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Coming up on today's show: Tesla has its worst quarter ever and admits Model 3 production
ramp up is several months behind schedule, Toyota looks to airless tyres to help it develop
fuel efficient cars, and why we're only four years away from fully autonomous cars
on our roads -- at least, according to NVIDIA.
These stories and more, coming next on TEN.
This is TEN from Transport Evolved, the roundup show that takes the week's news in the world
of cleaner, greener, safer and smarter transport, and gives it to you in a bite-sized form just
in time for the weekend, so kick back and enjoy!
It's Friday November Third, Twenty Seventeen, I'm Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield, and thanks
to everyone who sent birthday wishes my way this week.
I'm pretty rubbish at celebrating my birthday, so thanks for helping me figure it out.
Oh and thanks to those who indulged in a little halloween fun on Wednesday when my fluffy
alter-ego took to the airwaves.
She (and I) had a lot of fun.
Thanks!
We're starting today's show with the biggest news story of the week -- Tesla's official
Q3 twenty seventeen earnings -- which were released on Wednesday afternoon after the
close of markets.
As suspected, Tesla had an extremely tough third quarter, failing to meet its production
and delivery targets for Model 3.
Despite celebrating the delivery of its quarter millionth electric vehicle since the Model
S launched in twenty twelve -- as well enjoying continued record demand for Model S and Model
X (up about eighteen percent on Q2 twenty seventeen) Q3's loses represented the largest
Tesla has ever experienced….
By a very long way.
How large?
Well, in Q2 this year, Tesla had losses of three hundred and thirty-six million dollars.
In Q3, that had grown to six-hundred and seventy one million dollars, almost but not quite
double the previous quarter's losses.
In anyone's books, that's a lot of money, and not far off the eight-hundred and eighty-eight
million dollars the company lost in total during last year.
Some of that is down to Model 3, which has proven extremely costly for Tesla to produce.
A sleep-deprived, cold-ridden Elon Musk took to the Earnings Call late on Wednesday to
confirm that a large factor in the slow Model 3 production ramp up was problems at Tesla's
Gigafactory in Reno, NV, where Tesla engineers were left no option but to re-code third-party
robotic production lines where battery cells are packaged together to produce Model 3 battery
packs.
Musk, who has been sleeping at the Gigafactory in order to lend a hand in solving the bottleneck
issues, admitted that he had been extremely depressed a few weeks ago, referring to the
situation as ninth-level hell.
Now, he joked, Tesla is at eighth-level hell, and daylight can be seen.
But with twenty-two billion dollars in liabilities, Tesla needs to do everything it can to turn
itself around bring those Model 3 cars to market as soon as it can.
And with Musk clearly fuming about the reporting of the seven hundred recent firings at the
company (something Musk maintains was influenced only by performance reviews, nothing more)
I can only imagine the stress levels for anyone working at Tesla right now.
Pass the antacid, please.
To slightly nicer thoughts now, courtesy of a new study released this week from VUB University
Brussels Transport and Environment that shows that even in Germany and Poland (where power
grid mixes are the dirtiest of any EU country), driving an electric car is still better for
the environment than driving a diesel powered car.
Using a well-to-wheel analysis that factored in the manufacturing and lifespan of vehicles,
the study showed that even in Poland, where electricity is the dirtiest of any European
nation, electric vehicles powered by the local power mix were responsible for twenty-five
percent less emissions in their lifetime than a modern diesel vehicle, with that figure
growing to eighty-five percent less for vehicles powered by Sweden's power grid -- the cleanest
in the EU.
So the next time someone says EVs aren't as as dirty as ICE vehicles, be sure to show
them this survey.
Tesla might be busy promoting its Autopilot semi-autonomous driver assistance technology
-- and doing rather well selling customers a full-upgrade to Level five autonomy whenever
that becomes available in the future -- but it turns out that Level 3 semi-autonomous
driver assistance features as found in the Tesla Model S, Tesla Model X and Tesla Model
3 won't ever be a feature in any vehicles Waymo produces.
That's because Waymo has discovered after extensive testing that when you give someone
partial control of a vehicle -- as is the case with Level 3 autonomy -- people quickly
lose contextual awareness.
And then, when asked to take control of the vehicle again in an emergency, the driver
is situationally unaware of what's really going on.
That, says Waymo, is super dangerous, and I have to agree.
So onwards to full Level 5 autonomy!
Last week, BMW celebrated building its one hundred thousandth BMW i3 at the Leipzig factory
where every single BMW i3 is made.
Alongside the celebrations, BMW officially flipped the switch on a new grid-connected
battery storage farm in Leipzig that can house up to seven hundred BMW i3 battery packs (it's
currently got five hundred or so installed) and helps provide grid storage and smoothing
function to the local area.
At the moment, the batteries in the farm are split between new and used battery packs,
but as BMW i3 packs reach the end of their life in a car, they'll be recycled into
facilities like this around the world.
As anyone with an electric car will tell you, the worst part about plug-in car ownership
is the long wait that you sometimes have to endure when recharging its battery pack on
a long-distance trip.
And while today's modern quick charge technologies are far faster than they once were, the time
it takes to refuel an electric car -- even with quick charging -- is its largest achilles
heel.
Which is why this week the U.S. Department of Energy has just announced a fifteen million
U.S. Dollar funding program to aid in the development of what it calls "Very Fast"
electric car charging.
What's "very fast" I hear you ask?
In this case, the DoE states that it's a charging station protocol or battery technology
that is twice as fast as today's current standards.
It's not clear if that means seven hundred plus kilowatts (since there's a three hundred
and fifty kilowatt CCS charge standard in development already, but if it allows for
speedier recharging, I'm all for it.
As it's the start of November, we're of course now seeing the usual sales reports
coming in for plug-in cars for the month of October.
And this month, the Chevrolet Bolt EV set a new personal best for sales, recording a
total of two thousand seven hundred and eighty one units, some one hundred and fifty more
Bolt EVs than it sold in September.
In fact, the Bolt EV is now the second most popular car in the U.S. this year, second
only to the Tesla Model S. Technically available nationwide (although some states still have
reasonably limited availability) the Bolt EV is also hammering the Chevy Volt sales
figures, as more and more people skip the internal combustion range-extended Volt and
go for a longer-range all-electric model instead.
Nice job, GM.
Sticking with U.S. sales, the outgoing twenty seventeen Nissan LEAF sold just two hundred
and thirteen examples during October, something that's hardly a surprise considering the
new twenty eighteen Nissan LEAF is due to launch in the U.S. in January.
The new LEAF, already on sale in Japan and some European nations, is selling very well
after just two months, so it's expected the same will happen when the car launches
in the U.S.
In the meantime however, if you want an affordable short-range EV and don't mind owning an
older style LEAF, there may be some massive discounts to be had at your local dealer if
you act quickly.
Finally, while my coverage of October U.S. plug-in sales are far from comprehensive,
i'm also going to touch on sales of the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivan.
The only plug-in hybrid minivan available in the U.S., it's estimated that just over
eleven hundred pacifica hybrids were sold during the month, placing it behind (but not
far behind) the sixteen hundred and twenty six Prius Primes sold and thirteen hundred
and sixty-two Chevy Volts sold.
I say estimated, because Chrysler doesn't break figures down -- but, says Inside EVs
(who made the prediction) it's doing so based on the number of state rebate applications
made during the month.
Still, it shows that there's demand for a plug-in hybrid minivan right?
And yes, there is a review of this minivan on the way -- I'll be posting it just as
soon as it's finished.
With the Chevy Bolt heading into its second year of production, GM has announced two tiny
changes to the popular plug-in, although price, range and other specs remain the same.
And I do mean tiny!
First up, GM is removing the seatback pocket from the front passenger seat on the entry-level
LT trim option, something I'm sure most people won't miss.
But the second one might be a little more polarizing: GM has opted to remove the heated
steering wheel switch (where previously fitted) and replaced it with an automatic heated steering
wheel function that ties into the HVAC.
As someone who suffers from cold hands, all I can say is I'm glad I've got the 'seventeen!
Wallets full of cards.
That's what you've had to put up with if you've owned a non-Tesla electric car
for the past few years, thanks to a complete lack of coherent interoperability between
most public electric car charging networks.
We're starting to see more and more networks shift away from the RFID card thankfully and
onto smartphone apps, and this week we saw another charge provider -- EVGO -- make the
switch, launching its own Smartphone app for Android and iOS devices.
So far, it seems to work, but of course, you'll need to hope you are in an area with a good
cell phone coverage to make use of the app.
If you're in the U.S., or have been paying attention to U.S. politics, you'll know
that the current administration has been working very hard to walk back plenty of policies
of previous governments, including ones concerning basic human rights, environmental protections,
and immigration to name a few.
And on Thursday, several GOP members of the House confirmed that the new tax bill being
rushed through will immediately end all federal grants for plug-in vehicles, essentially another
attack on cleaner, greener transportation.
Now whatever your political persuasion, I'm sure you'll agree the previous tax credits
weren't exactly fair -- they weren't means tested for example, which is the best way
of doing it -- but at the same time, I think you'll also agree that ending them -- while
apparently continuing tax breaks for oil and gas companies -- is a little disingenuous.
Hunker down, because the war on EVs is just getting started.
And if you're of a nervous disposition, steer clear of the comments section…
Over the past decade or so, I've seen a huge number of different approaches from automaker
trying to make cars as energy efficient as possible, but now Toyota is adding a new one
to the list: Airless tires -- which Toyota says are light enough to offset the weight
of in-wheel motors.
Debuting prototype airless tyres last week in Tokyo on its Fine Comfort Ride fuel cell
concept car, Toyota says it's dead serious about making airless tires a thing on future
cars, and says it should have a product ready for prime-time by twenty twenty -- about the
same time it's expected to launch its solid state battery pack for electric cars.
Interesting.
Now that it's proven how advanced its autonomous vehicle technology is at the closed-circuit
M-City in Michigan, Detroit, Ford confirmed this week that it's ready to kick its Level
five autonomous vehicle test program up a gear by introducing fleets of self-driving
vehicles to various U.S. cities next year.
Ford made the announcement during its own Quarterly earnings call this week, at which
it also confirmed that it's busy working with undisclosed companies on developing a
ride-sharing, ride-hailing service for its autonomous vehicles that will be coming to
market in the not-too-distant future (think twenty twenty or thereabouts).
Despite massive expansion in the electric vehicle market around the world, especially
in its home market of China, BYD announced this week that it expects its annual profit
to fall by one fifth this year due to increased competition in the electric vehicle market.
BYD, one of the first chinese firms to work on highway-capable electric vehicles, has
always enjoyed a position of power in the Chinese market.
But with government subsidies for plug-in purchases being replaced by mandated electric
vehicle production from all automakers, BYD says it's going to lose out -- at least
in the short term.
Still, with BYD pushing its electric bus programs outside of China, I think the company is going
to continue to be a big player in the electric vehicle marketplace for many years to come.
And finally...
In four years, we'll have fully autonomous cars roaming our roads.
That's the opinion of NVidia CEO Jensen Huang, who said late last week that artificial
intelligence advances would make fully autonomous Level 5 cars entirely possible within just
four years.
But while the technology may have reached the age of maturity by then, it's unlikely
that we'll see any kind of advancement in the legislative space when it comes to autonomous
cars on the public highway.
After all, consider how long it's taken electric cars to get anywhere near a grasp
on the mainstream, and that's with very little governmental involvement.
Yes, autonomous cars may be road legal in four years' time or shortly after -- but
don't expect them to be completely taking over any time soon.
And on that note, it's time to say goodbye for the week.
As always, don't forget to like comment and subscribe, and hit that notification bell
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Next Friday I'm actually away, but I'm going to do my best to give you lots of Transport
Evolved goodness as usual during the week, and with any luck, I'll have a slightly
earlier-than-usual roundup show for you next week.
Until then, thanks for joining me, I'm Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield, That was TEN, have a great
weekend and until next time, Keep Evolving!
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