Coming up on today's show: Reports that the twenty seventeen Chevy Bolt EV is already
being discounted at some dealerships, Elon Musk drives a Model 3 release candidate and
HTT builds its first full-size hyperloop capsule.
These stories and more, coming next on TEN.
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It's Friday March Twenty-fourth twenty seventeen, I'm Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield and this is
TEN, the news show that's anything but ten minutes in length because of all the awesome
news stories I've got to share with you this week.
To start, we're off to California, where Automotive News discovered this week that
some Chevrolet dealers are already offering discounts for those looking to buy the recently-launched
Chevrolet Bolt EV.
The long-range affordable plug-in -- which went on sale for the first time in December
and still isn't even available in most of the U.S. -- suffered a drop in sales in February,
causing some to question if the Bolt EV is already starting to flow in its sales.
But it's worth noting that while TrueCar recorded an average 5.3 percent discount off
MSRP for all new Bolts sold in February, this time of year isn't the best time to buy
a new car, especially an electric car, as you have to wait almost a year to claim back
that seven-and-a-half thousand dollar federal tax credit that comes with buying a qualifying
electric car like the Bolt EV.
Secondly?
Car sales tend to naturally drop in winter months -- and finally the Californian EV market
is already pretty saturated with plug-in cars -- so let's wait until the Bolt EV is available
in more markets before we get overly concerned about sales figures, eh?
A car that will likely not sell in any volume any time soon is the Faraday Future FF 91
-- but that's because the factory where Faraday Future says it will make its high-end,
fully autonomous electric car is still nothing more than a little groundwork in the desert.
That's according to the Nevada Governor's Office of Economic Development (GOED for short)
-- which has completed the latest report on Phase 1 of Faraday Future's planned one
billion dollar factory.
Something it's required to do since the state of Nevada originally offered up more
than three hundred and thirty-five million dollars in tax incentives and abatements to
Faraday Future for building the factory just north of Las Vegas, the report says that over
one hundred and sixty million has been spent thus far, paying for site demolition, grading
and moving of more than 2.5 million cubic yards of earth, and preparing the groundwork
and sewerage for the massive factory.
But since the factory itself should already be well under way to completion, I can't
help but think Faraday Future's goal of bringing the FF91 to market in a year or so's
time is just impossible.
What about you?
Moving toward more positive things, we heard on Thursday from Tesla CEO Elon Musk (via
Twitter of course) that Tesla's highly-anticipated 8.1 software update for the Tesla Model S
and Tesla Model X will roll out to cars either Tuesday or Wednesday next week.
The update -- which is expected to include Autopilot 2.0 improvements to give Teslas
equipped with second-gen Autopilot hardware the same capabilities as cars with first generation
Autopilot hardware -- has been delayed several times since its original planned December
twenty sixteen update, but it seems that this time Musk is confident the rollout will happen.
And while some Tesla owners are skeptical they'll see the update next week, it does
seem -- at least according to reports we've heard -- that Tesla's previous software
update for second-gen autopilot hardware is already a massive improvement on what went
before And this reminding us all that whenever Tesla does roll out this 8.1 update it most
certainly won't be the last -- because Tesla won't stop striving for perfection.
Staying with Tesla for one more story, we should note the quiet announcement at the
very end of last week that Tesla is discontinuing the Model S 60 and Model S 60D next month,
making the Tesla Model 75 and 75D the new entry-level Tesla Model S.
The reason given?
Sales.
Since the current Tesla Model S 60 and 60D are actually software-restricted versions
of the Model S 75 and Model S 75D - and most people have just been skipping the 60 variants
and going right to the 75s, meaning that there's really no market demand for the 60s to hang
around.
The bad news?
That pushes the entry level price of a Tesla up to $74,500 for a Model S 75 (not 75D as
I incorrectly reported earlier this week in a daily Vlog, something I'm sorry for getting
wrong).
The long and the short?
If you want a Tesla Model S 60 you can still order one today -- but act quick because come
April 16, Tesla won't be offering it or the 60D any more.
It's been involved in Formula E since the inaugural season, not as a racing team but
as provider of safety and medical cars -- but now German automaker BMW has officially announces
its intent to compete in the twenty eighteen season of the single-seat electric race series.
Why not enter this coming year?
Well, that's because in twenty eighteen, Formula E leaves behind the rules of first
four years of racing and makes it possible for automakers to race in their own cars,
cars with enough battery capacity on board to last an entire race without the weird car-swap
shenanigans we've seen for the twenty fourteen through twenty seventeen seasons.
So far, BMW says it's already got FIA approval for the fifth Formula E season (the one which
starts in twenty eighteen) and says it is already working hard on developing its own
Formula E powertrain, while working with Andretti Autosport to develop software and chassi technology.
As any improvements from racing will undoubtedly make their way into production vehicles, I
can only imagine good things will come from BMW's competitive involvement in Formula
E, so get ready for a fiery race season when the German company joins the fun next year!
The iconic London Taxi Cab -- complete with those big headlights and unmistakable shape
-- has been a permanent figure on London's streets for a long time.
Or as my mother would say "since before Adam was a cowboy."
And while, yes, while there were electric taxi cabs in London back in the early twentieth
century as there were other major cities around the world, taxi cabs of more recent years
have traditionally been powered by practically bomb-proof diesel-engines, their unmistakable
rattle forming part of London's daily background noise.
But this week, production started on the TX5 a brand-new London Taxi Cab at the London
Taxi Company in Coventry England -- a cab that not only does away with the diesel engine
but combines a three-cylinder volvo petrol engine with a good-sized lithium-ion battery
pack and electric motor to bring a range-extended electric taxi to market for the first time.
Range in EV only mode is said to be 70 miles or more, and when the battery is depleted,
the on-board range-extender (which operates a little like the range-extender in the BMW
i3) kicks into life to keep the cab running until it can be plugged in again.
And while that range may not seem like much, it's worth remembering that most london
cabbies drive between 20,000 and 30,000 miles per year which, assuming they drive 5 days
a week, equates to between 76 and 115 miles per day.
And that means most of these new TX5 cabs will be electric most of the time.
Nice.
For the past few weeks we've heard a pretty steady stream of news coming out of Tesla
in relation to the Model 3 electric car, hinting that Tesla is well on its way to hit its promised
late 2017 production goal.
As you might remember last week, we told you that Model 3 "release candidate" cars
were driving around the San Francisco bay after Tesla began producing them on its fremont
production line, allowing engineers to test and tweak the car's' on board software before
the start of official production vehicles by the start of Autumn.
Well, earlier today, Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted this video of him driving one of those very
first Model 3 release candidates.
Just five seconds in length, the video is demonstrates a short acceleration test, but
does show the Model 3 release candidate in question 'getting a move on' as we'd
say back home.
So if you're waiting for your Model 3, I think you're going to want to watch this
a few times…
We're off to Chinese firm LeEco next, the Chinese tech company which is responsible
for much of Faraday Future's backing and is also trying to build its own electric supercar…
not to mention the company which as a consequence of spreading itself too thinly of late has
been struggling quite a lot with its finances, something that hasn't helped Faraday Future
either.
Like Faraday Future, LeEco wants to bring a super-fast, high-tech electric car to market
in the next year or so, but with it having a limited amount of cash at hand has found
itself making sacrifices of late, scaling down its vehicle plans and trying to keep
afloat in any which way it can.
And this week, we learned that it's been selling land it purchased in Silicon Valley
to help it achieve that, selling off the 49-acres of land it purchased last year to build its
U.S. headquarters.
While the land is now sold, the upside is that LeEco made ten million dollars on the
deal -- but with Faraday Future's debts and its own debts an order of magnitude larger
than that, it's another nail in the coffin for the Chinese company wanting to take on
the automotive world.
We're off to Toulouse, France next, where Hyperloop One's main competitor -- Hyperloop
Transportation Technologies (HTT for short) -- has begun building what it claims will
be the world's first full-scale passenger hyperloop capsule.
Along with the announcement, there's this rather vague video detailing the construction
process, which will result in a passenger capsule that's nearly 100 feet long and
a smidgen under nine feet wide (that's 30 meters by about two and a half meters or thereabouts).
When finished, it's claimed the capsule will weigh some twenty tons and be capable
of transporting between twenty eight and forty passengers at speeds of up to 760 miles per
hour (one thousand, two hundred and twenty three kph).
The finished capsule is due to be unveiled next year, but in the meantime, don't forget
to check out my video from earlier this week in which I ask what it might be like to travel
by Hyperloop.
It's well-known among electric vehicle fans that car dealers are not always all that 'plugged
in' when it comes to selling electric cars, either because of a lack of knowledge about
electric cars, apathy when it comes to learning something outside their comfort zone, or sheer
bloody-mindedness about not wanting to change their business model to welcome in the age
of cleaner, greener transportation.
Well this week, a video surfaced online showing just how much one particular dealer didn't
understand about the Chevrolet Bolt EV, when a dealer-commissioned video about a Bolt EV
in stock described the car as having a precision tuned electric drive engine that would wring
every last mile it can out of a drop of fuel.
In the dealers' defence it's likely that this video was produced by a third-party using
a pre-recorded series of sound bytes, but it's still a careless bobo that shows just
how much work needs to be done before some dealerships really get the message.
I'd love to show you a clip of the video here -- but sadly the dealership in question
has already removed it from YouTube.
Guess the embarrassment was too much eh?
And finally,
As anyone who spends any amount of time around an electric car will know, they're pretty
high tech, with more computing power than your cellphone, your laptop computer and in
some cases, your gaming console.
You just can't play games on your car…
Or can you?
Y'see, video surfaced this week of a Chevrolet Volt which had been turned into a Mario Kart
controller, allowing the person behind the wheel to play the popular Nintendo game by
plugging in a raspberry pi running special software into the car's on-board diagnostics
port.
The result?
A real-live game controller inside a real live car that's cute, but something I don't
think you should try at home.
And on that note, it's time for me to say goodbye again for the week.
As always, don't forget to like, comment and subscribe, visit transport evolved dot
com for more cleaner, greener, safer and smarter transportation news, or join in the conversation
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Thanks again for joining me, I'll see you next week, I'm Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield,
That was TEN, have a great weekend, and until next time, keep Evolving!
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