Battery EV uptake doubles, but the new car market remains well adrift of pre COVID pandemic levels.

New car registrations grew 1.7% in November, bringing an end to four months of consecutive decline. Compared to the pre-pandemic average, the market remains down significantly, with -31.3% fewer vehicles registered during the month.

Plug-in vehicle demand continued to grow, however with battery electric vehicles equating to 18.8% of the market, while plug-in hybrid vehicles’

 share grew to 9.3%. In 2021 to date, 1,538,585 new cars have been registered, 17.5% have been BEVs or PHEVs.

Britain’s ratio of plug-in vehicles on the road to standard public chargers (16:1) was one of the worst among the top 10 global electric vehicle markets at the end of 2020.

Read more here – https://www.smmt.co.uk/2021/12/battery-ev-uptake-doubles-but-new-car-market-remains-well-adrift-of-pre-pandemic-levels/ 

Electric Car manufacturer Build Your Dreams (BYD) has launched the latest Tang Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) in Norway. This marks a significant step for the company with Norway being the first European country to have their vehicles sold. The arrival of the Tang in Europe is the first step into the Chinese electric brand expanding their audience. 

Globally, BYD was one of the first companies to produce one million electric passenger cars. Since then it has become a well established world leading new energy vehicle manufacturer across an array of industries. 

With 26 years of experience BYD are experts in battery research, de

velopment, and production and place electrification and battery technology at the heart of the business. 

The new Tang vehicle is an all-wheel-drive crossover batter

y electric vehicle. It comes fully equipped with BYD’s 86.4kWh Blade Battery which can charge up to 80% in only 30 minutes. The battery offers a range of 328 miles and an acceleration of 0-62mph in just 4.6 seconds.

As distribution of BYD starts to expand across Europe it is expected that their great value cars will become a lot more familiar on the roads. 

Read more here – https://www.electricdrives.tv/post/build-your-dreams-byd-launches-electric-cars-in-europe 

Sandy Munro has released a two-part presentation about the engineering philosphoies of Munro & associates in comparison to real world examples as well as comparing them to Elon Musk’s 5 step approach at Tesla. 

According to Sandy Munro the design innovations should be primarily focused on value, quality, and profitability. 

One of the main factors to improve on is reducing the number of parts for virtually all products. This will result in lower costs, increase in quality and additionally, investments to launch and maintain the product will be a lot lower. 

Elon Musk’s approach to the production of Tesla consists of five main points:

1. 1. Enhance basic requirements

1. 1. Try and delete part of the process

1. 1. Simplify or optimise

1. 1. Accelerate cycle time 

1. Automate

The extreme progress at Tesla in correlation to the general shift to battery electric vehicles, is a catalyst of change within the industry. In today’s world, such methods need to be applied and competitors who apply them will quickly gain greater advantages. 

To find out more click here.

Elon Musk was recently asked about the Tesla Semi which is delayed according to the official announcement, but at the same time expected to be delivered to PepsiCo this quarter. 

His response is to not put too much emphasis on that and that Tesla cannot produce additional vehicles in volume. This indicates that there really will be some deliveries of the Tesla Semi, those will be small numbers. 

The reason behind that is chip supply short-term and cell supply long-term, both of which have to be addressed to produce additional vehicles in volume.

The chip supply short-term issue will likely ease with each quarter so this appears to be the least of our problems. However the problem with the cell supply is one that will remain long-term. This will limit all-electric car expansion in general for many brands.

This explains why Tesla has extended the list of its battery supplier from solely Panasonic to also LG Chem’s LG Energy Solution and CATL, as well as has started its own in-house battery cell development (4680-type).

To find out more click here

The Mercedes-Benz EQS is a model that has all it needs to compete against other electric luxury sedans and is arguably the most important number in this company is range. 

They tested an EQS 450+ that they described as light on options, although it still weighed 5,500 pounds. The range test they performed was carried out over 12 hours, in which the car managed to clock up some 442 miles, or an impressive 77 miles (almost 124 km) more than the EPA estimates.

Edmunds breaks down how much the 422-mile trip cost which varies significantly. To find out more click here 

Internal combustion engines convert chemical energy in fuel at the injectors into mechanical energy. Chemical energy can be lost when delivered to the combustion chamber due to the mechanical friction between components. Developing an oil that provides higher-performing lubrication resulting in less friction significantly improves the engines performance. 

Mobil 1 have been working with Honda Formula 1 power unit engineers since 2018. The global motorsport technology manager has confirmed that they have been developing to push the boundaries of what is possible for Formula 1 engine oil. From this they have created a unique molecular composition of products for the Honda Formula 1 power unit.

The new Mobil 1 Oil has the capabilities of withstanding significantly higher temperatures than its predecessor. This provides a knock-on effect to the design of other parts of the vehicle, such as developing a more compact, and efficient engine to effectively improve the car’s packaging volume and aerodynamics, the most performance-dependent factor in Formula 1.

When creating the perfect oil Mobil 1 looked in some unusual places for components and compounds, this included the cosmetics industry which enabled them to bring in new components for the race oil formulation. 

Mobil 1 also aimed to improve the sustainability of their new oil. 25% of the base oil in Mobil 1’s formula 1 race engine oil is bio-based content. Allowing them to prove that environmental formulations can coincide with high performance.

To find out more about Mobil 1’s Formula 1 race engine oil click here.

Cold weather has many effects on any type of car, however more so for electric vehicles, affecting it’s charging, operating range, and temperature range. With the winter weather fast approaching, here are some top tips on how you can get the best range from your electric car’s battery. 

1. Park you car in a garage or indoors wherever possible

Keepings your electric vehicle inside during the winter can help maintain the car’s battery performance. The warmth of the garage enables your caer to hole the battery charge for longer.

2. Warm up your car first thing in the mornings

Most electric vehicles come accompanied with an app that will allow you to heat up the car in advance. By setting this temperature before you are due to leave not only heats the car up to the desired temperature but also warms up the battery to help with performance.

3. Keep your battery level above 15%

When temperatures drop significantly the cars battery management system reserves a percentage of the battery capacity this tends to be 15-2-%, therefore by keeping your cars charge above this (preferably 50%) you will provide yourself with a nice margin to maintain the car’s performance.

4. Use ECO mode

Most electric cars have a ECO mode which allows you to boost mileage and reduce power consumption, this is done by limiting the energy supplied to the driving motor and cabin heaters. You can accelerate slower, making driving safer when in icy or snowy conditions.

To find out more about how to protect your electric vehicle in winter click here.

During the 2021 IAA Mobility in Munich, Hyundai Motor has shared it’s global aim to become completely carbon neutral by the year 2045. This will also involve the global product lineup as well as all the company’s operations. Hyundai went on to explain they also plan to end the production of all combustion engine vehicles in Europe by 2035.

The Hyundai Motor Group is the world renowned name for brands such as Hyundai, Kia and the new and upcoming line of EVs. with many predicted to join the dedicated Electric-Global Modular Platform.

The luxury brand Genesis has also contributed to the reduction of combustion engine vehicles by stating that they plan to go all-electric by 2030, and ending production of combustion engines by 2025.

Earlier this summer Hyundai confirmed they will be investing $7.4 billion to the future of EV development and production.

With these factors taken into consideration Hyundai have reassured the public that sustainability remains a key focal point within the design of their vehicles, with a main goal of reducing their carbon footprint to be completely neutral. 

To find out more about Hyundai’s carbon neutral aims click here.

Audi has now officially launched the all new Q4 e-tron electric SUV in the United states and have recently confirmed that the price for the new vehicle will start off at $36,400.

The new SUV’s original concept was unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show back in 2019. At the show Audi confirmed they were planning on creating a production version of the vehicle towards the end of 2020.

The Audi Q4 e-tron is placed within the smaller segment of SUV cars, and has been inspired by VW’s MEB platform which should create lower prices and higher production capacity.

 Measuring at 180.6 inches long and 73.4 inches wide the new Q4 e-tron is a similar size the existing Audi Q3’s.

In April this year Audi also revealed that they were creating the Sportback version of the Q4 e-tron which attracted the eye of a whole new range of customers.

The new car comes with two battery pack options, and in ideal conditions can charge from 5% to 80% in just 38 minutes.

The higher end editions of the Q4 e-tron come with dual electric motor powertrain offering strong all-wheel-drive and higher performance with a 0-60 mph acceleration of 5.8 seconds.

Click here to read the full article.

Evgo has recently announced a new program focused on rewarding their loyal customers. The program called EVgo rewards customers with points towards free charging sessions in the future. This program is the first of its kind for public charging networks.

EVgo is a public EV charging network with over 800 fast chargers of 50kW or greater. They are currently the largest public charging network within the US with over 275,000 current customers.

EVgo has continuously made an effort in providing convenient experiences for EV drivers. 

 With this new reward program EVgo is looking to reward customers from every charge they do, which can then earn the customer free charging in the future.

To read the full article click here.