Apple and Hyundai-Kia Heads Towards EV Deal | 04 Feb 2021
Apple and Hyundai-Kia Heads Towards EV Deal | Cupra’s El-Born Has Boost Button | VW ID.4 entry-level versions now up for pre-sale | Elon Musk INterview With Sandy Munro | Tesla Working On Unhackable Keyfob | Tesla cancels Model Y Long Range RWD | Porsche is 3D printing electric drive housings that are lighter and stronger | EV Platform For Coachbuilding
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On today’s podcast:
- Apple and Hyundai-Kia Heads Towards EV Deal
- Cupra’s El-Born Has Boost Button
- VW ID.4 entry-level versions now up for pre-sale
- Elon Musk INterview With Sandy Munro
- Tesla Working On Unhackable Keyfob
- Tesla cancels Model Y Long Range RWD
- Porsche is 3D printing electric drive housings that are lighter and stronger
- EV Platform For Coachbuilding
Show #980
Good morning, good afternoon and good evening wherever you are in the world, welcome to EV News Daily for Thursday 4th February. It’s Martyn Lee here and I go through every EV story so you don't have to.
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APPLE AND HYUNDAI-KIA HEADS TOWARDS EV DEAL
"Apple is close to finalizing a deal with Hyundai-Kia to manufacture an Apple-branded autonomous electric vehicle at the Kia assembly plant in West Point, Georgia, sources tell CNBC. According to one source familiar with Hyundai-Kia strategy, “Chung has made it clear, mobility is the future of the company.” That’s important because the Apple Car will be fully autonomous." reports Phil LeBeau: " Sources familiar with Apple’s interest in working with Hyundai say the tech giant wants to build the “Apple Car” in North America with an established automaker willing to allow Apple to control the software and hardware that will go into the vehicle. In 2018, Apple lured Doug Field, then Tesla’s senior VP of engineering, back to Apple where he had previously worked, presumably to work on self-driving cars. Apple has also hired myriad other former Tesla employees, including Michael Schwekutsch, now Senior Director of Engineering for the Special Projects Group at Apple and formerly Tesla Vice President of Engineering."
Katie Huberty, Morgan Stanley: "Smartphones are a $500bn annual TAM. Apple has about one-third of this market. The mobility market is $10 trillion. So Apple would only need a 2% share of this market to be the size of their iPhone business"
"Setting up a car plant can cost billions of dollars and take years, likely the reason why Apple is talking to potential partners." says Automotive News Europe: "Other technology companies seeking to expand into cars have also sought partnerships. Taiwanese iPhone assembler Foxconn Technology Group said last month it is setting up a venture with Chinese carmaker Zhejiang Geely Holding Group to provide production and consulting services to global automotive enterprises."
"According to a new report from a longtime Apple analyst, it sounds like Apple has picked Hyundai’s E-GMP platform as the base for its upcoming electric car." according to Gizmodo: "In his most recent note, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo lended more credence to the rumors that Apple is planning to partner with Hyundai for the production of its vehicle. Kuo said Apple has picked Hyundai’s E-GMP platform as the chassis for the Apple car."
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/03/apple-and-hyundai-kia-driving-towards-deal-on-apple-car.html
https://europe.autonews.com/automakers/kia-shares-jump-after-report-apple-invest-36b
https://gizmodo.com/report-apples-electric-car-may-be-based-on-hyundais-e-1846181048
CUPRA’S EL-BORN HAS BOOST BUTTON
"in order to really stick it to that dawdling middle-lane hogger you’re about to blast past, Cupra’s new El-Born EV, due for release later in 2021, will apparently feature a push-to-pass boost button, according to Cupra boss Wayne Griffiths." report Top Gear: "The El-Born is basically Cupra’s version of the VW ID.3. Meanwhile, it’s an open secret that Volkswagen is developing an R-badged hot hatch version of the ID.3, likely to feature four-wheel drive and in excess of 300bhp."
Mr Griffiths told Top Gear: "“I would say we call it ‘impulse’; you can have power on demand. You have pure acceleration and then when you need it, a push-to-pass button to go faster. Things like ‘boost on demand’, the sporty suspension, the steering, the brakes, the whole handling experience. And we’re looking to do even higher powered versions of the Cupra El-Born. I’ve driven both [the ID.3 and the El-Born] and I think the Cupra is ‘a Cupra’. It is important that the Cupra stays authentic, in terms of handling. Pure electric cars that are designed in a different way, and when you get into cornering, handling, braking, steering, I think there’s a big amount of differentiation you can create there.”
https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/cupras-el-born-hot-hatch-will-have-push-pass-boost-button
VW ID.4 ENTRY-LEVEL VERSIONS NOW UP FOR PRE-SALE
"After the pre-sale of the special edition VW ID.4 1ST, VW is now starting the pre-sale of other models of the ID.4 – this includes versions with a smaller battery. Deliveries to customers in Europe and China are scheduled to begin in March, and in the USA from the middle of the year." repotrs electrive: "The three newly added trims ‘Pure’, ‘City’ and ‘Style’ all have got the 52 kWh battery and are powered by a 125 kW engine. Until now, the electric car was only being offered with a 77 kWh battery and a 150 kW engine. In Germany, with the Pure equipment line, the model costs 38,450 euros before and 28,880 euros after subsidies. With the revealing of these other ID.4 versions, VW reiterates its goal of building as many as 1.5 million electric cars per year by 2025. "
https://www.electrive.com/2021/02/02/vw-id-4-entry-level-versions-now-up-for-pre-sale/
ELON MUSK INTERVIEW WITH SANDY MUNRO
"The first subject was probably the toughest one, in which Munro mentioned the problems he had with the first teardown he did on a Tesla, a 2018 Model 3. The engineer also found problems with the 2021 car, especially regarding panel gaps, and he mentioned he and Cory Steuben found an absolutely pristine one." says InsideEVs: "Musk told him they have tried to perfect production and admitted for the first time that the Model 3 paint job did not always have the necessary time to dry. This could explain the vehicle's issues in multiple units, born from the “production hell” Tesla had with the Model 3. The issue is now apparently gone."
Elon Musk said on why they moved to a single rear cast piece: "The organizational structure errors, they manifest themselves in the product. We’ve got probably the best material science team in the world at Tesla. Engineers would ask what’s the best material for this purpose...and they got like 50 different answers. And they’re all true individually, but they were not true collectively. When you try to join all these dissimilar alloys...you’ve got gaps that you’ve got to seal, and you’ve got to join these things, and some of them need to be joined with rivets, some of them need to be joined with spot welds, some of them need to be joined with resin or resin and spot welds. Frankly, it looks like a bit of a Frankenstein situation when you look at it all together. That might be the most painful job in the factory, is spackling on the sealant.”
On the 12v battery: "With the new S/X, we are also are finally transitioning to a Li-ion 12-volt battery.It has way more capacity and the cycle life matches the main battery pack. We should have done that before, but it’s great that we are doing it now"
https://insideevs.com/news/485412/elon-musk-talks-sandy-munro/
TESLA WORKING ON UNHACKABLE KEYFOB
According to a new filing with FCC, Tesla are looking to use Radio Ultra Wideband in the key fob. Tesla wrote: "The main objective of a UWB ranging device is to provide a distance estimate, which serves as a tight upper bound for the actual distance between a sender and a receiver. In other words, the distance estimate is close to the actual distance and may be longer than the actual distance, but not shorter. In the PKE context this means that the key is not further away from the car than the estimated distance. The distance estimate is based on a Time of Flight measurement, and is immune to relay attacks. This drastically improves PHY layer security compared to an RSSI based distance measurement, which is susceptible to relay station attacks.
A UWB receiver can give an accurate distance estimate, when there is a direct line‐of sight (LOS) propagation path between the sender and the receiver. All other propagation paths are caused by reflections, hence have a longer time of flight, and will lead to a looser upper bound for the distance."
TESLA CANCELS MODEL Y LONG RANGE RWD
"Tesla enthusiasts who pre-ordered the Model Y Long Range Rear Wheel-Drive variant are being told to choose another configuration of the company’s all-electric crossover. Tesla is honoring its Full Self-Driving suite’s price from the date of the pre-order, however, giving a slight discount to owners who planned to equip their LR RWD Model Y with the company’s semi-autonomous driving suite." sayx TEslarati: "The variant was the planned replacement for the Standard Range RWD Model Y after CEO Elon Musk stated that the configuration had less than 250 miles of range, a number that was “unacceptably low.” Musk announced the cancellation on July 12, 2020, but stated that Tesla would reduce pricing on the Model Y’s Dual Motor AWD variant and create the Long Range RWD configuration as a replacement. The reason for the cancelation is unknown, but it is not the first time Tesla has axed variants before release. "
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-modely-y-lr-rwd-canceled-fsd-price-honor/
PORSCHE IS 3D PRINTING ELECTRIC DRIVE HOUSINGS THAT ARE LIGHTER AND STRONGER
"Porsche announced that it had been 3D printing prototype housings for electric drives that were stronger, lighter, and much quicker to manufacture. The engine-gearbox units produced using this method were even able to pass all of the company’s quality and stress tests without issue." says electrek: "Porsche manufactures the housings using a 3D printing method called laser metal fusion, which entails a laser beam heating and melting a powder surface depending on the desired contours. This method allows Porsche to produce an engine gearbox that is both 10% lighter and 100% stronger because of the inherent lattice structures. Another significant upside to manufacturing parts this way is the ease and speed of creating new components or making changes to existing ones. For example, an entirely new part can be designed and then physically printed very quickly with no need to do things such as create new tooling to manufacture the part."
EV PLATFORM FOR COACHBUILDING
"England-based Watt Electric Vehicles hopes to breathe new life into the moribund coachbuilding industry by offering low-volume manufacturers a turn-key EV platform." says Autoblog: "he architecture integrates the battery, the running gear, all electronics, and the basic structure in one neat package; all that's missing is the body. It's built with aluminum to help offset the battery's weight, and it can underpin a panoply of vehicles ranging from a small sports car to a large bus, according to Watt."
https://www.autoblog.com/2021/02/02/watt-electric-car-chassis-coachbuilders/
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