Cars

tesla’s-week-gets-worse:-fines,-safety-investigation,-and-massive-recall

Tesla’s week gets worse: Fines, safety investigation, and massive recall

Cars, EPA, NHTSA recall, Tesla, Tesla recall / /

toxic waste, seriously? —

There have been 2,388 complaints about steering failure in the Model 3 and Model Y.

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A Tesla Model Y steering wheel and dashboard

Enlarge / More than 2,000 Tesla model-year 2023 Model Y and Model 3s have suffered steering failure, according to a new NHTSA safety defect investigation.

Sjoerd van der Wal/Getty Images

It’s been a rough week for Tesla. On Tuesday, a court in Delaware voided a massive $55.8 billion pay package for CEO Elon Musk. Then, news emerged that Tesla was being sued by 25 different counties in California for years of dumping toxic waste. That was followed by a recall affecting 2.2 million Teslas. Now, Ars has learned that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Office of Defects Investigation is investigating the company after 2,388 complaints of steering failure affecting the model-year 2023 Model 3 sedan and Model Y crossover.

Paint, brake fluid, used batteries, antifreeze, diesel

Tesla has repeatedly run afoul of laws designed to protect the environment from industrial waste. In 2019, author Edward Niedermeyer cataloged the troubles the company ran into with air pollution from its paint shop in Fremont, California, some of which occurred when the automaker took to painting its cars in a temporary tent-like marquee.

In 2022, the US Environmental Protection Agency fined Tesla $275,000 for violating the Clean Air Act, which followed a $31,000 penalty Tesla paid to the EPA in 2019. But EPA data shows that Tesla continued to violate the Clean Air Act in 2023.

And on Wednesday, Reuters reported that 25 Californian counties sued Tesla for violating the state’s hazardous waste laws and unfair business laws by improperly labeling hazardous waste before sending it to landfills that were not able to deal with the material.

The suit alleged that violations occurred at more than 100 facilities, including the factory in Fremont, and that Tesla disposed of hazardous materials including “but not limited to: lubricating oils, brake fluids, lead acid batteries, aerosols, antifreeze, cleaning fluids, propane, paint, acetone, liquified petroleum gas, adhesives and diesel fuel.”

Despite potentially large penalties for these industrial waste violations, which could have resulted in tens of thousands of dollars of fines for each day the automaker was not compliant, the counties and Tesla swiftly settled the suit on Thursday. Tesla, which had annual revenues of $96.8 billion in 2023, will pay just $1.3 million in civil penalties and an additional $200,000 in costs. The company is supposed to properly train its employees and hire a third party to conduct annual waste audits at 10 percent of its facilities, according to the Office of the District Attorney in San Francisco.

“While electric vehicles may benefit the environment, the manufacturing and servicing of these vehicles still generates many harmful waste streams,” said District Attorney Brooke Jenkins. “Today’s settlement against Tesla, Inc. serves to provide a cleaner environment for citizens throughout the state by preventing the contamination of our precious natural resources when hazardous waste is mismanaged and unlawfully disposed. We are proud to work with our district attorney partners to enforce California’s environmental laws to ensure these hazardous wastes are handled properly.”

An easy recall, a not-so-easy defect investigation

Tesla’s latest recall is a big one, affecting 2,193,869 vehicles—nearly every Tesla sold in the US, including the Model S (model years 2012–2023), the Model X (model years 2016–2024), the Model 3 (model years 2014–2023), the Model Y (model years 2019–2024) and the Cybertruck.

According to the official Part 573 Safety Notice, the issue is due to the cars’ displays, which use a font for the brake, park, and antilock brake warning indicators that is smaller than is legally required under the federal motor vehicle safety standards. NHTSA says it noticed the problem as part of a routine compliance audit on a Model Y in early January. After the agency informed the automaker, Tesla looked into the issue itself, and on January 24, it decided to issue a safety recall. Fortunately for the automaker, it can fix this problem with a software update.

A software patch is unlikely to help its other safety defect problem, however. Yesterday, NHTSA’s ODI upgraded a preliminary evaluation (begun in July 2023) to a full investigation of the steering components fitted to model-year 2023 Models 3 and Y.

NHTSA’s ODI says the problem affects up to 334,569 vehicles, which could suffer a loss of steering control. There have been 124 complaints of steering failure to NHTSA, and the agency says Tesla identified a further 2,264 customer complaints related to the problem. So far, at least one Tesla has crashed as a result of being unable to complete a right turn in an intersection.

A third of the complaints were reported to have happened at speeds below 5 mph, with the majority occurring between 5 and 35 mph and about 10 percent occurring above 35 mph (at least one complaint alleges the problem occurred at 75 mph). “A majority of allegations reported seeing a warning message, ‘Steering assist reduced,’ either before, during, or after the loss of steering control. A portion of drivers described their steering begin to feel ‘notchy’ or ‘clicky’ either prior to or just after the incident,” NHTSA’s investigation said.

NHTSA says there have been “multiple allegations of drivers blocking intersections and/or roadways,” and that more than 50 Teslas had to be towed as a result of the problem. The problem appears to be related to two of the four steering rack part numbers that Tesla used for these model-year 2023 EVs. They were installed in 2,187 of the vehicles, according to the complaints.

Tesla’s week gets worse: Fines, safety investigation, and massive recall Read More »

study-finds-that-once-people-use-cargo-bikes,-they-like-their-cars-much-less

Study finds that once people use cargo bikes, they like their cars much less

cargo bike, cargo bikes, Cars, e-bike, e-bikes / /

Hop in, we’re getting groceries —

Even some one-car households ditched vehicles in favor of cargo bike-sharing.

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Trek Fetch+2 with cargo panniers attached

Enlarge / It’s not likely to totally replace your car, nor will it probably be your only bike. But access to a cargo bike can reduce car trips, and even car ownership, a study from Germany suggests.

Cargo bikes started as something you’d see in images from Europe—bakfiets loaded up with groceries or sometimes kids. Now they’re getting more popular, and seemingly for good reason. A new study out of Germany suggests that once you let people try them, they tend to have a real impact on car use, and even car ownership.

The study, from Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, surveyed people using a cargo bike share (CBS) system from 58 different programs and initiatives in Germany, controlling a collective 751 cargo bikes. Out of the 2,386 active CBS users surveyed, 45.8 percent had one car in their home, and 54.2 percent lived without a car. As you might notice, this mix of cargo bike shares and car ownership is not representative of the US, but using a cargo bike, even one they didn’t technically own, still impacted ownership decisions in even one-car households.

A bit more than 18 percent of survey respondents said they either got rid of their car or decided against buying a car, and 80 percent of those people said they did so for environmental reasons. Nearly 49 percent said they ditched a car for financial reasons, 42 percent because they had “no interest in driving a car,” and about 10 percent due to the safety risks of driving a car (with the survey allowing for multiple reasons).

The average age of the study’s participants was 41.6 years old. Notably, 73.2 percent of those surveyed were in “metropolitan urban regions,” 11.8 percent in “regiopolitan urban regions” (i.e., suburbs), and about 15 percent in rural regions either close to or outside a city.

Ratings of cargo bikes and cars across different

Ratings of cargo bikes and cars across different “motives” for using them, on a 1–5 scale for importance, by the Germans surveyed for a study.

In perhaps more unsurprising news, people who actively signed up to use cargo bikes think they’re pretty great. Those surveyed rated cargo bikes higher when considering motivations for different forms of transport, on a 1–5 scale. Cars significantly won out among those who considered themselves car-dependent in travel speed, comfort, and weather independence.

Interestingly, respondents gave cars a roughly 3.4–3.5 out of 5 in traffic safety, and those who considered themselves “car-reduced” rated cargo bike use just below that, around 3.3. Those who considered themselves “car-dependent” rated cars’ traffic safety higher, just above 4.0 on average, and similarly provided higher ratings for speed, comfort, and weather independence.

As Ars’ John Timmer noted in a cargo bike review from the fall, cargo bikes are somewhat specialized for what they do—but because of their build, they’re definitely second bikes. Cargo bikes, however, can often replace even a weekend-scale grocery trip and give you exercise, fresh air, and lower environmental impact.

As suggested by the survey, and the experience of cargo bike enthusiasts I’ve met, they can’t do everything a car can, but cargo bikes can work if you’re willing to put in the effort. Folks in notably bike-oriented Germany have suggested they can use even fewer cars with the advent of electric-assist cargo bikes and often feel good about doing so.

Transportation Research F, 2024. DOI: 10.1016/j.trf.2023.12.018  (About DOIs).

Study finds that once people use cargo bikes, they like their cars much less Read More »

cruise-failed-to-disclose-disturbing-details-of-self-driving-car-crash

Cruise failed to disclose disturbing details of self-driving car crash

autonomous vehicles, Cars, Cruise, GM, self-driving, syndication / /

full disclosure —

Company did not share all it knew about the accident with regulators.

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A Cruise robotaxi test vehicle in San Francisco.

Enlarge / A Cruise robotaxi test vehicle in San Francisco.

Cruise

A law firm hired by the General Motors’ self-driving subsidiary Cruise to investigate the company’s response to a gruesome San Francisco crash last year found that the company failed to fully disclose disturbing details to regulators, the tech company said today in a blog post. The incident in October led California regulators to suspend Cruise’s license to operate driverless vehicles in San Francisco.

The new report by law firm Quinn Emanuel says that Cruise failed to tell California’s Department of Motor Vehicles that after striking a pedestrian knocked into its path by a human-driven vehicle, the autonomous car pulled out of traffic—dragging her some 20 feet. Cruise said it had accepted the firm’s version of events, as well as its recommendations.

The investigators found that when Cruise played a video of the crash taken from its autonomous vehicle for government officials, it did not “verbally point out” the vehicle’s pullover maneuver. Internet connectivity issues that occurred when the company tried to share video of the incident “likely precluded or hampered” regulators from seeing the full video, the report concluded.

Cruise executives are singled out in the report for failing to properly communicate with regulators. Company leaders assumed that regulators would ask questions that would lead the company to provide more information about the pedestrian dragging, the report says. And Cruise leadership is described as “fixated” on demonstrating to the media that it was a human-driven car, not its autonomous vehicle, that first struck the pedestrian. That “myopic focus,” the law firm concludes, led Cruise to “omit other important information” about the incident.

“The reasons for Cruise’s failings in this instance are numerous,” the law firm concluded, “poor leadership, mistakes in judgment, lack of coordination, an ‘us versus them’ mentality with regulators, and a fundamental misapprehension of Cruise’s obligations of accountability and transparency to the government and the public.” It said the company must take “decisive steps” to restore public trust.

Another third-party report on the crash released by Cruise today, by the engineering consulting firm Exponent, found that technical issues contributed to the autonomous vehicle’s dangerous pullover maneuver. Although the self-driving car’s software correctly detected, perceived, and tracked the pedestrian and the human-driven car, it classified the crash as a side-impact collision, which led it to pull over and drag the woman underneath it. Cruise says its technical issues were corrected when it recalled its software in November.

Cruise has paused its self-driving operations across the US since late October. Nine executives, plus CEO and cofounder Kyle Vogt, left in the fallout from the crash. In late 2023, the company laid off almost a quarter of its employees. General Motors says it will cut spending on the tech company by hundreds of millions of dollars this year compared to last.

This story originally appeared on wired.com.

Cruise failed to disclose disturbing details of self-driving car crash Read More »

tesla-posts-underwhelming-financial-results-for-q4-2023

Tesla posts underwhelming financial results for Q4 2023

Cars, Tesla, Tesla earnings / /

looks more like a normal carmaker now —

Revenues only grew by 3 percent year over year, disappointing the market.

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New Tesla electric vehicles fill the car lot at the Tesla retail location on Route 347 in Smithtown, New York on July 5, 2023.

Enlarge / Tesla sold 1.2 million Model Y crossovers last year.

John Paraskevas/Newsday RM via Getty Images

Tesla published its financial results for the last three months of 2023 this afternoon. The good news for the company is that it met its goal of delivering 1.8 million electric vehicles to customers, as Ars reported earlier this month when the automaker published that data. But a look at the company’s full financial results for Q4 are not as encouraging, and Tesla shares have fallen steeply in post-market trading.

Tesla brought in $25.2 billion in total revenue for Q4 2023, a year-over-year increase of 3 percent. Gross profits were down 23 percent for the quarter year over year, although net income (as determined by generally agreed accounting principles) increased 115 percent year over year. In large part, this was due to Tesla recording a “one-time non-cash tax benefit of $5.9 [billion] in Q4 for the release of valuation allowance on certain deferred tax assets”; non-GAAP income dropped 39 percent.

Free cash flow increased by 33 percent for the quarter, but its operating margin is almost half that of Q4 2022 at 8.2 percent.

For the entirety of 2023, total revenues stood at $96.8 billion, of which $82.4 billion came from automotive revenues, a 15 percent increase compared to 2022. Net profits for the year were 19 percent higher than 2022, but its margin for the year fell from 16.8 percent in 2022 to 9.2 percent in 2023, and for the year, free cash flow dropped by 42 percent.

The Model Y crossover is responsible for much of the company’s success in 2023—Tesla normally does not break out sales or deliveries between the Models 3 and Y, but revealed in its results slideshow that it delivered 1.2 million Model Ys last year, meaning that it also delivered about 500,000 Model 3 sedans. Plenty of price cuts helped make that happen in the US, Europe and China, where it is increasingly under pressure from the Chinese automaker BYD.

The company expanded its supercharger network last year by 27 percent, up to 5,952 stations with 54,892 ports. But not all of these are in North America—the US Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels Data Center currently lists 2,339 Tesla Supercharger stations in the US and Canada, with 25,893 ports in total.

Tesla’s energy storage business continues to grow, deploying 14.7 GWh of battery storage, an increase of 125 percent year over year. But its solar activities continue to shrink, decreasing 36 percent year over year.

Unlike last year, or even last quarter, Tesla declined to issue specific guidance for the coming year other than saying it continues to work on its next-generation vehicle platform. In fact, the automaker warned that its vehicle growth rate may be “notably lower” in 2024. Earlier on Wednesday, unnamed sources told Automotive News that a compact crossover Tesla could appear in 2025.

Tesla’s stratospheric valuation—which remains far higher than any other automaker—has been built on promises of massive growth and tech-sector profit margins. With these results looking much more ordinary, analysts are starting to cool.

“Tesla delivered another underwhelming quarter, with a notable miss on automotive gross margins standing out the most. Tesla’s worrying China sales figures indicate demand for its vehicles is slowing more than expected in the face of rising competition from local EV companies, including BYD, Nio, and XPeng,” said Jesse Cohen, senior analyst at Investing.com. “I don’t think the price cuts are over, mainly for the reason that demand for its electric vehicles is still weak. The big question is if this is just a blip, or signs of a bigger shift among consumers as higher interest rates and a weaker economic backdrop discourage consumers from making big-ticket purchases.”

“After years of capacity-constrained volume and revenue growth, it seems Tesla is facing its first demand issues. The automaker has been cutting prices over the past year even as sales plateau—and the future doesn’t look bright,” said Karl Brauer, executive analyst at iSeeCars. “Updates to the Model 3 and the ramp up of Cybertruck production are positive news for 2024. But it’s hard to imagine those factors overcoming the increasingly competitive EV market, lower prices, softening sales, and compressed profit margin Tesla is facing over the next 12 months.”

Tesla posts underwhelming financial results for Q4 2023 Read More »

will-demand-for-the-volkswagen-id-buzz-outstrip-supply?

Will demand for the Volkswagen ID Buzz outstrip supply?

Cars, Volkswagen, Volkswagen ID. Buzz, vw, VW ID. Buzz / /

can’t you see I’m Buzzy? —

The reimagined Microbus appeals to a far wider crowd than just car enthusiasts.

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A pair of Euro-spec ID Buzzes by a river in Copenhagen

Enlarge / You don’t have to get a two-tone paint job on your ID Buzz, but it helps.

Jonathan Gitlin

Volkswagen’s forthcoming electric minivan couldn’t be better named. Simply put, in the years that we’ve been writing about cars, nothing on four wheels has created quite as much buzz as the VW ID Buzz with its adorably retro styling. But if all that attention translates into actual buyers, the electric microbus may end up being oversubscribed, at least to begin with.

Charlie Hall, chairman of the Volkswagen National Dealer Advisory Council, says the US may only see 20,000 ID Buzzes imported this year, according to an interview today in Automotive News. “It sounds like we may have the opportunity for additional European capacity if we need it, but we’re still trying to sort out where the demand is going to be globally,” Hall said.

Years in the making

VW’s plan to resurrect the iconic T1 Microbus goes back to 2001 during the industry’s flirtation with retro car design. While vehicles like the new VW Beetle, Ford’s porthole-a-licious Thunderbird, and the ever-customizable Chrysler PT Cruiser made it to production, the Microbus concept never did.

The first VWs went on sale in the US almost exactly 75 years ago.

Enlarge / The first VWs went on sale in the US almost exactly 75 years ago.

Volkswagen

A decade later, VW had another go. This time, the Bulli concept was a battery electric vehicle (Bulli being the German nickname for the bus). But the specs for BEV concepts from 2011 look rather underwhelming with the advantage of time. The Bulli made do with a 40 kWh battery pack—described by Wired at the time as “huge”—which gave it a range of 185 miles (297 km), with a top speed of 87 mph (140 km/h) and a 0–62 (0–100 km/h) time of 11.5 seconds.

2016 brought us the VW BUDD-e, the third concept to reimagine the T1 in 15 years. VW was mired in its diesel emissions scandal at the time, and the company had found religion, pushing the fast-forward button on its development of alternative powertrains. VW took BUDD-e to CES that year, and the company said we would “see a car that looks a lot like this” using a new “modular electric toolkit” (also known as MEB, or Modularer E-Antriebs-Baukasten in German) by 2020.

Less than 18 months after that, the fourth and final concept appeared. Now bearing the ID Buzz name, it stole the 2017 New York International Auto Show, complete with a magnetically levitating gnome on the dashboard.

2020 was perhaps an ambitious goal for the ID Buzz to go into production; that was the year that VW’s first MEB-based BEV, called the ID.3, went on sale in Europe. The coronavirus pandemic didn’t help timelines, but the following year, the US saw its first MEB VW, the ID.4 crossover. But the question most people had was, “when’s the Buzz coming?”

Production starts

I do wonder how well this light-colored interior trim will stand up to family life.

Enlarge / I do wonder how well this light-colored interior trim will stand up to family life.

Volkswagen

In Europe, the answer was 2022, although with a shorter, two-row ID Buzz variant that won’t cross the Atlantic. We spent a day driving the Euro-spec Buzz, which was a definite attention-getter, if a little expensive—as much as 64,581 euro ($67,981 in 2022) for the five-seater passenger model before incentives.

The US-spec Buzz has a wheelbase that’s about 10 inches longer, and VW has used that extra space to add a larger-capacity battery (91 kWh) and a third row of seats. There’s also a new rear motor that’s larger and more powerful than before, giving a total output of 330 hp (246 kW), and VW did some small tweaks, like adding sliding windows and ventilation to the rear compartment.

VW tells Ars that the ID Buzz will “most likely” arrive here in North America in the fourth quarter of 2024, and we’ll have to wait until Q3 to find out how much the US version will cost. The automaker wouldn’t be drawn on production or supply numbers, so for now, we just have Hall’s comments to go by. Here’s hoping a mismatch between supply and demand doesn’t result in hefty markups at the dealerships.

Will demand for the Volkswagen ID Buzz outstrip supply? Read More »

what-happens-when-you-trigger-a-car’s-automated-emergency-stopping?

What happens when you trigger a car’s automated emergency stopping?

advanced driver assistance systems, Cars, Evergreen, Features, road safety / /
screen grab from a Mercedes training video; illustration of sleeping driver

Mercedes-Benz

Most car crashes begin and end in a few seconds. That’s plenty of time to get in a tiny micro-nap while driving. The famous asleep-at-the-wheel film scene in National Lampoon’s Vacation, where Clark Griswold goes off to slumberland for 72 seconds while piloting the Wagon Queen Family Truckster (a paragon of automotive virtue but lacking any advanced driver safety systems), might be a comical look at this prospect. But if Clark were in the real world, he and his family would likely have been injured or killed—or they could have caused similar un-funny consequences for other motorists or pedestrians.

There’s plenty of real-world news on the topic right now. Early in 2023, the Automobile Association of America’s Foundation for Traffic Safety published a study estimating that 16–21 percent of all fatal vehicle crashes reported to police involve drowsy driving.

With the road fatality numbers in the US hovering close to 38,000 over the past few years, that means between 6,080 and 7,980 road deaths are linked to drowsy drivers. Further research by the AAA’s Foundation finds that drivers likely under-report drowsiness in all car crashes. Nodding off while driving is as dangerous as—and potentially more dangerous than—driving drunk. And while drunk-driving figures have decreased between 1991 and 2021, the opposite is true for drowsy driving.

Nissan

Automakers have not been unaware of the problem, either. As long ago as 2007, manufacturers like Volvo began offering drowsiness-detection systems that monitored the driver, though in a simpler way than what’s seen in the leading systems of today. They sensed the velocities of inputs to steering, throttle, and brakes. Some even used a camera aimed at the driver to discern if drivers were becoming inattentive, including drooping their head or simply averting their view from the straight-ahead.

These systems chime a warning and project a visual alert on the dashboard asking if the driver wants to take a break, often with the universal symbol for wakefulness—a coffee cup—appearing in the instrument cluster. Many new cars today still have this feature. And to be sure, it was then, is now, and forever will be a beneficial and effective method of alerting drivers to their drowsiness.

But a level beyond the above audible and visual cues has changed this landscape of blunting the upward trend of drowsy driving. As Level-2, semi-autonomous capabilities emerge in medium- and even lower-priced automobiles, these features also allow cars and SUVs to take control of the vehicle should the vehicle determine that the driver has become inattentive or incapacitated.

On some vehicles, like this Mercedes, you can select the sensitivity of the drowsy driver program (“Attention Assist” in this case) to have a lower or higher threshold for activation.

Enlarge / On some vehicles, like this Mercedes, you can select the sensitivity of the drowsy driver program (“Attention Assist” in this case) to have a lower or higher threshold for activation.

Jim Resnick

Because all the pieces of a vehicle-control puzzle are already on board, enabling a system to take over from an inattentive driver is a matter of programming—extensive programming, of course, but all the critical pieces of hardware are often already there:

  • Selective braking from adaptive cruise control and stability control
  • Self-steering functions of lane-keeping and lane-centering
  • A cellular telematics network.

It’s a lengthy programming exercise that can take control of a vehicle in a simplified way, but not before three forms of human stimuli are triggered to wake up a drowsy driver: sight, sound, and a physical prompt.

This is all great in theory and in a digital vacuum, but I wanted to explore what occurs inside a car that has determined that the driver is no longer actually driving. The Infiniti QX60 and Mercedes EQE 350 have such emergency stop capabilities; I recently tested both.

What happens when you trigger a car’s automated emergency stopping? Read More »

the-2024-kia-ev9,-an-electric-three-row-suv-designed-with-the-us-in-mind

The 2024 Kia EV9, an electric three-row SUV designed with the US in mind

car review, Cars, E-GMP, First drive, Kia, Kia EV9 / /

mostly good —

Kia bets on edgy design, a futuristic interior, and plenty of interior space.

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A blue Kia EV9 drives along a forest road in California

Enlarge / The 2024 Kia EV9 takes many of the things people love about the Telluride but does them on one of the best purpose-built EV platforms in the industry.

Kia

American car buyers love purchasing way more car than they need. Have a kid and a dog? You’d better get a Suburban. Need to tow a Hobie Cat to the lake once or twice a year? Get a full-size diesel four-wheel drive pickup. Looking at an EV for your family? Well, it had better do 400 miles at a time and charge in 15 minutes, despite you having a six-mile commute. This mentality would make a cynic say that Kia’s EV9 is a pointless exercise, but that cynic would be wrong.

The 2024 Kia EV9 is ostensibly a three-row, midsize electric SUV that in its most efficient form—the Wind RWD Long-Range trim—will do a claimed 304 miles (489 km) of range, but it’s also Kia’s flagship model and the vehicle that seems to give us the best look at the formerly cheap-and-cheerful brand’s more upscale future.

The EV9 is the latest vehicle based on the E-GMP platform that underpins the Ioniq 5, EV6, and Genesis GV60. Like those vehicles, it features a skateboard-style chassis and is available in rear- or all-wheel drive. Power ranges from 201 hp (150 kW) in the entry-level Wind RWD model to 379 hp (283 kW) in the Land AWD and GT-Line models. There are two available battery packs, with the smaller coming in at 76.1 kWh and the long-range pack rated at 99.8 kWh.

The larger size of the EV9 means you won't get quite the same range efficiency out of the same powertrain as the smaller E-GMP cars. Not that it matters on the commute, school run, or grocery errand.

Enlarge / The larger size of the EV9 means you won’t get quite the same range efficiency out of the same powertrain as the smaller E-GMP cars. Not that it matters on the commute, school run, or grocery errand.

Kia

The conversation around electric vehicles, especially with new buyers, tends to be dominated by range. The claimed range figures for the EV9 won’t light anyone’s hair on fire, particularly with the GT-Line model and its not-so-whopping 270 miles (434 km) or the bottom-of-the-barrel Light RWD model that only offers 230 miles (370 km). Still, these figures should prove to be ample for most Americans.

Like other E-GMP-based vehicles, the EV9 is built on an 800 V architecture and supports DC fast charging at up to 235 kW. The onboard AC charger is rated at 10.9 kW, and for home-based level 2 charging, Kia is partnering with Wallbox and is pushing that company’s Quasar 2 home charging setup. While the Quasar’s vehicle-to-load and vehicle-to-home capabilities are neat, its $4,000-plus price before installation isn’t, and neither is Kia’s decision to not sell them through dealers, preventing new EV buyers from wrapping the system into their car loan.

On the road, the EV9 is just nice. It’s not particularly quick, even in its most performative variant. Kia claims a 4.5 second 0–60 time, but that’s only if you pay for the acceleration boost unlock (more on this later), and while that’s not slow per se, it won’t impress veteran EV drivers. Ride quality is also average. Like many other Kias, the suspension is tuned on the slightly firmer side, but it’s not harsh, even over very broken pavement.

Only the EV9 GT-Line features an exterior vehicle-to-load AC outlet.

Enlarge / Only the EV9 GT-Line features an exterior vehicle-to-load AC outlet.

Kia

The EV9’s steering is perfectly ignorable in most drive modes, but it leans hard into artificially heavy territory in sport mode. The EV9 has a super long wheelbase—122 inches (3,098 mm) vs. the Telluride’s 114.2 inches (2,900), despite being essentially the same size—but it lacks any kind of rear-wheel steering, meaning that parking lot maneuvers are a bit of a chore—and don’t even think about u-turns unless you’re ready to do a very fast three-point turn.

The 2024 Kia EV9, an electric three-row SUV designed with the US in mind Read More »

ford’s-ceo-gives-us-a-ride-in-the-crazy-electric-transit-supervan-4.2

Ford’s CEO gives us a ride in the crazy electric transit Supervan 4.2

Cars, electric van, Ford Performance, Ford Supervan, racing, vantime / /

Its a bird, its a train, no it’s supervan —

You don’t often get the head of the company giving rides in an EV demonstrator.

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Ford Supervan 4.2 lights up its tires in the pitlane

Enlarge / Everyone loves a good van, and Supervan 4.2 is a very good van.

Ford

Concorde, NC—On Wednesday, Ford Performance held an official launch event for the 2024 season. The new GT3 version of the Mustang makes its competition debut at next weekend’s Rolex 24 at Daytona, marking the start of a new approach to racing for the Blue Oval, one that involves selling customer race cars as a business line, not just a factory team. While we were there, we also rode in a new electric racing truck demonstrator, but the main reason I got on the short flight down to Charlotte was to check out one of the most delightfully weird race cars of the past few years, the Ford Transit Supervan 4.2.

It’s the latest in a line of wild demonstrator vehicles based on the venerable Transit van, Ford’s commercial workhorse in Europe and, increasingly, the US. Ford started making an electric version of the Transit a couple of years ago, and when we drove that electric van, I might have driven a couple of the engineers and PR people to tears by repeatedly asking them, “So, are you going to make a Supervan version of this, too?”

The first Supervan dates back to 1970 (or maybe 1971), when someone had the bright idea to stick a Transit body shell on a Ford GT40 race car chassis as a way to promote the new van. The 1980s and 1990s saw two new Supervans, this time using Formula 1 engines. Now that EVs are the new hotness, the appeal of an electric Supervan probably seemed obvious.

  • It’s definitely Transit-shaped.

    Ford

  • Supervan has a new livery compared to its Pikes Peak run.

    Jonathan Gitlin

  • The wings and diffuser create more than 4,400 lbs (2,000 kg) of downforce.

    Jonathan Gitlin

  • OK, you get less cargo volume than in a production Transit, thanks to the aerodynamic styling.

    Jonathan Gitlin

Ford worked with an Austrian motorsports company, STARD, to develop Supervan 4, which made its debut at the 2022 Goodwood Festival of Speed. Last year, a heavily revised version, now called Supervan 4.2, was built for the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, one of the more challenging races still held today and an event where EVs excel—unlike internal combustion engines, electric motors and batteries don’t lose any power as they climb into thin air above 14,000 feet (4,270 m).

Like the previous Supervans, this did not start with a production vehicle that got souped up; it’s a custom spaceframe with composite body panels that just happens to look mostly Transit-shaped, albeit with some wild aerodynamic appendages to keep all four wheels pressed to the ground. It does have some cargo capacity behind the two-seat cockpit, though, and a tow hook at the back. Strapped into the passenger seat, I couldn’t help noticing an infotainment screen from a Mustang Mach-E.

Supervan 4.2 is actually a little less powerful than the 2022 version, going from a 1,973-hp (1,471 kW) four-motor arrangement to a 1,408-hp (1,050 kW) three-motor configuration for Pikes Peak. The motors draw energy from a 50 kWh battery pack, complete with a CCS fast charging port capable of up to 350 kW fast charging. (At Charlotte Motor Speedway, the mechanics and engineers used a portable 60 kW fast-charger connected to a 600 kWh storage battery in the paddock to top up Supervan between sessions.)

  • The air jack (left) and CCS (right) charging port. The native port is CCS2, because Supervan 4.2 was built in Europe, but the crew had an adapter that lets them charge at US CC1 DC charging stations if necessary.

    Jonathan Gitlin

  • I love the production infotainment screen from the Ford Mustang Mach-E, and the fact that it still uses the same user interface, even if the software modes are different.

    Jonathan Gitlin

  • Yes, that’s a tow hitch.

    Jonathan Gitlin

  • Supervan’s tires were probably warmer than the rest of us on a very chilly day in Charlotte.

    Jonathan Gitlin

Getting a ride in something cool like Supervan 4.2 is an occupational hazard in this job. What’s less common is being chauffeured for that ride by the company’s CEO. But our driver was indeed Ford CEO Jim Farley, who is rather handy behind the wheel.

“We don’t want to make generic vehicles at Ford anymore,” Farley told us that morning before explaining that the company’s new strategy is for Ford Performance to become a sustainable business and not just a marketing strategy that ebbs and flows depending on whether there are enough motorsport fans in the C-suite. After all, Ford got its start after Henry Ford proved his new creation in competition.

But Farley explained that he also learned from the late Ken Block that “he taught us… that in this world of enthusiasts, digital content is super-important for customers and brands. And so we continue to commit to doing demonstrators like the Supervan 4 and others that are there for one reason: to have fun. To generate digital content so people can just enjoy having fun in vehicles, and some of them don’t make any sense, like Supervan 4.”

My ride was brutal—1,900 lb-ft (2,576 Nm) has that effect—and rather brief—it took about 90 seconds to leave the pit lane, negotiate the relatively tight infield at Charlotte, then return back to the pits, where Farley brought us to a halt with a nicely executed 180-degree turn.

Come for a short ride with us in Ford’s Supervan 4.2 EV demonstrator.

Supervan 4.2’s next adventure is going to be a trip Down Under—Ford is taking it to Mount Panorama in Australia to put on demonstration runs ahead of this year’s Bathurst 12 Hour race. It won’t be defending its class win at Pikes Peak in June, but Farley told us to expect a different, as-yet unrevealed EV demonstrator for the 2024 event.

Ford’s CEO gives us a ride in the crazy electric transit Supervan 4.2 Read More »

lucid-delivered-just-6,001-electric-sedans-in-2023

Lucid delivered just 6,001 electric sedans in 2023

Cars, Lucid, Lucid Air / /

airs and graces —

The Saudi-backed builder of high-end EVs is not having an easy time.

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A lucid air seen from the front 3/4

Enlarge / Lucid has dropped the Air’s drag coefficient to just 0.197, making it the most aerodynamic car on sale.

Jonathan Gitlin

When we saw our first Lucid Air prototype in 2017, we came away extremely impressed. This alpha build appeared far more realized than some prototypes, complete with functioning infotainment software as opposed to the pre-rendered demos that are often more common in such cases. But the startup automaker has had anything but an easy time since then. Yesterday, it announced its Q4 2023 deliveries ahead of an investor call in late February, and the numbers are bad.

Lucid originally planned to launch the Air sedan in 2019. Designed by Tesla’s former VP and Chief Vehicle Engineer Peter Rawlinson, together with designer Derek Jenkins, the Air aimed for Mercedes-Benz S-Class levels of space and luxury on the interior but with the footprint of the smaller Mercedes E-Class. Under its ultra-low-drag body was a highly advanced electric vehicle powertrain capable of extremely rapid acceleration, a high top speed, and class-leading range.

But starting a new car company is neither easy nor cheap. Lucid struggled to obtain funding until Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund invested a billion dollars in the company in 2018, allowing Lucid to complete work on its factory in Arizona and push on with developing the Air.

The company then told us that production would begin in 2020—a date that fell by the wayside thanks to the global pandemic that broke out early that year. At the time, Rawlinson told Ars that production was still possible later that year, and the specs it announced were indeed impressive—more than 1,000 hp (745 kW) and a range of 517 miles (813 km) for the launch version, the Air Dream Edition.

But those big numbers were matched by an equally big price—$169,000, or $139,000 for the slightly less powerful, slightly shorter-range Air Grand Touring.

But 2020 came and went without a production car. In 2021, we got our first ride in a release candidate prototype, but Ars wouldn’t get to sample the Air from behind the driver’s seat until just over a year ago. What we found was a car that was very competent in many areas but missing in others, with uneven build quality between cars.

Since then, the company added some cheaper variants to its lineup—Lucid will sell you an Air Pure for $74,000 after its current incentives are taken into account. But that hasn’t resulted in a glut of orders.

For the last three months of 2023, Lucid built just 2,231 Air EVs and delivered 1,734 of those to customers. The results for the whole year weren’t any better—Lucid built 8,428 cars and delivered 6,001 of those.

As you might expect, that hasn’t been especially good for the company’s share price, which has fallen by 20 percent since the start of the week.

Lucid delivered just 6,001 electric sedans in 2023 Read More »

i-parked-a-bmw-from-across-the-parking-lot-at-ces-2024

I parked a BMW from across the parking lot at CES 2024

bmw, BMW iX, Cars, CES, remote parking / /
A BMW iX is remotely driven around a CES parking lot

Enlarge / Until now, remote parking systems have mostly required the parking lot or garage to fit expensive sensors and equipment. BMW’s approach is different, requiring nothing that isn’t already on the car.

Tim Stevens

If I had a dollar for every automated self-parking demo I’ve seen over the years, many of which happened at CES, I’d probably have enough money to tip a Las Vegas valet, folks whose jobs are still very secure.

But that might actually be changing soon. Given all those earlier demos that went nowhere, I wasn’t particularly enthused when I heard that BMW and Valeo were demonstrating yet another implementation of a car parking itself for the 2024 CES in Las Vegas.

However, after a quick chat with the folks behind the technology and getting a chance to try it myself, I realized I was wrong. Remote Valet is impressive not only for what it can do but because it does it without any technology more advanced than what’s already found in today’s production cars.

The core concept is a simple one. You pull up to the entrance of wherever you want to go. Instead of dealing with the drudgery of parking your own car or risking paying to let some red-vested teenager take your car for a joyride, you get out, tap a button in the My BMW app, and walk away.

The car parks itself, and when you’re done, you just open the app, tap the button again, and the car magically returns to pick you up.

The secret is that the car is not truly parking itself. This isn’t a limited case of driving autonomy. You’re actually handing over control of your car to a real human sitting in a sort of call center full of sim racing rigs.

BMW's remote operators use high-end sim racing equipment to control the cars remotely.

Enlarge / BMW’s remote operators use high-end sim racing equipment to control the cars remotely.

BMW

That person then remotely pilots your car, using footage livestreamed from the 360-degree cameras in the car. That streaming happens courtesy of the car’s wireless connection, which also returns the driver inputs back from the call center to the vehicle.

It’s a mechanical Turk situation, with a driver very much in the loop, though not within the car—nor, necessarily, within the state. That vastly reduces the complexity of the situation, so much so that this technology could theoretically be deployed very soon, potentially even pushed to current BMWs via an over-the-air update. It relies entirely on sensors and antennas already built into cars.

No new hardware needed

Indeed, at CES 2024, the demo machines were BMW iX SUVs. They had additional developer-specific hardware inside since they’re test vehicles, but I was told that once the software is final, no additional hardware will be necessary. So unlike other automated parking demos that require things like beacons within garages for locational positioning, perfectly pristine paint markers on the road, or, indeed, high-resolution maps of the entire lot, this solution just requires butts in seats and a reasonably good wireless connection.

At the show, I was able to remotely pilot one of the iX SUVs. BMW had set up a surprisingly high-end sim racing rig, a Fanatec DD2 wheel plus Clubsport pedals. All this was overkill, given that the maximum speed for a car remotely piloted like this is 10 km/h, or about 6 mph.

I parked a BMW from across the parking lot at CES 2024 Read More »

biden-administration-awards-$632m-for-ev-charging-in-new-funding-round

Biden administration awards $632M for EV charging in new funding round

Cars, CFI, charging infrastructure, infrastructure investment and jobs act, joint office, NEVI / /

and some H2, too —

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act set aside $2.5 billion for underserved and rural areas.

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Young multiracial man charging his electric car, close-up.

Getty Images

The federal government’s Joint Office of Energy and Transportation announced on Thursday $632 million in grants to fund clean vehicle infrastructure. Twenty-two states along with Puerto Rico will be the recipients of this first round of funding from the $2.5 billion Charging and Fueling Infrastructure program, which started accepting applications in March 2023.

Although US carbon emissions fell last year, most of that was achieved through much cleaner energy generation. But when it comes to transportation’s contribution to our annual carbon impact, that line is sadly still going up. Which is why it was encouraging that the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2022 included $7.5 billion for clean vehicle infrastructure.

Two-thirds of that was set aside for the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure formula program. That $5 billion is being spent mostly on DC fast charging infrastructure, mostly at regular intervals along highway corridors, but also on charger reliability. Rather than paying for the chargers directly, the federal government is awarding it to states and metropolitan planning organizations the way it does with other highway formula funds.

The other $2.5 billion was allocated for CFI. Unlike NEVI, CFI has been open to a wider pool of applications, including local governments and public-private partnerships looking to fund clean vehicle infrastructure in underserved or rural areas. For this round of $632 million in grants, more than 70 percent of the funds will be spent in disadvantaged communities, according to the Joint Office.

“A hallmark of the CFI program is its context sensitivity—it gives communities the opportunity to build the right mix of charging to meet the specific e-mobility needs of people where they live, work, and play,” said Joint Office Executive Director Gabe Klein.

“These awards will leverage the creativity and expertise of American communities around the country advancing clean and equitable transportation options through innovative projects like charging and hydrogen fueling for heavy duty trucks on major corridors, electrification at multifamily housing, multimodal charging hubs for e-bikes and scooters, and even pedestrian safety improvements,” Klein said.

Of the 47 projects being funded (you can see the entire list here), 43 are for EV charging, one is for EV charging and hydrogen refueling, and the remaining three are for hydrogen facilities. That translates to more than 7,500 new charging ports, the Joint Office says.

Biden administration awards $632M for EV charging in new funding round Read More »

hertz-is-selling-20,000-used-evs-due-to-high-repair-costs

Hertz is selling 20,000 used EVs due to high repair costs

Cars, electric vehicle adoption, Hertz / /

too expensive to fix —

The rental car company will replace them with gasoline-powered vehicles.

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A row of white Teslas by a Hertz sign

Hertz

If you’re looking for an electric car bargain and you’re braver than the average bear, you might want to check out Hertz, the car rental agency. After announcing big plans to purchase tens of thousands of EVs from Tesla and then Polestar, it’s now liquidating a third of that fleet, the company told investors.

After Hertz went bankrupt during the early days of the pandemic, its big EV ambitions began in 2021, when the company revealed it wanted more than 20 percent of its rental fleet to be electric by 2022. To that end, it placed an order for 100,000 Tesla Model 3 sedans, then followed up with an order for 65,000 Polestar 2s.

By early 2023, it was still far short of the ambitious goal, in large part due to Tesla’s inability to actually fill that order in time, and EVs still represent just 11 percent of the total Hertz rental fleet. In total, the Hertz EV fleet is around 60,000 vehicles. But it may not actually be that upset at falling short—it turns out that the electric rental cars haven’t been the panacea it needed.

At the end of Q3 2023, Hertz told investors that significant price cutting during the year had “resulted in lower EV residual values, increasing vehicle depreciation expense and negatively impacting salvage cost.” Additionally, its rental EVs were damaged or crashed more often, and the much higher cost of repairs for Tesla vehicles—on average about 20 percent higher than other EVs—has meant that Hertz’s Teslas earn it less money per vehicle than its other rentals.

Consequently, it’s selling off 20,000 EVs over the course of this year. Currently, the company has over 700 EVs for sale, including 35 Chevrolet Bolts, four Kia EV6s, a single BMW i3 and Nissan Leaf, and then 673 Teslas—552 Model 3s and another 121 Model Ys.

Some of the used EVs are rather affordable—the cheapest Model 3 is just $20,125. A long-range Model Y will cost a fair bit more than that, although even here, the most expensive one for sale by Hertz is just $38,116. As a reminder, there is now a tax credit of up to $4,000 available when buying a used EV that costs less than $25,000, assuming one meets the income caps.

But they are all ex-rental cars, and that means most of these cars have had relatively hard lives and now have plenty of miles on them—the cheaper Model 3s are all closing in on 100,000 miles. Not all of them, though—in New Orleans, there’s a Kia EV6 up for sale with just under 5,000 miles.

Hertz says depreciation of $245 million for its EV assets will show up in the Q4 2023 financial results. The company plans to use some of the proceeds of the sale to purchase more gasoline-powered rental cars.

Hertz is selling 20,000 used EVs due to high repair costs Read More »