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
A cadre of executives from BMW’s past EV programs has found leading roles in electric-car start-ups. Carsten Breitfeld, who led the development of the i8 plug-in hybrid, has hopscotched through the EV industry, with a stint at BYTON before landing the CEO role at Faraday Future two months ago. This morning at the LA Auto Show, Breitfeld gave an update on where things stand with Faraday.
Tesla radically transformed the auto industry by showing that EVs can be cool cars. But that notion is so 2012. While legacy automakers are just catching up to that idea (see: Mach-E), the next great innovation in electric mobility acknowledges that many urban dwellers don’t give a damn about owning a car at all. They want access without the hassle and expense of ownership. Canoo is the first EV company that fully understands the change.
BYTON, the Chinese EV maker, today announced that it has received a distributor license from the state of California. That means Byton will be a retail entity.
Minutes after the official unveiling of the Ford Mustang Mach-E, we jumped into the press scrum surrounding Bill Ford. Electrek asked Ford’s chairman, and Henry Ford’s great-grandson, if he knew the introduction was taking place one block from Tesla’s design center. “That’s a coincidence,” he said. And then he flashed a big smile.
The massive global transition to electric vehicles entered a new phase 30 minutes ago. That’s when Ford unveiled its Mustang Mach-E all-electric SUV. The significance of the moment has little to do with a high-tech breakthrough or stroke of innovation. That was already achieved by a pioneering Silicon Valley EV company. What happened in Los Angeles tonight was a cultural leap of EV technology from early-adopting, high-tech elite drivers – to the heart of America. The big shift comes down to one word: Mustang.
The list of EVs getting unveiled in Los Angeles this week is not as long as in previous years. But the importance of those vehicles is extraordinary. The week starts with the wraps coming off the Ford Mustang Mach-E. And it ends with the first look of the Tesla Cybertruck. It’s a big week for EVs. Here are a few of the highlights from the 2019 Los Angeles Auto Show.
It’s been three weeks since the opening of the world’s first so-called Polestar Space, where the Swedish brand will sell electric performance vehicles. A couple of new (rough) videos like this one reveal the customer experience, which Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath explained a few weeks ago.
Two weeks ago, Toyota sided with the Trump administration’s bid to bar California from setting its own fuel-efficiency and zero-emission rules. The next day, on Oct. 29, former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich, tweeted, “Toyota, goodbye. The environmental goodwill you’ve built by pioneering hybrid cars has vanished in your choice of Trump over California. #toyotatrump.” And the Toyota-Trump boycott was started.
The City of Los Angeles has installed EV charging stations directly attached to more than 130 streetlight poles. Hundreds more are planned. The streamlined solution to electric-car charging has been deployed in major European cities but not so much yet in America. But it makes total sense for a city like LA that has a large population of EV drivers, many who don’t have the ability to charge at home.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) released its annual report yesterday. The Paris-based intergovernmental organization points to electric vehicles as instrumental in curbing global emissions. Unfortunately, those gains are being fundamentally undercut by the dramatic rise in SUVs.
Volkswagen breaks ground Wednesday on its Tennessee plant that will produce two battery-powered cars, according to Reuters. Plans for the $800 million investment in the Chattanooga plant were first announced in January. The ground-breaking shows that Volkswagen is intent on achieving its goal of producing 50 million electric cars in the next several years.
Starting December 3, California EV buyers purchasing vehicles with a price exceeding $60,000 will not qualify for the state’s $2,000 clean-vehicle rebate. The change will eliminate rebates for the Audi e-tron and Jaguar i-Pace — as well as many models from BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Tesla. Plug-in hybrids with less than 35 miles of all-electric range will also become ineligible.
Mercedes-Benz yesterday released an environmental report on its EQC electric vehicle. Much of the report focuses on its full life cycle of CO2 emissions, from the mining of raw materials to final disposal. Only about half of the vehicle’s impact occurs while on the road. The environmental report came two days after Mercedes-Benz launched the EQC in Beijing.
Tesla’s Cybertruck gets revealed in 10 days. We know it will have incredible performance in a straight line, and that Elon will trumpet its zero-to-60 number. But a vehicle’s offroad capability is more about handling. Whether or not Tesla can steal electric-truck thunder back from Rivian will be based on a simple metric: how many motors are on board the Cybertruck.
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There’s no doubt that Honda fell behind on electric cars. Beat up the company as much as you like about its meager EV offerings to date. But also consider signs that the Japanese automaker is slowly correcting its course. In addition to introducing the small Honda E in Europe next year, Honda is working on a second EV for about 2022. Other small victories include quitting diesel, putting hydrogen indefinitely on hold, and agreeing with California’s emissions standards.
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Electric-car naysayers jump to the conclusion that California EV drivers were stranded during recent power outages. But Carleen Cullen, executive director of Cool the Earth, used juice from her two EVs to keep critical appliances running during fire season.
John Krafcik, CEO of Waymo, last week said that its Detroit plant is now in operation. Waymo is busily outfitting fleets of Chrysler Pacifica plug-in hybrids with self-driving tech. It’s a big step toward realizing traditional automakers’ greatest fear: getting reduced to being just a hardware provider.
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Ola Källenius, chairman of Daimler and head of Mercedes-Benz, confirmed today that the company will produce an all-electric version of the iconic G-Class wagon. Källenius made the commitment to the G-Class EV while speaking at Automobilwoche Kongress in Berlin.
China-based Byton revealed its high-tech, all-electric M-Byte SUV nearly two years ago. We took our first ride a year later. Now, as the company moves toward sales in China in 2020, we spoke with Jose Guerrero, managing director of Byton Americas, to discuss its digital-first, go-to-market strategy in the US.
Volvo Cars announced today that it would become the first carmaker to implement global traceability of cobalt by applying blockchain technology. The Swedish carmaker said that it reached an agreement with its two global battery suppliers, CATL of China and LG Chem of South Korea, to trace cobalt supplies starting this year.
The adaptive charging method offered by software maker Qnovo ensures battery health for tens of millions of smartphones. Now the company wants to bring the same algorithms to EVs. Should we stop waiting for pie-in-the-sky breakthroughs in cell chemistry or solid-state EV batteries?
Hardcore EV fans might easily dismiss the $156,500, limited-edition Polestar 1 as a piece of eye candy. And Polestar deserves scrutiny for debuting the electric brand with this vehicle, which has a gas engine and a battery providing a relatively modest range of about 65 miles for an EV.
The Polestar electric performance brand is led by a chief executive who rose through industry ranks as a car designer. That’s an unusual path to the CEO’s chair. Thomas Ingenlath had lead design roles at Audi, Volkswagen, and Skoda before becoming head of design at Volvo in 2012 — and then chief executive of Polestar in 2017.
The Toyota Prius Prime might offer only 25 miles of electric range. And its gas engine might come on randomly and too often making its EV status debateable. But there’s no denying that the Toyota plug-in hybrid outsells every other EV and PHEV in the US except for the Tesla Model 3 (Model 3 wins there, by a factor of 7). Now there’s evidence on PriusChat.com that Toyota isn’t offering nearly enough Prius Primes to meet demand.
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