Automotive

Volkswagen Plant in Chattanooga, TN Axes Production of EV Model, Will Focus on New Gas-Powered SUV Lineup Instead Volkswagen announced a shift in its U.S. production strategy on Thursday, confirming it will end assembly of its all-electric Volkswagen ID.4...  

I continue to believe that EVs are an excellent solution for commercial vehicle purposes, but, at best, an average solution for passenger vehicles. Hybrid powertrains and, hopefully, hydrogen are a much more promising alternative in my opinion....

Hydrogen is dead in the water for passenger cars with no manufacturer having a sizable program left anymore. It is simply an unbelievably resource inefficient way of doing things compared to pure electric vehicles. The main reason hybrids are doing so wel... 

I'd love to get a Toyota Mirai and share that vehicle with the other half, oscillating between that one and the 4-cylinder pick-up in order to gauge practical usability and cost differences.... As far as electric trucks go, my favorites are the Rivian R1T... 

With solar cells on the roof might make that motoring largely cost free, with the many quick charging points it works for flats nowadays, too 😊👍🏻 As for Mirai I really like it in principle but it’s rarer than limited edition Ferraris, so for all intents a... 

Of the European manufacturers, I only recall BMW issuing statements of commitment to some degree of investment in hydrogen....

The passenger car joint ventures are dormant and even the truck one is dead. And no surprise - simply doesn’t make sense economically 🤷🏻‍♂️

And in my experience with GM, Ford and a few others, they're not even that keen on sharing with sister divisions of the same corporation (spoiler alert! I never really liked sharing with MY sister) ...  

Remember from old day reporting that both Ford and VW found their minivan joint development easier than many an internal project with sister brands 😉 Whether the current MEB / Ranger / Transit partnership is equally harmonious remains to be seen but the a... 

Within some areas, electric is great. Brilliant even. Tho for a 1200 mile drive, perhaps dead dino juice is best.

And comparable if not better fun on the twisty sections 😉

BYD is developing some very Interesting tech. Who knows, soon horology of top finishing too. China is quite...

.. an EV can 'never' be more fun than ICE on twisty roads. Weight being the main factor off course, our 'lightweight' genes command our brains to only have fun in light vehicles. Offcourse a small track oriented EV could bring us some relief .

But then apart form the Alpine A110 the last years have been painful even in the ICE world. As for the Alpine, if the current situation allowed, it would be to of the list for the fun category 👌🏻🏁

And no matter how good the M2 drives and how cool it looks ... boosting 500 hp ... it is still a 1700 kilos car. The drive is ..... fabulous, to say the least BUT the weight is there. If I could choose a 10 to 20K car right now I'd opt for a Citroen Saxo ...  

That said, spend 20K and you can still have a seriously nice Clio 3 RS.

But a lot of performance cars that were bargains 5-10 years ago are excessively expensive now 🤷🏻‍♂️

1.3 or 1.6 gives you around 100 hp. The 106 1.6-16V has 120 hp and is basically the same as the Saxo VTS, engine etc ... . But the Saxo is a bit lighter and apparently had some tweaks that make it a lot more fun to drive.

I have a plug-in hybrid. The driving experience when running on electricity is vastly better than the experience when running on gas. I cannot imagine at any time in the future buying a car with a gas tank. The U.S. government has done what it can to pois... 

Total driving between the three of about 200,000 miles. The plug-in hybrid Volt is the best option (for us) by far - gas for distance, electric for town with seamless switching. But too complex and expensive to build even for GM, so they are not building ... 

Would be a little bit like using a Hyundai i10 as the champion of internal combustion engine powered cars 😁 They have made huge strides in the interim and I am pretty sure you might like the new ones. The likes of Ionic 5N are genuinely impressive (althou... 

All three stopped any effort to be globally competitive. The Fiat merger and Peugeot/Citroen merger helped Chrysler maintain an overseas presence of sorts, but even those are on a longterm downward trend. Ford and GM are seeing Chinese market shares under... 

...which means maybe best for people with means. As around town, shopping, church, etc. cars they are hard to beat. Almost no maintenance other than wipers and tires. In CA it's far cheaper than gas, especially these days.

An emotional subject for sure I am now driving a BMW i5 edrive 40 Touring after having owned (leased) three Mercedes EQBs, all 350 4Matic. After overcoming the initial stress related to range anxiety and a new process around charging on the go, I can whol...  

An absolutely crucial component of EV ownership is being able to charge at home. For a lot of people who live in apartments, regardless of continental geography, this is a difficult challenge to overcome........

Even Americans would figure out quickly there is a world of EV's they have never even seen, and they would flee from the fossil fuel backwater the USA seems to be headed to.

The numbers of new ICE powered cars has been steadily dropping, and the growth comes from BEVs - and that globally. The trajectory of the transition is still open but the final destination is clear in spite of the odd hiccup (and the examples given are qu... 

.. apparently there's a new 'player' on it's way ;-)

eFuel

Based on the assumption that we will reduce driven km by about 95% and that customers are willing to pay 10-15 €/liter without any government taxes added on, it’s a fun theoretical idea that could keep some vintage cars and possibly some exotic machinery ... 

But I already have a feeling now that we will have to wait for quite a long time lol

You will wait for a long, long time 🤪😂

How did I know from the beginning it was going to be a dead end ? I'm a sensible electro mechanical engineer so I know the 'yes we can' doesn't work for the EV-hype either ... the math simply doesn't work out. Ev cars are amazing and will hopefully always...  

Doesn’t mean that electric mobility (even amongst expensive cars) is a dead end. The lacking reliability, massively delayed product launches and horrendous resale values are all factors but none of them are a feature of EVs as such, just of managing the s... 

I do disagree on the politicians part The transition to EV had to happen way too fast, I do understand that you have to push anyway or nothing much will happen, remember the Renault Fluence and Zoë ? Renault and Nissan (Leaf) were pioneers but they decide... 

When it comes to things like policy there is always a huge influence of various parties, let’s call them lobbyists, to stay polite 😊 After 2015 two things happened in parallel. First of all, the diesel scandal. And while apart from VW no one paid signific... 

So difficult to predict the coming 10 years ... What will the big companies do (VAG/Toyota/Tesla/Stellantis and Renault) compare to the massive upcoming Chinese brands ? Yet, i still want that EV Twingo in a couple of years when i retire and decide to liv...  

And still free mobility 😉 As for what will happen, the big question is to what extent the classical brands manage to stomach the size and profitability of their China business disappearing. That’s probably much more material than any moves the Chinese can... 

...or at least upper middle class vehicles. Maybe a controversial statement, but let me explain. (And if you know the US housing market it makes a LOT more sense) Until you can *satisfactorily* solve for multi-dweller units (MDUs) like apartment builds, c... 

Here's our special electrical rate for EV in the San Diego area. Unless you charge in the middle of the night between midnight and 6 am, the cost is roughly 50-75 cents per kWh. Plus a daily charge of another 75 cents. With a Tesla battery (most common si...