Ferrari Turns To Tech Industry For New Boss | 10 June 2021

Episode 1109,   Jun 10, 2021, 11:00 AM

Today’s big EV stories:
• Sweden's Gigafactory Expansion
• Tesla's Gigafactory Texas Model Y Machinery Is Already Operational
• ElectriCity EV Production Center
• Ferrari turns to tech industry for its electric era leader
• New Jersery Incentives Uncertain
• GRIDSERVE takes over the Electric Highway
• Thousands of London vans could switch to electric today
• Turning diesel into electric
• Solarwatt teams up with BMW to launch modular battery product

Show #1109.
 
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Good morning, good afternoon and good evening wherever you are in the world, welcome to EV News Daily for Thursday 10th June. 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.
 
SWEDEN'S GIGAFACTORY EXPANSION
"The Swedish battery manufacturer says it has signed a USD 2.75 billion private placement to finance further battery cell production capacity and R&D efforts. The company is looking to expand its Swedish gigafactory, Northvolt Ett, from 40 to 60 GWh of annual capacity." says evertiq.com: "With this private placement, Northvolt has raised more than USD 6.5 billion in equity and debt to enable an expansion plan leading up to and beyond 150 GWh of deployed annual production capacity in Europe by 2030. In addition, Northvolt has to date secured in excess of USD 27 billion worth of contracts from key customers, including BMW, Fluence, Scania and Volkswagen"
 
Recharge reports: "VW said it is contributing $620m in the financing round, and thus will maintain a 20% stake in Northvolt. The carmaker had already invested about €900m ($1.1bn) in Northvolt in 2019, and has a seat on the battery cell specialist's board of directors. In order to meet its ambitious 2030 capacity target, Northvolt plans to build at least two more gigafactories in Europe over the coming decade, and is actively exploring the possibility of building one of these in Germany, the core of the continent’s car manufacturing sector."
 
chief executive Peter Carlsson: "We have been producing cells at our cell industrialisation facility, Northvolt Labs, for more than a year and are excited to now bring the knowledge and technology we have developed to the north and start large-scale production,
 
 
 
TESLA'S GIGAFACTORY TEXAS MODEL Y MACHINERY IS ALREADY OPERATIONAL
"Tesla Inc's Gigafactory Texas is the company's latest vehicle production factory. It is supposed to begin production later this year of Tesla's Model Y, followed by the Cybertruck and Tesla Semi. And now it appears Tesla's factory is already hard at work.  Teslarati shared a video from Twitter showing multiple pieces of machinery inside Gigafactory whirring away. The equipment is most likely in an initial testing phase as Tesla gets ready to start production." according to Benzinga: "Although the factory is also still under construction, Tesla could begin vehicle production while other areas of the factory are built. In May, hundreds of Model Y front castings were seen piled outside of Gigafactory Texas. This latest video adds to the evidence Tesla is aggressively pushing its schedule to begin Model Y production at Gigafactory Texas as soon as possible. It needs to do so if it wants to meet demand, as all of quarter two inventory was sold out early."
 
 
ELECTRICITY EV PRODUCTION CENTER
"Renault announced a new, wholly-owned legal entity Renault ElectriCity, that groups together the industrial sites of Douai, Maubeuge and Ruitz in northern France, totalling nearly 5,000 employees. This move is part of the previously announced Renaulution strategic plan, and will enable to "electrify" the plants with an ambition of 400,000 vehicles per year by 2025." says InsideEVs: "The Douai plant is scheduled to start production of its first electric car later this year. It will be the all-electric Megane E-Vision, based on the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance's CMF-EV platform, utilized also by Nissan in the upcoming Ariya model. The Maubeuge plant is not a newbie to EVs, as it has been making the Renault Kangoo Z.E. with lithium-ion batteries for about 10 years. In 2022, Renault will launch the all-new Kangoo Van E-TECH Electric. We guess that the plant will produce also electric vans for Nissan and Daimler. The plant in Ruitz will supply electrical components to other plants."
 
 
FERRARI TURNS TO TECH INDUSTRY FOR ITS ELECTRIC ERA LEADER
"Ferrari (RACE.MI) has turned to technology industry veteran Benedetto Vigna to drive the luxury sports car maker known for its roaring, high-octane engines into a new era of silent, electric powertrains." says Reuters: "Vigna, 52, currently runs the biggest division of semiconductor maker STMicroelectronics (ST) (STM.BN), where he has worked since 1995 and helped pioneer the sensors first used in iPhones to rotate the screen by turning the handset. Vigna's appointment announced on Wednesday shows Ferrari's development strategy remains firmly anchored in manufacturing cutting-edge, high-end sports cars for an electric era, rather than repositioning itself as a pure luxury goods company. It also highlights the challenges facing carmakers as they adapt to the green revolution forcing the industry to move away from combustion engines and embrace new technologies from batteries to connectivity to autonomous driving."
 
 
NEW JERSERY INCENTIVES UNCERTAIN
"New Jersey is so eager to get more electric vehicles on the road, the state was literally paying residents to buy them. But that rebate — up to $5,000 in one of the most generous state incentives in the country — expired in December, meaning anyone who bought an EV in the past six months didn’t get that benefit. And it’s unclear when the program will resume." reports NJ.com: "For months, state officials said they were targeting summer 2021 to again incentivize electric car purchases. But here we are on the cusp of summer, and the restart date has yet to be announced. Combined with the federal tax credit of up to $7,500, EV drivers in the Garden State were getting as much as $12,500 off the sticker price of their cars, depending on the make and model."
 
 
GRIDSERVE TAKES OVER THE ELECTRIC HIGHWAY
" GRIDSERVE has today completed the purchase of the Electric Highway – the world’s first national charging network for electric cars – from green energy supplier Ecotricity. The Electric Highway has played an important role in kickstarting the UK's electric vehicle revolution since it was established in 2011, enabling early adopters of EVs to drive across Britain." says Green Car Reports: " GRIDSERVE is ramping up its investment in the Electric Highway, replacing all existing pumps on the network with new technology that features all the latest advances, including contactless payment. Last month, for example, the Electric Highway opened the first high-power charging facility on the country’s motorway network – at Moto’s new flagship Rugby services, which features 12 of the new 350kW chargers."
 
 
THOUSANDS OF LONDON VANS COULD SWITCH TO ELECTRIC TODAY
"More than 1.6 million vans across the UK could switch to ‘clean’ electric power today, new technical analysis reveals. London has the potential to make the biggest single switch to green EVs of all, the research shows, with more than 85,000 making the switch." says the Evening Standard: "Fleet management services and solutions firm Masternaut - owned by tyre giant Michelin - compiled a year’s worth of data from 37,252 electric vehicles to discover how and where EVs could provide a real-life replacement to petrol and diesel engined vehicles. The research found that UK fleet operators could replace 40 per cent of their current vehicles with electric alternatives today, with no daytime charging required. This transition from ICE fleets to EVs could reduce harmful emissions by 8.3 million tons of CO2 a year, according to Masternaut."
 
 
TURNING DIESEL INTO ELECTRIC
"Five years after the demise of Australian vehicle manufacturing in Adelaide, a growing number of businesses are retrofitting diesel light vehicles into custom electric vehicles (EVs) in Australia for use in underground mines." reports ABC: "Victoria-based mining supplier Safescape began developing its own EV in 2018. GB Auto signed a deal last year to retrofit 2000 LandCruisers into EVs at their facility in Orange, NSW. Zero Automotive manufactures a "whole modular [electric] platform" for their own version in Adelaide. Murray Engineering will start manufacturing electric LandCruisers as well as underground-ready DC vehicle chargers in Pinjarra, WA, later this year. It's pretty well going to be forced upon people to run electric vehicles [underground] because the vent flow in the mine is paramount. If you're counting light vehicles in the vent flow — five diesels and you have to take one truck out so all of a sudden it becomes a big cost issue.""
 
 
SOLARWATT TEAMS UP WITH BMW TO LAUNCH MODULAR BATTERY PRODUCT
"German PV manufacturer Solarwatt has today (9 June) unveiled a new battery storage product developed in collaboration with BMW. The Solarwatt Battery Flex is a modular storage device, with the system able to expanded from 4.8KWh to 240kWh through the stacking of up to eight battery packs and creation of up to 10 clusters." says Solar Power Portal: "Additionally, the individual components of the Solarwatt Battery Flex weigh no more than 25 kilograms, meaning the storage system can be installed by a single person. Solarwatt is make the AC-1 system available in the autumn. When the Solarwatt Battery Flex system is paired with solar PV and used in conjunction with the Solarwatt Manager Flex intelligent energy management system, it is particularly efficient, with the latter controling and optimising the energy flows in the household and ensuring that as much solar power as possible is consumed in the household itself."
 
QUESTION OF THE WEEK WITH EMOBILITYNORWAY.COM
 
What noises, if any, should electric vehicles make (inside or outside the vehicle)
 
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