Jameson Dow

In January we reported on Ford’s big strategic expansion into electrified vehicles, announcing seven electrified cars with six more to come. Today Ford issued a press release about two EVs they will bring to the Chinese market: a plug-in version of the Mondeo (Fusion) sedan and an all-new fully-electric small SUV. The fully electric SUV has so far only been announced on paper, not given a model name or shown as a concept car. Ford’s only specifications are that it will have a range of more than 450km (280 miles) and will come to China “within five years.”

Ford called the two models “new” in their press release today, but they’re really “new-to-China” rather than new overall.  The small SUV was already announced in the January strategic announcement linked above, and the Mondeo is just the “world” version of the car Ford calls the Fusion in the US.  So it looks like these two “new” cars don’t actually represent two of the six unannounced cars Ford alluded to in their January announcement.

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Last year during Tesla’s Model 3 unveiling, perhaps the most-criticized part of the car’s design was its seemingly small trunk opening.  After a few months of speculation over whether the production trunk would remain as small as the prototype, CEO Elon Musk responded to a twitter query explaining that it was “already taken care of.”

So yesterday, with photos of a Model 3 release candidate in the wild, it originally looked to us like the trunk opening was quite similar to the prototype version of the car.  But eagle-eyed reader Tor Bruserud noticed that the tail lights now have a split in them which wasn’t present in the original prototypes shown at the unveiling – so perhaps we’ve finally gotten a glimpse at what the final trunk opening will look like.  We’ve highlighted the change in the photos and provided comparisons below the jump.

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The White House’s proposed EPA budget cuts nearly all of the Agency’s funding for vehicle emissions testing, as reported by Reuters.  The proposed cuts to the EPA’s budget would remove 99 percent of the agency’s $48 million in funding for vehicle testing, expecting automakers to pay increased fees to make up the difference.  But according to Margo Oge, former head of the EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality, the proposed budget would require “pretty much shutting down the testing lab.”

We have a recent example of why this is a very bad idea.  In 2015, it was discovered that Volkswagen had been cheating on emissions tests in the US and Europe for years, installing cheat devices on their diesel cars to emit up to 40 times the allowable amount of some toxic pollutants. The scandal came to be known as “Dieselgate,” and a recent MIT study found that VW’s emissions cheating would likely result in 1,200 premature deaths in Europe alone.  This deceit was uncovered by a small lab in West Virginia and the data was turned over to the EPA and CARB for enforcement. Fiat Chrysler and Mitsubishi have also been implicated in similar emissions cheating schemes, and Daimler is currently under scrutiny.

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Tesla has ranked as the most “cool” auto manufacturer amongst teens (13-17) and millennials (18-24), according to a brand study released this week by Google.  The survey also included appraisals of the “coolness” of Audi, BMW, Toyota, Chevy, Ford and Honda, and also Lyft and Uber.  Amongst teens, Tesla barely edged out BMW as the coolest auto brand, but amongst millennials it was one of the coolest brands overall even outside of the automotive realm – with Google, Netflix and Youtube in the lead, and Amazon barely beating Tesla.

While Tesla ranked highest in “coolness,” they also ranked lowest among manufacturers in “awareness.”  So while the teens and millennials who know about Tesla like the brand a lot, there is still plenty of room for them to reach more young people.  This is important to note for any think that Tesla might be reaching market saturation – if only some 60% of millennials have heard of the company, that means there’s still room to grow.

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Audi’s top labor representative Peter Mosch demanded today that Audi build an upcoming all-electric model in their main plant in Ingolstadt, Germany, reasoning that employees of the main factory should not be left out as the industry moves towards electric vehicles. The comments were made in a speech to 7,000 workers at Audi’s 43,000-employee Ingolstadt plant.

Audi has previously stated that they plan to locate production of their all-electric models in a smaller 16,000-employee plant in Neckarsulm, where the company currently makes its higher-end vehicles. Planned electric models include the quattro e-tron SUV, a sportscar and a compact car, the latter two of which are still yet to be unveiled.

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Just a few days ago we reported on the significant economic benefits the world will gain from the completion of the Paris Climate Agreement.  The Agreement, decided upon in 2015 and gradually signed and put into effect over the course of the last year, is a really big deal.  It could have been better, with more firm goals and specific milestones, but it’s a first in that it has been signed by 192 countries representing 99.21% of global CO2 emissions, pledging to keep global warming “well below 2ºC.”  The signatories to the Agreement include, most importantly, the world’s three largest emitters: the US, China, and India.

But yesterday on “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos, EPA-chief-and-oil-industry-talking-point-spouting-robot Scott Pruitt claimed that the Paris Agreement is a “bad deal” and that “China and India, the largest producers of [carbon dioxide] internationally, got away scot-free.”

The problem with that last statement is that, like much of what Pruitt says, it is demonstrably false.  And the person whose job it is to administer and implement these agreements ought to know it.

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The California Air Resources Board (CARB) voted unanimously to continue implementing higher emissions standards in their meeting on Friday.  This sets California’s clean-air agency up for a fight against the federal Environmental Protection Agency, which recently signaled that they aren’t too interested in doing their job of actually protecting the environment.

The emissions rules require automakers to average 54.5mpg (by the less stringent CAFE standard) over all new vehicles by 2025.

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This past weekend we saw not one, but two new quarter-mile records set by Tesla Model S P100Ds on the drag strip. And today we learn of another new record, this time by the folks over at the Tesla Racing Channel.  They’ve managed to bring the record down by another two-tenths of a second, with a whopping 10.44 @ 124.21 mph.

This run is slightly different from the previous “stock” runs though, as the car received a few modifications to achieve such a quick time.

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A new report is out this week examining the feasibility of the Paris Climate Agreement, with recommendations to policymakers as to how it might be accomplished and what effects its adoption would have on the world economy. The study concludes that, in a conservative case, the world could gain .8% GDP in 2050, or $19 trillion cumulatively between now and then. In a more optimistic scenario, the agreement could actually add 2% to global GDP by 2030. In fact, according to the report, “reducing the impact on human health and mitigating climate change would save between two- and six- times more than the costs of decarbonisation.”

The report was commissioned by the German government and released by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

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Mercane Wheels has launched an Indiegogo campaign for a pretty interesting 3-wheeled foldable scooter, dubbed “Transboard.”  Mercane’s goal with their concept is to provide the urban flexibility of a 2-wheel scooter, but with greater safety and controllability, considering both the driver and other pedestrians.

The Transboard will have about 25 miles of range from the detachable 48V 8.6Ah battery and the 500W motor makes it capable of speeds up to 22mph.  Capable of carrying a 220lb rider, it weighs a somewhat hefty 53 pounds – but when folded it can be rolled like a rolling suitcase since it already has a built-in handle and wheels, so wheeling it around shouldn’t be too difficult.

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California has become the latest state to fall victim to the fossil fuel industry’s push for EV fees.  Two bills, SB1 and AB1, both transportation funding bills, include new annual fees for EVs in the amount of $100 and $165 respectively.

I previously wrote another piece showing why these EV fees seem are not as reasonable as they seem.

EV advocacy group Plug In America has sent out an email opposing the move, with a link to contact your representatives and tell them what you think about it.  You can view that email, and contact your representatives if you live in California, here.

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In a new article based on comments made by Steve Center, vice president of environmental business development at American Honda Motor, Automotive News reports that Honda’s EV version of their Clarity vehicle platform will focus more on size and price than long range. They expect that Honda will release the car with about an ~80 mile range and an expected pricetag in the area of $35,000.

While Honda would like to have released with a larger battery, the size constraints of the Clarity platform and price constraints of Honda’s brand identity led them to decide on a smaller battery than many other future EVs which have recently been announced by other automakers.

Honda’s previous EV efforts have been the “EV Plus” of the late ’90s and the Fit EV. Both were very limited production, and the Fit EV is only available in some states and only via lease. The Clarity EV will be their first serious, larger production BEV effort which can be purchased by consumers instead of only leased.

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Tesla has announced that CFO Jason Wheeler will be leaving his position in April, to be replaced by former CFO Deepak Ahuja (center of picture above), who Wheeler had originally replaced last year.  Deepak will return in a “long-term” role, not in an interim capacity, according to CEO Elon Musk.

Prior to working at Tesla, Wheeler was Google’s VP of Finance, and now he’s planning to leave Tesla to work in the public sector on public policy. Wheeler said on today’s earnings call that this was a “longtime itch” of his, and that he wouldn’t leave to scratch it unless he knew Tesla was in good hands.  He also mentioned that Ahuja is clearly a competent executive, as he was involved in helping bring Tesla back from bankruptcy (which Musk quickly reminded us happened a “long time ago”).

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Tesla’s earnings report for 2016 was released moments ago, with information regarding two, possibly three future gigafactory plants.  Tesla’s current “Gigafactory 1“, which will be the largest factory building in the world by footprint, isn’t even finished yet and Tesla is already looking to finalize the locations of future plants by the end of this year.

This is the first solid announcement of additional gigafactories which Tesla has made.  They’ve referenced the future need for “several” gigafactories before, and talked about choosing a location for Gigafactory 2, but this is the first time, in writing, that they have solidified an actual count of multiple additional gigafactories and a timeframe for these future gigafactories.

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Another day, another electric supercar concept.  This time the effort is being headed by a small Swiss design company, Classic Factory, founded in 2009 by designer Robert Palm.

So far, all we’ve seen is a teaser image and a few stats.  The car will have “4 seats/4 doors/4-WD” and be capable of 0-100km/h (0-62mph) in under 2.3 seconds.  The design company is Swiss, but has contracted a German company “specialized in low-volume manufacturing with the highest quality imaginable.”

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Automakers have officially submitted a letter asking the new head of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Scott Pruitt, to abdicate his responsibility for protecting the environment by loosening the fuel efficiency standards they agreed upon with the Obama administration in 2011.  Pruitt, who calls himself a “leading advocate against the EPA” and has spent much of his life fighting against the agency, has received over $270,000 in lifetime campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry.  Incidentally, Pruitt also denies that burning oil and gas causes global warming.  Surely there’s no connection between that opinion and the campaign contributions he’s received.

The automakers claim that the 54.5mpg CAFE standard would be too costly to implement by 2025, and that consumer demand isn’t there for more efficient vehicles, even as EV sales continue to experience massive growth.
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Roborace, an electric driverless car racing series which is currently still in development, had their first “real” “race” today, driving two DevBots on the same street circuit at the Formula E Buenos Aires ePrix.

The two cars made their way around the track at a cautious yet respectable pace, with the “winner” reaching a top speed of 115 mph. Unfortunately, the losing car didn’t fare so well, getting itself into an accident and taking itself out of the race.

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After seeing the Lucid Air in person this last weekend in LA, we’ve posted a little extra information about the car’s interior, autonomous drive system and interface.  But the biggest question remains: Is this car the real deal?  Or just another of the endless list of EV prototypes, from major and new manufacturers alike, which never see the light of day?

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We’ve been looking at some details of the Lucid Air this week, after seeing the car up-close-and-personal at a private event in LA this last weekend.  Now to delve into some details of the car’s interface with a little wild speculation.  Hop below the jump for some pictures and analysis.

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We learned a few more details of Lucid’s autonomous system at their event this weekend in LA, one of which is its apparent name: “Copilot.”  This may well just be a placeholder name for development purposes and could change before production, but the instrument cluster demo showed the name clearly as you can see in the picture above.  Given Tesla’s similar “autopilot” name – which has gotten them in some trouble with the authorities in Germany and California – “copilot” is definitely an interesting choice, and perhaps one less likely to result in legal questions.

As for some other details of the system, it was already confirmed that Lucid would use MobilEye for their front-facing camera and image processing system. But the car will also incorporate many other sensors, which you can see below the break.

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This weekend Lucid Motors held some private events in the Los Angeles area to show off their car to VIP guests and media, and Electrek was on hand to get a first-hand look at the vehicle.

The show car definitely provided some clues as to where Lucid thought of their model name – the “Air.”  The interior has a very airy feel, with windows running across nearly the entire top of the car…

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image via NYTimes

Yesterday, 97 companies, largely tech industry leaders such as Apple, Google and Intel, filed an amicus brief in the federal court case led by Minnesota and Washington states against the recent executive order banning certain refugees and immigrants from entry into the United States.  Tesla was a notable absence from the list of companies, but today news came that another ~30 companies are joining the amicus brief, including both of Elon Musk’s companies Tesla and SpaceX.

Tesla’s absence from the original list was notable due to Elon Musk’s position on the Presidential Advisory Forum and his recent comments on twitter regarding the immigration order, the Advisory Forum, and the US justice system.

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Elon Musk may be a workaholic, but in his spare time he’s quite fond of video games.  His first programming project was a Space Invaders-style game and he’s recently tweeted about his enjoyment of Blizzard’s Overwatch.  So how better to appeal to him than by building a video game recreation of Tesla’s Gigafactory?

That’s what a team of Lithuanians thought, anyway.  41 gamers spent two days building and livestreaming a mockup of Tesla’s Gigafactory inside Minecraft, a “sandbox” videogame which lets players build an almost infinite variety of structures inside a virtual world.

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