Jameson Dow

On October 26th, Tesla is set to unveil an all-electric truck which will surely shake up the trucking industry.   Details on the truck are light so far, and all we’ve seen from Tesla officially is one teaser photo.  The event is right around the corner however, as yesterday Tesla sent out a “save the date” email to owners who have reached 5 referrals.

So despite having few details, today we’ve seen our best tip yet.  On reddit, a user posted a photo which we can’t quite confirm the source of, but is reportedly from “an undisclosed place in California where they test Tesla vehicles.”  While we can’t see any logos or other confirmation that this is the actual Tesla truck, it certainly looks like it – the headlights and fenders match up, the nose looks like it doesn’t have an engine in it, and the angle of the windshield looks similar to the teaser photo.

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A new study from iseecars.com shows that out of the 10 fastest-selling used cars on the market in the US today, 6 of them have plugs – 3 plug-in hybrids and 3 fully electric vehicles.

The top spot belongs to the fully electric Fiat 500e, followed by the BMW i3.  The i3 is listed in the study as a plug-in hybrid, despite the base model being electric – we’re not sure if the two models were counted separately or just bundled together for the purposes of this study.  Both the i3 and 500e have been popular on the used market in the last year, as many of the cars have been coming off 3-year leases, putting a bunch of lightly-used lease return electric cars on the market at attractive prices.

Also in the top 10 are the Prius Plug-in in 4th place, the Nissan LEAF in 6th place, and the Ford Fusion Energi and Tesla Model S rounding out the list in 9th and 10th.

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Each year, Motor Trend gives out the title of “best driver’s car” to a sportscar which is the most fun to drive, but which is perhaps impractical for everyday purposes.  As part of this “best driver’s car” competition, for the last 7 years they’ve taken this group of the most exciting sportscars in the world to race in what they’ve called the “world’s greatest drag race” – all 12 finalists doing a simultaneous quarter mile race against each other on an airstrip – this time at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.  It’s always quite something to see.

The only problem is, for the last several years, there has been one great quarter mile car conspicuously absent from their test: the Tesla Model S.  Since the Model S is particularly practical – 5 (or 7) seats, lots of cargo space, efficient, quiet, comfortable – and isn’t really made for racing on a track, it doesn’t quite fit Motor Trend’s restrictive definition of a “driver’s car.”  But one car in the competition, the Mazda MX-5 RF, despite being a great driver’s car, is a little underpowered compared to the rest.  So Motor Trend decided to substitute a Tesla Model S P100D Ludicrous in its place for the drag race, since, let’s be honest, that’s the car we all wanted to see in the drag race anyway.  And you’ll never guess what happened next…

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Rimac, the company behind the incredible Concept_One all-electric hypercar, has just announced a deal with Camel Group, who bill themselves as “Asia’s largest battery manufacturer,” with the latter investing 30 million Euros ($36m) into the Croatian EV startup.  Rimac will use the money to expand their production facility and also work on the next generation of their hypercar.

The investment also includes 3 million Euros for Rimac’s sister company Greyp Bikes, a high-performance electric bike manufacturer.

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In the wake of today’s NTSB report about Tesla’s autopilot crash, DOT/NHTSA has released updated guidelines on autonomous vehicle systems, meant to be used by state and local governments and vehicle manufacturers to help facilitate the transition to self-driving cars.  NHTSA claims in the introduction to the report that 94% of fatal crashes are the result of human error, and that autonomous drive systems have the potential to reduce that number significantly, saving tens of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars of lost economic activity each year in the process.

NHTSA also claims that they expect “fully automated safety features” and “highway autopilot” in the years 2025+, which is significantly later than Tesla’s timeline for the same technology.  Tesla is rather close to “highway autopilot” already – though Tesla’s system is “level 2” (partial automation) on the highway and NHTSA seems to be thinking more about level 4-5 (high/full automation, not requiring reminders that the driver keep paying attention).

Here’s the full document, which is targeted more towards policy wonks, whereas the main site is meant to appeal to everyone, with FAQs and nice graphics.

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The Mercedes EQ sub-brand got its second entry today with the new EQA compact all-electric vehicle concept, unveiled at the Frankfurt Auto Show today.  We heard about this upcoming debut a few weeks ago, but this is our first time seeing the concept and hearing about what possible features the car might end up with.  Unlike other concepts released today, this one has a few more details and gives us an idea of what Mercedes is looking towards in the future.

Comparable in size to the Mercedes A-Class but with two doors instead of four, the EQA is expected to have a “real-world range” of 400km (250 miles – but on NEDC, so likely closer to 180-200 miles EPA range) from an up-to-60kWh battery, dual motors with over 268hp (200kW) and all-wheel drive delivering 0-100km/h (0-60mph) in around 5 seconds, and “seamless charging” which means the ability to use standard AC charging, DC quick charging (able to add 100km/62mi of range in 10 minutes), and even inductive charging.

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The latest in BMW’s series of confusingly-named concepts is here: the four-door i Vision Dynamics, unveiled at the Frankfurt Auto Show earlier today.  Earlier this week BMW updated its plans announcing that they will electrify 25 models and offer 12 fully-electric models by 2025.  Since then, this concept is the first unveiling of what one of those all-electric models might look like.

It has long been expected that BMW will make an “i5” model, something able to round out their “i” sub-brand product offerings with a price point inbetween the i3 compact car and i8 sportscar, possibly available in 2020 as a 2021 model to compete more directly against Tesla’s offerings in the four-door sedan space.  This seems to be the manifestation of that rumor, though it has not been given the expected “letter+number” moniker as of yet.

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Honda announced today that the plug-in hybrid version of their three-drivetrains-in-one Clarity sedan has been rated at a “class-leading” 47 miles by the EPA from its 17kWh battery.  This is the highest all-electric range among “midsize plug-in hybrids” and is comparable to the range of the Chevy Volt, which has 53 miles but is considered a compact sedan (the Clarity is ~10 inches longer).  It also got a combined MPGe rating of 110 and a gasoline-only combined MPG rating of 42.

Pricing and availability have not yet been nailed down for the vehicle, but we can expect news on that front soon as the car is expected to be available worldwide for purchase in the 2018 model year, with a price probably in the range of $35,000.  This as opposed to the other cars in the Clarity platform, which are available now but only in California and they can’t be purchased, only leased.

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Plug in America, an organization which advocates the transition to electric transportation, along with Sierra Club and the Electric Auto Association, are holding their 7th annual National Drive Electric Week this coming week, with 263 events registered all across the US – and even a few in other countries (Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Denmark and Jordan).  There are events scheduled both this weekend and next, and some during the week as well.  The events are free to the public and a great way to get the word out about electric vehicles.

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In the wake of destruction Hurricane Harvey has brought on Southeast Texas, we’re seeing a common sight after disasters: long lines for gasoline.  In surrounding areas which weren’t even hit by the hurricane itself, such as San Antonio, Austin and Dallas, there have been extremely long lines at gas stations, due to increased demand driven by reports of refinery shutdowns on the Gulf Coast.  The demand has also been a reaction to recent rises in gas prices, with many customers stockpiling gasoline in anticipation of further rising prices in the near future.

This brings up an important point: in contrast to what many people may think would be the case, in practice electric cars tend to be more resilient to natural disasters than gas cars do.

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Ariel Motor Company, best known for the ultra-lightweight Atom sportscar, has just announced their plunge into electrification with their upcoming HIPERCAR, an ultra-high-performance range-extended electric supercar.  In contrast to most plug-in hybrids, HIPERCAR won’t use a traditional engine as its “range extender,” instead opting for a 35kW micro-turbine generator.

The car’s specs look suitably insane – 1180hp total from 4 in-wheel motors, 0-60mph in 2.4 seconds, and 0-150mph in 7.8 seconds.  That 0-150 time is nearly three seconds (!) faster than the Porsche 918.

Teaser images have been released, but the design has not been finalized.  While no price has been announced, it will “represent excellent value” when compared to “£1m+ supercars which it will outperform.”  The car will hit the road in 2020.

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Four months ago, Seth got a chance to try out the 2017 Hyundai IONIQ Electric at a Hyundai media day, and came away impressed. The IONIQ is Hyundai’s new three-powertrains-on-one-platform model, with a hybrid released and a plug-in hybrid planned, alongside the pure EV model we reviewed. Seth’s takeaway was that the IONIQ compares very favorably to the Prius, the car which it seems aimed to compete against.

Last week, I was given the chance to take a week long test drive of the IONIQ Electric, to go into a deeper dive of how the car works, more than our short test drive could give us (though do have a look at Seth’s review for a lot of the spec details). What I found is that the IONIQ is a lot of car for the money, and a complete game-changer in the “entry-level” EV market.

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It’s not often that a company sells ~70 times as much product as its main competition.  But according to an interview with VW brand chairman Herbert Diess, published on VW’s employee web magazine “Inside” and reported on by Reuters, that’s the case between Tesla and VW.

In the interview, Diess claims “in the old world [our competition] is Toyota, Hyundai, and the French carmakers. In the new world it is Tesla.”  He goes on to state that the reason for this is because Tesla “has abilities that we currently do not have,” particularly in engineering.

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Just over a month ago we saw a new hypermiling record in a Model S – 560 miles (901 km) on a charge.  When we posted our article about that, Tesla CEO Elon Musk responded on twitter, stating that “over 1000 km should be possible in a 100D with the right tires.”

Well, now we have news that a Tesla Owners group in Italy took Musk up on his challenge and managed to shatter the previous hypermiling record with a Model S 100D, beating it by over 100 miles and finishing just shy of 670 miles on a single charge.

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After last week’s delivery event, we’re starting to get a lot of videos online of the ride-alongs Tesla gave to attendees at the event.  Lots of them have been focused on the car’s user interface, which we had heretofore only seen glimpses of in a few static photographs.  People have been wondering how the UI would be different given that the Model 3 only has one horizontal center screen, quite different from the Model S.

Many of the videos posted have been quite detailed, a testament to how detail-oriented Tesla fans can be about the product they love.  And from these videos, Tesla fan and UX/UI designer Andrew Goodlad has created an interactive mockup of the Tesla Model 3 UI which you can play with online.

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Mazda exec Robert Davis doubled down on Mazda’s anti-EV stance at a Michigan trade group convention this week, Automotive News reported.  In a seminar, Davis stated that the “impending death of the internal combustion engine is overrated,” said governments shouldn’t “mandate” EVs, and said EV incentives should be eliminated.

Mazda currently makes no electric or plug-in hybrid models, though claimed last year that they were planning to offer EVs in 2019 primarily to meet ZEV regulations.

Robert Davis was a US senior VP of operations for Mazda until being reassigned to a smaller role earlier this year.

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Automotive News reports that Mercedes has officially made the decision to stop production of the electric B-Class. Production will be phased out within the next few months, according to Mercedes USA spokesman Rob Moran.

This means that, despite big talk from Mercedes about future EV plans, including their recent jump into Formula E, adding battery production to factories, and rumors of future EV models from their new EQ sub-brand, the company will no longer produce any battery-electric model for the time being.

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After tonight’s delivery event (click through to see our coverage, including specs and first drive), which included only brief comments by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Tesla has now posted a long-needed “Model 3 Reservations FAQ” on their support site with a few of the answers which people hoped they would get tonight during the delivery event.

The most notable answer, of course, is: we can’t tell you exactly when you’ll get your car, but we’ll give you a window of a few months.  Other important ones include: early cars will start at $49,000 with lower option configurations coming within the next few months, supercharging hardware is standard but supercharging is not free, financing (loans) will be available but not leases, owners can only use their owner priority on one Model 3 for each Tesla they currently own, and international orders will not be filled until at least late 2018, or 2019 for right-hand-drive markets.

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The Tesla Model 3 delivery event (watch here) is live, and we’ll continually update this post (adding to the bottom of the post as more information becomes available) with any additional information from the announcement which isn’t covered in our other posts from the event (which will be posted when Elon takes the stage at 9PM PDT).

This is one part of a series of posts from the Model 3 unveiling. You can read the other parts here:

• Tesla Model 3 production specs revealed
• A look at all Tesla Model 3 production colors
• Tesla Model 3 first drive experience

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In anticipation of today’s Model 3 delivery event (which we are covering live on scene, check this space at 9pm PDT for all the juicy details), Tesla has announced the winners of their “Project Loveday” fan-made video contest.  The winning entries will be livestreamed at tesla.com tonight during the Model 3 unveiling event.  But if you can’t wait that long, you can watch them below!

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Overnight, Tesla made some changes to their available options, making some options standard, and notably eliminating one thing: leather seats. As of now, Tesla only sells vegan seats.

While this lack of leather is not made explicit on the Tesla configuration page, any mention of leather has been removed, and all upgraded interiors are now referred to with Tesla’s “premium” designation which they applied to the original rollout of vegan seats made of a new synthetic material.

However, not every component in a Tesla is vegan – cars still come with a leather-wrapped steering wheel standard, but Tesla has offered to provide a non-leather steering wheel upon request in the past for customers who make a point of avoiding all leather.

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