Jameson is based in Southern California and has been driving electric vehicles since 2009 and writing about EVs, sustainability and policy for Electrek since 2016.
You can contact him at jamie@electrek.co, or on his bluesky account that he just set up and maybe will never use at https://blskyl.ink/jamesondow
Last week we were invited to San Diego to drive the new Nissan Leaf Plus, the updated version of the Leaf with a new 62kWh battery pack, which will start sales in March. We spent the day driving it all through the county on a variety of roads, and came away impressed if not surprised by this iteration on an already-solid package.
Rivian has filed for a patent to expand the energy capacity of its upcoming R1T electric pickup truck through a novel auxiliary battery which can be added to the truck’s bed after manufacture.
The patent was filed last year, published last month and today is marked as “pending” by the US patent office.
The next Formula E race is this Saturday, at the classic racing circuit Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in the heart of Mexico City.
Before I spoil the results of the last Formula E race with our race recap, the race is available in full on Formula E’s YouTube page. Head on over to watch it if you’re so inclined.
During Tesla’s Q4 2018 investor conference call today, CEO Elon Musk stated that Tesla’s much-anticipated pickup truck may be ready for an unveil “this summer.”
Recently Musk stated that Tesla “might” unveil the prototype this coming year, but in today’s call, he seemed slightly more certain that an unveil could happen this summer. But don’t buy your plane tickets yet, because nothing has actually been announced.
Tesla’s Q4 2018 earnings letter just came out, and among the news were several updates on Model 3 production.
The most important tidbits are that Tesla is targeting 10,000/week production rate by the end of the year, that labor hours per vehicle decreased sequentially by 20% in the last quarter, and that Model 3 production for the Chinese market should start by the end of this year.
Today, Shell announced the acquisition of Greenlots, an EV charging solutions company based in Los Angeles.
Greenlots will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of the oil giant’s “Shell New Energies US LLC,” an arm of the company which focuses on finding business opportunities in low-carbon energy sources.
Formula E hits the track again this Saturday, January 26th in Santiago, Chile, just two weeks after the last race in a racing series historically more accustomed to month-long breaks between races.
Before we start talking about the last race, I’d encourage any who are interested to watch the full race over on Formula E’s YouTube channel. It seems to be available for free in (all?) regions. Consensus is that it was an exceptionally good race, one of the best Formula E has produced yet.
As we reported last week, GM recently announced plans to position Cadillac as its lead electric vehicle brand. Today, GM shared the first images of Cadillac’s planned first all-electric vehicle.
So far, we have no details other than two images, showing it to be a crossover-style vehicle. We are still waiting on a name, timeline, and other specs – which Cadillac says will be revealed “closer to launch”.
GM will position Cadillac as their lead EV brand in a mission to catch up to Tesla in the US electric vehicle market, according to sources talking to Reuters.
They report that GM will announce these plans to investors on Friday. They are expected to announce that a Cadillac vehicle will be the first car made on their upcoming next-generation “BEV3” platform. This would be the first all-electric Cadillac GM has made or announced.
Last month we got our first look at the new Formula E cars taking the track in Ad Diriyah, Saudi Arabia for the first race of the 2018-19 season. The season continues this Saturday in Morocco, at the third running of the Marrakesh ePrix.
Last year, California utilities started offering rebates to EV-owning customers based on a simple application process with few strings attached. Next year, California is releasing more funds to utilities for these programs, and in response utilities have increased the available incentives – SCE’s rebate has gone from $450 to $1,000, and PG&E has upped theirs from $500 to $800.
PG&E’s new rebate applies to any application received after January 1 – so if you just got an EV for Christmas (perhaps during Tesla’s year-end delivery rush), hold off on your application for a couple of days to save yourself $300. SCE’s increased rebate only applies to cars purchased or leased after January 1. If you just got your car, you’ll have to settle for the old $450 rebate, but this might help reduce the sting of missing out on the full federal tax credit if you take delivery of a Model 3 early next year, or a Bolt after GM’s tax credit is reduced in the second half of next year.
Just a week after extending the program through the end of the year, Tesla has again lengthened the duration of the program until March 11. The details stay mostly the same as ever – owners can provide a referral code to new buyers, and each party gets a perk for using it. Buyers get 6 months of free supercharging and owners get escalating rewards based on how many referrals they’ve made.
But starting today, buyers can also gain an additional 3 months of free supercharging “if they order without ever having taken a test drive” with Tesla.
Electric cars have been finding their way into racing success the last few years, and the biggest game in town is Formula E, the FIA’s all-electric open-wheel racing series. The series’ 5th season starts this weekend with the Ad Diriyah ePrix in Saudi Arabia.
The new season brings new tracks, new teams, new drivers, new rules, and most importantly: a new car which is capable of much more than last season’s.
Yesterday, Electrify America opened California’s first 350kW quick charge location. The bank of chargers includes nine CCS plugs and one CCS-CHAdeMO plug, and while most of them have an already-quick 150kW rate, two CCS plugs are capable of ultra-fast 350kW charging.
The charger is installed at the San Francisco Premium Outlets in Livermore, CA, which also happens to be a Tesla Supercharger location. Tesla’s website states that the chargers there can charge at up to 120kW, though they’re the “urban” type supercharger and owners have clocked them maxing out at 72kW.
Perhaps the most compelling detail from Tesla’s quarterly report yesterday was the company’s claim that Model 3 is now the highest revenue generating car model in the US. Similarly, Apple has long touted that despite some competitors having higher volumes, the iPhone is responsible for the vast majority of profits in the smartphone industry. Given the Model 3’s high gross margins, it seems likely that it is also the highest profit generating car model in the US.
So with Model 3 having its “iPhone moment,” a comparison between these disruptive silicon valley companies is more appropriate than ever. What other similarities can we find between their respective stories?
Buyers can now receive 6 months of free supercharging with any new Tesla vehicle order when using a current owner’s Tesla referral code to purchase a new Model S, X or Model 3.
This incentive replaces the previous $100 supercharging credit and is retroactive – all owners who used a referral code on a purchase since September 19th will receive 6 free months of supercharging in addition to the $100 credit they already received (which does not have an expiration date).
Tesla has long complained that media coverage of crashes in Tesla vehicles is overblown. In response to this, the company announced that it would start reporting safety numbers each quarter, detailing the frequency of Tesla crashes, and today Tesla delivered their first report of this kind.
Last month, we reported on Tesla’s update to its referral program which will finally put an end to unlimited free supercharging, starting with orders placed after September 16th.
At the time, the plan was to downgrade the perk for ordering with a Tesla referral code to a year of free supercharging. Now, less than a week before the expiry of the program, Tesla has changed things up again, and will instead offer a $100 supercharging credit to customers who buy a new Model S, X or Model 3 Performance using a code from a current owner.
Laguna Seca is becoming a popular track for manufacturers to run their vehicles around. Just a few weeks after Jaguar announced that their I-Pace set a “production EV lap record” at the track, Lucid has announced today that their upcoming Air sedan positively smashed that time, setting a 1:41.67 time in comparison to Jaguar’s 1:48.18.
The caveat here is that the Lucid is not yet a production car, and though Lucid claims the car’s powertrain was configured with “showroom intent,” it featured modified high-temperature brakes and a stripped-down interior with rollcage, racing seats and fire suppression system.
This weekend marks the start of another Drive Electric Week, a yearly series of EV meetups where EV fans can see and drive their favorite models and EV owners can meet up to chat amongst themselves and with curious members of the public about the experience of owning an EV. This will be the 8th annual event, with a record 316 events registered across the US, Canada and New Zealand.
The week is organized by Plug in America, an organization which advocates the transition to electric transportation, along with Sierra Club and the Electric Auto Association. Every event is free to attend for owners and non-owners alike, and attending is a great way to get the word out or get your questions answered about electric vehicles.
In today’s Q2 earnings report, Tesla has claimed that the Model 3 is not only the best-selling premium mid-sized sedan in the US as of July, but that, even in the middle of its production ramp, it is currently outselling all other vehicles in that segment combined.
Tesla’s referral program was set to finish tonight, but, as they’ve done many times before, instead it got a midnight update extending it for a little while longer. The program now goes through September 16th instead of July 31st, with prize availability unchanged from the last round of the program.
There are two big changes: first, the Model 3 Performance is now eligible for unlimited supercharging when ordered using a referral code, previously only available to Model S and X orders. Second, while S/X/3P cars ordered with a code before September 16th will still qualify for free unlimited supercharging for the entire duration of original vehicle ownership, cars ordered after September 16th will only get one year of free supercharging.
Roborace, the planned driverless racing series which will act as a support race for the all-electric Formula E championship, has been taking their fully autonomous Robocar to various tracks over the last year to showcase their technology. This weekend they’re at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in Chichester, England, which holds an annual hillclimb event with all sorts of interesting cars, old and new alike.
Today, in response to the myriad of self-induced scandals which have plagued him ever since he took the job, Scott Pruitt resigned his position as chief saboteur Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
He will be replaced by Deputy Administrator Andrew Wheeler as acting administrator, a former coal lobbyist who worked with Murray Energy CEO Bob Murray; was an aide for Jim Inhofe, the top climate science denier in the Senate; and who helped craft the Bush administration’s ironically-named “Clear Skies” initiative, an effort to destroy the Clean Air Act.