14 August 2018 | New Electric Vehicle Awareness Ad, Elon Confirms Saudi Investment To Take Tesla Private and 475kW Chargers Unveiled

Flintstones-Jetsons Song Mashup Powers New Electric Vehicle Awareness Ad | Elon Blogs About Taking Tesla Private | Update On Bloomberg Model 3 Tracker | 475kW Chargers Unveiled By Tritium | Daimler To Add Even More Battery Production For Plug-In Cars | Chinese EV Sharing Platforms | BMW Group Sales Increase In July | 2020 Mini E Spy Photos Reveal Its Interior

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Well good morning, good afternoon and good evening, wherever you are in the world, hello and welcome to the Tuesday 14th August edition of EV News Daily. It’s Martyn Lee here with the news you need to know about electric cars and the move towards sustainable transport.

 

I want to say a heartfelt thank you to the 56 patrons of this podcast whose generosity means I get to produce this show for free, to thousands of listeners every day.

 

FLINTSTONES-JETSONS SONG MASHUP POWERS NEW ELECTRIC VEHICLE AWARENESS AD

• Keep an eye ono TV, Radio and Digital because there's a new ad coming your way to promote electric cars.
• "The Jetsons and Flintstones are getting back together again—or at least their theme songs are. The soundtracks of the two classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons are featured in a new ad seeking to raise awareness of electric vehicles." according to Ad Age: "The spot, by Deutsch, is part of the first national campaign by Electrify America, a wholly owned subsidiary of Volkswagen Group of America. The group, created in 2016, is overseeing a 10-year, $2 billion investment on zero emissions vehicle technology and awareness. The investment was mandated as part of the automaker's legal settlement with government regulators in the wake of VW's diesel scandal in which it admitted to installing devices on cars to cheat on emissions tests."
• "The first ad portrays an environmentally conscious man driving a gas-powered car. Cue the Flintstones music, which suggests he is behind the times. Then, as the Jetsons song comes on, his alter ego pulls up in an electric car, prompting jealousy from his backwards-thinking self. The spot ends by showing a range of currently available electric cars speeding down the highway."
• There's a new website to go with it as well, plugintothepresent.com
• "It includes a link to an external site in which people can search for government-backed incentives available to electric vehicle buyers, like tax credits. There is also a link to a map where people can search for their closest charging stations and another site where people can comparison shop among electric and gas-electric hybrid vehicles."
• The ad is brand agnostic, but those seen in the commercial are Chevrolet, Honda Clarity, Nissan LEAF, BMW i3, Hyundai IONIQ, and VWs e-GOlf. None of those brands paid to be in the ad.
• The voiceover says: ""With instant acceleration, electric cars are more fun to drive and more affordable than ever. Electric cars are here."
• Richard Steinberg, Electrify America's senior director of green cities, marketing and communications, told Reuters: "We're trying to say with this campaign that electric vehicles are fun to drive, the range is great and charging is more widely available than people know. Electric cars are not something of the future, they are here now and more accessible than many people know. The JetStones campaign is just the beginning of our work to educate and demonstrate that electric vehicles offer a full array of features that customers expect, and they are totally fun to drive."

 

http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/flintstones-jetsons-powers-electric-vehicle-awareness-ad/314567/

 

https://www.engadget.com/2018/08/13/volkswagen-ev-awareness-campaign/

 

 

ELON BLOGS ABOUT TAKING TESLA PRIVATE

• A new blog post from Elon Musk finally gives more detail about the plan to take Tesla private.
• Elon Musk confirms Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund is the source of funding, or the PIF (Public Investment Fund)
• It had approached him multiple times
• He last met with them in July and established the $420 price was good to go
• Fair to say this isn't a 'whim' as many critics and commentators thought
• He says it the deal would be done with equity and not debt
• He expect two thirds of the existing investments would follow the plan to be private, so nobody would have overall control, a reminder he own just over 20%.
• Some of the criticism I've seen over the last few hours is that the oil rich Saudis want to shut down not just Tesla's but all electric cars. However because Tesla are driving the movement at the moment, by buying them and shutting down Tesla, you kill off electric cars completely. If you read the details it's clear the PIF would only own around a third of the company. I wouldn’t' be surprised to see Elon's Silicon Valley friends to take a stake.
• No one party will have a controlling interest and no, nobody is shutting down Tesla
• Let me add more context, Apple bought Beats for $3bn...the PIF is obsessed with renewables...how is this different from (the much larger) Norwegian fund which have spent oil money on renewables and green tech. Saudi Arabia aren't investing in a car company, Tesla is the 21st Century ExxonMobil.
• If I can also add, Tesla is an American success story, the only real American automotive success story of recent times and yet so many people want them to fail.

 

UPDATE ON BLOOMBERG MODEL 3 TRACKER

• If this is new to you, Bloomberg set out to try and put a number on weekly Model 3 production by tracking registered VINs and also new owners of the cars can submit theirs. There's been shows to have a bit of a lag, and things like factory shutdown throw it out a buit, bit current numbers...
• 66,260 cars
• 5,824 / week
• Looks like they'll hit Elon's goal of 6,000 a week by end of August.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-tracker/

 

 

475KW CHARGERS UNVEILED BY IONITY

• I've told you before how the Australians are moving forward with charging technology despite small EV industry of their own.
• Tritium make the 350kW chargers for Europe's IONITY network
• Now they've unveiled another step up: "unique HPC system, a scalable, flexible system for commercial operators, capable of charging an electric vehicle up to 475 kW.”
• In the EV equivalent of chicken and egg, the chargers are coming before cars can use their speeds.
• Jeroen Jonker, General Manager of European Sales at Tritium: "With the announcement of the Road to Zero strategy, the UK is becoming increasingly important as one of our major markets, and we are in active discussion with several organisations in the automotive, utilities and fleet sectors about the deployments of both rapid chargers and high power chargers.”
• Can you imagine a world where Tesla include CCS Combo plug on their European Model 3's which can use the 2.0 protocol, which I'll remind you ups the current to 500amps from 200amps max on current CCS, even though it wouldn't be able to use the full speed, these chargers will likely be on main routes and corridors. Could it ease pressure on European Superchargers? If Model 3 could charge at 175kW you could probably get from almost empty to 50% in around 10 mins.

 

DAIMLER TO ADD EVEN MORE BATTERY PRODUCTION FOR PLUG-IN CARS

• Mark Kane for InsideEVs: "Daimler is expected to produce battery packs for plug-in electric cars at even more sites than previously announced."
• "The investment will be “part of a 1.5 billion euro ($1.75 billion) transformation plan to retool Mercedes-Benz plants to build zero-emission and autonomous vehicles”. Sindelfingen, where Mercedes-Benz S-Class model is currently made, will focus on large autonomous and electric cars. The Untertuerkheim plant to be transformed into high tech location for electric car components (like electric motors for Mercedes-Benz EQ)."

 

https://insideevs.com/daimler-to-add-more-battery-production/

 

CHINESE EV SHARING PLATFORMS

• "Two electric vehicle-sharing platforms backed by powerful Chinese carmakers plan to seek external funding totaling almost $730 million to fuel their growth, people with direct knowledge of the plans said" according to a Reuters report. The first: "Chauffeur ride-hailing platform backed by Zhejiang Geely Holding Group [GEELY.UL], is aiming raise up to 3 billion yuan ($437 million) in a new funding round, at a valuation of about $3 billion, three people said. EvCard, an electric vehicle rental service under state-owned SAIC Motor Corp, is also considering raising some 2 billion yuan ($292 million) from external investors, according to a person with direct knowledge."

 

BMW GROUP SALES INCREASE IN JULY

• Worldwide sales of BMW Group vehicles continue to grow, with more vehicles delivered to customers last month than in any previous July. A total of 181,051 (+0.2%) BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce vehicles were sold in the month, bringing year-to-date sales up to 1,423,565
• Pieter Nota, Member of the Board of Management of BMW AG responsible for Sales and Brand BMW: "The continuing, growing demand for our electrified vehicles is also very pleasing, with deliveries of BMW i, BMW iPerformance and MINI Electric vehicles up by over 40% in the year to date”.
• In the first seven months of the year, deliveries of BMW Group electrified vehicles totalled 71,310 vehicles worldwide, an increase of 40.6% on the same period last year. July sales of BMW i, BMW iPerformance and MINI Electric vehicles totalled 10,649. Several other major markets also achieved significant growth in year-to-date electrified sales, including the USA (13,874 / +39.5%) and the UK (9,923 / +34.3%).

 

https://www.press.bmwgroup.com/global/article/detail/T0283909EN/bmw-group-sales-increase-in-july

 

2020 MINI E SPY PHOTOS REVEAL ITS INTERIOR

• AutoBlog has more spy shots of the Mini E testing
• The last spy shots had a couple of interior shots with a variety of laptops and tablets, most likely for system monitoring and diagnostics.
• "The 2020 Mini E electric hatchback has been spied once again. It doesn't reveal much on the outside, in fact it actually shows less than the last time, since this one doesn't have the groovy concept-inspired wheels. But our spy photographer managed to get a good shot of the interior, which reveals some neat details" reports Joel Stocksdale for AutoBLog: "Chief among the interior's changes is the instrument panel on the steering column. While current gasoline-powered Minis have a typical needle-and-dial set of gauges on the column, those have been replaced by a thin screen. In an effort to keep it from looking too out of place, it has semi-circle ends and a chrome ring around the screen. Odds are that the actual screen will likely be in the middle, and additional warning and indicator lights will fill up the circular ends."

 

 

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Alan Northcutt on Facebook..." i admit i am new to the show—but i love it. today you talked about competition for the tesla 3 —with NO mention of the BOLT!!!   its a serious oversight in my opinion. i have driven the bolt for 1.5 yrs & LOVE it:  i get up to 250mi / charge,  cost low $40k US for the premium, great safety tech, very roomy.  I bought it because I did not want to wait for the Tesla. In my opinion the only real disadvantage: the Tesla has a larger charging network.  I am pretty sure you did not mention the bolt today.   I believe it deserves more time.    respectfully, alan from waco, texas."

 

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