Coming up on today’s show: A Tesla executive
calls the competition ‘appliances,’ GM
sells its one hundred thousandth Volt, and
Nissan debuts the world’s first Solid Oxide
Fuel Cell prototype electric minivan.
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It’s Friday, August fifth twenty sixteen,
I’m Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield, and we’re
starting today’s show with some trash talking
from Tesla executives.
Mid week, Tesla’s VP of Business Development
Diarmuid O’Connell called popular plug-in
cars like the Nissan LEAF and BMW i3 little
more than appliances during an appearance
at as Automotive Research Management Briefing
Seminar in Michigan.
Critiquing mainstream automakers for producing
cars that are limited on range, too expensive,
and uninspiring in their performance, the
Tesla exec said that he was glad that electric
car choice existed, but berated Tesla’s
rivals for not making them better and faster.”
Although we’re sure many watching would
agree, we think it’s worth noting that until
the Model 3 launches, Tesla’s range of electric
cars are far more expensive than an entry-level
car like the Nissan LEAF, so comparing the
two seems a bit disingenuous.
Still, it’s an interesting soundbite that
got our attention in a week that included
Tesla’s Q2 earnings and news that pending
shareholder approval, Tesla’s merger with
SolarCity will go ahead.
While Tesla’s attack on Nissan and BMW may
be considered unfair, we think all the criticism
in the world is due this week of Mitsubishi,
which has quietly confirmed it will be pushing
the North American launch of the Mitsubishi
Outlander plug-in hybrid back yet again to
some time in Summer 2017.
As we explained mid week, the reason given
by Mitsubishi is that it doesn’t believe
the plug-in SUV will be competitive in the
marketplace, and given the expansion of the
plug-in SUV segment in recent years, we’ve
got to agree.
But if we’re honest we think the Outlander
PHEV is now a lost cause for North America:
the car itself launched back in 2013 and it’s
already looking long in the tooth.
Mitsubishi’s faffing hasn’t really solved
anything either and had it launched when Mitsubishi
originally intended (twenty fourteen) we’re
sure it would be as popular on the west side
of the Atlantic as it is on the east side.
Sorry to be the bringer of bad news but honestly,
if you’re holding out for Mitsubishi’s
plug-in hybrid, you may now want to start
looking elsewhere instead…
Talking of delays to plug-in hybrids, we heard
of a separate push back this week involving
the Toyota Prius Prime, Toyota’s first dedicated
plug-in hybrid model.
This time however, it’s not a delay to the
North American market but to the Japanese
market instead.
The Prius Prime -- which is significantly
different to the standard Prius liftback for
us to consider it a different model to the
popular hybrid -- was due to launch in both
Japan this fall and then go on sale in North
America a little after that.
But as Toyota disclosed on Thursday, Prius
Prime production is being throttled back to
meet demand, with the North American launch
becoming the model’s global debut this fall.
It’s not clear quite what is irking buyers
-- or Toyota -- but given Toyota’s massive
push towards hydrogen fuel cell cars in Japan,
we suspect this new model could simply muddy
Toyota’s message too much.
Assuming Toyota doesn’t change its plans
-- and it has before -- we can look forward
to seeing the Prime in the U.S. later this
year, so keep your ears peeled for more information.
Known around the world for its massive electric
vehicle push, Nissan has always remained something
of a skeptic when it comes to hydrogen fuel
cell vehicles, questioning the cost and complexity
of bringing such a vehicle to market.
But this week Nissan surprised us all by revealing
a working prototype Solid Oxide Fuel Cell
vehicle based on the Nissan e-NV200 electric
minivan.
And while Nissan said it was working on such
a system a few months ago, nobody expected
it to demonstrate a working prototype this
quickly.
Nissan’s Solid Oxide Fuel Cell system features
an onboard reforming system that can take
bioethanol and reform it into hydrogen and
carbon dioxide, passing that hydrogen on to
a fuel cell where it can be combined with
oxygen from the outside air to produce water
and electricity.
And while it’s not exactly powerful -- it
can only produce a solid 5 kilowatts of power
when running -- its output is enough to supplement
the on-board 24 kilowatt-hour lithium-ion
battery pack to give a theoretical maximum
range in excess of 600 kilometers (370 miles)
on a single fill of bioethanol.
As to where the extra hardware goes in the
vehicle?
Well, given the fact that this prototype is
based on the e-NV200 electric minivan, the
system actually lives behind the rear axle
in the load bay area, which, while restrictive
for commercial use, is certainly good enough
to demonstrate the technology in use.
And if you’re curious as to why we’re
seeing this vehicle now, it’s because the
prototype was unveiled in Brazil ahead of
the Olympics -- and Brazil of course produces
a huge amount of bioethanol.
The jury is still out for me on this one,
but I’m keen to know what you make of this
prototype vehicle in the Comments below.
Back in December 2010, General Motors launched
the Chevrolet Volt range extended electric
car hot on the heels of the Nissan LEAF electric
car.
Since then, both models have vied for top
spot in the U.S. mid-priced electric car sales
charts, and both have become a common sight
on the nation’s roads.
Well this week, General Motors announced that
it had now sold its 100,000th Volt, a figure
that Nissan achieved with its LEAF some time
ago but only because the LEAF is available
in far more markets around the world than
the Volt.
To celebrate the achievement, GM broke down
some of the stats of the Volt fleet thus far,
including detailing the fact that 1.5 billion
of the 2.5 billion miles travelled by the
Volt fleet around the world have been in EV
mode, saving an estimated 58 million gallons
of fuel in the process when compared to a
traditional gasoline car.
Congratulations to GM and here’s to the
next 100,000 Volts!
Switching gears, we’re off to the world
of semi autonomous vehicles next and specifically
Tesla’s autopilot system which, as a team
of researchers from two continents announced
this week, can be attacked just like any other
computer system.
Using a set of extremely expensive hacking
equipment -- which included a signal generator
set as expensive as a Model S -- the team
of researchers from the University of South
Carolina, Zhejiang University in China and
security firm Qihoo 360 proved that technically
it was possible to confuse Tesla’s autopilot
into failing to see various things around
it, which could, in certain situations, mean
that an autopilot failure and subsequent crash
was a possibility.
But here’s the thing: as the researchers
themselves note -- and many outlets have failed
to note -- the exploits are so difficult and
expensive to replicate that nobody should
fear using Autopilot any time now.
Even the cheapest exploit -- one involving
the low-speed ultrasonic sensor system -- would
be impractical to use in the real world.
So if you hear otherwise, relax.
At least for now, your autopilot system won’t
be taken over by nefarious hackers intent
on creating havoc with your very expensive
plug-in.
In the automotive world, it’s usual to see
sales of a particular model of car tail off
as the car gets long in the tooth, especially
if customers know there’s a newer, more
capable model about to launch.
And in the plug-in car world that’s a trend
we’ve seen replicated every time an automaker
announces a newer, longer-range battery pack
for an existing model.
So when BMW announced a new, 33 kilowatt-hour
battery pack for the 2017 BMW i3, it was taken
as read that sales of the outgoing 2016 BMW
i3 would drop as people waited for the new,
longer-range car to arrive.
Yet as figures released this week for July
show, that’s not been the case, with BMW
i3 sales in the U.S. alone up an incredible
58 percent on the previous month, although
BMW i3 sales for the year are down 19.1 percent
year on year.
Why are sales rising?
Well, aside from BMW’s very prominent ads
involving the i3 on TV, BMW has been offering
some pretty good deals on the city-friendly
plug-in.
Will it continue when the 2017 BMW i3 comes
out?
It’s possible -- but with the Chvey Bolt
EV due to debut this fall, complete with its
200-mile range, BMW is going to have some
tough competition.
With pretty much every major automaker now
working on its own autonomous or semi-autonomous
vehicles, we’re entering a very exciting
period of change in the car world with an
almost unprecedented level of innovation from
year to year.
In fact, the speed at which autonomous vehicle
technology is evolving is so fast that legislators
are struggling to keep up, with many countries
yet to even set their own standards for self-driving
cars.
Well this week, the North American Dealers
Association -- essentially a trade organization
for car dealers across the continent -- made
a call for legislators to mandate that cars
fitted with semi-autonomous or fully autonomous
functions undergo regular ‘checkups’ at
dealerships similar to the types of checks
that are currently carried out on commercial
airplanes.
The idea of course is to ensure that autonomous
cars don’t suddenly suffer a failure that
goes unnoticed by their owner, ensuring that
autonomous vehicle crashes are kept to a minimum.
And that means less deaths and injuries…
Who would carry out those checks?
Why, the very same dealerships NADA represents,
which gives us pause to question if this plea
really is in the best interests of car owners
and road users, or ensuring auto dealerships
remain in the black.
Let me know which you think it is in the Comments
below.
If you’ve owned an electric car for any
length of time -- and you don’t have a wireless
inductive charging system -- then the chances
are you’re more than familiar with the concept
of plugging in to recharge your car’s battery
pack.
But what if you could just rock up at a filling
station instead, filling your car’s fuel
tanks with freshly charged electrolyte that
could be used in a flow cell system?
That’s the dream of NanoFlowCell holdings
and its chief technology officer Nunzio la
Vaccina, who is desperate to get the world
to switch from today’s advanced lithium-ion
battery technologies to a liquid based flow
cell system in which liquid electrolytic solution
-- one negatively charged and one positively
charged -- can be pumped into a car’s fuel
tanks and then passed through a flow cell
to generate the electricity needed to power
a zero emission vehicle.
So far, Nanoflowcell has debuted multiple
concept cars in Geneva, but we’ve yet to
see a production vehicle or even a production
intent vehicle, so while the idea is an interesting
one -- and far faster to refuel than any electric
car on sale today -- it hasn’t yet shown
any signs of becoming a commercial reality.
For now then, you’re going to have to continue
to plug in.
Sorry.
And finally,
A little over two years ago, Nissan shocked
the world by unveiling the Delta wing-inspired
Blade Glider, a three-seat sports car concept
shaped more like a fighter jet than a sports
car.
Billed as a potential vision of what an ultra-efficient,
powerful sports car of the future could look
like, very few automotive industry professionals
took it to be anything but an over-the-top,
never-make-it concept car.
But this week on Thursday, Nissan surprised
us all by unveiling working prototypes of
the Blade Glider ahead of the Summer Olympics,
complete with a pair of 130 kilowatt electric
motors (one for each rear wheel) as well as
a five-module battery pack capable of delivering
a total peak power of 220 kilowatts.
Sadly range isn’t discussed, but Nissan
says the vehicle will be drivable by members
of the media in Rio, although the sub-five
second 0-62 mph time and 115 miles per hour
limited top speed means it’s hardly in Tesla
territory.
But hey, it’s a real, working delta-wing
electric car.
That’s like extra cool points, right?
Cool points or not, I’m afraid that’s
your lot for today.
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