Running discussion on SP, page-56507

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Billions of dollars in infrastructure bill for charging could supercharge electric vehicle adoption

Billions of dollars earmarked for electric-vehicle charging in the $1 trillion infrastructure bill is expected to boost passenger and commercial EV adoption, bringing public charging stations to underserved areas and making range anxiety a thing of the past.

The goal is to make EVs “convenient enough for consumers to consider them,” said Kristin Dziczek, vice president of research at the Center for Automotive Research in Michigan.

The recently approved bill, which President Joe Biden is slated to sign into law on Monday, set aside some $7.5 billion for EV charging and related programs.

The target is to have 500,000 public stations by 2030.

Related: Rivian Automotive stock soars in trading debut, in the largest IPO of the year

According to the Department of Energy, the U.S. is about 20% of the way there, with 100,759 public EV charging ports available as of the first quarter.

That includes 17,558 public and workplace fast chargers, or those able to juice an EV battery to 80% in 20 to 30 minutes, which would be the ones most wanted along highways.

To meet the administration’s target, about 11,407 public EV ports will need to be installed each quarter for the next nine years, the DOE said.

It’s not exactly clear where and how the money will be spent, and some of it relies on electric-grid improvements and EV incentives that are in Biden’s Build Back Better bill.

“Ultimately there will be winners and losers in the transition and all powers and locations of charging will compete,” said Corey Cantor, an analyst at BloombergNEF.

See also: Chasing Tesla: Here are the current electric vehicle plans of every major car maker

“Range anxiety has been one of the biggest EV hurdles for consumers,” Cantor said.

Charging in public areas is another aspect of broadening the appeal of EVs, which so far are a premium market although costs are coming down over time.

“More focus in charging is a big shift.”

Read more: Electric pickup trucks are coming to market.

Most EV owners may still charge at home, but having a robust charger network will make them feel more confident.

The bill may also spread the chargers’ locations more evenly, and to less populated areas that currently have fewer stations.

It is very likely that the footprint for public charging will follow the pattern of gas stations, such as locations off a freeway exit or by interstate rest stops and service plazas, CAR’s Dziczek said.

General Motors Co. announced in late October a plan to install up to 40,000 Level 2 EV chargers across the U.S. and Canada, working with its dealers and including areas where EV charging is still limited.

The company estimated that nearly 90% of the U.S. population lives within 10 miles of a GM dealership.

EV sales are growing, albeit from a low share of the auto market.

An electric car is about $10,000 more expensive than a comparable internal combustion engine vehicle, but more models and body types are coming to the market, leading to increased demand for charging.

Most estimates call for battery and plug-in hybrid EVs being between 30% and 50% of the U.S. fleet by 2030.

EV charging is still an emerging business model, and no one yet knows which one is going to be the most successful.

That’s part of the significance of the $7.5 billion earmarked for EV charging, said Stan Caldwell, executive director of Traffic21 Institute and Mobility21 at Carnegie Mellon University.

“This can start to fill the gaps where the market is not going to come quickly,” he said. And not just in terms of urban, where market forces have concentrated the stations, vs. suburban and rural areas, he said.

There are access equity issues at play as well, around EV owners who may not have access to private charging, Caldwell said.

“This is where the money (in the bill) can be strategically placed … Technology is not the biggest hurdle, the business model is,” he said.

Research has also found variations in range and battery performance in extreme weather and terrain, so that could guide some of the fast-charging and charging placement, he said.

For example, you could have more charging stations on the side of a highway going up a mountain range, Caldwell said.

“We are still in the early-adopter phase” for EVs, he said.

There’s not an equitable distribution of charging stations.

But the industry continues to outperform projections, both from a technology point of view and from the number of EV offerings already available or coming to the market, he said.

Auto makers have made commitments and investments to EVs that show that’s where they see the market going, Caldwell said.

“It’s a reaffirmation that they see the future being around EVs.”

www.marketwatch.com


Elon Musk says this is what it will take for Rivian to make it in the EV business

“I hope they’re able to achieve high production & break-even cash flow.

That is the true test.”

That was Tesla’s chief executive officer Elon Musk, responding to a comment on Twitter late Thursday over Rivian Automotive, which became the second-most valuable U.S. auto maker this week (No. 1 being Tesla, of course), after a blockbuster stock debut.

Rivian, backed by Amazon.com, Ford Motor and T. Rowe Price funds, is hoping to dominate in the area of all-electric pickup trucks and SUVs.

The company raised $11.9 billion in its initial public offering and shares rose another 17% on Thursday to $122.99 a share, after a 29% jump on its first day of trading Wednesday.

Musk was responding to an observation from Twitter user @samtwits who had this to say:

“When $TSLA IPOed at a value of $1.7 billion they had been selling Roadster for 2 years & had stunned the world with Model S reveal the year before.

No criticism of Rivian, but 24 hours into IPO MC is $100B with zero revenue.

A sign of the times @elonmusk?”

In addition to his comment about high production, and cash flow, Musk added this:

“There have been hundreds of automotive startups, both electric & combustion, but Tesla is the only American car maker to reach high volume production & positive cash flow in past 100 years.”

Rivian has yet to make any money and the company has said it doesn’t expect to turn a profit in the “foreseeable future” as it keeps pouring money into its business. That didn’t stop investors from piling into the IPO this week.

Tesla’s market capitalization recently topped $1 trillion, lifted by record third-quarter earnings and optimism over a yet-to-be-signed deal to provide rental-car group Hertz HTZ, with a fleet of electric cars.

www.marketwatch.com


The top 9 electric vehicle manufacturers

Shouting about climate change and car emissions seems to have been going on for decades, but it’s not that long ago that the idea of banning the sale of fossil fuel-consuming internal-combustion-engine (ICE) vehicles would have been unimaginable.

Today, no fewer than 14 countries around the world have announced plans to implement a ban on selling gas guzzlers, with various dates for those rules kicking in (the earliest, just a few years away now, is 2025, which is when Norway will bid farewell to internal combustion, at least in new-car sales).

Taking the very strong hint that the future is electric, car manufacturers have also made some bold proclamations, with a swathe of them pledging to either go fully electric or predominantly electric in the not-too-distant future.

Some forecasts predict 40 per cent of all new car sales will be EVs by 2030 - a significant jump from EVs and plug-in hybrids accounting for just 4.6 percent of global passenger car sales in 2020.

As of 2021, there are a dozen brands of electric cars in Australia and around 31 models on offer; as of 2022, it’s expected there’ll be a total of 15 electric car brands offering approximately 58 different EV models.

Whichever way you slice it with an electric knife, it’s clear that electric car companies are only going to go from strength to strength, while ICE vehicles go the way of the dinosaurs. Or the horse and cart.

Starting with perhaps the most influential electric car maker on the planet - no prizes for guessing which one that is - here’s a list of car companies with big plans for EVs (note: most car companies will have plug-in hybrid electric vehicles too, but we’ll be focusing on the all-electric vehicles on offer).

www.carsguide.com.au


Germany is now Tesla’s largest Europe market, and Model 3 is number one car sold

Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s fears of not doing well in Europe’s most significant car market have been allayed, and even before it has opened its Berlin Gigafactory there.

New auto sales figures from Europe show that one in four of Tesla’s European sales are now in Germany, with 26,000 units sold in the first three quarters of 2021.

The EV maker’s overall West European sales are now on par with Mazda and Jaguar Land Rover (its carbon pool partner) according to auto analyst Matthias Schmidt, who took the moment in new analysis to underscore Tesla’s status as a volume carmaker.

Noting Musk’s 2013 comment that, “I feel like if we can’t do well in Germany, then that’s not a good sign,” Schmidt says the latest figures are a sign this is no longer a concern.

Tesla sold more electric cars in Europe – where both the Model 3 and the Model Y are available – than in the UK, where a little more than 22,000 sold up to the end of Q3 2021.

But perhaps even more significant than that – the Model 3 became the number one best-selling car in all of Europe for September, according to the latest data from car sales site JATO.

There are various underlying reasons behind this monumental achievement, including other carmakers building less, but more expensive, vehicles to ensure profits amid the semiconductor crisis.

“Dealers continue to face issues with the availability of new cars due to the chip shortage. As a result, unwilling to wait more than a year for a new car, many consumers have turned to the used car market,” said Felipe Munoz, global analyst at JATO Dynamics.

Schmidt notes that an extension of London’s low emissions zones, as well as the recent UK fuel shortage, have likely also contributed to the recent sales milestone.

Also of interest is a tactic being taken by certain independent dealers such as this promotion here, which is seeing Model 3s essentially offered for a six-month trial.

According to a translation of the link above, the offer seems to suggest that German drivers buy a Model 3, and then after six months the dealer will buy it off them for the purchase price less the government’s €6,000 ($9,418) tax incentive if they don’t want to keep it.

https://thedriven.io/


“Bit of a revhead: “Another federal Labor MP gets a Tesla Model 3

The number of Australian politicians swapping to Tesla electric vehicles has grown by one, after Perth-based federal Labor MP Patrick Gorman stepped into a Tesla Model 3 and decided he’d “hang on to this one for many years”.

Gorman, the federal Labor MP for Perth and shadow assistant minister for WA, was recently in the market for a new car looking to move on from his previous Mazda CX-5 government fleet car.

“There was one electric, I think a (Hyundai) Kona,” Gorman recently told The West Australian’s ‘West Wheels’ twice-weekly liftout.

“I had a look at that and I had a look at the Tesla Model 3.

I have made the switch to an electric car
The weekend is still here and Leo and Ruby love it too.

Great to talk to West Wheels about how an @AlboMP Labor government will make electric cars cheaper for families — Patrick Gorman MP

“In January, when I decided I would make the change, I went to the Tesla store in Osborne Park, which is in my electorate, for a test drive.

“I put the (double) pram in the boot – and that was going to be the deal breaker.”

Gorman follows in the footsteps of other MPs, including former Labor leader Bill Shorten, Federal Liberal MP Katie Allen, and NSW minister for the energy and environment Matt Kean.

Gorman now claims to be “a bit of a revhead” thanks to his new Tesla Model 3, and adds that its 425-litre boot space makes fitting in a double pram easy.

He also loves the instant torque the Model 3 provides.

“I don’t expect to go back to a combustion car and I think I’ll hang on to this one for many years,” Gorman said.

“I don’t chew through the whole battery in a single day,” he said, adding that he charged it off a regular powerpoint at home and found that was enough to keep the car topped up.

“On my most conservative days, I would do 30km – and that involves the daycare drop-off and getting into the office.”
I’m speaking to The iDriveWA Electric Vehicle Conference today about our plans.

I love my electric car and @AustralianLabor will make them more affordable for Australian families.

A Labor government will cut tax on EVs from 1 July 2022 ⚡
— Patrick Gorman MP (@PatrickGormanMP) November 4, 2021

The Labor Party’s recently-announced EV policy would remove the 5% import tariff on some EVs – excluding those imported from countries with which Australia has a free-trade agreement – which could save customers up to 2,000 on certain EV models.

The Labor Party would also scrap the 47% fringe benefits tax on cars provided through work for private use, saving employers up to 9,000 in FBT.

The Labor Party policies would target EVs below the luxury car tax threshold for fuel-efficient vehicles set at $79,659 for 2021-22.

Gorman is also not the first Australian politician to see the light on EVs, following in the footsteps of New South Wales state Coalition minister for the energy and environment Matt Kean, Federal Liberal MP Katie Allen, and former Labor leader Bill Shorten.

https://thedriven.io/


First “unicorn” Tesla Model 3 with bigger battery put to test

A Model 3 Standard Range Plus with a larger battery is being put to the test in New Zealand, where the first model has been received by a customer.

This is considered a “unicorn” Model 3, because while it has the larger 62.3kWh battery recently confirmed in early November resulting in an increase in range, it also retains the original 5.6 second 0-100km/hr acceleration.

As noted by The Driven, the next incarnation of the base variant Model 3 has dropped the Standard Range Plus moniker but also has a decrease in acceleration to 6.1 seconds.

​

Not that this puts it behind its competitors, as noted in our article here, but it does mean that a limited number of lucky Tesla customers in both Australia and New Zealand will get both the larger battery with longer range, and the original acceleration.

According to a tweet by Tesla tracker @Vedaprime who is in contact with Knight, the unicorn Model 3 has 491km driving range according to WLTP standards, and a real world range of 444km according to the vehicle’s range estimator.

That is 20km more than this author’s Model 3 SR+ with 50kWh LFP battery had when first purchased.

And because the new battery is also an LFP, drivers will also likely enjoy minimal degradation.

While some owners of Model 3s with Tesla’s NCA battery report an 8% degradation after 20,000km, after about 12,000km mine still says about 419km, a degradation of just 1.1%.

Happy days.



https://thedriven.io/


*To Remind,

Tesla has confirmed that it will now be globally producing its Model 3 and Model Y Standard Range vehicles solely with LFP battery chemistry.

At the moment, Tesla’s ‘Giga Shanghai’ is the only plant that fits these LFP batteries to Model 3 and Y vehicles bound for China, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region including Australia.

Tesla’s other Model 3 Standard Range production plant in the U.S predominantly uses some form of nickel-based batteries – either nickel-manganese-cobalt or nickel-cobalt-aluminium.

This move to LFP batteries is likely (partly) a way for Tesla to increase margins on its vehicles as the batteries use a cheaper battery chemistry.

Beyond this though, LFP batteries appear to be attractive to Tesla as the chemistry doesn’t depend on rare earth minerals such as nickel and cobalt.

The LFP batteries used in the Model 3 and Y are supplied by Chinese battery giant, CATL, that has numerous manufacturing plants throughout China and one plant located in Erfurt, Germany.

Most notably, CATL extended its battery supply deal with Tesla until 2025 according to Reuters in June 2021.

Besides Tesla, CATL currently produces batteries for a number of well-known automakers including Volkswagen Group, BMW, Hyundai, Honda, and Volvo.

One main reason why LFP batteries aren’t commonly produced outside of China is due to a slew of patents, which has allowed the country to corner the LFP market.



Food for thought on the Road to Manono

Frank