EV Industry Report #97: A-ha to blame for Norway's rEVolution — Zoom from your Tesla — Volvo EX90
Hey, Jaan here.
My boss* asked me to tell you that we have this great EV Universe Pro membership that you can sign up for (here). It will make him happy, thanks.
This week, you can read about:
- [History] how the band A-ha jumpstarted Norway's rEVolution.
- Volvo EX90 is in our spotlight.
- You can soon Zoom from your Tesla.
- The EV-friendliest places to stay... and more.
Words: 2,728 | Time to read: 12 minutes | Feeling: like launching a campaign of civil disobedience.
— Jaan, the boss*
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How the pop band A-ha created Norway's rEVolution
Today, I'll take you back a bit in history. To the year 1989, to be exact.
These guys, together forming the band A-ha, were on top of their game. As I write the story, the 'Take on Me' started playing in my head immediately. Back then, it was one of the most popular bands in the Universe. In today's terms, the song in my head has 1.5 billion views on YouTube.
What's it got to do with EVs?
The two leading Nordic environmental movements weren't successful in pushing the EV technology, so they approached The Band to advocate for the cause.
Together, they went to Bern in Switzerland to attend the Tour de Sol exhibition in 1989, where they saw a converted Fiat Panda.
It had two seats and went 45 km (28mi) on one charge, after which it had to be charged for 48 hours, the group says on an interview in Norway (video).
BBC covered the story very well here, so I'll just quote you the gems I found:
A-ha, together with environmental groups, imported a similar car into Norway and used the first modern-day EV on the country's roads to launch a campaign of civil disobedience, making a point about how it needed to embrace an alternative to polluting fossil fuel vehicles.
They racked up fines as they drove the car through toll booths, parked illegally and refused to pay vehicle taxes, arguing that this new form of sustainable transport should be free of these levies in order to make it more attractive.
"The idea was to embarrass the government to the extent that only a year after we first drove the car they started implementing the world's best incentives, that we had demanded."
In fact, the campaign went on for about seven years until all the incentives were adopted. The car was impounded by the government and bought back by supporters at least a dozen times.
BBC brought the group back to recreate the photo now, with what seems to be the Fiat 500e:
As you know, about 33 years later, Norway is the first country in the world that is very, very close to only selling fully electric vehicles. The BEV share in October was 70.1%.
Well played, A-ha. Well played indeed.
[share this story on LinkedIn here or on Twitter here]
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EV spotlight
The electric Volvo EX90 was unveiled yesterday.
Hej there ;)
- Range: up to 600km (372 miles) of range on WLTP
- Battery: 111 kWh, from CATL
- Platform: The same 400V architecture Polestar 3 runs on
- Speed: Goes 0-60mph in 4.7s, tops at 112mph (180km/h)
- Power: 380kW (517hp), torque 910nm
- Space: 7 seats, wheelbase 2985mm
- Charging: DC 250kW at 600amps, bi-directional charging (afaik it's DC and AC)
- Price: starts at under $80k
- Deliveries: start early 2024
Here's the full unveiling video (I skipped the wait and the song for ya):
Resources: press images (link) | press release (link) | spec sheet (link)
If you're familiar with Volvo's ICE line-up, you'll find the looks rather similar to the XC90:
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My favorite feature about the car, however, is the Thor hammer visual, created with the headlights:
Volvo's road ahead
As we know, Volvo plans to be fully electric by 2030, one of the more ambitious OEM targets we've seen so far.
Today, they re-confirmed their mid-decade ambitions of 50% fully-electric sales at 1.2M annual sales, despite the ongoing 'macroeconomic challenges'. (link)
Context: It does have a loooooong way to go, as in Q3 the fully electric cars made up only 7.4% of its total sales (link).
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NEW FEATURE
We launched a new feature of the EV Universe Pro — the Chatroom.
While the core of our community is designed to be asynchronous through posts under different spaces, the Chatroom will now bring us synchronous chat too. Best of both worlds.
Also available on our iOS app (android in Beta).
Hop in over to the Pro side here: (link)
Bonus: you'll get to be the smartest person in the room.
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🌌 Around The 'Verse
The most clicked link last week: Electrify America launches the 'seen on EV' ads, mimicking popular shows on streaming services. (link)
Tesla stopped allowing salvaged models access to its Supercharger network in 2020 for safety reasons. Now, leaked internal documents show Tesla plans a two-step inspection process that would reinstate the permissions to Supercharge. This includes Tesla offering to repair the car if it doesn't pass the inspection. (link)
This is an A+ move, especially amongst the DIY crowd. From my own experience with an EV fleet at 12M miles driven, zero of our ~10 totaled EVs had damaged the battery.
Zoom, during its Zoomtopia user conference, unveiled it will be integrated into all Tesla vehicles (video).
Waste becomes an asset. If you drop off your electric toothbrush, e-scooter, or other devices at an Audi dealership in the US, it'll be shipped off to Redwood Materials for recycling and then into a new EV battery. (link)
The first GMC Hummer EV imported to the UK will cost you — wait for it — £320,000 ($374k). (link)
Fisker began discussions with large global OEMs and businesses to potentially share the Ocean and Pear platforms, build them jointly in the US, and future sales of emission credits. (from its Q3 results: link)
Keep in mind that the Fisker Ocean will be built by Magna in Austria, and the Pear will be built, at least initially, by Foxconn in Lordstown, Ohio.
Fisker Ocean should also be on track to start production in Austria next week, although it will be missing some basic features like cruise control and other assists, which will be updated later next year over the air.
Its V2H capabilities are reportedly still about two years out. Henrik Fisker made it clear that starting deliveries is key and it will still have enough unique features (link):
"There's also, quite frankly, a lot of customers that may not care about it [cruise control], so why wait to launch the vehicle? And you know you're going to maybe get it three months, six months, nine months later."
How about we do an Ocean EV spotlight next week?
Renault is said to target a ~$10B valuation for its EV spin-off Ampere when it goes for IPO in the second half of next year. (link) Ampere should produce 1M EVs by 2031 across six models, which include Renault 4, 6, Megane E-Tech and Scénic Electric.
Germany's Auto Bild Golden Steering Wheel awards are some of the most prestigious auto awards in Europe, which is why I'm glad to see EVs win in several categories (11 categories total) (link):
- Mid-range and luxury class: NIO ET7 (talk about market entry huh)
- Mid-range SUV: Enyaq Coupé RS iV
- Family car: VW ID. Buzz
- Best innovation: Lightyear 0 (congratulations, Tom & team!)
The readers chose the first round of favorites and the jury decided the winners, which is all the more surprising that a Chinese newcomer like NIO came in to win the spot, and also that Lightyear won over locals (which it totally deserves).
Porsche celebrated producing its 100,000th Taycan (link).
SEMA Show in Las Vegas had quite a lot of EVs this year, as it dedicated a 21,000 sqft area just for fully electric vehicles, calling it "SEMA Electrified". You could find anything from adding different exhaust sounds to Mach-E (video), a bunch of Teslas (photos) to these badboys (link):
Over 1,000 Rivian-Amazon delivery vans will make deliveries in over 100 US cities this holiday season (link). The vans have also delivered more than 5M packages since launching in July.
Rivian also released its Q3 earnings report yesterday (pdf). I'll dig deeper in the Pro Report tomorrow, along with Q3 reports from Lucid, Nikola, Nio, and more. Get it here.
🎉 Celebrating: Our good friends at Eleport raised an (undisclosed sum) Series A financing round from Gren (link).
Eleport operates one of the biggest EV charging networks in the Baltics, has expanded to Poland, and has strong plans to expand in Central and Eastern Europe. The company's previous investors include Ambient Sound Investment (Skype founders' fund) and Bolt (which it also has a partnership with).
EV sales across the verse
Since we've got a lot of data trickling in, here are some more sales numbers to get an idea of the scale we're dealing with across markets.
US EV sales: Within the first 9 months, 530,577 new BEVs were registered in the US, a 57% growth year-over-year. (link)
This puts us around a 5.2% market share (2.8% a year ago). Tesla made up 65% of the sales. Here are some to get a sense of the market:
- Tesla Model Y: 156,455
- Tesla Model 3: 144,081
- Ford Mach-E: 28,088
- Tesla Model X: 23,435
- Tesla Model S: 22,856
- Hyundai Ioniq 5: 18,202
- Kia EV6: 17,149
- Chevy Bolt EV/EUV 15,403
- VW ID.4 11,001
- Nissan LEAF: 9,261
- F-150 Lightning ~8,760
- Porsche Taycan: 5,664
- Jaguar I-Pace: 292
European EV sales: Within the first 9 months, 1,002,720 new BEVs were registered in Europe (EU+EFTA+UK), a 25.8% increase year-over-year. Data for each country here: (pdf).
This puts us at a 10.6% market share in the EU (7.6% a year ago), and notably the Q3 showed a 11.9% market share.
China EV sales: Within the first 9 months, 3,578,000 new BEVs were sold in China, up 97.9% year-over-year (link). This puts the EVs at around 18.4% market share.
More than 30 insights on new EV models, the battery industry, charging networks, policy and funding news are waiting for you in our weekly Pro Report. Join at evuniverse.io/pro, starts at $10/month.
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Follow-ups
Sweden, which we reported having a surprising 35.5% BEV market share in October, cancels the climate bonus ($4.6k) practically overnight, on any cars ordered after 8. Nov. The government claims that 'costs of purchasing and operating such cars are now comparable to those of petrol and diesel cars'. (link).
Although I reported last month that BMW is moving the Mini electric production out of its historical Oxford plant to China for the next generation, looks like it might yet to decide to convert the plant still (link).
Inflation Reduction Act
Ford Motor was concerned that "an overly expansive interpretation" of the provision would compromise the goal of localizing the battery supply chain in the US with partner.
South Korea urged America to postpone the IRA law until 2025*, while Japan suggested that all cars should be eligible for the credits if the final assembly takes place in North America. (link) *Note that Hyundai EV plant is expected to complete in 2025.
Hyundai might be in luck, because last Friday, a new bill was introduced by some members of the US Congress:
Affordable Electric Vehicles for America Act is a new bill that would establish a phase-in period for the battery sourcing and manufacturing requirements IRA sets. (link) Here's the official text of the bill: (pdf).
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Setbacks
Tesla sent an over-the-air update to 40,168 Model S and Model X vehicles to fix a software issue that could cause loss of power steering assist. 97% of the cars have already received the update. It is officially filed as a voluntary recall with NHTSA (link). So you can take these headlines with a grain of salt:
Ford Dealers are pushing back on the EV mandates. Dealer associations in at least 13 states are accusing Ford of unfairly burdening its retail network and violating franchise laws. (link)
Subaru is halting new North American investments citing high labor costs... which likely means it won't plan to build EVs in the States. The CEO, Tomomi Nakamura said (link):
"In Indiana, part-time workers at McDonald's earn $20 to $25 per hour, which is in competition with temporary workers make at our [ICE] plant. If we were to build a new plant, it would be very difficult to hire new people for that."
Moove (previously e.GO Moove) the Germany-based company developing electric shuttles, wasn't able to complete its financing round and files for insolvency. (link) It has completed the concept and pre-series phases of the People Mover, a shuttle for up to 19 passengers (link).
Arrival... seems to have more problems than just pivoting towards US. FT writes that the morale among staff has "sunk to rock bottom" after the job losses, a side-project to make an electric jet causes distraction, tools are being stolen, internal information leaked... and Arrival van caught fire during a demonstration for the customer UPS (link).
Too bad if all of this is true... as you know I was rooting for the company. IF it were to file for bankruptcy or if it becomes an acquisition target before that, who do you think would be the buyer?
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Chart of the week
I love it when people find different ways to approach the EV data out there.
A study from Elmo drive compiled data for the most populated cities around the world to find which has the highest number of EV-friendly Airbnbs and hotels. They used the EV charging filter in the booking systems. (link)
In the UK and broader Europe, London came up on top with 879 stays listed as having EV charging access. But the data gets interesting when they add a filter of 'per-100k-people' to the mix. So instead, in Europe the top five cities are:
- Split, Croatia (142 stays available per 100k ppl)
- Amsterdam, Netherlands (91.2)
- Bergen, Norway (72.1)
- Oslo, Norway (66.9)
- Lyon, France (63.3)
For the US, they (sadly) took a state-level approach as pictured above, concluding that the states with the highest number of EV-friendly places to stay per 100,000 people are:
- Vermont (85.4 stays available per 100k people)
- Hawaii (32.8)
- Oregon (24)
- Utah (23.3)
- Nevada (20.1)
Way to go, Split and the state of Vermont! 👏
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Stuff I'm...
...watching
👀 A look at Tesla simulating impact scenarios (video).
👀 Hyundai shares details on the aerodynamics of the Ioniq 6 and how they achieved the (impressive) 0.21 drag coefficient (7:17):
Turns out, the streamlined design and features have been influenced by the 1947 Stout Scarab, Phantom Corsair and Saab Ursaab... along with the Spitfire fighter plane from WW2. Meanwhile, here's another great test review of the Ioniq 6, by Fully Charged (link)
👀 Rivian R1S against R1T in this Out of Spec's hill climb challenge:
In case you are left thirsty for more uphill battles, they just uploaded the same challenge with the GMC Hummer EV (video).
👀 Walkaround of the new Audi Q8 e-tron, which will be replacing the outgoing e-tron SUV. I like the 'under the skin' look at 7:50.
👀 A rusty 1949 Mercury Coupe, running on a Tesla powertrain, finds its way to Jay Leno's Storage:
...reading.
📚 A PwC study says Europe might turn into a net importer of cars by 2025, importing 800k Chinese-built cars by then, most of which will be fully electric. (link) 330k of these would be from 'Western' automakers like Tesla and domestic BMW and Renault producing the BEVs in China, then shipping to Europe.
PwC forecasts a 3.8 to 7.9% EV market share for Chinese brands in Europe.
📚 An article on why the 'coal-powered EVs' objection is moot, from our friends at Recurrent (link). I like it when people tackle things head-on. Not many would start out a pro-EV article with this widespread picture:
📚 A Stanford study finds that charging lithium-ion cells at different rates boosts the lifetimes of battery packs for EVs. (link)
📚 A profile on BYD and its chairman Wang Chuanfu, by Forbes (link)
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See you next week.
Jaan
