Be The Change

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

Tesla is investing more than USD$1 billion into its new Texas factory

Huileng Tan , Business Insider » 

Tesla is pouring in more than $1 billion into its new Gigafactory in Texas that is expected to be completed by the end of this year.

Construction filings with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation showed the electric vehicle company would spend $493 million for the general assembly section and $182 million for the body shop. Construction of the facilities for these sections, alongside the paint, casting, and stamping facilities, will be completed by December 31, according to the documents. The five facilities cost a combined $1.06 billion.

Elsewhere » Electrek

In comparison, Samsung is investing USD$17 billion in Texas chip plant » Asia Times / CNBC

Due to strong demand for the Mullen FIVE, manufacturer has increased reservations capacity from 5,000 units to 25,000

Mullen Automotive, Inc., an emerging California EV manufacturer, announced that the reservation limit for the Mullen FIVE EV Crossover has been increased to 25,000 initial reservations. The first 25,000 reservations will receive a custom “launch” edition for vehicle trim package options.

Mullen FIVE EV Crossover

FIVE Reservations are currently open and can be made on Mullenusa.com for a refundable $100 deposit.

The Mullen FIVE EV crossover debuted on the main stage of the LA Auto Show on Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2021. Demand has been overwhelmingly high with increasing media attention and consumer interest. Vehicle reservations reached all-time highs on Saturday, Nov. 20, 2021.

Since, the Mullen FIVE EV crossover debuted at the LA Auto Show, demand has been overwhelming with increasing media attention and consumer interest. As interest in the FIVE proved to be more popular than expected, reservations were adjusted from 5,000 to 25,000.

“We’ve decided to increase the limit of the total number of FIVE reservations from 5,000 to 25,000 vehicles due to the strong demand in the first three days of the show,” said Jason Putnam, vice president of marketing for Mullen Automotive. “By establishing a 25,000 reservation limit, this allows us to offer a very special trim option package that will only be available to our initial “launch” customer set.

The FIVE is built on an EV skateboard platform that offers multiple powertrain configurations and trim levels.

The Mullen FIVE won the Top EV SUV ZEVAS award, beating out the Lincoln Aviator Grand Touring and Rivian R1S, to win the LA Auto Show 2021 Zero Emission Vehicle Award (ZEVAS) in the “Top SUV ZEV” category.

EV Trend » UK auto dealers see surge of interest in EVs

John Kirwan / Motor Trade »

This month we saw The National Franchised Dealers Association (NFDA) reveal that it has now accredited over 200 dealers on its Electric Vehicle Approved (EVA) scheme, which has been reopened. Volvo is one carmaker that wants its network fully accredited by the end of the year.

The scheme was developed in 2019 to encourage retailers to enhance their expertise in the electric vehicle sector and support consumer confidence. EVA certifies the efforts and investments that retailers are making in the EV sector to meet the consumer demand. Following the reopening of the scheme, retailers can now apply to receive their EVA badge of approval.

November also saw electric vehicle drivers from Europe and the UK on ‘The Electric Road to COP26’ visiting the Arnold Clark Innovation Centre in Glasgow before heading to the Cop26 UN Climate Change Conference. It was part of a tour of leading companies that are providing solutions to help combat climate change through their innovative work with electric vehicles and charging.

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EV Trend » Spiking US gas prices are making EVs more attractive

VinFast CEO Michael Lohscheller introduces the new VF e35 EV at the AutoMobility LA Auto Show, Nov. 17, 2021, in Los Angeles. (Source » VOA)

Voice of America »

Persistently high prices for gasoline are frustrating many Americans and causing a political headache for the administration of President Joe Biden, but they also might be accelerating the process of transitioning the country to more widespread use of vehicles that run on renewable energy — particularly electricity.

Experts say that sales of electric vehicles, or EVs, tend to rise when fuel prices do, though they cautioned it’s difficult to draw a straight line from prices at the pump to car purchases.

“People buy electric cars for lots of reasons, so they’re not completely dependent on gas prices, but that’s certainly reinforcing it,” said Genevieve Cullen, president of the Electric Drive Transportation Association, a trade group representing manufacturers of electric vehicles.

An estimated 468,000 new EVs were sold in the U.S. from the beginning of the year through September, according to data collected by Atlas Public Policy, a group that tracks the market for EVs. That represents a 45% increase over the 323,000 EVs sold during the entirety of 2020.

Looking solely at the month of September 2021, U.S. consumers bought 57,000 new EVs. That was 63% more than the 35,000 sold in September of 2020, and a 90% increase over the 30,000 sold in September 2019.

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The most popular EVs aren’t cars, trucks, or motorcycles. They are e-bikes.

IEEE Spectrum »

Electric bicycles, better known as e-bikes, have moved from novelty to mainstream with breathtaking speed. They’ve been a boon to hard-working delivery persons during the pandemic (and their impatient customers), and commuters who don’t care to be a sweaty mess when they arrive. And while the scoffing tends to center around the “purity” of cycling—the idea that e-bike riders are somehow lazy cheaters—that electric assist is actually luring people off the couch for healthy exercise. That’s especially welcome for older or out-of-practice riders (which describes a whole lot of folks) who might otherwise avoid cycling entirely, put off by daunting hills or longer distances.

While powerful “Class 3” models especially are trying the patience of pedestrians in crowded cities like New York, with blazing assisted speeds approaching 30 mph, e-bikes are now front-and-center in discussions of future urban mobility. They’re a way to potentially free up precious street space, provide alternatives to automobiles and reduce energy consumption and harmful emissions. California, through its powerful Air Resources Board, recently allocated $10 million in rebates for e-bike buyers, a smaller-scale version of state or federal tax breaks for EV car buyers. The possibilities are fueling cool tech ideas, from covered, rain-proof cargo bikes; to pavement-embedded wireless chargers and automated stabilization systems to help senior riders. CityQ is taking pre-orders for a four-wheeled cargo “bike” that it touts as cycling “with a Tesla feeling.”

According to market research company NPD Group, the pandemic helped increase e-bike sales by 145 percent from 2019 to 2020, more than double the growth of traditional bikes. Exact figures on industry sales are hard to pin down; yet The New York Times quoted experts saying Americans bought roughly 500,000 e-bikes in 2020, compared to about 210,000 plug-in automobiles.

Motor Trend’s 2021 Toyota Mirai yearlong review

2021 Toyota Mirai

Motor Trend »

Here’s our third 2021 Toyota Mirai update in a nutshell: The car is great but the fueling is painful, and this month was more painful than most. Allow us to regale you with the story of what happened with our long-term hydrogen-fueled EV during a week we’re calling the Hydrogen Fuelpocalypse. Spoiler alert: We did not punch the yutz in the gray Mirai, but damn, did we come close.

As usual, when our Mirai’s range-remaining display showed 100 miles, we started to think about fueling up. Checking the Toyota app, we saw that most of the hydrogen stations in and around the Mirai’s home turf of the San Fernando Valley were either broken or out of fuel. No big deal; such glitches usually resolve themselves within a couple of days, hence our 100-mile threshold.

This time, though, things weren’t getting better. True Zero Mission Hills, a beautiful four-pump station that always seems to be broken, stayed offline. The somewhat reliable Studio City station kept going down. Hollywood fell, then Fairfax. Horrified, we realized what was happening: Working stations were being inundated by cars and either running out of fuel or dropping from the strain.

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