Show #1245
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Good morning, good afternoon and good evening wherever you are in the world, welcome to EV News Daily for Friday 15th October. It’s Martyn Lee here and I go through every EV story so you don’t have to.
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BMW READY FOR ANY BAN ON FOSSIL FUELS
“Germany’s BMW (BMWG.DE) will be ready for any ban on internal combustion engine (ICE) cars from 2030 onwards with an offering of electric vehicles, Chief Executive Officer Oliver Zipse said on Tuesday.” according to Reuters: “The EU has proposed an effective ban on fossil fuel cars from 2035 as part of a broader package of measures to combat global warming. Unlike rivals including Volkswagen and General Motors, BMW has not set an end date for production of ICE cars.”
Oliver Zipse: “We will be ICE-ban ready. If a region, a city, a country gets the idea of banning ICEs, we have an offering. The BMW Group is not worried about this. Whether it’s a good idea is another question… but we will have an offering.”
TRITIUM REPORTS RECORD GROWTH AND NEW TWO-WAY CHARGER IN PIPELINE
“Brisbane-based Tritium, which makes electric vehicle DC fast-chargers and has now sold more than 5,000 units globally, has reported a record quarter and its largest backlog to date, an indicator perhaps that the transition to electric vehicles has reached a tipping point.” reports The Driven: “Tritium makes a number of DC fast-chargers,and has a number of interesting products in the pipeline, including a 25kW bidirectional (two-way) wall charger that could be used for vehicle-to-grid (V2G) and vehicle-to-home (V2H) applications. Tritium’s planned public listing via a “blank cheque” company will see it valued at $US1.2 billion – making it a “unicorn” (an unlisted start-up worth more than $US1 billion).”
Osprey are using the 75kW chargers, Gridserve too. I like the 50kW units used by Mer and Pod Point. They’ll do Plug & Charge.
Read more: https://thedriven.io/2021/10/14/tritium-reports-record-growth-and-new-two-way-charger-in-pipeline
NIO CEO SAYS LONG CHARGING QUEUES DURING HOLIDAY SEASON DUE TO RISING EV ADOPTION
“Nio Inc attributed the long queues at electric vehicle charging stations during the holiday season to rapid adoption of the greener transport option in China, cnEVpost reported on Wednesday, citing a company executive.” says Benzinga: “The Chinese electric vehicle maker’s founder and chairman William Li said the recent charging experience was not very good for customers during China’s National Day due to increased rush hour on the highway. A number of EV owners went out for drives during National Day earlier this month without realizing there were not enough charging facilities along the highway, as per the report. Li said electric vehicle adoption is taking place at a quick pace this year, ahead of expectations. The electric automaker said it has accelerated the construction of battery swap stations as well as supercharging stations this year.”
ELECTRIC VEHICLE CHARGING INFRASTRUCTURE RACES AHEAD IN SCOTLAND
“The rollout of electric vehicle charging points in Scotland is now second only to London, according to new figures. There are now 12 rapid chargers per 100,000 people, compared to a UK average of nearly seven, while across all charging types Scotland is second only to London across the whole of the UK with 47 devices for every 100,000.” reports Fleet News: “The Scottish Government has invested more than £45 million to develop the ChargePlace Scotland Network, which provides more than 1,900 public charge points across Scotland.”
FORD AND BMW PARTNER SOLID POWER DEMONSTRATES THE SAFETY OF ITS SOLID-STATE BATTERY TECH
“Colorado-based Solid Power, the solid-state battery firm backed by Ford and BMW, claims that third-party safety tests show its battery tech to be safer than current lithium-ion chemistry. The tests, with results released Wednesday, aimed simulate abuse and damage to its prototype solid-state battery cells. Those cells use a sulfide-based solid electrolyte in place of the liquid or gel used in conventional lithium-ion cells.” writes Green Car Reports: “When fully-charged test cells were punctured by a conductive nail, the only change was a slight increase in temperature, Soild Power said in a press release. The nail penetration test produced no flames or venting of material from the cells, the company claims. In other tests, cells were overcharged to 200%, and were also caused to short circuit, again with no serious issues, according to Solid Power. . It also claims to have achieved a cell lifespan of 1,000 cycles with greater than 80% capacity retention. With small pouch cells so far, the next step will be to scale up to the larger format pouch cells that some automakers are shifting to.”
*ad break*
U.S. REGULATOR QUESTIONS TESLA ON THE LACK OF A RECALL AFTER AN UPDATE TO AUTOPILOT.
“The top federal auto safety regulator sent two letters to Tesla this week raising questions about the company’s driver-assistance software systems and instructing the carmaker to provide fuller information.” reports New York Times: “The regulator, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, is looking into why Tesla did not issue a recall last month when it updated software called Autopilot to improve its ability to spot stopped emergency vehicles such as police cars and fire trucks. The agency also ordered Tesla to provide data about the software that the company calls Full Self-Driving and expressed concern that Tesla may be preventing customers from sharing safety information with the agency.”
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/10/13/business/news-business-stock-market
TESLA APP HINTS AT REMOTE LIVE VIEW FROM AUTOPILOT CAMERAS
“Tesla has released a new mobile app update with a few new small features, but it also shows that the automaker has made some progress toward delivering a remote live view from Autopilot cameras on your car.” writes electrek.co: “The new update, v4.2, introduces new bigger widgets to iOS and some new Powerwall features. Improvements to larger iOS widget to include quick controls…Solar and Powerwall supports Tesla-maintained utility rate plans. Utility rate plans now support seasons, multiple peak periods, and buy & sell energy prices…Powerwall’s Time-Based Control mode supports the updated rate plans to more accurately use energy from Powerwall when power is expensive and charge from other sources when power is at its cheapest. Some of the code suggests that Tesla is working to give access to the feed from four cameras out of the eight cameras around the vehicle – one on each side:”
TESLA MODEL S PLAID WITH ACTIVE AERO CAUGHT TESTING AT THE NÜRBURGRING
“For all of its supercar performance, the Tesla Model S Plaid doesn’t really have much of the performance technology we expect from a supercar. The most obvious example is that hallmark of modern supercardom, active aerodynamics. But that might be changing.” says CarScoops: ” spy photographers caught a Tesla Model S Plaid lapping the Nürburgring with a retractable wing that also changed its angle throughout the lap. Seen here changing its pitch from one shot to the next, it would appear that Tesla is looking for higher cornering speeds. The Plaid+ was supposed to get 1,100 hp, a range of more than 520 miles (837 km), and faster acceleration. Just ahead of Plaid’s debut, though, Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter to announce that it was so good that the Plaid+ had been canceled.”
TESLA EXPANDS KETTLEMAN CITY
“Tesla expands its Supercharging capacity in Kettleman City, about halfway between Los Angeles and the Tesla Factory in Fremont, which already had one of the largest and most popular 40-stall stations.” says InsideEVs: “At the time of installation in 2017, it was one of the largest and the first with a solar canopy, Powerpack energy storage systems and a lounge. According to the company’s website, another location is coming nearby and it will be equipped with 56 stalls (V3 250 kW). That would increase the total output in the area to 96. According to supercharge.info, bigger stations in the U.S. are at the Harris Ranch (80 stalls), Central Santa Monica (62 stalls) and Firebaugh (56 stalls) – all three in California and both with V3 250 kW chargers. The largest stations in China are in Shanghai with 72 and 64 stalls, but the power is limited to respectively 120 kW and 145 kW.”
Read more: https://insideevs.com/news/540763/tesla-adds-superchargers-kettleman-city/
ROCK TECH TO BUILD LITHIUM PLANT IN GERMANY
“Rock Tech Lithium announces the construction of a production plant for battery-grade lithium hydroxide in Guben, Brandenburg – 60 kilometres from Tesla’s plant in Grünheide. The plan is to produce around 24,000 tonnes of lithium hydroxide per year there, or enough for around 500,000 electric cars.” says electrive: “Rock Tech Lithium is a German-Canadian company with headquarters in Vancouver that extracts the raw material for the lithium hydroxide from its mine project in Georgia Lake in Ontario, Canada. A so-called ‘converter factory’ is now to be built in Brandenburg’s Lusatia region to refine the resource. The production facility is to create 160 jobs, and completion of the plant is planned for 2024. The Tesla factory in Grünheide (where not only electric vehicles but also battery cells are to be built), which is only 60 kilometres away, and BASF’s cathode factory in Schwarzheide, which is also not far away, are not explicitly mentioned, but are certainly important for the decision. ”
Read more: https://www.electrive.com/2021/10/11/rock-tech-to-build-lithium-plant-in-germany/
WHY ARE E.U. REGULATORS SLOW APPRIVING AUTONOMY?
“Part of the reason why Europe has to wait along with the rest of the world for Musk’s FSD is the uniquely favorable environment in the U.S., where risks of this kind are accepted by authorities. New innovations in automotive technology are in principle allowed so long as they are not expressly forbidden. By comparison, many other jurisdictions, including the EU’s own Single Market, require approval by technical authorities (or “homologation”) based on specific international standards set by a United Nations body in Geneva called the UNECE.” writes Fortune.com: “On Autonomy Day in April 2019, he famously predicted 1 million Teslas would be on the road driving without any human supervision by the end of the following year. In July 2020 he then claimed his team was on the cusp of solving Level 5 autonomy”.
Fortune add: “In Europe, it is the UNECE that determines the acceptable pace of deployment, not Musk, and it aims to boil all regulations down to mathematical formulas that precisely describe how a self-driving car should act in each and every situation. While this philosophy is increasingly being questioned by autonomous driving experts, it’s unlikely to change dramatically any time soon, let alone next year.”
And on the subject of the competition: “In an interview last month, [Audi’s] chief engineer said, however, he would not follow Tesla’s approach of beta testing self-driving technology just to bring it quicker to market, irrespective of whether owners signed off their rights to legal recourse. Established carmakers like his have reputations built over decades, while an upstart like Tesla that still needs to reach scale is more willing to take risks to narrow the sales gap.
Audi’s Oliver Hoffmann told Fortune.: “When it comes to issues of life and limb, I cannot imagine opening up a beta to our customers. Not at all. Not even if they were willing.”
FIFTH GEAR RETURNS WITH EVS ONLY
“Discovery’s long-running motoring format Fifth Gear is to relaunch as an electric vehicle (EV) show and has installed former Top Gear host Rory Reid to present. Fifth Gear: Recharged will air episodes weekly on streamer Discovery+ in the UK and Quest later this year as All3Media-owned producer North One looks to take advantage of colossal growing interest in EVs, which has quickened due to the current UK gas crisis.” says deadline.com:” Reid is joined by Jason Plato, Vicki Butler-Henderson and former Formula 1 driver Karun Chandhok, with EV consumer journalist Grace Webb and engineer Jimmy de Ville assisting.”
‘Fifth Gear’ To Relaunch As Electric Vehicle Format; Signs Former ‘Top Gear’ Host Rory Reid
NEW QUESTION OF THE WEEK WITH EMOBILITYNORWAY.COM
When buying a used electric car, how do you feel about servicing? Do you want the previous person to have been back to a dealer every year? Do you care? Some manufacturers like Tesla don’t even have a service schedule so how do you feel about buying a used EV and it’s service history, or lack of.
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