Rimac C_Two Sells Out, EV Parade In New York and New Tesla Maps Beta | 1 April 2018
Episode 74, Mar 31, 2018, 11:01 PM
Rimac C_Two Sells Out | Electric Car Parade For New York Auto Show | Tesla Back In Germany’s Good Books | Model X Autopilot Crash Update | Tesla Maps Now Being Rolled Out In Beta | Solid State In No State For Production Say Nissan
Sunday 1st April 2018.
RIMAC C_TWO SELLS OUT
- Well we first saw the second attempt Rimac have made at building an electric hypercar at the Geneva Motor Show, and now they’ve just about sold out, according to Autocar. The specs are eye-watering, probably literally, can you imagine how it would feel to floor it and get 0-60 in 1.85 seconds. And it goes to show the crazy advances in electric cars, that people are now getting more interested in the 0-100mph time rather than just 60. Who even wants to get to just 60! That all important 0-100 time is 4.3 seconds. Those figures undercut the new Tesla Roadster however the price certainly doesn’t
- And what if you keep your foot in? It will get you to 258mph! RImac already have the production facilities so the good news is it will start to be made soon, definitely in 2018, with delivery by 2020.
- And unlike the first Rimac, of which 10 were made including the one Richard Hammond used to celebrate bonfire night early, this time they’re making 150. And if you join the dots then yes, that means there are 150 people in the world who see the car revealed and say “sure, here’s my $2.1 million”!
- As for tech, and speed, you get 8 cameras, lidar, 6 radar sensors, 12 ultrasonic sensors and GPS. And you know we told you yesterday about the new Lincoln Aviator which unlocks and starts with your phone? Well that’s SO yesterday. Literally! The Rimac C_Two using facial recognition to unlock and start the car. So good luck stealing one. And if you can’t be bothered to drive one the best cars ever made, your $2.1m buys you Level 4 autonomous driving. Level 4 vehicles are "designed to perform all safety-critical driving functions and monitor roadway conditions for an entire trip." However, it's important to note that this is limited to the "operational design domain (ODD)" of the vehicle—meaning it does not cover every driving scenario.
- There is an electric motor at each wheel and some very clever technology to manage the power output of each for all-wheel drive safety. And the part which I still think is witchcraft – the front axle works on a single gear, but the rear motors have a two speed carbon-clutch gearbox.
ELECTRIC CAR PARADE FOR NEW YORK
- Now that those pesky journalists are out of the way, the New York Auto Show can open for real, and comedian Tracy Morgan and Nelson Piquet Jr will led a parade to officially open the show, in electric vehicles. A fully electric Formula E car led the fleet of EVs along 11th to the convention centre on New York’s West Side. It’s the first time an official Formula E car has driven on Manhatten’s roads.
- The parade also featured the Jaguar I-PACE plus a range of fully electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles including: Toyota Prius Prime, Chrysler Pacifica PEH, Nissan Leaf, Honda Clarity Plug-in, Volvo XC60 PHEV, MINI Countryman PHEV, Chevy Bolt EV, Kia Soul EV, and others.
TESLA BACK IN GERMANY
- In a week when Tesla couldn’t seemed to catch a break, from the stock price to recalling 123,000 Model S’s, some good news came through from Germany. Last year the country removed Tesla cars from the official list of models eligible for purchase incentives. This was because of an article which accused Tesla of not actually selling the base model car below the 60,000Euro price limit. Tesla successfully argued that they have in fact delivered plenty of base cars below that price, the whole situation if strange that they were banned for selling them with inventives for three months.
- So it makes you wonder, in the land of the diesel car which is behind Tesla making EVs, why a German article would print that when it’s not true, AND why the authorities would believe it. Obviously hard to know why, the land of the diesel car which is behind Tesla making EVs, it ever happened in the first place. Did I mentioned that already?
- Maybe it’s because the incentive scheme is partly funded by the German car industry. Ahhh. OK.
MODEL X AUTOPILOT CRASH
- However onto the sad subject of the Model X crash in California in which the driver was killed. We learned earlier this week that the metal crash barrier which is meant to be there before the concrete, and absorb any impact, was a lot shorter than it had been in earlier pictures.
- And according to the Telegraph: “Tesla said on Friday that a Tesla Model X involved a fatal crash in California last week had activated its Autopilot system, raising new questions about the semi-autonomous system that handles some driving tasks. The electric-car company also said vehicle logs from the accident showed no action had been taken by the driver soon before the crash and that he had received earlier warnings to put his hands on the wheel. The driver had about five seconds and 150 meters of unobstructed view of the concrete divider with the crushed crash attenuator, but the vehicle logs show that no action was taken," Tesla said. The statement did not say why the Autopilot system apparently did not detect the concrete
TESLA MAPS BEING ROLLED OUT
- And according to Electrek, the new Tesla navigation update is being slowly released around the world. The highlights I’ve picked out from their story: it now uses it’s own maps using open source data from MapBox and Valhalla; look out for software update 2018.12 for the beta of Tesla Maps; faster routing and more accurate estimated arrival times are promised.
- Musk said that with the old system, they were “stuck with legacy 3rd party black box code and stale data”. Now with the new system based on open source modules, they will be able to improve on it over time.
SOLID STATE IN NO STATE SAY NISSAN
- Magical batteries always seem to be on the horizon, despite incredible cars like Teslas running perfectly fine on established tech like 18650 cells, but despite that some people always think we’re one battery breakthrough away from what’s really needed to get EVs to catch on.
- But one of those isn’t Nissan, who are downplaying the potential of solid state batteries. Takao Asami, Nissan's senior vice president for research and advanced engineering, said he doesn't expect solid-state technology to be ready for serious deployment before the middle of the next decade. Among the obstacles are cost and manufacturing acumen, he said. "All solid-state batteries, roughly speaking, are still in the initial phase of research. So according to my feeling, it's practically a zero at this stage," Asami said at Nissan's world headquarters here south of Tokyo. Solid-state batteries would replace the liquid electrolyte used in lithium ion batteries with a solid substance that allows for improved energy density, weight, safety and charging time. "It's working in the lab," Asami conceded. "But if we make it bigger and put it in a vehicle, drive for several kilometers and ensure safety and cost performance, compared to a lithium ion battery, we don't have a comparable scenario yet. "We still need several breakthroughs."
- However Toyota think they’ll be ready in the early 2020s. Speaking on the subject in October, Toyota Executive Vice President Didier Leroy said, "We believe our solid-state battery technology can be a game changer with the potential to dramatically improve driving range."
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