Coming up on today’s show: Concern about
Tesla’s timeline for Model 3 production,
Toyota unveils the self-driving Lexus developed
by the Toyota Research Institute in Silicon
Valley, and why working at Tesla’s Fremont
facility could soon include perks like free
FroYo.
These stories and more, coming next on TEN.
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It’s Friday March Third twenty seventeen,
I’m Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield and this is
T.E.N., the show that tries desperately to
be ten minutes in length but fails because
there’s just too much awesome news to cover
each week.
We start today’s show with the news that
Tesla appears to be working to a seemingly
impossible timeline when it comes to the Model
3, a car it says will begin pre-production
validation for some time in July.
You see, while Tesla has been promising Model
3 production is on schedule, stock filings
made to the U.S. Securities and Exchanges
commission show that at the end of 2016 Tesla
still hadn’t begun road-testing of beta
Model 3 prototypes, something that most automakers
would have done months ago if they were working
to such a tight production timeline.
Admittedly, Tesla has now begun early beta
testing (we’ve seen the photos and videos
of Model 3s in the wild)-- and began making
beta parts and a few beta Model 3s on its
Fremont production line late last month. But
the filing has upset several analysts, including
Goldman Sachs, which now says that Tesla is
unlikely to meet its summer production goal
and as such, told investors to sell their
stock. Only time will tell if that advice
is smart or stupid. Watch this space.
While it’s not on sale in North America,
Nissan’s versatile e-NV200 electric van
is proving popular with both private and fleet
owners across Europe and Japan, offering 70-80
miles of real-world range when laden, and
coming in a variety of different styles from
commercial van to 7-seat minivan.
Available DC quick charging does help to alleviate
the rather paltry range, but now French company
Symbio is offering companies across Europe
the chance to buy a Nissan e-NV200 Taxi (five
or seven seater) with an on-board hydrogen
fuel cell range-extender that can add more
than 300 miles of range, making it ideal for
use in major cities where finding a place
to recharge isn’t always possible.
Cost isn’t discussed yet, but it’s worth
mentioning that Symbio does have form, having
offered a similar zero-emission range-extending
solution for the Renault Kangoo ZE. And while
I know not everyone is a fan of hydrogen fuel
cell tech, I have to say that its use as a
range-extender is something I can’t wait
to see more of. After all, if you can replace
an internal combustion engine with a fuel
cell stack for range-extending duties that’s
a step in the right direction, right?
That said however, this next story could make
the previous one obsolete, since it looks
forward to a time where electric vehicle battery
packs could be charged in double-quick time
completely wirelessly.
That’s at least the plan of the Society
of Automotive Engineers, which has been busy
working on a new standard for electric vehicle
wireless power transfer to ensure that all
electric vehicles (and all charging systems)
talk the same language. The sAE Technical
Information Report in question (TIR J two
nine five four) not only lays out a new communication
standard, but lays a path down for future
wireless charging systems that integrate with
autonomous vehicle technology to accurately
align powerful wireless charging systems that
could operate at power levels of up to 250
kilowatts.
That’s more powerful than Tesla’s current
Supercharger technology and makes a future
where you park your car (and it then goes
off to charge itself while you’re gone)
a distinct possibility. It’s all really
exciting, and far more powerful than the three
point three kilowatt wireless charging standard
we’ve been testing here at Transport Evolved
for more than a year (a link for which you’ll
find in today’s show notes).
Back in January twenty sixteen at CES, Japanese
automaker Toyota announced the establishment
of a brand-new research facility in the heart
of Silicon Valley. Called the Toyota Research
Institute, the new facility was charged with
developing Toyota’s next-generation of vehicles,
from improving hydrogen fuel cell and battery
electric technology to building new autonomous
vehicle systems.
And this week, just over a year from its founding,
Toyota has revealed the first vehicle to be
produced entirely by the new facility -- a
Lexus LS 600hLsedan fitted with the second-generation
of Toyota’s autonomous safety vehicle technology.
The car itself -- which debuted at Toyota’s
Prius Challenge event in Sonoma, California,
is fitted with a whole suite of technology,
including layered LiDAR, radar, and camera
sensors, as well as a drive-by wire system.
Its primary function? To help TRI work on
the development of both its Chauffeur (Level
5) and Guardian (level 4) autonomous vehicle
systems. But it’ll be a while before we
see full-autonomy from Toyota: it’s said
multiple times that it feels a Level 4 autonomous
operation is far more likely in the short
term, with lots of hurdles to be overcome
(both legislative, sociological and technical)
before Level 5 is ready for market.
A car we might seen a little sooner however
is the all-electric version of Honda’s Clarity
sedan, a car which currently is only available
as a fuel cell sedan in select markets in
California, Japan, and parts of Europe.
It was hoped the all-electric Clarity -- as
well as a plug-in hybrid variant -- would
help Honda bring its first serious non-compliance
plug-in models to market. But this week we
learned (via Automotive News) that Honda is
only intending to give its twenty eighteen
Honda Clarity EV a range of 80 miles per charge,
putting it at the bottom of the plug-in marketplace
when it comes to range.
Worse still? Honda seems to think it can sell
an 80-mile Clarity EV for thirty-five thousand
dollars before incentives, something that
would have been possible a decade ago but
today will result in zero sales and Honda
being laughed out of the EV sphere for good.
C’mon Honda, twenty eleven called -- and
it wants its car back. Epic Fail.
In recent years, most automakers keen to promote
their latest plug-in car often invest in local
or national electric vehicle charging networks
so that their customers will have somewhere
to charge their cars on long-distance trips.
Indeed, so far, we’ve seen BMW, Volkswagen,
and Nissan all invest heavily in national
charging networks.
Now it’s the turn of German automaker Daimler
-- but rather than invest in a local network,
it’s chosen to lead a round of investment
worth eighty-two million dollars to bring
U.S.-based ChargePoint -- and its high-powered
next-generation CCS quick charging stations
-- to Europe.
Other investors, including BMW i-Ventures,
have helped ChargePoint in the past, but this
new investment will mean that ChargePoint
and its network -- will go head-to-head with
established European charging networks like
FastNed.
What makes ChargePoint different to some of
its competitors however, is that it doesn’t
lease space for charging station operation.
Instead, it sells charging stations to customers,
who then pay it a servicing fee every month
and set their own pricing structure. ChargePoint
then simply maintains the stations -- and
processing fees -- for any charging that isn’t
free. And if this investment is anything to
go by, that business model seems to work far
better than many of the other charging networks
out there.
Which ties in nicely with our next story,
namely that U.S.-based Blink Network -- which
has been plagued with financial problems over
its history -- has announced it intends to
switch from its current monthly billing cycle
to a twice-weekly billing cycle.
The reason? According to its parent company
the Car Charging Group, Blink’s change of
policy is to help combat fraud, but we -- and
plenty others in the electric vehicle sphere
-- are more than a little suspicious, especially
when requests for more information were turned
down by the company.
I’m not going to give voice to the rumors
at this stage, but sufficed to say that existing
customers aren’t happy, especially when
so many Blink stations are offline -- or on
the blink as we like to say -- and aren’t
reliable enough to trust week in, week out.
Is there something else going on or is it
really about preventing fraud? Leave your
thoughts in the Comments below.
We’re off to Paris next, where the Renault-Nissan
alliance has announced it will be launching
a self-driving vehicle partnership with TransDev,
a major European public transportation consultant.
The plan, according to all three companies,
is to develop advanced connected-car services
and mobility services, including the merging
of autonomous vehicle and car sharing services,
where customers will be able to book a shared
car and have it drive itself to meet them,
as well as autonomous delivery systems that
won’t require a human driver.
To start, the program will begin field trials
in a the Paris-Saclay region using the Renault
Zoe electric car. And while the cars won’t
be fully autonomous at this time, they will
use always-on Internet connectivity to ensure
accurate dispatch, supervision and routings
for commercial parcel delivery. And as a side,
I should also note that Nissan’s UK demonstration
of its autonomous LEAF went down at the end
of last month without a problem, so well done
Nissan, Well done Renault, and here’s to
an autonomous car future.
As we’ve said time and time again here at
Transport Evolved, Tesla has never really
needed to spend a whole lot of time on advertising
its range of electric cars to the world, relying
instead on the evangelical praise of its existing
owners and some truly amazing fan-made videos
that put some professional ad agencies to
shame.
Well, now, following the suggestion of the
fifth-grade daughter of one of the writers
at EVNewsReport and InsideEvs, Tesla CEO Elon
Musk has agreed to hold a competition to find
the best fan-made commercial out there for
Tesla.
The winner? Well, I’m sure they’ll receive
a very special prize from Tesla, as well as
seeing their commercial aired on TV. I can’t
wait to see what videos are produced and who
wins… Can you?
Think of open-topped British sports cars,
and the chances are you’ll think of Caterham,
a car company which hasn’t changed much
over the years and still churns out the iconic
two-seat sports car based on the equally iconic
Lotus Seven that’s known for its hill climbing
abilities and direct driving characteristics.
And while Caterham has spent the majority
of its 44-year life churning out hand-made
sports cars powered by torquey internal combustion
engines, CEO Graham Macdonald told Autocar
this week that Caterham -- which is going
through something of a golden period right
now thanks to a year-long customer wait list
-- is looking into building an electric version
of the iconic hill-climber.
What’s more, Caterham could even go autonomous,
although that’s less enticing if I’m honest,
since the whole point of a Caterham is to
feel completely at one with the car and zip
along a country lane or up a hill with your
bottom just inches from the tarmac, its beautiful
feedback letting you do things that just aren’t
possible in a fully-digital car with no soul.
But the electric bit? I’m not going to lie.
Caterham, if you need a tester, call me.
And finally,
While we haven’t been covering it on this
show, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been embroiled
in an ongoing battle with the United Auto
Workers Union, which has been trying to encourage
workers at the Tesla Fremont facility to join
them.
The union has been alleging that Tesla has
been asking its employees to do too much,
pushing them to work long hours beyond their
limit and resulting in many hours of sick
time. Tesla -- and Musk -- has been disputing
that claim, and maintains that unionization
of the Tesla workforce isn’t likely to happen.
Instead, in an email to employees at the end
of last week, Musk promised noted that overtime
has actually decreased in the last year and,
that when Tesla reaches volume Model 3 production,
he’s got some plans to add some extra-fun
perks for Tesla employees, including an electric
pod car roller coaster with optional loop-the-loop
(to facilitate “Fast and fun travel throughout
the Fremont Campus” and FroYo stands. I’m
not sure what to make of this but hey, FroYo.
Who doesn’t like FroYo?
And on that note, we’re done for the week.
There’s some other stuff we haven’t covered
in today’s show, but we’ve put out a massive
number of videos this week on our YouTube
channel covering those stories, so stick around
and watch them when we’re done.
As always, don’t forget to like, comment
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Thanks again for joining me, I’ll see you
next week, I’m Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield,
That was TEN, have a great weekend, and until
next time, keep Evolving!
