2020. Nikkei’s Asian Review confirmed that the Lexus UX300e battery-powered SUV will go on sale as soon as next spring in China. The UX300e will then debut in Europe in summer 2020 and Japan in early 2021.
Conservative columnist Stephen Moore railed against federal electric-car tax credits over the weekend. In the Washington Times, Moore laid out his best arguments against bills designed to extend the $7,500 tax credit. He said EV credits are a tax cut for the rich that primarily benefit billionaire Elon Musk, and is a program rampant with fraud. The already diminished credit for Tesla vehicles disappears completely on January 1.
Spy photos of the Mercedes-Benz EQS flagship EV were captured this week. The images are a reminder that Daimler is moving step by step toward an entire electric lineup — while the EV world fixates on the glittering Cybertruck. The Mercedes EQS large sedan (and EQC crossover before it) are paving the way to models that roughly line up against the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y.