Elon Musk Joins Volkswagen Management Conference | 17 Oct 2021

Show #1247

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Good morning, good afternoon and good evening wherever you are in the world, welcome to EV News Daily for Sunday 17th October. It’s Martyn Lee here and I go through every EV story so you don't have to.

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"Tesla (TSLA.O) boss Elon Musk has addressed 200 Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) executives via a video call after an invitation from the German carmaker's CEO Herbert Diess, who wants to galvanise VW's top brass for a faster pivot to electric vehicles." reports Reuters: "The comments on Thursday by Musk to a VW managers gathering in Alpbach, Austria, confirmed by Diess via Twitter on Saturday after a report in Handelsblatt daily, included praise of VW for being an "icon" and Tesla's greatest challenger, Handelsblatt said. The paper said that when asked by Diess why Tesla was more nimble than its rivals, Musk said it came down to his management style and that he is an engineer, first of all, and has an eye for supply chains, logistics and production."

Diess said on Linkedin: ""Happy to hear that even our strongest competitor thinks that we will succeed (in) the transition if we drive the transformation with full power"

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/teslas-musk-dials-into-volkswagen-executive-conference-2021-10-16/

"The boom times made Musk richer than Jeff Bezos in late September and pushed his net worth past $200 billion for the first time. He’s having fun with the competition. After telling Forbes he would send Bezos a silver medal upon his ascent to the top spot, he followed through on that promise on Monday by replying to one of Bezos’ tweets with a silver medal emoji." writes Forbes: "Although Musk widened the gap this week, Bezos still got $5.6 billion richer on Friday with Amazon stock rising 3.3%. Since stepping down as CEO of Amazon in July, Bezos has spent more time in the public eye promoting his commercial spaceflight company Blue Origin"

"Kia reports global car sales of 223,593 (down 14.1% year-over-year) in September, although the all-electric sales are booming. The company reports 2,654 Kia EV6 sales in South Korea, which is 7.4% of the total volume (35,801). We noted that an additional 90 units were delivered in Europe, which means 2,744 total for the month of September." reports InsideEVs: "An interesting thing is that the Kia's older electric models - the Soul EV and Niro EV - also do pretty well. The manufacturer reports 975 Soul EV and 7,451 Niro EV sold outside South Korea (we don't have number for Kia's home market), which is 8,426 total (up 27% year-over-year). 80% of that falls on Europe. It means that the BEV sales already exceeds 11,000 (or 5% of the total volume) in a single month."

As as for their sister company: "Hyundai reports a big 24% decrease of its global car sales (wholesale, on the manufacturer level) in September - to 279,307. Fortunately, the plug-in segment expands. The  ompany's sales of plug-in cars amounted to 16,400 (up 27% year-over-year), which is a record 5.9% share of the total volume." according to InsideEVs: "So far this year, Hyundai reports sales of over 110,000 plug-in car sales (up 35% year-over-year), which represents 3.8% of the total volume. The Hyundai Ioniq 5 continues its expansion at a rate of over 7,000 units a month (the 5-month average), followed by still quite good results for the Hyundai Kona Electric (over 4,100 in September)."

Read more: https://insideevs.com/news/541051/kia-ev6-sales-september-2021/

Read more: https://insideevs.com/news/540619/hyundai-plugin-car-sales-september2021

"Chinese electric carmakers are still lagging behind their foreign rivals in permanent magnet (PM) motor innovation despite the fact that China is the world’s dominant supplier of the rare earth metals required for making them, a top Chinese British scientist said in an interview." according to the South China Morning Post: "The comments suggest a key weakness in China’s industrial development as Beijing pushes to transform advantages in resources, market size and academic research into technological leadership. Zhu, a fellow at the Royal Academy of Engineering in the UK, is known for his work in electrical machines and permanent magnets, which won him the 2021 IEEE Nikola Tesla Award."

Read more: https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3152477/china-lags-important-electric-car-technology-despite-rare-earths

"Tesla may be an American company, but it looks like the USA as a market will not be leading EVs into the mainstream. At least, that is, according to Prabhakar Patil, who was CEO of LG Chem Power, Inc from 2010 to 2015, as well as spending five years working on Ford’s hybrid technologies. The former battery company head has estimated that 50% of cars sold in Europe could be EVs by as soon as 2025, when globally the figure will probably be more like 20%." says Forbes: "Many European countries are setting strict deadlines for the phasing out of sales of new fossil fuel cars and hybrids, such as the UK, as well as enforcing stringent emission standards for key cities. This is providing yet another incentive for residents to go electric. In the USA, in contrast, there is a struggle between the governing bodies of states that want similarly tough deadlines and incumbent economic interests. When Californian Governor Gavin Newsom announced there would be a ban on gasoline-powered cars by 2035, even the Environmental Protection Agency weighed in to say it could be illegal. There has been much discussion of how the magic $100 per kWh price boundary for batteries will enable battery-electric vehicles to become cheaper than internal combustion engine ones. Bloomberg NEF predicted 2027 as the likely year for the changeover."

That's an article by James Morris from Whichev.

Read more: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmorris/2021/10/16/europe-will-lead-electric-vehicle-revolution-not-usa-says-ex-lg-chem-ceo/

"Tesla’s most basic variant of the affordable Model 3 sedan is sold out nearly a year in advance. The Model 3 Standard Range+ is as basic as you can get with Tesla’s vehicles. It is the most affordable car available from Tesla, starting at $41,990. When ordering the sedan with its standard Aero wheels, orders are now advised that the soonest delivery dates are set for August 2022." reports Joey at Teslarati: "Tesla’s online Design Studio, the portion of the automaker’s website that allows potential owners to design their vehicles, now shows an estimated delivery for the Model 3 Standard Range+ with Aero wheels for August. Other more expensive car variations are available for delivery as soon as November, but the cheapest combination of the vehicle won’t be available until Q3 2022."

"Tesla is now selling insurance to customers in Texas, two years after first launching the offering in its now-former home state of California. But the version in Texas is different. The company says it will evaluate driving behavior in real-time using the “Safety Score” feature that it recently launched to screen drivers who want to join the beta test of the company’s “Full Self-Driving” beta software." according to The Verge: "That means drivers might wind up paying less — or more — per month based on how many forward collision warnings they rack up, how hard they brake, how “aggressively” they turn, how much distance they leave to the car in front, and whether they keep their hands on the wheel when using Autopilot. Tesla used some driving behavior metrics to develop premiums in California, but they were not real-time and relied more on statistical evaluations. The offering in Texas represents a big break from how other insurance companies arrive at their quoted premiums. Even ones that rely on data from telematics dongles plugged into a car still consider other factors like age."

"Despite the pandemic, the United States built more utility-scale solar power plants in 2020 than any other year, with Texas leading the way. All those new solar plants added up to 9.6 gigawatts of renewable energy added to the U.S. power grid, bringing the nation’s total solar capacity to 48 gigawatts. That’s enough to allow further retirements in the nation’s coal fleet, which had 223 gigawatts of capacity in 2020." says Grist.org: "Before 2017, California was putting up the lion’s share of solar projects. But in recent years Texas has become the leader. In 2020, the state installed enough solar panels to generate 2.5 gigawatts of electricity under full sun, while Florida and California each built 1.6 gigawatts of utility-scale solar. Fewer projects are going up in California because panels are flooding the grid with electricity when the sun is shining."

"BMW has just found a way to make its recyclable i3 EV batteries do good outside of the automotive industry: BMW batteries are going on tour with Coldplay. The Music Of The Spheres World Tour will be powered by 40 recyclable i3 batteries, which promises to drastically cut down on emissions, and will feature a kinetic dance floor that will recharge said batteries by the fans themselves. That rocks." says CarBuzz: "The 40 batteries going on tour will provide enough power to run live shows, and will be supported by solar installations, hydro-treated vegetable oil generators, power bikes, and coolest of all, a kinetic dance floor, which will turn Coldplay fans' moves into energy."

When buying a used electric car, how do you feel about servicing? Do you want the previous person to have been back to a dealer every year? Do you care? Some manufacturers like Tesla don’t even have a service schedule so how do you feel about buying a used EV and it’s service history, or lack of.

Email me your thoughts and I’ll read them out on Sunday – hello@evnewsdaily.com

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