The US Department of Transportation is proposing to “Amend the Definition of 3-Wheeled Vehicles”. While the description of the Proposed Rulemaking is something I agree with, if the proposed rules had been in place 10 years ago certain aspects of the Electric Vehicle industry would have been held back. There…
This evening Faraday Future finally unveiled themselves, showing off what the company has been developing, including a massively powerful electric race car. The key is what the company calls it’s Variable Platform Architecture, which should enable the company to develop nearly any kind of four-wheeled vehicle. In other words, Faraday…
In a statement today from BMW’s top management, the company said clearly – electric vehicles are the future. Oh, and “digitalization” meaning the integration of advanced computer systems and networked connections into cars. The statement by Harald Krüger is attributed to a quarterly conference call dated Sept 30, 2015. As we’ll see…
Bob Lutz is prognosticating the death of Tesla Motors, saying the company is badly run, its costs are too high, it should be working through dealers, it should add a plug-in hybrid model, and oh-by-the-way he likes Elon Musk. Coincidentally, I see from my calendar that in exactly one…
Today, GM unveiled plans to “capitalize on the future of personal mobility by owning the customer relationship beyond the vehicle, building upon nearly two decades of connectivity leadership” and while a large part of that plan is an eventual autonomously driven car based robotaxi service, General Motors announced a couple…
General Motors today announced plans that will position the company to “capitalize on the future of personal mobility,” using its OnStar network (“nearly two decades of connectivity leadership”) and by “owning the customer relationship beyond the vehicle.” Given what GM announced (car sharing services with autonomous vehicles), “owning the customer…
Retrieved from: http://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2015/oct/1001-gbc.html MILFORD, Mich. – General Motors Co. (NYSE: GM) CEO Mary Barra and her leadership team today outlined the company’s plans to capitalize on the future of personal mobility by owning the customer relationship beyond the vehicle, building upon nearly two decades of connectivity leadership. GM also said it…
Now that we’ve spent a week learning about emissions test cheating at Volkswagen, this new information shouldn’t be surprising: Volkswagen was warned at least twice against cheating. Both Volkswagen’s own staff and one of its suppliers, Bosch, warned against efforts to detect and thwart emissions tests, according to reports in the…
A week ago the automotive world was put into turmoil over news that Volkswagen had, allegedly, committed widespread fraud with their emissions test results. Specific Volkswagen and Audi vehicles were emitting lots more pollution than allowed, while their EPA emissions ratings garnered praise and government subsidies by supposedly being the cleanest Diesel vehicles…
I’m learning about Bitcoin and now know that it’s not a piece of techno-fluff that won’t amount to anything. It has serious technical depth, and the capability of transforming the monetary system. Maybe. One possibility is to solve for the supposed necessity of charging station networks. If applied correctly, Bitcoin based charging…
Daimler just announced they’re looking to end the powertrain supply deal with Tesla Motors where the Mercedes-Benz B-Class Electric has Tesla drivetrain goodness under the hood. The purpose is to bring battery pack development in-house, and to prepare for selling a B-Class Electric with a 500 kilometer range (300 miles).…
Since the Tesla Motors conference call for Q2 2015 quarterly results, the TSLA stock price has fallen from $270/share to $242/share. While we’re talking about a highly volatile startup company, the news in those quarterly results was not so good. A deep quarterly loss thanks to steep capital expenses related to rolling…
It’s time to retell the “no, the automaker isn’t losing $n,000 per car, they’re investing in the future” story. Following last week’s quarterly financial results report from Tesla Motors a long string of news articles have proclaimed something like “Tesla burns cash, loses more than $4,000 on every car sold”.…
Retrieved from: http://nissannews.com/en-US/nissan/usa/releases/speeches-from-the-116th-annual-general-shareholders-meeting-from-cco-hiroto-saikawa-and-ceo-carlos-ghosn Of importance is a section towards the end in which Carlos Ghosn discusses the two Leaf’s on the stage. One demonstrates the self-driving features which Nissan is developing. The other Ghosn describes as having range similar to gasoline powered vehicles. That implies 300+ miles. A video was shown…
