Hey. Jaan here. A day later than usual, but still here.

Viva rEVolution!

This is what I wrote about today:

• Another step closer to the ICE ban in Europe. And a step further in Japan.
• Saying goodbye to the iconic BMW i3. Saying hello to Ioniq 6.
• Rivian deployed the first locations of the Adventure Network.
• See your charging curve on the charger? Electrify America valued at $2.45B, brings in Siemens.

And, of course, more. The 2,382 words should take about 12 minutes from your life. Hours if you dive deeper into all of it. Years, if you're me and make going through EV industry information your full-time job.

I love my job.

- Jaan

⚡⚡⚡

PS! I'll be going fully offline for the whole of next week to recharge myself. See you again on the 14th!

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🇪🇺 End of ICE Age is in (closer) sight

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Previously

Last week, I wrote you about the European Parliament voted in favor of mandating that carmakers reduce emissions from the cars and vans they sell completely from 2035.

The next step was for the European Council, which is composed of the heads of state or government of the EU member states, to vote if this goes forward.

Now

And this week, they did. EU governments agreed to end sales of fossil-fueled cars and vans by 2035.

As an intermediary target, by 2030 the CO2 emissions need to be cut by 55% for cars and 50% for vans, compared to 2021 levels.

Next

The governments will now enter into negotiations with the European Parliament on the final law, which is likely to happen later this year.

The "synthetic fuels", which seem to be all the rage now, might be introduced as an alternative some time in the next years but was left out of the decision for now.

I'm curious about what you think of this ICE ban. Let me know as a reply.

Jaan's rant

Oh, and if you're curious to see 100 people that give 100 opinions on how this is not good for the planet or going fully EV is downright impossible, head over to the comment section of my LinkedIn post.

I'm still wondering if I'll take the time over the weekend to go into discussion with each - might be changing some of my views. Also, is there anyone here that can give me or point me to a crash course on those "carbon-neutral fuels"?

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EV Spotlight

The BMW i3.

Wait... that's not new.

Yes. It debuted already in 2013. I'd call it one of the trailblazers.

And now it's part of the history books of the EV Universe.

BMW just completed its 250,000th i3 at the Leipzig plant, which was the only plant to make these for all across the globe, and now ended the i3 series production. (link)

The car will always leave me thinking how weird it was. And that's not in a bad way. The quirky look of it will hit you first. Overall I've heard so many great things about this EV from the owners.

Some did-you-knows:

Architecture: The vehicle architecture consists of a drive module as an aluminium chassis, which carries the electric powertrain, the suspension and the battery, as well as  the life module, which is a passenger cell made of carbon fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP). It is surprisingly spacious on the inside thanks to this.

The WLTP range for the latest 42.2kWh battery was 307km (191mi).

Sustainability: The i3 was produced using the power from four wind turbines of the plant, with 700 interconnected i3 batteries as a storage in between.

The thermoplastics of the 'outer skin' used partly recycled raw materials and the plastic in the inside was 25% from recycled material. Seats - recycled fibres. Door panels - kenaf fibres. Instrument panel - certified eucalyptus wood.

HomeRun: The very last 10 units made are called the i3s HomeRun Edition with a bunch of extras, special paint finishes, and the customers were brought to factory to see the assembly.

Here's a bit of a looking-back story of the i3 from BMW Magazine (link).

This marks another close for what I call the start of the 'modern era' of EVs. The cars that the early adopters drove. I might be leaving some out, but for me, those were Tesla's Model S (and Roadster), Nissan LEAF, Hyundai Ioniq, and BMW i3. Hyundai will end the Ioniq production this month.

PS! If you own (or ever have owned) an i3 - send me your pictures and thoughts! I'd love to feature them in next week's newsletter.

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🔌

Who will supply Aptera's battery and motors? We now know.

Is Valencia becoming an EV hotspot? I'll show you how.

What does the VW Aero ID look like? Or Polestar 5? We've seen now.

How much did the MG tame the Cyberster design? Patents show.

EV, battery, and charging startups raising new funds? We track where did the money go.

Giga Arctic, Betteries and 30 more EV news in our Pro report you can't miss?

Go Pro

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Rivian deploys Adventure Network

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"Keep the world adventurous forever."

I love it when a company finds its niche and doubles down on it.

For Rivian, that niche seems to be 'adventure' and even their charging network confirms it by launching DC charging in places that they wouldn't normally be located: on the sides of adventure, trails and recreational areas.

Rivian deployed the first three charging locations of its Adventure Network.

The first opened location in Salida, Colorado, has four "L3" DC chargers with over 200kW, plus four "L2" 11.5kW Waypoints chargers. The DC chargers are free but exclusive to Rivian owners, the AC are available to all EV owners through the Rivian app.

Kyle from Out of Spec was there to do the first charge with his Rivian (23:07):

The other two sites are opened in Inyokern and Bishop, California. This will ensure the Rivian owners can visit sites like Yosemite National Park, Sequoia National Forest, Mammoth Lakes, and Death Valley. The initial goal is to put up 3,500 fast chargers at 600 sites across North America.

They also procure renewable energy on an annual basis in the amount that has been charged, with also putting new renewables, like solar, on the grid. Rivian is installing a wind turbine in their factory in Normal, Illinois, so the very first charge of every newly produced vehicle will be using on-site renewable energy.

Trent Warnke, one of EV Universe's Founding Members, is also quoted in the press release (link):

"We designed Rivian charging to support electrified adventure, and these first sites demonstrate how we’re enabling drivers to responsibly reach some of the nation’s most breathtaking natural spaces.

In addition to scenic or off-the-beaten-path destinations, our fast charging rollout is designed to ensure travelers have places to charge along major transportation corridors coast to coast."

Trent's speech from the opening can be found in this video here.

Congratulations on a BIG milestone to our Rivian charging team reading this. I'm rooting for you on the quest of making a real impact on the world Universe.

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⚡ Tour-de-Universe

Last week's most clicked link: Ford CFO says Mach-E profits are wiped out by rising commodity prices (link)

🔋 Redwood Materials partnered with Toyota for the collection, reprocessing, recycling and supply of battery materials for electric car batteries. (link)

‍📊 Graph: The US BEV sales until June, excluding Tesla (~70% of the market) (link):

🇳🇱 The Dutch government reduced the VAT rate from 21% to 9% for the sale of energy - and Fastned followed by lowering their prices on their Dutch charging stations. (link)

This feels like a refreshing approach, as I can somehow remember a whole industry that would try to raise prices (or increase profits) in a situation like this.

📉  EnBW shows the charging curve on its chargers' screens while you charge, (link) via Electric Felix:

⚡ I like this mindset: Pod Point, the 'home-charger' maker ordered 60 LEVC VN5 electric vans so that its employees could drive electric while they install and maintain charging points in the UK. (link) I now learned bp Pulse did the same back in October for their electricians (link).

⚡ About a year ago I wrote that VW is looking for co-investors for Electrify America. Now, it has taken in the first external investor - Siemens. (link)

Siemens invested a "low-triple-digit million" (together with VW the total was $450M), which puts the network at a $2.45B post-money valuation. Siemens will also become an "important strategic technology partner", which likely means it'll be providing the charging solutions for the network.

Electrify America plans to more than double its current 800-location charging infra to 1,800 locations and 10k fast chargers by 2026.

🔋 Northvolt, the Swedish battery maker that was the first in Europe to produce a commercial EV cell, expects to IPO within the next two years. The listing is estimated at ~ $12B (link). Connections: Volkswagen has ~20% stake in the company and it has secured <$50B worth of contracts with different carmakers like VW, Volvo Cars, BMW. The total capacity of Northvolt should reach over 170GWh by the second half of the decade.

I've had Northvolt on the 'hoping to go public' list on our stock tracker spreadsheet for 1.5 years now. Still hoping.

⛽ Los Angeles city officials are said to be working on policies to ban the development of new gas stations in the city. (link)

🚌 The city of Sydney in Australia plans to go all-electric for its bus fleet, all 8,000 of 'em (link).

🔌 This is the logo that you will likely start seeing pop up on some chargers, from CharIN (link):

And it solves a small, but real (near-future) problem.

As charging point operators (CPO) are increasingly moving into using the Plug & Charge solution where a driver doesn't have to do anything else than just plug in their car to start charging at a fast charger, it might be a challenge to understand if a charger you ended up with supports the standard or not.

Even if it is from exactly the same charger brand, the charger can act differently depending on what solution the CPO has chosen.

Seeing this logo should help identify these.

🔌  Speaking of Plug & Charge, General Motors announced the feature now works with all current and upcoming GM EVs built on the Ultium Platform, as well as most Chevrolet Bolt EVs and Bolt EUVs, but currently only in the EVgo network. GM plans to expand the service to all compatible stations in the Ultium Charge 360 Network. (link)

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Uh-oh...

... or sometimes just stuff that makes me 🤦‍♂️.

🤦‍♂️ Akio Toyoda, who is the president of Toyota and chairman of the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, was reportedly able to get the Japanese government to change a key policy document that put hybrid vehicles on par with battery-electric cars, as Toyota warned that carmakers "could not back a government that rejected hybrid tech." (link)

This is so Toyota.

🚫 ID. Buzz production has been halted in Hanover because of quality problems of the battery, which can reduce its driving range. Other MEB platform batteries are not affected as the cells are 'from a new supplier'.

🚫 ~2,700 Toyota bZ4X and ~2,600 of its sister Subaru Solterra are being recalled because a wheel can come off because the hub bolt can loosen during sharp turns and sudden braking. No accidents have been noted so far (link). Most of the vehicles hadn't been delivered to customers yet and were mainly in the hands of dealers for test drives. Can't really fix this one over the air...

Interestingly, Toyota says to its US customers:

No remedy is available at this time. Until the remedy is available, any authorized Toyota dealer will pick up the vehicle and provide a loaner vehicle free of charge to the owner.

Talking of the bZ4X, MotorTrend's first drive proved disastrous in terms of charging curve (link):

Stuff I'm...

...watching

👀 The Fast and the Curious, hosted by our friend Anup Parikh, interviewed the Co-founder and COO of Xos Trucks, Giordano Sordoni. Here's "Entrepreneurs in EVs" with Anup's unique kind of presenting:

‍👀 Hyundai revealed the looks of the Ioniq 6. (link) "Streamliner" is the keyword here.

And I am 'actually' surprised seeing this design. I like that when it comes to Ioniq, the different models aren't just banking on different sizes for the same series' design. Can't wait to get my hands on this one.

Videos: AutoTrader walkaround below, and if you prefer here's one from carwow, The Late Brake Show, Top Gear, Autogefühl and Hyundai's design reveal.

👀  Just in: Lightyear held a press event in Spain to show the Lightyear 0. Below is Fully Charged's take, but you might also want to see one from Out of Spec orThomasGeigerCar.

👀 Ford Pro made a one-off 1,500-kW Pro Electric SuperVan, based on the E-Transit, and showed it off at the Goodwood Festival. It goes 0-100km/h (62mph) in under two seconds (link). Here's a video of it going up the hill, via Trucks FoT.

Also Ford: MKBHD reviews the Ford F-150 Lightning. He calls it the iPhone of pickup trucks (I bet he'd say the Tesla of pickup trucks if he could):

...reading

📚 MIT Technology Review visualized where the 6,000 US fast chargers are located (link). For an interactive one, here's the US DoE "Alternative Fueling Station Locator" (link)

📚 Dataset of electric school bus adoption in the US, via WRI (link). As of March 2022, they identified a total of 12,275 "committed" school e-buses in the US. Committed, as in having awarded funding to procure them, purchase agreements with the manufacturer or the 5% e-buses already in operation.

Here's a rather good visual of where these commitments are located, California  and Maryland leading the way.

Yay! You did it! I'll catch up with you on the 14th. Or later today, if you've joined the EV Universe Pro.

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