13 Dec 2018 | First Look At New Superchargers, Rivian Is Building The Longest Lasting Batteries and BMW Investing €200m In EV Plant
France: Electric Car Sales Up 111% In November | Compact Audi Electric Car To Use VW MEB Platform | Electric Car Racing Gets Real | BMW Investing €200m In Munich Plant For Series Production Of i4 | First Look At New European Superchargers | Rivian Is Building The Longest Lasting Batteries | Tesla Is Going To Ship 3,000 Model 3’s Per Week In Europe | Study: Tesla Model X And Model S Continue To Hold Values Better Than Rivals
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Good morning, good afternoon and good evening wherever you are in the world, welcome to EV News Daily for Thursday 13th December 2018. It’s Martyn Lee here and I’ve been through EV story today so you don’t have to.
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 welcome to the Patreon gang ANDERS W HOVE, who says he was never one of the cool kids and didn’t make the first 100 Patreons. You’re in good company! And it’s Anders who brings us the first story today…
FRANCE: ELECTRIC CAR SALES UP 111% IN NOVEMBER
- Coming from Nora Manthey at electrive.com: "While the yellow vests may continue to protest in France, electric vehicle sales across the country are on the up, meaning the 2018 trend continues. Sales of all-electric cars have more than doubled in November, with French manufacturers leading the chase."
- In November there were 3,541 EV's sold in France, up 117% year on year. The Renault Zoe is the leader at just under 2,000 cars followed by the Nissan LEAF.
- "In total, Avere now counts 26,621 electric vehicles having been registered throughout 2018, an average annual increase by 20%"
- And that leads me our latest Patreon supporter Anders: "Just yesterday, I finished another roadtrip in France, where there are presently protests going on, the gilets jaunes, over diesel fuel taxes. I realize politics are controversial, and not the point of your show, but I haven't seen much coverage of the fact that the protesters are blocking fuel trucks from refuelling gas/petrol stations. Thus, during my visit, I had real range anxiety and return-the-car-without-a-full-tank-and-get-smacked-with-huge-charge anxiety. Of course, i did check to see if EVs were available at the airport where I rented. They weren't. And there are some city EV services in the area (Nice, FR), but it's nothing like as convenient for road-tripping from the airport. "
https://www.electrive.com/2018/12/11/france-electric-car-sales-up-111-in-november/
COMPACT AUDI ELECTRIC CAR TO USE VW MEB PLATFORM
- Torsten who listens to me via Spotify Podcasts in Sweden sent me this one today. Steven Loveday at InsideEVs.com had some news a couple of hours ago about VW's brand Audi using their MEB platform: "An Audi entry-level electric hatchback concept is about to be unveiled in a few months. While the all-new Audi e-tron SUV rides on the company’s new MLB platform and the upcoming e-tron GT is based on the same J1 architecture as the Porsche Taycan, this new electric hatch will share VW Group’s new MEB platform with cars like the VW I.D. hatch. It will have a potential range of over 370 miles."
https://insideevs.com/compact-audi-electric-car-vw-meb-platform/
ELECTRIC CAR RACING GETS REAL
- Each day this week I'm trying to bring you a story about Formula E which starts this weekend, Season 5 with the awesome new batman style cars. Sascha Pallenberg, one of my early podcast partners, has been keeping me up to date on Formula E.
- "Huge automakers like Porsche, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz are finally joining the electric-racing circuit. Audi ditched Le Mans a year ago to enter Formula E. Is this the beginning of the end of internal-combustion racing?" asks Popular Mechanics: "Car companies put hundreds of millions of dollars each year into motorsports to develop technologies that trickle down to the cars we drive on the street, technologies that let future family sedans use more fuel-efficient engines or let SUVs send less pollution out the tailpipe. Dollars always lead back to the company's main business of selling road vehicles. So, in an era when car companies are pledging to electrify their entire lineups in the 2020s, it shouldn't come as a surprise that those companies want to invest their racing dollars in electric tech. Rather than EVs and hybrids complementing the main business of selling combustion road cars, EVs are to become the main business."
BMW INVESTING €200M IN MUNICH PLANT FOR SERIES PRODUCTION OF I4
- "The BMW Group is investing around €200 million in its Munich plant in preparation for series production of the BMW i4 electric vehicle, which will be manufactured at the company’s headquarters starting in 2021." reports Green Car COngress: "The BMW Group is pursuing the strategy of producing fully electric vehicles together with plug-in hybrids and internal combustion engine models on the same production line in their plants, rather than building separate production structures for electric cars. In addition, the BMW i4 brings a considerable amount of effort to the logistics and material supply of the plant. Many components of the i4 differ from the components of conventional vehicles."
- Robert Engelhorn, head of the Munich plant, said: "A future-proof production system has the highest degree of flexibility in order to be able to react to fluctuations in volume and market developments that are not yet foreseeable today. Integrating an all-electric vehicle into an existing production system during production is a real Herculean task.”
https://www.greencarcongress.com/2018/12/20181211-bmw.html
FIRST LOOK OF THE EUROPEAN SUPERCHARGERS
- We got the first look today of the European superchargers which are being converted from one to two cables - one with a Type 2 plug and one with the CCS Combo plug.
- Both will plug into the top corner, with the CCS plug on top and the Type 2 underneath it,
- Check out @EVNewsDaily for pictures.
RIVIAN IS BUILDING THE LONGEST LASTING BATTERIES
- The Rivian R1T "adventure vehicle" made headlines and dropped jaws when it was revealed at the 2018 LA Auto Show last month. The company employs a team of more than two dozen battery and energy storage engineers to figure out how to pack as much power into those cells and release it as fast as possible." reports Engadget: "To that end, the design team focused on maximizing the battery's volumetric energy density. Each module consists of two layers of tightly packed, cylindrical cells separated by a dedicated "cold plate." These packs are individually wrapped in a non-metallic lightweight material and the cells within are bonded together using structural adhesives, "so that it's strong, but it's lightweight in the directions that we need it," Farquahr explained. The 105 and 135 kWh power plants each use nine modules, the 180 kWh utilizes a total of 12. This design has resulted in Rivian's batteries being able to hold 25 percent more energy per unit volume than its nearest competitor, the Tesla Model X.
https://live.engadget.com/2018/12/11/rivian-building-longest-lasting-batteries-ev/
TESLA IS GOING TO SHIP 3,000 MODEL 3’S PER WEEK IN EUROPE
- Fred Lambert at Electrek reports: "Tesla plans to be shipping around 3,000 Model 3 vehicles per week in Europe starting in February, according to the port handling company that is preparing to receive them in Belgium."
- "“The cars are shipped to Europe from the San Francisco plant in the US via the Zeebrugse site of International Car Operators. Electric cars are distributed across Europe from the coastal port. The new traffic is good for more than a hundred new jobs in the finishing center."
https://electrek.co/2018/12/12/tesla-imodel-3-volume-europe-port/
STUDY: TESLA MODEL X AND MODEL S CONTINUE TO HOLD VALUES BETTER THAN RIVALS
- "The Tesla Model S and Model X hold their resale value better than any of their gas-powered peers, according to an Autolist.com study.
- The Model S declined on average by 27 percent after accumulating 50,000 miles; the overall segment declined by an average of 36 percent after 50,000 miles.
- The Model X value declined by an average of 23 percent after 50,000 miles; the segment as a whole declined an average of 33 percent after 50,000 miles.
- Model S resale values have been stable since the previous Autolist study in August 2016 despite greater inventory."
https://www.autolist.com/news-and-analysis/tesla-model-x-model-s-depreciation
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