Transportation

Tesla opens its EV connector design to other automakers • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 11, 2022Posted in EV, Tesla, TransportationNo Comments

Tesla is sharing its EV charging connector design in an effort to encourage network operators and automakers to adopt the technology and help make it the new standard in North America. Tesla said in a blog post Friday that its design and specification files are available for download. The company said it is “actively working with relevant standards bodies to codify Tesla’s charging connector as a public standard.” The charging connector in all Tesla vehicles offers AC charging and up to 1 MW DC charging. Its compact design and performance is considered superior to the Combined Charging System connectors used by most EVs in North America. Tesla claims that its charging connector and charge port — which it now calls the North American Charging Standard (NACS) — is the most common charging standard in North America. It’s a stat based on Tesla vehicle sales in North America and the number of chargers at its branded Supercharging stations. Tesla has nearly 1,500 Supercharger stations in the United States. Each station has an average of nine chargers. Tesla didn’t name any automakers or charging infrastructure companies as converts. In this highly competitive environment, in which virtually every automaker is now using the CCS, it’s hard to see GM, Ford and Stellantis switching to Tesla’s technology. However, at least one company — EV startup Aptera — supports the move. Earlier this year, Aptera called for U.S. government to adopt Tesla’s Supercharger technology as the standard for all EV charging in the country. And EVGo has added Tesla connectors to some of its charging stations in the United States. The company said in the blog post that network operators “already have plans in motion” to incorporate NACS at their chargers. If network providers like ChargePoint, EVConnect or Electrify America add NACS, it would allow Tesla owners to charge at these stations without a need for an adapter. If automakers switch to the NACS on its EVs, it would give owners of those vehicles access to Tesla’s North American Supercharging and destination charging networks.

Polestar doubles Q3 revenue, narrows losses • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 11, 2022Posted in EV, Polestar, Polestar 3, Transportation, volvoNo Comments

Polestar said it’s still on track to deliver 50,000 cars worldwide this year, even as other electric vehicle makers falter amid higher costs, supply chain crunches and production challenges. The Volvo spinoff, which went public in a SPAC deal in June, delivered more than 30,424 globally for the first nine months of the year, including 9,249 in the third quarter. CEO Thomas Ingenlath said he expects the fourth quarter to be the automaker’s strongest, with higher vehicle prices offsetting rising material costs. The company is one of a handful of startup brands that managed to mass produce an EV on a global scale. It benefits from shared resources with Volvo and its parent company, Geely, as well as a $3 billion agreement to sell 65,000 EVs to Hertz over the next five years. “Unlike most of our peers, our global targets are a reality, not an aspiration,” Ingenlath said Friday on a call with analysts. He said Polestar, which forecasts full-year revenue of $2.4 billion, would have exceeded its production goal if not for a wave of pandemic-related lockdowns in Shanghai that stymied global automakers in the spring. The company reported a third-quarter operating loss of $196.4 million, down from $292.9 million for the year-ago period. Revenue more than doubled to $435.4 million, from $212.9 million. The arrival of the Polestar 3 SUV, a new entrant in a profitable, fast-growing segment, could be a game-changer. The five-passenger crossover is designed to compete with a forthcoming crop of battery-electric luxury SUVs from Mercedes-Benz, Maserati and the like. Priced from $83,900, the 489-horsepower SUV will achieve an estimated 300-mile range and share some equipment and features with Volvo’s upcoming EX90 battery-electric SUV, including bidirectional charging, which allows the car’s battery to feed power back to the grid when not in use. The company will begin building the Polestar 3 at Volvo Cars’ plant in Chengdu, China, next summer and its Ridgeville, South Carolina, facility in mid-2024. The SUV is expected to arrive in showrooms in the U.S., Europe and China late next year, followed by the Middle East and Asia Pacific. Polestar plans to sway SUV customers to the new brand with a cutting-edge technology palette, which includes hardware from lidar supplier Luminar and software from Zenseact, Volvo’s division for advanced driver assistance systems. Analysts note that certain new Volvo safety features may debut in Polestar models first. Polestar plans to continue launching new models at a steady clip, starting with the 2024 arrival of the Polestar 4 SUV coupe. The Polestar 5 4-door GT and Polestar 6, an 884-horsepower hard-top convertible, are slated to follow.

Now anyone can hail a Waymo robotaxi in downtown Phoenix • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in autonomous vehicles, robotaxi, Transportation, waymoNo Comments

Waymo has opened up its fully driverless ride-hail service in downtown Phoenix to members of the general public. Previously, the company had only been operating a commercial service with no safety driver behind the wheel for participants in its “trusted tester” program. The expansion in Phoenix is yet another sign of Waymo’s accelerated push towards commercialization. It comes a day after Waymo secured its driverless deployment permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles, which allows Waymo to charge for autonomous services, like delivery, in San Francisco. More importantly, it’s a prerequisite to securing the California Public Utilities Commission’s own driverless deployment permit, which Waymo needs to operate a commercial robotaxi service with no human safety operator in the city. Waymo’s service in downtown Phoenix will mirror the one it has operated in Chandler, Arizona since 2020. It will be a paid rider-only service that’s available 24/7 to anyone who downloads the app and hails a ride Waymo’s service area. Waymo said this is an important step as it plans to expand the service to even more of the downtown area in coming months. Earlier this month, Waymo also launched rides, with a driver in the front seat, to Phoenix’s airport from the city’s downtown. The service is currently only available to trusted testers, but will likely expand using the same recipe Waymo has used throughout its many expansions — Waymo will probably next test fully driverless rides to the airport with employees before opening that up to trusted testers, and then finally to members of the public. Waymo did not confirm or deny this roadmap. Waymo’s service area in downtown Phoenix. Image Credits: Waymo Waymo did not say how many of its fleet of Jaguar I-Pace’s would be dedicated to the commercial ramp in Phoenix, but a spokesperson told ZebethMedia the company is ready to meet what it projects to be a “healthy demand” for a 24/7 autonomous ride-hailing service downtown.

Audi, Redwood Materials launch recycling program for consumer electronics • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in Audi, Batteries, EV, Redwood Materials, TransportationNo Comments

Audi and battery recycler Redwood Materials are teaming up to collect end-of-life batteries from cell phones, electric toothbrushes and other lithium-ion-powered devices at participating dealerships nationwide. Beginning November, consumers can deposit their laptops, cell phones, e-bikes, e-scooters, electric toothbrushes, vacuum cleaners, power drills and other rechargeable devices at the dealerships. The recycling bins will be available for the “foreseeable future in select dealerships,” a spokeswoman said. The program, which expands upon Redwood’s partnership to recycle Audi and Volkswagen EV batteries, marks the first time the Nevada-based recycler has worked with an automaker to collect household lithium-ion batteries. The batteries and devices collected in the bins will be sent to Redwood’s facility to be repurposed as sustainable, domestic EV batteries. As the largest player in the burgeoning battery recycling industry, Redwood has an opportunity to solve a raw materials shortage that threatens to undercut automakers’ aggressive global EV sales targets. Creating a sustainable, closed-loop domestic battery supply chain can supply the millions of new EVs slated to hit the road over the next few years while meeting guidelines for incentives under the Inflation Reduction Act. The bill provides tax credits for EVs whose batteries are constructed with recycled content. About 15 million tons of lithium-ion batteries are expected to retire by 2030, the deadline most automakers have set for phasing out gas-engine vehicles, according to AquaMetals. Redwood projects global demand for lithium-ion batteries to rise sixfold, or by more than 500%, over the next decade.

Waymo can now charge for fully driverless services in San Francisco • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in autonomous vehicles, robotaxi, Transportation, waymoNo Comments

The California Department of Motor Vehicles approved an amendment to Waymo’s existing deployment permit Wednesday to include driverless, as well as drivered, operations. Now, Waymo will be able to charge for usage of its autonomous vehicles, which will operate without anyone in the driver’s seat, for services like food and grocery delivery. The upgraded DMV permit is a prerequisite to launching a fully autonomous commercial ride-hail service in San Francisco, as its main competitor Cruise did this summer. All Waymo needs now is a driverless deployment permit from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to finally start charging for rider-only autonomous rides in the city. The company will be eligible to apply for that permit once it has operated its driverless cars on public roads for at least 30 days. Waymo has been operating with its drivered deployment permit from the DMV since last October, which allowed the company to begin a commercial autonomous delivery pilot in San Francisco with Albertsons earlier this year. Per the permit’s requirements, a human safety operator has to be in the front seat during operations. Waymo’s service area in San Francisco. Image Credit: Waymo Waymo then received a CPUC drivered deployment permit in February this year and began charging its “trusted testers” for robotaxi rides with a human safety operator in the front seat in May. Between June and August, Waymo completed more than 709,000 miles with a safety driver in the state of California, according to the CPUC’s quarterly report. The company recently expanded its service in downtown Phoenix to include trips, with a human safety operator, to Phoenix’s airport, and said it would launch a robotaxi service in Los Angeles.

Lyft-backed plan to fund electric cars flops in California • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in Climate, electric vehicles, Gavin Newsom, Lyft, Michael Moritz, Ron Conway, TransportationNo Comments

California voters shot down a plan to make electric vehicles more affordable for some residents, dealing a blow to Lyft and the EV industry alike. Proposition 30 would have taxed residents making more than $2 million a year to subsidize electric cars and public charging stations as well as funded wildfire prevention programs. Even with just 41% of the votes tallies so far, the defeat was clear. As of Wednesday afternoon, some 59% of voters rejected the proposition. The measure’s defeat comes as several states ready bans on gas-powered vehicles in urgent efforts to cut climate pollution. Prop 30’s primary backer was Lyft, which paid more than $48 million to support the would-be wealth tax. The measure’s opponents — which included Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom and venture capitalists Michael Moritz and Ron Conway — cast Prop 30 as a “Lyft grift,” calling it a “scheme to further line the pockets of Silicon Valley tech billionaires.” Yet, Prop 30 did not include carve-outs for ride-share companies. It would have raised tens of billions of dollars to push down the price of electric cars for individuals, including drivers for ride apps like Lyft and Uber. Both companies have committed to going electric by 2030, and this measure could have helped them hit their targets. Earlier this year, California mandated that nearly all ride-share vehicles go electric by 2030, as part of a broader effort to gradually push combustion engines off roads. Although the state already operates some programs to help cover the cost of going electric, Prop 30 could have provided further assistance. Without it, ride-app companies may be forced to fork up additional cash, one way or another, to incentivize their drivers to switch, so they’ll comply with the state’s mandate. Though more affordable options are gradually coming to market, electric vehicles are generally still in short supply, and most are too pricey up front for most people. This is no good for the climate, because light-duty vehicles like cars and SUVs make up more than half of transportation-related emissions in the U.S., per the EPA. On the NASDAQ, Lyft closed at $10.64, down by almost 2.4% from the prior day. The decline pales in comparison to the nosedive Lyft shareholders suffered on Monday, after disclosing hefty losses in its latest quarterly report. Earlier this month, Lyft laid off 683 employees, or about 13% of its workforce.

Canoo to buy vehicle manufacturing facility in Oklahoma City • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in Canoo, earnings, electric vehicles, TransportationNo Comments

Commercial electric vehicle company Canoo entered into an agreement to acquire a vehicle manufacturing facility in Oklahoma City, the company announced Wednesday along with its third-quarter earnings. The news comes a week after Canoo said it would build an EV battery module manufacturing facility in Pryor, Oklahoma. The new facility will be dedicated to producing Canoo’s electric Lifestyle Delivery Vehicle (LDV) and Lifestyle Vehicle (LV), an electric SUV. Canoo is still working on its “megamicro factory” in Pryor, but until that comes online, this new facility will help Canoo ramp production and bring EVs to market in 2023. Canoo CEO Tony Aquila said the company expects to start production for the LDV on November 17 and complete final certification in the first quarter of 2023. The goal is to build 15 production vehicles this year, which will go to committed order customers like NASA and Walmart. The Oklahoma City 120+ acre facility has “production-ready infrastructure” and is “strategically located with easy access to road and rail,” according to Canoo Aquila. Canoo will adapt the facility to accommodate a full vehicle assembly line with robotics, a paint shop and upfitting center. Canoo said the facility will be powered by clean energy. “Following these initial builds, we will then aggressively shift all our equipment and focus to our new facility during Q1 and Q2 of 2023,” Aquila said Wednesday. “As we start production, we expect the first sellable vehicle deliveries to occur in the back half of Q1 and we will ramp production in 2H 2023 to 20,000 units run rate by year end.” Aquila said the megamicro factory in Pryor is “a bit delayed due to economic reasons,” but that when Canoo is able to shift resources there, the startup will be able to double its run rate to 40,000 units by the end of 2024. Long term, the Oklahoma City facility announced Wednesday will focus on producing defence and specialty products, said Aquila. In April, NASA selected Canoo to provide crew transportation vehicles for the crewed Artemis lunar exploration launches, and in July, the U.S. Army selected Canoo to supply EVs for analysis and demonstration. Canoo Q3 financials Canoo closed out the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $6.8 million. That’s down from last quarter’s $33.8 million, and $224.7 million from the fourth quarter of 2021. In less than a year, Canoo burned through $217.9 million, and it’s still not generating revenue. Quarter-over-quarter, Aquila says Canoo’s cash burn is down 25% as the company continues to shift its expense mix, increasing the ratio of capital spend to operating spend. The company’s loss from operating activities totaled $109.4 million this quarter, and its GAAP net loss and comprehensive loss hit $117.7 million. Canoo says it has access to $200 million through an “at-the-market offering” program, as well, but access to capital isn’t the same thing as having cash on hand. “On the financing front, we have secured an additional $30 million in a PIPE and a note to be converted to cash or stock,” said Aquila, noting the company is in the final phases of evaluating different financing options for the Oklahoma facility. Canoo seems to be riding promises of future revenue to get access to more financing and stay afloat. After reporting first-quarter earnings this year, Canoo issued a growing concern warning, saying that it may not have enough funds to make it stay in business. Things improved for the company in the second quarter, in part due to its agreement with Walmart to sell 4,500 electric delivery vehicles. This not only assured future revenue for Canoo, but also gave the company another opportunity to go after additional non-dilutive and lower-cost capital financing opportunities. Since then, Canoo has also secured binding fleet orders from Kingbee and Zeeba to purchase 9,300 and 3,000 vehicles, respectively, with the option to increase to 18,600 and 5,450 vehicles, respectively. Today, Canoo has over $2 billion in total orders in its pipeline, according to Aquila. “The last two quarters have been very tight,” said Aquila. “The macro economic has worsened, pushing the cost of capital higher and forcing us to accelerate our maturity and manage costs efficiently to achieve our goals. We have been doing our best to manage cash, continued access to liquidity and dilution.” Aquila said that even though Canoo’s cash situation looks dire, he believes having less access to cash has led to more competitiveness and efficiencies. “Being able to teach the crew here how to run a business on ‘just in time’ milestone capital is a very disciplined approach as an investor, not just as the chairman and CEO,” he said “I know it is painful. But, you know, would you rather give a young company a lot of money, or would you rather give it money based on milestones?” Canoo revised its expenditure guidance for the remainder of the year, anticipating $70 million to $90 million in operating expenses, excluding stock-based compensation, and $30 million to $50 million of capital expenditures. “We are now on track for a 40% reduction in operating expenses for the second half of the year, which is significant improvement compared to a previously disclosed projection of 20% reduction,” said Ramesh Murthy, Canoo’s senior vice president of finance. Canoo’s stock, which closed at $1.17, is up 3.42% in after-hours trading.

Rivian upholds 2022 production targets as net loss widens • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 9, 2022Posted in R1T, Rivian, TransportationNo Comments

Electric vehicle maker Rivian affirmed Wednesday that the company is on track to hit its annual production target of 25,000 vehicles despite unpredictable supply chain crunches and component shortages. The startup-turned-public company remained committed to its production goal, even as industry-wide challenges, supply chain snarls and macroeconomic forces conspired to keep automakers from satisfying a strong consumer appetite for cars, trucks and SUVs. Rivian reported that its third-quarter production rose 67% over the same period a year ago, for a total count of 15,000 vehicles, including the automaker’s truck, SUV and Amazon delivery vans, through September 30. During the quarter, the company produced 7,363 vehicles, boosted by the addition of a second shift at its Normal, Illinois, factory. It delivered 6,584 of them — a significant jump from the 4,467 vehicles Rivian delivered in the second quarter of the year. Like other automakers, and especially other startups, Rivian has struggled this year, with founder and CEO RJ Scaringe forced in July to lay off 6% of its workforce, or roughly 900 employees. For the third quarter, Rivian reported a net loss of $1.72 billion on revenue of $536 million. That compares with a net loss of $1.23 billion on revenue of $1 million the same period a year ago. In October, Rivian was forced to recall nearly all of its vehicles to fix a steering defect. Meanwhile, the company is gearing up for long-term supply chain constraints it foresees in the battery supply chain. The industry’s ongoing semiconductor chip shortage is “an appetizer to the degree of the sort of supply chain constraint we’re likely to see across the battery supply chain over the next 15 years,” Scaringe said from the ZebethMedia Disrupt conference stage later in the month. However, the demand for Rivian’s vehicles remains, with more than 114,000 preorders in the U.S. and Canada as of Monday. That’s on top of Amazon’s initial order of 100,000 electric vans. Rivian pointed to several segments where it sees potential growth, including the 2026 launch of its next-generation R2 EV platform, a partnership with Mercedes-Benz to build electric vans at scale and the hiring of former Waymo and Zoox executive James Philbin to lead Rivian’s efforts in AI and automated driving technology. The near-term economic challenges are putting pressue on EV makers of all sizes. British electric vehicle startup Arrival, which restructured its business amid a cash crunch and pivoted to develop commercial vans for the U.S. instead of Europe, said Tuesday it doesn’t expect to earn revenue until after 2023. Also on Tuesday, Lucid Motors reported a net loss of $530 million for the third quarter, on $195.5 million in revenue. The startup confirmed it’s on track to build between 6,000 and 7,000 of its Lucid Air luxury sedans in 2022, down from an initial target of 20,000. Tesla nearly doubled its third-quarter income, to $3.3 billion compared with the same year-ago period, but said production remains hamstrung by supply. The record-setting $21.45 billion revenue Tesla reported for the quarter still fell below analyst expectations. Rivian, Tesla and the others also face competition from strong legacy automakers that continue to launch electric trucks and SUVs, such as the Volvo EX90 revealed Wednesday morning, on their quest to go fully electric by the end of the decade.

Tesla vehicles will soon have Zoom video conferencing • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 9, 2022Posted in Enterprise, EV, Tesla, Transportation, zoomNo Comments

Zoom is working with Tesla to bring video conferencing into its vehicles. The announcement, made at the 2022 Zoomtopia conference, was light on details. But according to Zoom’s group product manager Nitasha Walia, the video conferencing feature “will come standard on all new Tesla models soon.” “You’ve been zooming from your home, your office, your phone, and even your TV,” Nitasha Walia, group product manager at Zoom Video Communications, said Tuesday. “We’re going to make it even easier for you to zoom from anywhere.” Image Credits: Zoom What’s unclear is what Zoom means by “comes standard on all new Tesla vehicles.” Will this integration require additional hardware in Tesla vehicles or can this feature be rolled out via a software update? And when? Tesla has continued to add features to its infotainment system designed to entertain its driver or passengers while sitting parked, likely at an EV charger. Its vehicles, all of which have large touchscreen displays, can stream Netflix and YouTube, has karaoke and offers a host of video games, including Fallout Shelter, Cuphead and Stardew Valley. All of these entertainment features as well as performance related improvements have been rolled out via wireless software updates.

Volvo unveils flagship SUV with 370-mile range • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 9, 2022Posted in EV, suv, Transportation, volvoNo Comments

Volvo unveiled its flagship electric vehicle Wednesday, a seven-passenger SUV that can travel 370 miles on a fully charged battery. The debut of the Volvo EX90 is a “huge step forward” in the automaker’s quest to become a fully electric brand by 2030, CEO Jim Rowan said during a livestreamed launch event. Slated to arrive early 2024, the SUV marks the brand’s “new era” of software-defined vehicles, sporting technology and safety features expected to trickle down to the rest of the lineup. The EX90 embodies Volvo’s key marketing message — that no one should be killed or seriously injured in a new Volvo car — as it aims for EVs to comprise half of the 1.2 million vehicles the company is targeting in mid-decade global sales. The standard system features 16 ultrasonic sensors, eight cameras, five radar systems, and lidar fitted to the roofline, helping the car see up to 820 feet in complete darkness, according to Volvo. “All of these work together to form an invisible shield of safety,” said Rowan, who called the EX90 “the safest car Volvo has ever produced.” He said the system is designed with AI capabilities to become more tailored to the driver’s behavior over time. As the latest in the industry’s crop of “software-defined vehicles,” the SUV relies upon core compute technology. The guts are created with partners, including Google, Apple, Nvidia, Luminar and Qualcomm. The EX90’s 370-mile range puts it ahead of the majority of new battery-electric SUVs on the market, including the Ford Mustang Mach-E and Tesla Model X. It also features bidirectional charging to use the car’s battery as an extra energy supply source to power home appliances and feed energy back to the grid. The automaker said Wednesday it plans to unroll a Volvo app, with details to come, and expand its subscription-based ownership and Care by Volvo maintenance programs to more cities and countries.