07 May 2019 | VW I.D. Neo Reservations To Open, Byton Gathers Finanial War Chest For EV Push and Your Self-Healing Tesla
Byton Gathers Millions In Financing With FAW As Main Investor | Production-Ready 2019 Porsche Taycan Spied On The Road. | Now Your Tesla Can Automatically Pre-Order Faulty Parts | Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory Update | Here Are The Details About Tesla's New Insurance | Mitie Selects Podpoint As Sole Chargepoint Supplier | 2020 Hyundai Kona Electric Gets A 11 Kw On-Board Charger | UK Pure-Ev Sales On The Up Despite Overall Market Decline
Show #465
Good morning, good afternoon and good evening wherever you are in the world, welcome to EV News Daily for Tuesday 7th May 2019. It’s Martyn Lee here and I’ve been through every EV story I could find today to save you time.
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BYTON GATHERS MILLIONS IN FINANCING WITH FAW AS MAIN INVESTOR
- "The Chinese electric car startup Byton is about to complete a 500 million dollar financing round, which will be led by China’s state-owned car manufacturer FAW with approximately 100 million dollars." writes Chris Randall for the industry service electrive.com: "Bloomberg reports this with reference insiders familiar with the situation. FAW had already invested around 260 million dollars in Byton last year. The value of the start-up, which confirmed the departure of co-founder Carsten Breitfeld in the middle of last month, is expected to rise to 2.5 billion dollars after the latest round of financing. Neither Byton nor FAW, however, have made an official statement."
- Byton say of the M-Byte: "Conventional automotive styling features are giving way to innovative design icons. Side-view cameras replace side mirrors, iconic face recognition cameras provide user identification and BYTON Smart Surfaces show a situation-based interacting light design. The lounge feeling is intensified by outstanding digital provisions. First, be wide-eyed with the 49-inch coast-to-coast BYTON Shared Experience Display. Experience gesture control through BYTON Air Touch, interact using voice command and activate the main controls with the BYTON Driver Tablet. All these features underscore our vehicle’s extraordinary digital capability."
https://www.electrive.com/2019/05/07/byton-gathers-millions-in-financing-with-faw-as-main-investor/
https://www.byton.com/m-byte-concept
PRODUCTION-READY 2019 PORSCHE TAYCAN SPIED ON THE ROAD
- "An undisguised version of the all-electric Porsche Taycan has been snapped on the road ahead of its Frankfurt reveal" reports AutoExpress: "Porsche’s upcoming all-electric saloon has been caught almost completely undisguised ahead of its official debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show later this year. These latest spy shots give us our best look yet at the Taycan’s styling, which reveals a surprising amount of 718 Boxster and Cayman influence at the front end. Smaller details such as the retractable, flush door handles, and the conventional door mirrors can also be picked out. Porsche claims this powertrain will allow the Taycan production car to cover 0-62mph in under 3.5 seconds and 0-124mph in under 12 seconds before hitting a top speed of 155mph. Crucially, we’re told the performance will be repeatable, with the electric car able to accelerate hard "over and over again without losing performance.”
- Range is less important than charge speed, with an 800v system able to add 62 miles in 4minutes at peak charge rate.
NOW YOUR TESLA CAN AUTOMATICALLY PRE-ORDER FAULTY PARTS
- "Tesla is working to decrease service wait times by offering in-car problem diagnoses and pre-ordering of necessary parts." says InsideEVs.com: "Now, the Silicon Valley electric automaker's global fleet has not only the power to diagnose issues, but also to specify what parts may be needed. This means owners are made aware of potentially what problems the EV is undergoing, but also which parts Tesla should order ahead of your Service Center visit. Of course, if the issue is dire, you may need to get the car in for service right away. But, in many cases it may be able to wait a bit. So, with the latest update, you can see the problem, order the parts, and schedule your service at a later date. Hopefully, this is just another step to provide a better overall experience for Tesla owners."
https://insideevs.com/news/348323/diagnose-pre-order-tesla-parts-automatically/
TESLA SHANGHAI GIGAFACTORY UPDATE
- "In the latest aerial flyover video of the Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory, the main roof structure is now essentially complete, the walls along the east side of the main structure are also complete, and the rest is rapidly being finished. The progress over the past month has been spectacular, as we can see when comparing images over that time period." says CleanTechnica today posting a drone video by Jason Wang: "whilst there remains some construction work to be done on two taller structures at the north and south ends of the factory, the central body of the structure is now basically complete. The main roof is effectively in place (roof workers can be seen in the video, finishing up the last remaining small patches), the main east side wall is up (visible in the above shot), and the west side wall is near to completion. It’s an amazing transformation from the build state just one month ago, when the structure was still in the early phases and the first few roof panels were just starting to be laid down."
HERE ARE THE DETAILS ABOUT TESLA'S NEW INSURANCE
- "Tesla wants to sell its drivers cheaper car insurance based on owners’ driving and the performance of Tesla’s Autopilot driver-assistance system" says Jalopnik: "Tesla said it has better data on the performance of its cars and drivers than insurers do, and thinks it can lower insurance costs because of that."
- And from the WSJ: "Researchers at the insurance-industry-funded Highway Loss Data Institute have determined that the crash-avoidance features on the Tesla Model S are reducing physical-damage and injury-liability claims, while Autopilot is lowering collision claims."
https://jalopnik.com/tesla-plans-to-offer-owners-potentially-cheaper-insuran-1834554733
MITIE SELECTS PODPOINT AS SOLE CHARGEPOINT SUPPLIER
- "UK facilities management and professional services company, Mitie, is moving ahead with plans to electrify 20% of its fleet of smaller vehicles by 2020." says fleeteurope.com: "Mitie, which employs 54,000 people across the UK and operates a fleet of more than 3,500 compact vans and cars, has opted for Pod Point as its charge-point partner. Pod Point will support Mitie by installing 800 chargepoints at Mitie and client offices and employee homes by the end of 2020."
2020 HYUNDAI KONA ELECTRIC GETS A 11 KW ON-BOARD CHARGER
- "Hyundai Motor just deleted a press release where it informed that the new model year Hyundai Kona Electric is going to get a 11 kW on-charger in Europe. Fortunately Stefan Kopeinig saved a screenshot with the important information from the deleted press release." write Pedro for PushEVs.com today: "Besides the new 3-phase 11 kW on-board charger, the new Hyundai Kona Electric also gets the new Hyundai Blue Link app, optional new centre display touch-screen and heated rear seats. In Europe, 11 kW on-board chargers should be standard by now, with an additional charger in parallel to reach 22 kW as an option. LG Chem is already producing 11 kW on-board chargers – aimed to the European market – with an impressive energy efficiency of 95 %."
https://pushevs.com/2019/05/07/2020-hyundai-kona-electric-gets-a-11-kw-on-board-charger/
UK PURE-EV SALES ON THE UP DESPITE OVERALL MARKET DECLINE
- "Sales of pure-electric vehicles continued to rise in April 2019, despite the UK car market as a whole down 4% on the previous year. Pure-EVs were up more than 63%, with 1,517 registrations in April" reports NextGreenCar today: "The downward trend for PHEV registrations has been going on since the start of 2019 - barring a slight lift in February. With the effective removal of the Plug-in Car Grant for PHEVs from October 2018, it looks as though the support may have been withdrawn too soon for the market. Although hoped that the PHEV market was performing strongly and capable of standing up despite the withdrawal of the grant, a combination of an uncertain UK car market in general, plus no company car BIK rates beyond the next financial year, look to have made the sector a little shaky."
https://www.nextgreencar.com/news/8657/uk-pureev-sales-on-the-up-despite-overall-market-decline/
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