Ford’s First EV Based On VW Platform Will Be SUV | 05 June 2021

Show #1104.

 

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Good morning, good afternoon and good evening wherever you are in the world, welcome to EV News Daily for Saturday 5th June. It’s Martyn Lee here and I go through every EV story 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.

 

"Niche electric-vehicle company Lunaz announced on Thursday soccer star David Beckham has purchased a stake in its business. The privately owned British auto maker, which coverts petrol-powered vintage Range Rovers, Bentleys, Rolls-Royces and Jaguars into clean-energy autos, said the former Manchester United striker had taken 10% equity. The company didn’t say how much Beckham paid for the stake." says MarketWatch: "The company is based in Silverstone, home to Britain’s Formula One circuit and an automotive technology hub. Lunaz started production of its first cars in 2019 and markets itself as upcycling existing passenger, industrial and commercial vehicles to offer a sustainable alternative to replacing with new."

 

 

"Several markets have opened up the online configurator for the new 2022 BMW i4. BMW USA, BMW UK and BMW Canada are just some of them, so you can head over to see some of the i4 configurations, packages and options." says BMWBlog: "The Canadian BMW website does not have the “Reserve Now” feature yet, but its UK counterpart does. The right-hand drive i4 models start at 51,905 GBP for the eDrive40 and the i4 M50 costs £63,905. Sport and M Sport models offered are offered at launch time for the UK market. BMW USA has also opened the ordering bank for the 2022 BMW i4. A $1,500 fully refundable deposit is required and deliveries are expected to be by June 30, 2022. If you buy the car outright rather than leasing, then you may quality for a $7,500 federal rebate since BMW has not hit the 200,000 limit of electric vehicles sold in the United States."

 

 

"Thanks to its two electric motors (one at each axle), the i4 M50 makes a peak of 536 hp and 586 lb-ft of torque. The i4 eDrive40, for comparison, makes do with 335 horses and 317 lb-ft of torque. BMW claims the i4 M50 sprints to 60 mph in less than 4.0 seconds. For reference, a 2021 BMW M3 Competition ran to 60 mph in 3.5 seconds in our hands." says Motortrend: "BMW also fiddled with the i4 M50's suspension components to ensure the electric sedan's handling can cash the check its M badge writes. The battery pack, as in many electric vehicles these days, is a stressed member of the chassis, which affords the i4 stiff underpinnings that ought to benefit handling."

 

 

"Making tires for an electric vehicle is a ruthless exercise in compromise. Too much stick and the car won’t travel as far on a charge; too little, it will silently slide off the road. Exacerbating the equation is the fact that these vehicles are ponderously heavy." says Bloomberg Green, in a not-so-complimentary description:" Michelin, however, says it has finally perfected the mix after 30 years of tinkering with its rubber recipes. If EV ranges tick slightly higher in the next few months, the battery chemists won’t deserve all the praise; save some for the tire wizards."

 

Michelin told them: "In March, we unveiled the e.PRIMACY, which will come later this year for larger SUVs in the U.S. That tire is bringing up to 7% additional range to electric vehicles, because it is optimized to reduce the road resistance without compromising any of the performance. That’s a technology we mastered and we’re just rolling it out. The second example is on the Pilot Sport, which we just released. It’s a dedicated tire for electric sports cars and it brings up to 37 miles of additional range, because of that optimization of running resistance."

 

 

"Kia's Niro EV may not grab many headlines, especially with the announcement of its flashier cousin, the EV6, but the 2021 model has finally made its debut. While it's primarily a carryover from the 2020 model year, a few changes have been made, which Kia outlined in an announcement on Friday." says CNET: "The feature changes for the Niro EV aren't massive, but they do represent some real quality-of-life improvements. We're big fans of the move to wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, as well as the inclusion of a rear seat occupant alert. In addition, remote starting becomes standard which means that you're now able to preheat or cool the Niro's cabin. , it does add features like highway driving assist, leading vehicle departure warning and navigation-based smart cruise control, so it's worth getting."

 

 

"Tesla has lost another top manager from the automaker's new European plant under construction near Berlin, according to a report in Automobilwoche, a sister publication of Automotive News Europe. Marcel Jost, head of general assembly, left the automaker last month while Tesla CEO Elon Musk was visiting Germany, Automobilwoche said. " according to Automotive News: " He became Tesla's senior quality manager in Germany in March 2020. Jost's departure follows that of Evan Horetsky, project manager of the plant in Gruenheide near Berlin. Horetsky left Tesla in October 2020. Horetsky has since joined Swedish hypercar manufacturer Koenigsgg. Another top Daimler executive, Rene Reif, was due to replace Horetsky, but never took the post"

 

 

"Sweden saw plugin electric vehicle market share reach 39.1% in May 2021, up from 21.5% in May 2020. With policy changes still in flux, we can expect even stronger growth in the second half of the year. " says Max at CleanTechnica: "The best selling full electric in May was the Volkswagen ID.4. Overall auto sales were still recovering, down 24% from seasonal norms. May’s cumulative plugin result of 39.1% comprised plugin hybrids (PHEVs) at 22.8% and full battery electrics (BEVs) at 16.2%. Since starting delivery in decent volumes in April, the Volkswagen ID.4 has quickly climbed to the top of the year-to-date best selling BEV rankings. It looks set to totally dominate the charts for the rest of the year, although its siblings the Skoda Enyaq, and later the Audi Q4 e-tron, may pull some interest away."

 

Meanwhile in the UK: Battery electric vehicle (BEV) market share declined from 12.0% a year ago to 8.4% in the past month, although the May 2020 performance was distorted by lockdowns when new cars could only be purchased through click and collect or delivery, giving rise to variable purchasing patterns. Looking more broadly across 2021, plug-in vehicles now comprise 13.8% of new car registrations, up from 7.2% a year earlier, with the most rapid growth seen in plug-in hybrid (PHEV) derivatives."

 

And finally, Norway from the perspective of electrive: "In Norway, 8,498 new electric cars were registered in May. The share of electric cars in new passenger car registrations was 60.4 per cent last month. Norway’s most successful model across all drive types in May was the Ford Mustang Mach-E with 1,384 new registrations. BEVs and PHEVs are added together, the market share in May was an impressive 83.3 per cent "

 

 

 

"Ford will build its own electric vehicle on Volkswagen’s MEB platform, the one used to underpin EVs from VW, SEAT, Skoda and Audi. However, the Blue Oval has no plans to make the vehicle in any way resemble models from the aforementioned brands - it wants to infuse it with American design, to drive the point home that it’s a Ford." according to InsideEVs: "The model will slip below the Mustang Mach-E in Ford’s EV lineup and it’s expected to be unveiled sometime next year; it will most likely go on sale in 2023. Ford plans to build it at one of its historic European plants, in Cologne, where it also assembles the Fiesta (until it is phased out in 2025)."

 

 

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