15 Jan 2019 | VW & Ford Get Married And Make Electric Babies, China Sells ONE MILLION EVs In 2018 and Smart ForTwo Just Won’t Break
Volkswagen And Ford Launch Global Alliance | Volkswagen To Build New Generation Of Electric Cars In Chattanooga | China Electric Car Sales Soar To Almost 160,000 In December | Spain Closes 2018 With Record Electric Car Sales In December | Infiniti Qx Inspiration Concept Foretells Brand's Electric Future | Thousands Of Gm Engineers Reassigned To Work On Evs | Samsung Sdi Reveals Ev Battery Future, Plus Roadmap To Solid State | 2013 Smart Fortwo Electric Battery Health Still Strong At 125,000 Miles
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Good morning, good afternoon and good evening wherever you are in the world, welcome to EV News Daily for Tuesday 15th January 2019. It’s Martyn Lee here and I’ve been through every EV story I can find today, and picked out the ones I think you need to know about.
Thank you to MYEV.com for helping make this show, they’ve built the first marketplace specifically for Electric Vehicles. It’s a totally free marketplace that simplifies the buying and selling process, and help you learn about EVs along the way too.
And thank you to the latest member of the Patreon family, it’s ROBERT GRACE joining up a new Producer. I’ve got a very special one to add tomorrow but I need to check how he wants his name ready out. Which sounds odd, I’ll explain tomorrow!
VOLKSWAGEN AG AND FORD MOTOR COMPANY LAUNCH GLOBAL ALLIANCE
- From the official line:
- "Volkswagen CEO Dr. Herbert Diess and Ford CEO Jim Hackett confirmed that the companies intend to develop commercial vans and medium-sized pickups for global markets beginning as early as 2022. The alliance will drive significant scale and efficiencies and enable both companies to share investments in vehicle architectures that deliver distinct capabilities and technologies.
- Ford and Volkswagen both have strong commercial van and pickup businesses around the globe, with popular nameplates such as the Ford Transit family and Ranger as well as the Volkswagen Transporter, Caddy and Amarok.
- The companies’ collective light commercial vehicle volumes from 2018 totaled approximately 1.2 million units globally, which could represent the industry’s highest-volume collaboration as production scales. Through the alliance, Ford will engineer and build medium-sized pickups for both companies which are expected to go to market as early as 2022. For both parties, Ford intends to engineer and build larger commercial vans for European customers, and Volkswagen intends to develop and build a city van."
- Autoblog says: "The expanding alliance highlights the growing pressure on all global automakers to manage the costs of developing electric and self-driving vehicles, as well as technology required to meet tougher emissions standards for millions of internal combustion vehicles they will sell in the years to come. The framework of the alliance is expected to include the pooling of resources in autonomous technology and VW investing in that Ford business, and Ford licensing Volkswagen's MEB electric vehicles platform, sources have said."
https://www.autoblog.com/2019/01/15/volkswagen-ford-announce-alliance/
VOLKSWAGEN TO BUILD NEW GENERATION OF ELECTRIC CARS IN CHATTANOOGA
- "The Volkswagen brand is forging ahead consistently with its electric offensive and has now announced the first production location in North America. In future, the Chattanooga plant in Tennessee is to produce vehicles based on the modular electric toolkit MEB, a new generation of electric cars. For this purpose, Volkswagen is investing about €700 million ($800 million) in the plant. The expansion of the plant will create up to 1,000 new jobs plus additional jobs at suppliers. The first electric car from Chattanooga is to roll off the production line in 2022. Over the next few years, eight MEB plants are to be developed in Europe, North America and China. Volkswagen is building up the production capacity needed to sell more than 1 million electric cars per year by 2025. The first electric car to roll off the production line in Chattanooga will be the ID. CROZZ1 SUV model. Volkswagen will also offer the ID. BUZZ1 in North America, the reinterpretation of the legendary VW bus."
https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news/2019/01/Location_decision_in_North_America.html
CHINA ELECTRIC CAR SALES SOAR TO ALMOST 160,000 IN DECEMBER
- "According to data released by the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA), China’s new energy passenger vehicle (PV) wholesale volume in December hit a record high of 159,751 units, leaping 62% over a year ago. From January to December, a total of 1,016,002 new energy PVs were sold in the world’s largest automotive market with a splendid year-on-year (YoY) growth of 83%." according to Gasgoo on InsideEVs.com: "As to the Dec. sales of specific models, the BAIC EU Series took the sales crown with an aggressive MoM surge of over 300%. The runner-up EC Series also came from BAIC BJEV, yet its sales significantly declined 36.2% from the previous year. Another major NEV maker BYD has three models included the top 10 list by Dec. sales. Particularly, the sales of the BYD e5 and the BYD Tang Hybrid showed tremendous YoY leap of 618.3% and 352.2% respectively. In addition, the sales of the BYD Yuan EV jumped 23.1% over the previous month."
https://insideevs.com/china-electric-car-sales-december/
SPAIN CLOSES 2018 WITH RECORD ELECTRIC CAR SALES IN DECEMBER
- And from China to Spain where Mark Kane has the number for InsideEVs "Spain almost reached 1% EV market share in 2018 and December reveals the potential for over 2% . Spain shows some really strong EV sales numbers these days. In December, plug-in electric car sales hit a new record of 2,256, which is 126% more than a year ago. The market share increased to a new high of 2.3%."
- The Spanish put the Renault Zoe in first place, then the LEAF and the Mitsubishi Outlander.
https://insideevs.com/spain-record-sales-ev-december/
INFINITI QX INSPIRATION CONCEPT FORETELLS BRAND'S ELECTRIC FUTURE
- "At the 2019 North American International Auto Show, Infiniti is finally lifting the veil of the QX Inspiration concept which previews a future production all-electric SUV and introduces the brand’s new design language for EVs." reports Anthony Karr for Motor1.com.
- But it wasn't all going smoothly.
- "A technical snafu ruined the plan when the Infiniti QX Inspiration Concept broke down before it was even able to roll onto the stage for a big unveiling. The folks at The Detroit Free Press were able to capture the unfortunate event as it happened."
https://www.motor1.com/news/301090/infiniti-qx-breakdown-during-debut/
THOUSANDS OF GM ENGINEERS REASSIGNED TO WORK ON EVS
- "GM appears to be serious about their zero-emissions vision: the company is shifting 75% of its powertrain engineers from internal-combustion engines to electric vehicle development as it prepares to unleash of wave of EVs under the Cadillac brand." according to an AXIOS report: " In a meeting with investors this morning, GM is expected to share more details about its next-generation of electric vehicles — 20 EV or fuel cell powered models to be released by 2023. They'll be based on a flexible EV architecture, enabling many body styles in front-wheel, rear-wheel and all-wheel-drive configurations. Most of the EVs will be introduced as Cadillacs, a chance to position the iconic-but-tarnished luxury brand once again as a tech leader."
SAMSUNG SDI REVEALS EV BATTERY FUTURE, PLUS ROADMAP TO SOLID STATE
- "Samsung SDI said it will introduce its latest lineup of batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrid models at the 2019 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit. Samsung SDI will present its fast-charging, high-capacity batteries for EVs and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) under the theme “Charged for Auto 2.0” to attract interest from global automakers seeking tailored products for their EVs." according to Green Car Congress today.
2013 SMART FORTWO ELECTRIC BATTERY HEALTH STILL STRONG AT 125,000 MILES
- "Turns out that not only Teslas maintain high battery capacity after well over 100,000 miles. In fact, this 2013 Smart ForTwo Electric still has tons of life left. That’s despite its tiny battery, which requires very frequent recharging." in a story send in by an InsideEVs ready to Eric Loveday: "InsideEVs fan Moritz Leicht from Germany reached out to us with an amazing Smart story. We’ll share the recap down below, but the gist of it is that he loves his electric Smart. Add in the fact that its battery capacity is at 90% of when it was new and that’s astonishing. The 17.6-kWh battery pack is holding up, despite being at 125,000 miles."
COMMUNITY
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