VW Now Making EVs In Five Locations | 01 Feb 2021
Volkswagen Group Now Making EVs In Five Locations | Google Uses AI To Plot Fastest, Most Efficient EV Road Trips | Chinese battery producers plug into soaring German EV sales | Tesla's dirty little secret: Its net profit doesn't come from selling cars | Tesla offering discount to customers with existing orders for Model S and Model X | Tesla Model S and Model X refresh gaming, infotainment system GPU details leaked | All Tesla Vehicles Now Have Heat Pump | BMW considers moving up i4 production
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On today’s podcast:
- Volkswagen Group Now Making EVs In Five Locations"
- Google Uses AI To Plot Fastest, Most Efficient EV Road Trips
- Chinese battery producers plug into soaring German EV sales
- Tesla's dirty little secret: Its net profit doesn't come from selling cars
- Tesla offering discount to customers with existing orders for Model S and Model X
- Tesla Model S and Model X refresh gaming, infotainment system GPU details leaked
- All Tesla Vehicles Now Have Efficiency-Boosting Heat Pump
- BMW considers moving up i4 production
Show #980
Good morning, good afternoon and good evening wherever you are in the world, welcome to EV News Daily for Monday 1st February. It’s Martyn Lee here and I go through every EV story so you don't have to.
Thank you to MYEV.com for helping make this show, they’ve built the first marketplace specifically for Electric Vehicles. It’s a totally free marketplace that simplifies the buying and selling process, and help you learn about EVs along the way too.
VOLKSWAGEN GROUP NOW MAKING EVS IN FIVE LOCATIONS"
Volkswagen Group's manufacturing capabilities of MEB-based electric cars expanded significantly and, including the small Transparent Factory in Dresden, there are now five sites globally." says InsideEVs: "The total combined maximum production capacity of those plants is more than 900,000, but it will take quite some time to reach such a level. Zwickau, Germany - up to 330,000, six models. Transparent Factory in Dresden, Germany. Mladá Boleslav, Czechia. FAW-Volkswagen plant in Foshan, China - up to 300,000. SAIC Volkswagen plant in Anting, China - up to 300,000. In Zwickau, Volkswagen produces around 800 all-electric ID.3 and ID.4 cars per day. When new models join the line, the rate will be up to 1,500 vehicles per day or 330,000 vehicles per year at its peak. In 2022, three new plants will also start production of MEB-based cars: Emden and Hanover plants in Germany and Chattanooga in the U.S."
https://insideevs.com/news/483167/volkswagen-group-five-plants-meb-based-evs/
GOOGLE USES AI TO PLOT FASTEST, MOST EFFICIENT EV ROAD TRIPS
"In a blog post this week, Google says it has devised a new Maps feature that uses “graph theory” to sort through all the permutations and give drivers accurate information about how to drive and charge along the way. There are so many factors to consider — the state of charge of your battery when you begin, how far your car can drive given weather, traffic, and elevation changes, and the availability of chargers along your route are all important considerations." says Steve at CleanTechnica: "at the present time the only two cars with Android Automotive baked in are the Polestar 2 and Volvo XC40 Recharge, although more models are on the way."
Google said in a blog post: "“Today, we present a new approach for routing of EVs integrated into the latest release of Google Maps built into your car for participating EVs that reduces range anxiety by integrating recharging stations into the navigational route,“Now when you enter a destination that requires two or more recharge stops, algorithms in Maps will search and filter through tens to thousands of public charging stations to find the most efficient route — all in less than 10 seconds. You can see how long each charge will take and your updated total trip time, so your final ETA will never again be a mystery, Based on the battery level and the destination, Maps will recommend the charging stops and the corresponding charging levels that will minimize the total duration of the trip. To accomplish this we engineered a highly scalable solution for recommending efficient routes through charging stations, which optimizes the sum of the driving time and the charging time together.”"
https://cleantechnica.com/2021/01/31/google-uses-ai-to-plot-fastest-most-efficient-ev-road-trips/
CHINESE BATTERY PRODUCERS PLUG INTO SOARING GERMAN EV SALES
"Two Chinese makers of electric vehicle batteries are set to break ground this year on $3.2 billion worth of production facilities in Germany to serve Europe's expanding market for new-energy cars, following in the footsteps of industry leader Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd." reports Nikkei Asia: "SVOLT Energy Technology, a spinoff from Chinese automaker Great Wall Motor, plans to break ground on two factories, at a combined cost of about 2 billion euros ($2.42 billion), in the western state of Saarland by year-end. Farasis Energy (Ganzhou), which sold a 3% stake last year to automotive group Daimler in a deal valued at 900 million yuan ($138.8 million), aims to start construction of a 600 million euro factory in the eastern town of Bitterfeld by the end of March. SVOLT aims to churn out 24 gigawatt-hours worth of auto batteries a year in Germany, a quarter of its global target, while Farasis aims to put out 6 GWh from Bitterfeld by next year on the way to full output of 10 GWh. CATL has said its German plant will be able to produce 14 GWh of batteries."
President of SVOLT Europe: "Before we settled on Saarland, we scouted more than 30 locations, including in Eastern Europe, and we found that only in Germany would we be able to quickly recruit enough talent and source electricity in a way that our clients' climate targets can be met"
TESLA'S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET: ITS NET PROFIT DOESN'T COME FROM SELLING CARS
"Tesla posted its first full year of net income in 2020 -- but not because of sales to its customers. Eleven states require automakers sell ascertain percentage of zero-emissions vehicles by 2025. If they can't, the automakers have to buy regulatory credits from another automaker that meets those requirements -- such as Tesla, which exclusively sells electric cars." according to CNN: "It's a lucrative business for Tesla -- bringing in $3.3 billion over the course of the last five years, nearly half of that in 2020 alone. The $1.6 billion in regulatory credits it received last year far outweighed Tesla's net income of $721 million -- meaning Tesla would have otherwise posted a net loss in 2020."
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/31/investing/tesla-profitability/index.html
TESLA OFFERING DISCOUNT TO CUSTOMERS WITH EXISTING ORDERS FOR MODEL S AND MODEL X
"After years of waiting Tesla finally announced a design refresh to the Model S and Model X earlier this week. Along with the drastically redesigned interior, Tesla also increased the prices of all variants of its flagship vehicles." says DriveTeslaCanada: "That increase left customers with existing orders placed before the increase suddenly facing having to pay about $10,000 USD more than originally planned. Those customers are now learning Tesla is softening the blow just a bit, by offering a $2,000 discount on existing orders."
Twttier user @raffaeri: “My boss ordered a Model X a few weeks ago. He got a call from Tesla today. For 2000€ more he can have the Refreshed Model X but... it won't be available until September. The order page said March 2021! So Tesla can not deliver Model S/X in Europe until September!"
TESLA MODEL S AND MODEL X REFRESH GAMING, INFOTAINMENT SYSTEM GPU DETAILS LEAKED
"A renowned tech leaker has shared what could very well be a block diagram depicting some details of the Model S and Model X refresh’s in-car gaming system/infotainment system GPU. Based on the information presented in the leak, it appears that Tesla’s in-car gaming system would indeed be on par with some of the market’s most popular consoles. " reports TEslarati: "ccording to the leaked block diagram, Tesla will reportedly be using an AMD Navi 23 GPU for its onboard infotainment system, which would be equipped with 16Gb (2GB) Samsung GDDR6 memory chips (K4ZAF325XM). Considering that there are four modules depicted in the leaked diagram, it appears that Tesla’s infotainment system will have 8GB of memory in total. Tesla’s official webpages for the Model S and Model X refresh note that the vehicles’ in-car gaming system offers up to 10 teraflops of processing power, which is comparable to those offered by dedicated gaming consoles like the Sony PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X."
Storage?
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-new-infotainment-gaming-gpu-specs-leak/
ALL TESLA VEHICLES NOW HAVE EFFICIENCY-BOOSTING HEAT PUMP
And a story from InsideEVs on the Model S/X Heat Pump: "People were so entertained with the steering yoke on the refreshed Model S and Model X that they probably did not know both cars now also present a heat pump. First offered in the Tesla Model Y, this component aims to offer higher energy efficiency in electric vehicles during the winter. The 2021 Tesla Model 3 already presents one, making the entire Tesla lineup for offering it."
https://insideevs.com/news/482829/all-tesla-vehicles-heat-pump/
BMW CONSIDERS MOVING UP I4 PRODUCTION
"According to a media report, BMW brings forward the production start of the all-electric i4 from the year’s end to August or September. This means BMW could roll-out the first cars in Germany in 2021. In China, meanwhile, BMW has significantly reduced the price of its iX3 electric SUV." says electrive; "The i4, as is well known, is being built in Munich. Preparations for the production of the all-electric Gran Coupé started last summer. For six weeks, vehicle production was suspended during the Bavarian summer holidays to retool the existing production facilities so that in future the BMW 3 Series Sedan, the BMW 3 Series Touring, both with combustion engines and hybrid drive, the BMW M3 and the all-electric BMW i4 can be manufactured on the same line. As the German Handelsblatt now reports about group circles, the start of production of the i4 is to be brought forward to August or September."
They also reported news of the iX3 in Germany: "The Munich-based company activated the online configurator for the iX3 last month in their native Germany and published the associated price and equipment list. The starting price is slightly lower than originally announced, namely 66,300 euros for the Inspiring variant. The higher equipment variant Impressive is listed from 71,800 euros. The German environmental bonus of 7,500 euros can still be deducted from the official prices. The first cars will be delivered at the end of January."
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