Well good morning, good afternoon and good evening, wherever you are in the world, hello and welcome to the Thursday 21st June edition of EV News Daily. It’s Martyn Lee here with the news you need to know about electric cars and the move towards sustainable transport.
VOLVO'S NEW HYBRID S60 HYBRID TO BE MADE IN U.S.
The first major auto maker to publicly say they would electrify their entire range was Volvo, and now they've revealed one of those models to drive the company into an electric future.
If you're in the market for a BMW 3-series, hold on to our wallet and check out the Volvo first. The new S60, which US listeners would call a mid-size Sedan or compact executive, is being built at their first plant in North American in South Carolina. It's a plant which will never see a diesel engine because they've been phased out by Volvo.
In fact it was double bubble because they launched the new car and also inaugurated the factory. So what can we expect from a US built hybrid?
There are four engine choices but two of them are electrified. The engines are gas (aka petrol) and include PHEV power. You can choose a Plug In T6 Twin Engine or the 400hp Plug In T8 Twin Engine AWD PHEV.
We recently told you about the Polestar option too which, which sprinkles Swedish performance fairy dust over your car, which beefed up brakes, suspension and tuning.
As for safety, there's Autobraking for collision avoidance with pedestrians or an elk on Swedish roads, Run-off Road Mitigation and Oncoming Lane Mitigation.
Plus Volvo have their Pilot Assist which keeps you at Level 2 autonomous driving, so a bit steery and a bit brake-y, but not too much.
It can do 28 miles of pure EV range. Can I add...my goodness it looks good.
Prices start at $41,295 for anything with a battery and Volvo are pushing their Care By Volvo subscription plans, over two years with 24/7 customer care and breakdown assistance, plus all your maintenance and the bits which wear out like wipers and brakes. Of course if it's really a turnkey solution you'd need insurance, and that's sorted too, with Liberty Mutual.
PORSCHE BUY INTO RIMAC
"Porsche AG is taking a 10% stake in Rimac Automobili, the Croatian hypercar and electric vehicle components company behind the world’s fastest electric car" according to TechCrunch. It's interesting this is happening since the Rimac C_Two is being designed with specs to make your eyes water and most big legacy makers have either been scrating their heads about how Rimac are doing it, or plain old dismissing the outrageous specs of 1,914hp and 0-60mph in 1.85sec, as not possible with an electric car. According to TechCrunch: "the company, which was founded by Mate Rimac in 2009, also engineers and manufactures high-performance electric vehicle powertrain systems and battery systems. The company has already worked with Renault, Jaguar, and Aston Martin. The company’s tech was even used in the E-Type Zero Jaguar driven by Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sussex at their wedding last month."
Do you think it means things were going OK with Taycan, formerly the Mission-E, but they wanted to buy into more knowledge and expertise?
TopGear says: "CEO and namesake Mate Rimac, who remains the majority shareholder, says entering into this partnership with Porsche “is an important step in [Rimac’s] strategy to become a leading EV technology supplier to global OEMs”.
Porsche's Lutz Meschke said: "We feel that Rimac's ideas and approaches are extremely promising, which is why we hope to enter into close collaboration with the company in the form of a development partnership"
MEANWHILE FORD SAYS BATTERY TECHNOLOGY ISN'T READY
I hate to juxtapose that story of performance EVs to this one, but here goes. You know how Tesla announced the Semi Truck specs, and then the head of Daimler Trucks said they've be buying two, one to test and one to take apart, because the technology to make one doesn't exist? And that the same rules of chemistry applied in Fremont to Germany?
Well now Ford are having their say. "The boss of Ford Performance in Europe told Whichcar.com.au that battery technology isn’t yet suitable for sports car duty"
Leo Roeks, European director of Ford Performance: “I have to stay very high-level and very neutral, as I don’t want to make any hints about future products. We need to keep looking at the technology at this point in time. The expectation that we have on performance vehicles right now, it’s very difficult to fulfil that with a fully-electric vehicle. If we look at the battery at the moment, you can have an energy or a power battery – the energy battery is kind of like a big water tank, but it’s got a small pipe. You can leave the tap running for a fairly long time, not a lot of water comes out of it, but it takes ages to get the tank empty. Then again, it also takes a long time to fill it up. A power battery is like a very small tank of water with big pipes, which is relatively easy to drain but also very easy to fill it. I’m looking for something in between. At the moment, that technology is not yet there – that’s something we need to look at. The question is: how close we can get between power and energy.”
GERMANY COULD WIN THE BATTLE FOR EUROPEAN GIGAFACTORY LOCATION
Elon Tweets! "“Germany is a leading choice for Europe. Perhaps on the German-French border makes sense, near the Benelux countries.”
Investopedia reports: "[One] European location where Tesla has ongoing operations is in Pruem, Germany, about 20 miles from the Belgian border and around 60 miles from France. It hosts the Grohmann Engineering division of Tesla, which specializes in automated manufacturing systems for battery-manufacturing facilities. In recent times, Grohmann has successfully built a production line for Tesla’s U.S. battery factory in Reno, Nevada, which is aimed at supporting the production of its newest mass-market Model 3 car."
A reminder of what Elon has said at both the recent Shareholder meeting and on the Q1 2018 earnings Call, all future Gigafactories will produce batteries and assemble cars. All continents will need a Gigafactory soon, to produce cars at lower costs, but the goal is to have 12.
WHY YOUR NEXT UBER COULD BE AN EV
Uber told us: "We’re excited to launch the EV Champions Initiative, a pilot program for driver-partners to deliver at least 5 million EV rides over the next year. This program kicks off today in seven cities — Austin, Los Angeles, Montreal, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle — in partnership with leading electric vehicle (EV) adoption experts. This program builds off the success of existing pilots in Pittsburgh and Portland and we’re proud to team up with experts who have decades of experience in EV adoption. Together, we hope to better equip both plug-in electric and full battery electric vehicle drivers for success.
Adam Gromis, Uber’s global lead on sustainability and environmental impact: "What we’ve learned from drivers is that they love not paying for gas and giving their riders a quiet, smooth, efficient, high-tech ride. But any EV driver is trying to operate this technology in a world that’s not built for them.”
"Starting today, riders will get a push notification alerting them when they’re matched with an EV driver. But passengers won’t be able to choose to ride in an EV" says curbed.com: "Currently, Uber offers the option for riders to choose an electric vehicle in some European cities (where it’s called Uber Green), but this is only offered in cities which already have the number of EVs and density of charging infrastructure to support the feature."
PORTABLE BATTERY PACKS TO RESCUE YOU FROM FLAT BATTERY
"A recently developed totally portable Electric Vehicle (EV) recharge system designed to enable a stranded EV driver who has a depleted high voltage battery to receive a charge at roadside for a short period of time and thus allowing the EV "self-recover" from a roadside breakdown flat battery incident" reports ElectricVehicle Research.com: " a roadside attending rescue patrol can simply plug in the battery EV, wait for around 10-15 minutes and effectively the EV can then drive off to the nearest fixed location EV charge station.The great feature of the Mobile Electric Vehicle Service Equipment (MEVSE) design is in the capability of the Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4) 48 volt battery pack to be re-charged from the standard rescue vehicle on-board existing 12 volt charging system."
https://www.electricvehiclesresearch.com/articles/14549/mobile-ev-charger-that-self-charges-as-recovery-vehicle-is-driving
SOLAREDGE UNVEILS EV CHARGING STATION AT INTERSOLAR EUROPE
SolarEdge Technologies is unveiling its residential electric vehicle [EV] charging station this week at Intersolar Europe, in Munich. Following the recent debut of its EV-charging, single-phase inverter, SolarEdge will now also provide a standalone EV charger.
Check out PV Magazine for more details. They say: "The new EV charger will be integrated into SolarEdge’s smart energy suite, to support increased energy independence. With the EV charger offering management in SolarEdge’s monitoring platform, EV charging can be easily controlled and programmed."
SP GROUP TO BUILD SINGAPORE'S LARGEST PUBLIC EV CHARGING NETWORK
SP Group (SP) has today announced its plans to build Singapore's largest public Electric Vehicle (EV) charging network, in its bid to accelerate EV adoption in Singapore" as per SGCarMart: "By 2020, SP will build 500 charging points islandwide, located at shopping malls, residential areas, business parks and industrial sites, accessible by all members of the public. These charging points will also be compatible with all EV models. The first batch of 30 charging points will be in operation by the end of 2018. The islandwide network will be fully compliant with Singapore's national charging standards and comprise both AC and DC chargers, with power ratings ranging from 22kW to 50kW."
Access will be via an app to initiate a charge and receive updates on its status, as well as to make payment.
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