02 May 2022 | Rental Firms Keep Adding EVs To Fleets

May 02, 2022, 11:05 AM

On the podcast today:
• 2023 Mercedes-Benz EQE SUV spy shots: Mid-size electric SUV spied
• Biden Administration Begins $3 Billion Plan for Electric Car Batteries
• Stellantis plans $2.8 billion EV overhaul of Canadian factories
• 1.45 million Electrify America Charging Sessions in 2021
• Toyota Really Wasted Its Share Of EV Tax Credits
• CATL remains world’s largest EV battery maker in Q1 2022
• China’s EV buyers may receive cash subsidies from local governments
• Rental firms are adding EVs. Here's how that may aid consumer adoption
• Norway Has A Whopping 13 kWh Of EV Battery Storage Per Household
• Tesla Shanghai Resumes 80% Production at Giga Factory

Show #1453

Good morning, good afternoon and good evening wherever you are in the world, welcome to EV News Daily, you trusted source of EV information. It’s Monday 2nd May, it’s Martyn Lee here and I go through every EV story so you don't have to.

2023 MERCEDES-BENZ EQE SUV SPY SHOTS: MID-SIZE ELECTRIC SUV SPIED

- Mercedes-Benz's EQE SUV mid-size electric SUV has been spied again, and this time we have video.

- It's one of a handful of vehicles designed around the dedicated electric vehicle platform known as EVA, which debuted in the 2022 EQS full-size hatchback.

- It will be built at Mercedes' plant in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where the EQS SUV is already in production.

- The rear doors and trunk section don't stretch as long here, compared to the EQS SUV. The front overhang of the EQE SUV is also shorter, and its hood positioned not quite as high.

- Expect the EQE SUV at launch to have a similar powertrain setup to the EQE sedan. This means the standard setup should feature a 90-kilowatt-hour battery and a single motor at the rear delivering 288 hp and 391 lb-ft of torque. A more powerful setup with a motor also at the front axle for all-wheel drive should also be on offer, and you can count on all-wheel steering making the cut, possibly as a standard feature in the U.S.


BIDEN ADMINISTRATION BEGINS $3 BILLION PLAN FOR ELECTRIC CAR BATTERIES

- The Biden administration plans to begin a $3.1 billion effort on Monday to spur the domestic production of advanced batteries, which are essential to its plan to speed the adoption of electric vehicles and renewable energy.

- Currently, lithium, cobalt and other minerals needed for electric car batteries and energy storage are processed primarily in Asia. China alone controls nearly 80 percent of the world’s processing and refining of those critical minerals.

- Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, a crucial vote for potential climate legislation in the evenly divided Senate, said last month that he had “grave concerns about moving toward an E.V.-only future” because China controls the minerals needed for car batteries.

- The funding is aimed at companies that can create new, retrofitted or expanded processing facilities as well as battery recycling programs, officials with the Department of Energy said. The grants will be funded through the $1 trillion infrastructure law, which includes more than $7 billion to improve the domestic battery supply chain.

- In April, President Biden invoked the Defense Production Act to give the government more avenues to provide support for the mining, processing and recycling of critical materials, such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite and manganese.

- Between electric vehicles and grid storage, the market for lithium-ion batteries in the United States is expected to increase by a factor of 20 to 30 in the next decade but a secure domestic supply chain is needed


STELLANTIS PLANS $2.8 BILLION EV OVERHAUL OF CANADIAN FACTORIES

- Stellantis will invest about $2.8 billion to overhaul two Canadian factories to build fully electric and hybrid vehicles, the company said on Monday, as part of its $35 billion global commitment to electrification and related initiatives

- The revamp will allow the automaker to build such versions of several of its upcoming models using new “multi-energy” architectures. The company also will add a battery lab to its existing research and development facility in Windsor, Ontario, creating 650 new jobs.

- Retooling of the company’s Windsor assembly plant is expected to begin in 2023

- Stellantis didn’t say which models the revamped factories will be building

- Stellantis and Korean battery giant LG Energy Solution announced in March that they will together spend $4.1 billion to build a major EV battery factory in Windsor. That investment is expected to create 2,500 new jobs, the companies said at the time.


1.45 MILLION ELECTRIFY AMERICA CHARGING SESSIONS IN 2021

- Electrify America provided 1.45 million customer electric vehicle (EV) charging sessions in 2021 which highlights the rapid deployment of it charging stations across the United States.  By comparison, the company recorded 268,000 customer EV charging session in 2020.

- Electrify America estimates that EV drivers avoided the use of 5.7 million gallons of gas while travelling more than 145 million electric vehicle miles. The company dispensed 41.4 gigawatt-hours of energy to power customer's electric vehicles in 2021.

- Electrify America has 800 EV charging stations and about 3,500 individual chargers open or with construction completed. The largest, open ultra-fast DC charging network features up to 150 kilowatts (kW) and 350 kW chargers, some of the fastest speeds available today.

- Electrify America expects to have more than 1,800 total charging stations with over 10,000 chargers in the United States and Canada by 2026.


TOYOTA REALLY WASTED ITS SHARE OF EV TAX CREDITS

- Toyota, which was a pioneer in America with the hybrid Prius before later not bothering much with all-electric cars due to an unseemly obsession with fuel-cell tech, is just about through with cars that are eligible for the federal tax credit. All for a bunch of boring plug-in hybrids.

- Bloomberg says that Toyota has sold nearly 200,000, the threshold for which afterward the federal tax credits will phase out, which is what has already happened to Tesla and GM.

- Demand for Toyota’s plug-in hybrid vehicles has steadily grown, especially as gasoline prices have surged past $4 a gallon, pushing up its cumulative sales of eligible vehicles to 183,000 as of the end of 2021, according to an analysis by BloombergNEF. The company reported sales of another 8,421 plug-in hybrid and electric cars in the first quarter.

- “We’re planning for it, because Tesla’s out, and General Motors is out, and we’ll be out probably in the second quarter,” Bob Carter, Toyota Motor North America’s executive vice president of sales, said in a recent interview. “When you’re out, you enter a step-down phase down, so we’re planning for that.”

- Bloomberg says that Nissan is about 34,000 Leafs away from crossing the threshold, while Ford is around 43,000 EVs away, though it seems likely that Ford will get there quicker than Nissan, given all the new EVs Ford is making.


CATL REMAINS WORLD’S LARGEST EV BATTERY MAKER IN Q1 2022

- In the first quarter of 2022, the global shipment of batteries reached 95,1 GWh, which corresponds to a 93,3 percent increase year-on-year, according to a report released by Seoul-based SNE Research.

1.       CATL: 33,3 GWh (35 %)
2.       LG Energy Solution: 15,1 GWh (15,9 %)
3.       BYD: 10,5 GWh (11,9 %)
4.       Panasonic: 9,4 GWh (9,9 %)
5.       SK On: 6,3 GWh (6,6 %)

- Chinese battery makers have been riding the LFP (LiFePO4) wave to gain market share, while Japanese and Korean makers still don’t mass produce cobalt-free EV batteries. However, the Korean companies – LG and SK – are already developing LFP battery cells and could soon announce their mass production…

- Panasonic is still suffering for relying on producing almost exclusively cylindrical cells for a sole customer (Tesla) for such long time.

- CATL is determined to stay on the top and will start mass producing sodium-ion batteries in 2023.


CHINA’S EV BUYERS MAY RECEIVE CASH SUBSIDIES FROM LOCAL GOVERNMENTS

RENTAL FIRMS ARE ADDING EVS. HERE'S HOW THAT MAY AID CONSUMER ADOPTION

NORWAY HAS A WHOPPING 13 KWH OF EV BATTERY STORAGE PER HOUSEHOLD

TESLA SHANGHAI RESUMES 80% PRODUCTION AT GIGA FACTORY


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