Day: October 25, 2021 (Page 1 of 2)

Mercedes EQB, the first mid-sized seven-seat EV, enters production

2021-10-25 / Robert Vinet

Mercedes EQB

(Translated from German)

Production of the all-electric Mercedes EQB has started at the Hungarian Mercedes-Benz plant in Kecskemét. The EQB, which was presented in April, is manufactured there for world markets – only the China-specific version is being built by the joint venture BBAC in Beijing.

The EQB is an electric SUV with up to seven seats. At 4.68 meters in length, the angular EQB is only eight centimeters shorter than the EQC, but a full 22 centimeters longer than the EQA. Technically, the EQB is more closely related to the EQA, both are based on the compact car platform from Mercedes, while the EQC is known to be based on the GLC combustion engine model and thus uses the larger platform for rear-wheel drives.

London drivers are abandoning polluting vehicles

2021-10-25 / Robert Vinet

Starting today, October 25, drivers in London will be charged £12.50 to enter the city’s new Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) if they are driving gasoline-powered car manufactured before 2005 or a diesel-powered car made before 2015. Buses and large trucks will be charged £100 a day.

Motorists who drive plug-in hybrid (PHEV) vehicles into central London are no longer exempt from the £15 daily Congestion Charge. Only vehicles emitting 0g/km CO2 qualify for the cleaner vehicle discount.

The Guardian »

Drivers in London have abandoned diesel cars six times faster than those in the rest of the UK since Sadiq Khan announced plans for a massive expansion of the London’s clean air zone.

Research released days before London’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) is rolled out across the capital shows there are about 128,000 fewer diesel cars on the city’s roads than in 2017, when the mayor announced plans to create one of the biggest clean air zones in Europe.

Oliver Lord, the head of Clean Cities Campaign UK, which carried out the research, said: “The expansion of the ultra-low emission zone is monumental and has turbo-charged the end of diesel cars in London.”

Elsewhere » Business Green / Motoring Research

Tesla Model 3 tops September European car sales as new car registrations fell by 25%

2021-10-25 / Robert Vinet

Tesla Model 3

Jato Dynamics reports that September was another significant month for Europe’s automotive industry, as new car registrations fell by 25% to just 964,800 units.

Felipe Munoz, Global Analyst at JATO Dynamics, said, “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.”

Munoz continued, “The growing popularity of EVs is encouraging, but sales are not yet strong enough to offset the big declines seen across other segments.”

Chinese EV maker Xpeng plans to mass produce flying cars by 2024

2021-10-25 / Robert Vinet

TechCrunch »

Xpeng is planning to roll out the next generation of its ADAS, called Xpilot, to drivers in select cities during the first half of 2022. Xpilot 3.5 will feature “City Navigation Guided Pilot (NGP)” and will only be available to drivers of Xpeng’s P5 family sedan, which can be built with lidar, millimeter-wave radar and a 3D visual perception network that can recognize, classify and position multiple targets – all of which is essential for city-level NGP.

The last Xpilot version, 3.0, which was available to drivers of Xpeng’s P7 sedan, handled highway-level NGP, through which Xpeng was able to gather nearly 12 million kilometers, or 7.5 million miles, of data.

Xpilot 3.5 will have a strategic planning module with advanced prediction capabilities that uses a combination of rule-driven and data-driven AI to handle city scenarios, like avoiding static objects and vulnerable road users, as well as lane changing at any speed, according to Xpeng.

This is a massive goal for the short term. A flying electric car, one that would be safe for the roads, would not be light and would require a massive amount of energy to travel by air for any usable time and distance.

Elsewhere » CNBC / Electric Cars Report / Green Car Congress / Business Insider / Fortune / The Driven

China alone generated the same amount of CO2 as the next four countries combined

2021-10-25 / Robert Vinet

Curbing China’s output of greenhouse gas will do more than any anything else to decide the fate of the planet.

Bloomberg News »

The world’s top five polluters were responsible for 60% of global emissions in 2019.

China alone generated about the same amount of CO2 as the next four countries combined. And its carbon output is still rising every year.

China’s emissions are so vast that its biggest companies, few of which are household names, create more pollution than entire nations.

China Baowu, the world’s top steelmaker, put more CO2 into the atmosphere last year than Pakistan.

Take state-owned oil giant Sinopec Group. One of its subsidiaries, China Petroleum & Chemical, contributed more to global warming last year than Canada, itself an emissions heavyweight with the 11th-most CO2 among nations.

China’s biggest companies have more sway over warming temperatures than most countries. Yet little is known about the emissions from these state-run giants.
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Updated » Hertz orders 100,000 Teslas for its rental fleet

2021-10-25 / Robert Vinet

Hertz is also investing in EV charging infrastructure, saying they will install thousands of chargers.

Beginning in November and expanding through year end, customers will be able to rent a Tesla Model 3 at Hertz airport and neighbourhood locations in U.S. major markets and select cities in Europe.

Bloomberg »

The cars will be delivered over the next 14 months, and Tesla Inc.‘s Model 3 sedans will be available to rent at Hertz locations in major U.S. markets and parts of Europe starting in early November, the rental company said in a statement. Customers will have access to Tesla’s network of superchargers, and Hertz is also building its own charging infrastructure.

It’s the single-largest purchase ever for electric vehicles, or EVs, and represents about US$4.2 billion of revenue for Tesla, according to people familiar with the matter who declined to be identified because the information is private. While car-rental companies typically demand big discounts from automakers, the size of the order implies that Hertz is paying close to list prices.

“How do we democratize access to electric vehicles? That’s a very important part of our strategy,” Mark Fields, who joined Hertz as interim chief executive officer on Oct. 6, said in an interview. “Tesla is the only manufacturer that can produce EVs at scale.”

Elsewhere » Wall Street Journal 🔒 / Financial Times 🔒/

Update » 2021.11.02 » Tesla Inc’s Elon Musk said the company had not signed a contract with Hertz » Reuters

The bumpy road to India’s electric vehicle dreams

2021-10-25 / Robert Vinet

Aparna Alluri and Vikas Pandey, BBC »

But it’s only a glimmer. Electric vehicle sales – 121,900 this financial year – account for only 1.66% of India‘s 20 million automobile sales, according to the Delhi-based think tank Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW).

Some electric vehicle firms, especially makers of two-wheelers, are betting big, but the demand is lukewarm for cars and commercial vehicles like lorries. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is trying to change that with a $3.5bn (£2.5bn) scheme to boost manufacturing.

Meanwhile, the CEO of Mahindra Group expects 50% of vehicles sold by 2030 to be electric » CNBC