27 June 2018 | Audi Scraps e-tron Launch Plans, Tesla Roadster Test Driver Says IT’S FAST and $2bn Investment For Faraday Future
$2b Investment Boost For Faraday Future | Tesla Roadster Driver Says It’s Fast, Real Fast | Hyundai Will Use 'Second-Life' Electric Car Batteries For Energy Storage | Daimler Trucks Anticipates Battery Breakthrough
Well good morning, good afternoon and good evening, wherever you are in the world, hello and welcome to the Wednesday 27th June edition of EV News Daily. It’s Martyn Lee here with the news you need to know about electric cars and the move towards sustainable transport.
Follow Up 1: the Twitter account of John Totah who leaked the Gigafactory production numbers now seems to be completely deleted.
Follow Up 2: Audi is scrapping its plans to launch its E-Tron Quattro crossover in Brussels on Aug. 30. The launch has been postponed to a future date.
$2B INVESTMENT BOOST FOR FARADAY FUTURE
- TechCrunch call them the "Beleaguered electric vehicle firm Faraday Future" and "a rare moment of cheer for floundering electric car maker" which is a little harsh. But some might say fair! We've been talking about Faraday since they were founded in 2014 but so far have only released beta prototypes, that being the FF91. The car which they said would be on the market this year. Even when we first saw it at CES at the start of 2017 that date seemed a flight of fancy.
- And although they're based in California it's definitely Chinese money propping them up. Perhaps the 13 models they once promised are a little bit optimistic at this stage.
- TechCrunch do say: "Evergrande Health, a division of Hong Kong-listed Evergrande, has taken a 45 percent stake in Faraday Future in a deal worth a total of $2 billion. Evergrande Health has taken over an investment commitment agreed to last November by Season Smart Limited [which] invested an initial tranche of $800 million, according to filings, but now Evergrande Health has taken that over for around $860 million"
- FF said in a statement: "“FF will continue to use the committed funds to accomplish our top priority — finalizing the development and delivering the first production vehicle, FF 91 to both US and China markets. The investment will also support Faraday Future to expand its product pipeline, develop cutting-edge technologies and grow the business rapidly in the global marketplace, including our manufacturing facilities in Hanford, California and in Guangzhou Nansha, Guangdong Province, China."
- Electrek reminds us of the specs: "With a 130kWh battery pack configuration, FF claims that the FF91 will have 1050 horsepower. Faraday Future says this is the most of any electric car (but actually falls short of some hypercars like the current Rimac Concept_One and now some other upcoming electric cars) and has 378 miles of EPA range."
- According to GearBrain: "It is unknown how far the FF91 is from mass production, as Faraday Future scrapped plans for a $1 billion Las Vegas factory last August, instead opting to take over a 55-year-old former Pirelli tire factory in Los Angeles. FF said on June 7 this year that it had only just received a permit to begin construction of its new production facility. Despite the significant setbacks, lawsuits over missed payments to contractors, and an employee exodus, $2 billion is a huge chunk of cash and should see the FF91 make it to the end of a production line. "
TESLA ROADSTER DRIVER SAYS IT’S FAST, REAL FAST
- Emile Bouret is the test driver you go to for performance testing. He's raced professionally, has worked for Audi in the past, and now is a test driver for Tesla thanks to the chief designer Franz von Holzhausen bringing him in.
- Now we're still in the same week as a Tesla employee leaking positive news from Gigafactory, so he's not going to say much about the new Roadster. But he did say on the Youtube channel of VINWiki: "I know there is some scepticism about the figures that were quoted that day, 0 to 60 mph, quarter-mile, etc., and I think I can say without getting in trouble that those are actual figures. Those are not theoretical. Those are not calculations. We have done those numbers. I probably shouldn’t say but those numbers are actually conservative. It’s going to be a proper weapon."
- StatCheck on the Roadster - 200kWh battery pack, 600+ miles on one charge, three motors and 0-62 less than 2 seconds, these days everyone wants the 0-100mph time too, and that's 4.2 seconds. And that's without rocket boosters!
HYUNDAI WILL USE 'SECOND-LIFE' ELECTRIC CAR BATTERIES FOR ENERGY STORAGE
- Hyundai is the latest automaker to explore uses for so-called "second-life" electric-car batteries for storage.
- Stephen Edelstein for The Drive makes a good point about renewables needing storage to really be the answer to current fossil fuels, which can be 'always on': "Hyundai has already constructed a one-megawatt-hour test array using Ioniq Electric and Kia Soul EV batteries. Going forward, it plans to provide batteries to Wärtsilä, which will then market them to electric utilities and other companies as part of complete energy-storage systems" he says: "Hyundai expects 29 gigawatt-hours of used electric-car batteries to be available by 2025, compared to the 10 GWh of batteries currently available for the energy-storage market. The prediction is based on an assumption of vastly expanded electric-car sales. Tesla has already pioneered the model of selling both electric cars and batteries for energy storage. BMW, Daimler, and Nissan have also discussed selling energy-storage battery packs, but not on the same scale as Tesla."
DAIMLER TRUCKS ANTICIPATES BATTERY BREAKTHROUGH
- "Freightliner sells more heavy-duty diesel trucks in North America than any other brand. The division of Daimler AG, the German company that also owns the Mercedes-Benz car brand, controls about 40 percent of the heavy-duty truck market on this side of the Atlantic." reports Jerry Hirsch for trucks.com: "Earlier this month Roger Nielsen, chief executive of Daimler Trucks North America, unveiled the electric version of its flagship Freightliner semi-tractor. Prototypes of the truck will go into testing in the Portland, Ore., area later this year."
- Roger Niesel told Trucks.com: "When we make announcements, we’re always targeting what the customer could use, what the customer could need. Others in the startup industry [are] trying to attract investors or money, which is a different message if you’re trying to attract investment versus you’re trying to attract customers. We’re in the business of attracting customers, so our message is a little bit different. But for sure all the startups are interesting to watch. Of course, we’ve talked to them. Customers will get operating cost parity before purchase price parity. A lot of things go in that equation. The customer is expecting a truck to last a million miles with the last half million being driven by his used truck customer. There’s still a lot to be done there."
- On short hauls he says: "Bakery deliveries start at 4 in the morning, and they can go all the way through the evening. Maybe that truck also has to come back midday for a charge, or there’s charging somewhere along the way. The [Freightliner] eM2 [an electric medium-duty truck] would be a perfect application for a bakery with a 60-minute rest stop and charge. Say the driver wants lunch. He can get another 200 miles of range."
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