Highlights from this week include: Extreme Racing; I’ll Believe It When I See It; Everyone’s going EV, including Lambo; Toyota and Oz committed to sucking on tailpipes – BMW and just about everyone else, disagrees; Lightning strikes twice; An eBus in Munich drives 24hrs without recharging; a street car that’ll do 0-60 mph in a mind-boggling 1.1 seconds; A Tribute
Hyundai
Will Build Electric Cars In The United States In 2022
The automaker announced May 13th that it will build electric cars as part of a $7.4 billion investment. In a press release, the automaker said it will offer “a suite of American-made electric vehicles,” but hasn’t finalized any details yet. The investment plan also calls for expansion of U.S. hydrogen infrastructure, as well as a demonstration project for fuel-cell commercial trucks scheduled to start later this year. Hyundai plans to have at least 10 electrified cars in its U.S. line-up by next year – including hybrids and plug-in hybrids, alongside all-electric cars. Its new line of EVs starts with the Ioniq 5, which made/makes its U.S. debut on May 24, and they’ve confirmed an Ioniq 6 sedan will arrive sometime in 2022 followed by an Ioniq 7 SUV in 2024.
File This Under: I’ll Believe It When I See It…
Electric vehicle start-up Fisker and iPhone maker Foxconn, announced on May 13th that they’ve signed “framework agreements” to build a mass-market electric vehicle in the U.S. starting at less than $30,000 before incentives. The yet-unnamed model would ramp up production in the fourth quarter of 2023, and would be offered in North America, Europe, China, and India – with projected production volumes of more than 250,000 per year from multiple locations. Based on the picture, it looks like a winner!!!
Already in the works is the $37,499 Fisker Ocean electric SUV (pictured below) and it’s due sometime toward the end of 2022, and will be built by Magna in Austria.
Fully Electric Bus Breaks The 550 Kilometre Barrier
MAN Lion’s City E impressively demonstrated that e-mobility is now capable of day-to-day operation – and is a genuine alternative for local public transport. Spending 24 hours in service, no intermediate charging and a 550.8 kilometre range – all carried out in Munich, under real-world conditions. Lot more info HERE
Toyota
Thinks 85% Of Its New U.S. Vehicles Will Have Tailpipes In 2030
In the U.S., Toyota says that electrified vehicles will make up 70% of sales by 2030 – the majority of which will be hybrids. Battery electric models and fuel-cell vehicles combined, will make up 15% of U.S. sales by 2030. So even by 2030, Toyota sees 85% of its models with an internal combustion engine under the hood – and that 30% of its U.S. line-up won’t have any form of electrification! Clearly, Toyota are delusional that EV’s are not going to replace ICE vehicles until after 2030 – if at all, even if they continue to push hydrogen fuel as an option. Ford, VW and GM are already all-in with committing to electric, and once price-parity hits (sometime around 2025), Toyota will be as relevant as the Model T.
Australia Fully Commits To Anti-EV Sales
Following Toyota’s lead…Australia’s struggling fuel refineries will be propped up by the Morrison government in a multi-billion dollar handout that will see Australia hooked on petrol vehicles, while the federal government continues to snub the fledgling electric vehicle industry. The government will provide more than $2.3 billion in subsidies to Australian-based oil refineries through a new Fuel Security Service Payment that will top up the revenues they receive when fuel prices drop below a certain threshold. More HERE
Meanwhile, over at…
BMW
The BMW Group Expects At Least 50% Of Its Global Sales To Consist Of Fully Electric Vehicles – By 2030
CEO Oliver Zipse said at the AGM, that about half of today’s drive variants will no longer exist by 2025. More details from the recent AGM and a look into the future of BMW HERE
And Ford….
On Wednesday, Ford has announced that it will boost its electric vehicle investment to $30 billion by the end of 2025 – up from its previous figure of $22 billion and is anticipating at least 40% of its vehicle production lines to be manufacturing electric cars by the end of the decade.
Lamborghini
Is The Latest Supercar Maker To Pivot From Screaming V-12 Engines To Electric
The brand will spend €1.5 billion ($1.8 billion) to develop the new fleet that, starting in 2025, will halve emissions across the product line by electrifying its supercars. From Aventador to Urus, each model will be offered as a plug-in hybrid by 2024 and an EV is on the way by the end of this decade. More information HERE
More On Lamborghini’s Transition To Electrification
Lamborghini will complete the process in three phases: a celebration of the combustion engine from 2021 to 2022 (two new V12 models later this year), a Hybrid transition that will have the company launch its first hybrid series production car in 2023 with the rest of the fleet being fully electric by the end of 2024, and finally, the first fully electric Lamborghini to be released in the second half of the decade. More HERE
Ford
2023 Ford F-150 Lightning Launch – The Gauntlet Has Been Tossed Down
The official launch of the 2023 Ford F-150 Lightning happened Wednesday evening and there were some shocking numbers thrown about – starting with the starting price: – $39,974 U.S., before any credits!!!
Reservations surpassed 20k in first 12 hours, 70k in a week! For more details and pictures of the launch, click HERE
In the past Ford tended to keep their Canadian products very similarly priced in Canadian dollars, but not so much with the Lightning.
The XLT starts at $68,000 Cdn (south of the border it’s $52,974) OUCH!
The commercial version ($39,974) in the U.S is a whopping $58,000 in Canada.
But wait… there more.
Read this excellent article from David Booth about what we know – and, more importantly, what we don’t – about Ford’s F-150 Lightning. Motor Mouth: What Ford Is Not Telling You About Its New All-Electric F-150
Ford Gets Into Battery Manufacturing In The U.S. With SK Innovation
A couple of years ago Ford stated that it didn’t see much value in getting into battery cell production – just leave it to someone else. But if you want to produce electric vehicles in volume, you need to secure a lot of battery cells, and since the automaker is now fully invested in the electric transition, logically they’ve decided to get into battery manufacturing by committing to building 2 factories in the U.S. to produce 60 GWh of batteries as part of a joint venture with Korea’s SK Innovation.
Ford predicts it’s going to need about 240 GWh of battery cell annually by 2030, and this new partnership is going to help them get there. The venture will be called BlueOvalSK, a reference to Ford’s distinctive corporate logo and SK’s name. Ford says the partnership is going to start producing cells starting “mid-decade.”
Tesla
When first unveiling the vehicle, Tesla claimed a list of insanely impressive specs for the new Roadster, including 0-60 mph in 1.9 sec, 620 miles (998 kms) of range, however, the Musk quickly added that the insane specs announced in 2017 for the new electric hyper-cars are only “the base specs.” This week CEO Elon Musk confirmed that Tesla is updating the new Roadster design, and it looks like it’s going to achieve a 0-60 mph acceleration in a mind-boggling 1.1 seconds with the “SpaceX package.” Tesla plans for the engineering of the new Tesla Roadster to be completed this year, in order to enter production in 2022.
More…
Ford plans to sell 1.5 million electric vehicles in 2030.
Tesla plans to sell 1.5 million electric vehicles in 2022, and 20 million in 2030.
In Ho-Hum News…
The Redesigned Toyota Tundra Will Arrive For The 2022 Model Year
2022 Tundra
The Japanese automaker released a teaser image of the redesigned Tundra, and confirmed the full-size pickup truck’s arrival for the 2022 model year. The big question is: Can it possibly get any uglier than the present version? Based on everything Toyota are “designing” these days, they’re going to have a hard job making the new truck any more disjointed looking.
Racing News…
Extreme E
The championship cars are a one design fleet, a fully electric SUV, named ODYSSEY 21. In order to withstand the harsh conditions it will face, the car’s peak 550 hp (400kw) output is capable of firing the 1,780 kilogram e-SUV from 0-100 km/h in 4.5 seconds, at gradients of up to 130 per cent. For more details on the car click HERE
Each Extreme E team taking on Season 1 will field one of the championship’s cutting-edge ODYSSEY 21 E-SUVs across the epic five-race season and each team will have a male and female driver.
Team owners include: seven-time Formula 1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton, Chip Ganassi, 2016 Formula 1 World Champion Nico Rosberg, Formula One World Champion Jenson Button, German tuning and motorsport company ABT and Andretti Autosport/United Autosports.
Extreme E’s inaugural X Prix – the Desert X Prix, came to a close at the beginning of April, and the global impact of the event has now been assessed with the broadcast bringing in a cumulative worldwide audience of 18.7 million, highlighting the appetite for this new sport for purpose.
Ali Russell, Chief Marketing Officer at Extreme E said: “As a sport without spectators on site, these figures are fantastic as they show our broadcast only model really does work to engage people on so many levels, whether that be through broadcast, social or press. We are looking forward to building on these statistics as we continue through Season 1 and bringing the messages of our series around environment, electrification and equality to as many people as possible.”
The series is now fully focussed on delivering its second event at Lac Rose in Dakar, Senegal which takes place May 29-30. The action will be available in over 180 countries through more than 60 broadcasters including FoxSports in the USA and Asia, ITV, BBC, Sky Sports and BT Sport in the UK and Eurosport in Europe. For Qualification and Race times around the world, as well as the channels broadcasting it click HERE
In Canada it’s on FoxSports Racing, XE Website & Social – @ExtremeELive
Here’s a link to their YouTube channel – https://bit.ly/3u0fZ3b
Refuelling In An Electric World
Still think a gas station is more convenient than finding a charge point for an EV? Read this article and hopefully it’ll change your perspective – Fueling in an Electric World: Why It’s Time to Rethink the Gas Station Model
And Finally…
We pay tribute and remember the Road-Test back seat driver – Diego – (2008-2021). Gone, but never forgotten :- (
That’s A Wrap! For this week. Until next time…
Copyright © 2021 by Iain Shankland. All rights reserved.
Text: Iain Shankland / Images: Respective Manufacturers / Outlets
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