https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2021/05/e ... del-y.htmlElon Musk confirms that Gigatexas will start producing 4680 battery cell Model Y later this year.
This means Tesla will have 4680 at reasonable scale and car ready in 2021. This is not the 12-18 month timeframe from the last earnings call. This means not 11-17 months from today but less than 7 months. This is also confirming Texas production later this year.
Texas will also have front and rear gigacasting.
1. Start with the price—how could you not? The Ford F-150 Lightning, the new electric version of the ur–American pickup truck, will go on sale next spring for $39,974. Because Ford vehicles still qualify for the federal EV tax credit, most Americans will pay a little less than $32,500 for this truck.
Rail technology company Wabtec has demonstrated an electric locomotive that could help lessen the environmental footprint of heavy-haul freight services. The company's battery-powered FLXdrive locomotive was used as part of a hybrid system over a three-month trial, where it reduced the fuel consumption of the entire vehicle by 11 percent.
Wabtec's FLXdrive is described as the world's first 100-percent battery-powered locomotive, drawing on 18,000 lithium-ion battery cells to power all four axles and using an intelligent energy flow management to optimize efficiency. The 2.4-megawatt hour system can be recharged at the depot much like an electric vehicle, but also uses a regenerative braking system to top itself up when on the move. The top spec Tesla Model 3, by way of comparison, has a capacity of 75 kWh – that's 32 times smaller than the FLXdrive. Needless to say, this system will require a serious charging station.
The FLXdrive was put to the test as part of a hybrid system with conventional diesel powertrains across a three-month trial in San Joaquin Valley, California, where it covered more than 13,320 miles (21,400 km) of hilly terrain. According to Wabtec, the 11-percent average reduction in fuel consumption for the entire train is equivalent to 6,200 gallons of diesel saved, or around 69 tons of CO2.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... ectric-carFri 21 May 2021
One in four UK households intend to buy an electric car in the next five years, as a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles in 2030 approaches, according to research.
More than 6.5m households plan to buy an electric vehicle or plug-in hybrid, research by the energy watchdog Ofgem has found. This equates to 24%, or nearly one in four, of all energy households.
The climate change committee, an independent public body that advises the UK government and devolved governments, predicts that about 18m battery and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles will be on the road by 2030 when a ban on the sale of new internal combustion vehicles is introduced.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-572258562 hours ago
The UK's energy regulator has approved plans to invest £300m in low carbon projects including support for 3,550 charging points for electric vehicles.
Ofgem said the funds would allow energy networks to build robust electricity infrastructure for installing charging points across UK motorways.
It said while more people are buying electric cars, others are put off due to a lack of charging points near home.
Ofgem said a wider charging network would help address "range anxiety".
Washington is revving up its engines in a push to step up investments in transportation infrastructure. While it’s unclear just what will make it into a final package, the Biden administration’s American Jobs Plan and leading members of Congress are making transportation electrification a priority. Transportation is currently the largest emitting sector in the US. Unlike the electric power sector, there are no easy options for quickly swapping out fossil fuels with clean energy.
In this note, we assess the energy system and emissions impacts of potential new, long-term federal investments in on-road decarbonization and how investments might interact with potential new vehicle regulations. We find that federal investment in the form of long-term extensions of current tax credits coupled with a build-out of charging infrastructure can catapult electric vehicles (EVs) from 2% of all light-duty vehicle (LDV) sales in 2020 to as high as 52% of all LDV sales in 2031. Targeted public spending on medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, transit buses, and school buses can make even more decarbonization progress, while also cutting harmful air pollution. The combined impact of all investments we consider in this analysis, along with potential EPA regulations that put EVs on a path to 100% of light-duty sales in 2035, achieves CO2 emission reductions of nearly 180 million tons in 2031, roughly equal to 11% of 2020 sector emissions. These outcomes can be achieved with no net increase in total costs for many consumers.
TO READ THE FULL STORYFord Motor Co. plans to boost spending on electric-vehicle development by billions of dollars beyond previous plans and expects 40% of its global sales to be fully electric by 2030, as Chief Executive Jim Farley bets bigger on plug-in cars.
Ford will spend $30 billion by 2025 to expand its electric lineup, up from the $22 billion it forecast earlier in the year, it said Wednesday. That figure is a cumulative total that includes spending over the past few years, and includes capital earmarked for two future U.S. battery-cell factories with Korea’s SK Innovation Co. The companies said last week they plan to form a joint venture.
Mr. Farley, who took over last fall, is scheduled to present more details during a virtual investor presentation later Wednesday to outline his plan to reverse years of declining profits.
The company also said it expects in 2023 to achieve an 8% operating margin, up from around 4% in recent years. It had previously pegged the 8% mark as a goal but hadn’t specified a timeline.
The nation’s No. 2 auto maker by sales said it has created an internal business called Ford Pro to serve commercial customers, such as the contractors, utility companies and government agencies that maintain fleets of vehicles.
The Ford F-150 Lightning might have a longer range than expected and could even present a new way of advertising range in electric trucks.
When Ford unveiled the F-150 Lightning, the automaker’s new electric version of its best-selling pickup truck, the company announced two battery pack options with 230 miles and 300 miles of range.
That was in line with other recently announced electric pickup trucks, but there’s a twist to it.
Ford told Marques Brownlee, a prolific tech YouTuber, that the F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck’s 300-mile range is their expectation of the estimated EPA range with 1,000 lbs of cargo.
Brownlee said that the prototype Ford lent him was showing 367 miles of range on about 80% charge without any cargo in the back.
If you pictured cars in the future as sleek, glass-covered, EVs with the ability to clean pollution, then you pictured Airo, Heatherwick Studio's concept car designed for IM Motors.
Unveiled at the Shanghai Motor Show in April, Airo is a fully electric vehicle that boasts both autonomous and driver-controlled modes. More excitingly, its designers promise it produces no fossil fuel pollutants, and taking it a step further, the vehicle even vacuums up polluted air around it as it drives.
We were excited for the future's flying cars, but if there are pollution-cleaning cars, sign us up for those!
Airo cleans the air using its HEPA filtering system that actively sucks up the pollutants from other cars around it, leaving the surrounding air cleaner than before.
Back on the old forum (I really wish we could get that archive up and running on the web so I could link to these pages more easily), it was fascinating to see the progress of electric vehicles from 2011 to 2021. The sheer explosive success was mindboggling considering worldwide deployment of EVs started at five-figure numbers.I know, you probably haven't even driven one yet, let alone seriously contemplated buying one, so the prediction may sound a bit bold, but bear with me.
We are in the middle of the biggest revolution in motoring since Henry Ford's first production line started turning back in 1913.
And it is likely to happen much more quickly than you imagine.
Many industry observers believe we have already passed the tipping point where sales of electric vehicles (EVs) will very rapidly overwhelm petrol and diesel cars.
It is certainly what the world's big car makers think.
Jaguar plans to sell only electric cars from 2025, Volvo from 2030 and last week the British sportscar company Lotus said it would follow suit, selling only electric models from 2028.
This is what I've been thinking for years. There's no particularly good reason why ICE vehicles are still so dominant other than it being the status quo and clever marketing convincing the masses that electric/hybrid vehicles = effeminate, political, weak, and stupid. Their horrible designs for the longest time didn't help. But hybrids have been an easier sell; if they had been mainstream for a decade now as they should have, we'd have already had the infrastructure for widespread EVs today.Having killed off all of its cars years ago in order to sell only pickup trucks and SUVs, Ford is now making its cheapest vehicle a pickup truck, because this is America. The Maverick, as it will be called, is being marketed as a huge advancement in the pickup market, good for "city driving or escaping the urban life" and that "its compact size makes it easy to maneuver and park."
This is questionable, considering the truck is 200 inches long, just 10 inches shorter than a Cadillac Escalade, a vehicle generally regarded as a very large SUV.
However, the Maverick does have a noteworthy feature: It comes with a hybrid engine standard, the first pickup truck to do so.
Last week, the electric vehicle (EV) startup Rivian, backed by Amazon and Ford among other major investors, announced it will build a network of 3,500 fast chargers at 600 sites by the end of 2023. Only Rivian owners will be able to use them.
This is a rational, if expensive, response to a major problem facing electric vehicles. There are currently two charging networks: Tesla's and everyone else's. Tesla's charging experience is great, one of the major perks of owning their vehicles. Just plug your Tesla into a Supercharger and it starts charging. They are fast and reliable. You're on your way in no time.
Everyone else's network is, quite frankly, bad, in almost every sense of the user experience. Just a few years ago, anyone doing a road trip in a non-Tesla EV would need "to carry a wallet full of RFID cards" that allow them to charge their car at various charging stations owned by different companies, recalls Chris Nelder of the Rocky Mountain Institute who has studied EV charging infrastructure for years. Such a road-tripper would also have needed to be a member of a handful of different charging networks, and have signed up for them before beginning the trip because you couldn't sign up on the spot. Think of it kind of like going on a round-the-world trip and having a global SIM card versus needing to buy a regional one in each place you visit. And this was to say nothing of the different plug types, standards, charging speeds, and the constant frustration of encountering chargers that don't charge at the advertised speed or simply don't work at all.
For almost a century, we have taken for granted that any car can stop at any gas station and fill up in a few minutes. But we are getting very close to a world where this simply will not happen for electric cars.
On Wednesday, Ford debuted the F-150 Lightning, the first electric F-150. The F-150, a big truck, is the top-selling vehicle in the U.S. year after year, so Ford announcing an electric version is a huge deal, not just for the auto industry but for anyone interested in the future of this planet. It is probably the most important consumer product launch since at least the iPhone.
Some quick numbers to put the F-150's importance into perspective. Ford sells approximately 900,000 of these suckers every year. As Robinson Meyer of The Atlantic pointed out, the entire U.S. auto industry sold about 250,000 electric vehicles total last year. The F-150 gets about 25 miles per gallon, and the average American drives about 13,500 miles per year. That means every year Ford sells enough F-150s to consume approximately 486 million more gallons of gasoline per year, not counting the millions of F-150s already on the road. Electrifying these vehicles as soon as possible is just about one of the most important things we can do to reduce emissions.
And the F-150 Lightning is no lightweight. It is, to be sure, an impressive machine, a giant 1,900 pound battery on wheels, that can also power a house or a worksite. The long range version boasts up to 300 miles of range (although that is Ford's estimate, not the Environmental Protection Agency's) with the standard range version promising 230 miles.
And there lies the biggest challenge facing the electric F-150. It is, ostensibly, a work truck, meant to haul heavy things and tow big loads (how many F-150 owners use the truck for such things is another matter entirely; but for the purposes of this article, the fact that they buy the truck thinking they will is all that matters). There is just one problem. Hauling heavy things and towing big loads means the battery has to expend much more energy to move the truck, significantly reducing its range. And, currently, the U.S. has nowhere near the fast charging network needed to make up for it.
Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/10/tesla-t ... rsche.htmlTesla will deliver a high-performance version of its Model S on Thursday, aiming to reignite interest in the nearly decade-old sedan and fend off rivals such as Porsche, Mercedes-Benz and Lucid Motors in the luxury electric vehicle market. Tesla redefined electric cars in 2012 when it launched its high-end Model S with a sleek design and long driving range, but is facing a raft of new challengers.
The automaker plans to livestream the delivery of the first Model S Plaid at its U.S. factory in Fremont, California, at 7 p.m. PT (0200 GMT, Friday), according to its official Twitter account. CEO Elon Musk has not said whether he will take the stage, but he has been on Twitter promoting the new model, which is priced at $129,990 against $79,990 for a long-range Model S.
“The Model S has not been changing a lot in terms of looks over the past almost decade. I think Tesla has to offer consumers something more,” said Jessica Caldwell, executive director at car information provider Edmunds said. The launch of the Model S Plaid, which has already been showcased online, has faced delay and some controversy over an expected airplane-style yoke steering wheel. Musk canceled another variant, Model S Plaid+, which would have had a 33% higher driving range than the Model S Plaid and used advanced battery technology, known as 4680 cells. The more powerful sports sedan goes from zero to 60 miles per hour (97 kph) in 1.99 seconds and has an estimated driving range of 390 miles.
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2021/06/n ... -2021.htmlThe China Passenger Car Association (CPCA) has again raised its forecast for new energy passenger car sales for 2021 as the industry grows rapidly. The 2021 forecast for new energy passenger car wholesale sales was raised to 2.4 million units which is up from a forecast of 2 million in February and 2.2 million in April.
Wholesale sales of new energy vehicles in China reached 860,000 units from January to May this year, up 2.5 times from a year earlier.
China is having huge EV car volume from cheap $5000-12000 electric cars. The top selling EV in China is a $5000 EV. Tesla still is battling for second and third most sales with the Model Y and Model 3. The Model Y sales were fifth in April but are ramping quickly. May numbers indicate the Model Y and Model 3 were second and third in sales in China for EVs.
These facts raise an uncomfortable question that reverberates around the world: does fighting the climate crisis mean sacrificing communities and ecosystems? The supply chains that produce green technologies begin in extractive frontiers like the Atacama desert. And we are on the verge of a global boom in mining linked to the energy transition. A recent report published by the International Energy Agency states that meeting the Paris agreement’s climate targets would send demand skyrocketing for the “critical minerals” used to produce clean energy technologies. The figures are particularly dramatic for the raw materials used to manufacture electric vehicles: by 2040, the IEA forecasts that demand for lithium will have increased 42 times relative to 2020 levels.
These resources have become a new flashpoint for geopolitical tensions. In the US and Europe, policymakers increasingly talk about a “race” to secure the minerals linked to energy transition and shore up domestic supplies; the idea of a “new cold war” with China is frequently invoked. As a result, northern Portugal and Nevada are slated for new lithium projects. Across the global lithium frontier, from Chile to the western United States and Portugal, environmental activists, indigenous communities and residents concerned about the threats to agricultural livelihoods are protesting over what they see as the greenwashing of destructive mining.
Indeed, natural resource sectors, which include extractive activities like mining, are responsible for 90% of biodiversity loss and more than half of carbon emissions. One report estimates that the mining sector produces 100bn tons of waste every year. Extraction and processing are typically water- and energy-intensive, and contaminate waterways and soil. Alongside these dramatic changes to the natural environment, mining is linked to human rights abuses, respiratory ailments, dispossession of indigenous territory and labour exploitation. Once the minerals are wrested from the ground, mining companies tend to accumulate profits and leave behind poverty and contamination.
The European passenger plugin vehicle market continues on the rise, having gotten over 178,000 registrations in April and 796,000 registrations YTD — which is +158% year over year (YoY). Last month’s plugin vehicle share of the overall auto market was 16% (8% full electrics/BEVs), which keeps the 2021 plugin vehicle (PEV) share at 15% (7% for BEVs alone).
Growth came from both plugin fields, with sales being divided almost equally between them. That was especially thanks to the BEV push from the Volkswagen Group, a strong mid-quarter month from Tesla, and the Renault Zoe’s slow return to form. In fact, this led to the first fully BEV top 5 in a year! Go, BEVs!
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2021/06/e ... -2033.html
Ernst and Young predict Europe leading the charge to electric, with zero-emission models outselling all other propulsion systems by 2028. That tipping point will arrive in China in 2033 and in the U.S. in 2036″. In 2019, new car registrations in the EU slightly increased to a level of 15.5 million.
Sales of electric cars topped 2.1 million globally in 2019 to increase total world electric cars to 7.2 million in 2019. Global sales of electric vehicles (EVs) in 2020 increased by 39% year on year to 3.1 million units to increase the total world electric car fleet to 10.3 million in 2020.
There are 1.4 billion cars in the world in 2021. EVs will pass 1% of total world cars in 2021. Reaching about 70-80 million electric cars should be the point when EVs reach 5% of total world cars.
If there are 5 million EVs in 2021, 8 million EVs in 2022 and 13 million EVs in 2023 and 20 million EVs in 2024 and 32 million EVs in 2025 then EVs will be over 5% of world cars by 2025.
When we first covered the instantly lovable eBussy electric mini-mover, we didn't actually believe we'd be writing about a working prototype a year later. In fact, we weren't sure we'd be writing about the vehicle ever again. But here we are; parent company ElectricBrands is preparing to reveal its first prototype in less than two weeks. Now called the Xbus, the modular tiny transporter still promises to become one of the most versatile, affordable electric vehicles out there, transforming between pickup, van, mini-camper and more.
"Yeah, okay, sure." The words reverberated through my mind with every keystroke as I wrote about the eBussy last July. It was yet another super-promising electric vehicle that could transform before one's eyes into virtually every type of utility vehicle you could ever want, represented only by a series of renderings and specs that seemed too good to be true. ElectricBrands wasn't a completely unknown startup like so many EV newcomers, but its three years of previous experience in electric scooters was hardly enough to inspire confidence in its ability to build and market such a versatile 4WD electric utility vehicle.
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2021/07/t ... -year.htmlTesla delivered 201,250 cars in Q2 and produced 206,421.
This was slightly higher than analyst expectations and was in spite of automobile industry chip shortages.
The production was up 14% of the first quarter of the year and up 115% from 2020 Q2.
Tesla delivered about 17000 more cars in Q2 vs Q1. This means about $900 million higher auto revenue in Q2 vs Q1.
