For some perspective:

Consumer-grade pickup trucks are already in the luxury bracket.

The first-gen Nissan Leaf and current Prius Prime both have this feature, intended to keep the 12V battery topped off and the fans running.

I genuinely don’t think that big automakers will go out of business before theycatch up on producing EV’s. But I do think it is entirely possible for one of the current EV startups join them as a “big automaker”.

This is the lynchpin. I have no doubt that when the big automakers start making mass-market EVs, they’ll do a great job. But so far, they haven’t. From the American and Japanese makers, we’ve seen concept cars and underwhelming beta vehicles with limited production runs. Most don’t have the factories or battery supply…

First Gear:

What do you think MB USA’s all-electric pivot means for the Smart brand? Has this made it even more niche, or is it good foresight to bank on carsharing? Are they expecting the short range to become more palatable over time? What’s their game here?

I am cautiously optimistic for Geely. Well, okay, I’m optimistic for Volvo, and Geely looks good by proximity.

Enthusiasts will always find things to enthuse about. People who treat EVs as monolithic and soulless clones usually haven’t tinkered with electric drivetrains before. There’s a lot of diversity and a ton of stuff to geek out about.

There will always be commuters who don’t care what voodoo happens under the hood, and there will always be enthusiasts and wrench monkeys who do. There’s a ton of stuff going on under the hood of an EV — it’s not monolithic or identical.

Hearing stories like this is just surreal to me. With every one of these old EVs, I feel like I’m getting a glimpse into an alternate timeline.

I try my best to avoid the “EVs are set up for failure” narrative, but it’s such a compelling case for EVs from 1990-2003.

Buddy, I have some bad news for you. The entire VW I.D. line has names like Buzz, Crozz, Vizzion, and (I kid you not) Roomzz.

You’re mostly right, but in the EV industry, state of charge (SoC) is measured as percentage of usable capacity, not total capacity. Most automakers only tell us one or the other capacity measure. Audi is being nice by telling us both.

So say we all.

The thing that impresses me most about this effort is the battery technology itself. It supports a flat 150kW from 0% all the way up to 80%, which is very, very impressive. While that doesn’t translate into a whole lot of miles due to the E-Tron’s inefficiency, it gets my hopes up for the next vehicles based on the…

Bjorn Nyland tested the E-Tron in mixed highway/city driving at 23°F, and got 205 miles out of it. 2.45 mi/kWh consumption. So yeah, Audi is under reporting.

I’m calling it now. In four years, Karma will be long gone and this thing will be back as the Revero Fisker.

The typical application of a range extender (REx) isn’t to recharge in a parking lot. It is to keep the vehicle going when the battery is dead. To do that, it needs to have enough horsepower to recharge the battery as fast as the motors can drain it. A tiny REx that trickle-charges the battery is a perfectly valid…

I can’t find this piece by The Economist that you are referring to.