New Lower Priced Electric Cars Coming

[Count Bobulescu]

Number of the day: 1 million electric vehicles1 million-plus: That's the number of electric vehicles that are on pace to be sold in China this year, according to a Friday morning piece in the Wall Street Journal, up from 777,000 last year.
Why it matters: Topping 1 million is a symbolic but interesting threshold that signals the coming mainstreaming of EVs, even though they remain just a tiny fraction of global auto sales.

• China is the world's largest auto market, so trends there affect the plans of automakers worldwide.

One level deeper: "The Chinese government is targeting 2 million EV sales in 2020, and is trying to achieve that with incentives as well as restrictions on gasoline-car purchases. China accounted for roughly half of all global EV sales in the first quarter of 2018," the paper reports.

[Count Bobulescu]

Poll shows big EV potential despite doubts

Data: Survey Monkey poll conducted May 22–24, 2018. Poll methodology; Chart: Chris Canipe/Axios An exclusive Axios/SurveyMonkey poll finds that even though most of the public is still wary of electric vehicles, EV sales have room to grow massively in the U.S. — because even the small percentages of people who say they're interested suggest a market far bigger than the current one. By the numbers: 14% of U.S. adults say they're either "extremely" or "very" likely to go electric with their next car purchase or lease, while a combined 62% said they would probably steer clear. Another 23% said they were "somewhat likely" to get an electric car. The big picture: Sales of pure electric and plug-in hybrid electric cars in the U.S. last year were close to 200,000 combined. That's a little more than 1% of the country's roughly 17 million auto sales. That means if the preferences revealed in the survey begin translating into actual consumer behavior in coming years, sales that are already growing are poised to expand greatly. “Those numbers actually tell us that, given the level of education of the market as it is now, there is still quite a lot of space to grow for electrification,” Bloomberg New Energy Finance analyst Salim Morsy tells Axios. Yes, but: There are still plenty of factors that can prevent pro-electric consumers from making the leap, including limits on vehicle availability in some regions and the number of models to choose from. Go deeper: We've got more polling results in the Axios stream.

States ramp up electric vehicle efforts

Thursday brought a burst of state-level actions to support wider deployment of EVs despite recent administration moves to lessen efficiency standards (h/t to Bloomberg). California: The state's public utilities commission approved $738 million worth of various charging infrastructure projects and initiatives by its three biggest power companies over five years, including: SDG&E to provide rebates to residential customers to install up to 60,000 charging stations. PG&E to install infrastructure in at least 700 sites to "support the electrification of at least 6,500 medium- or heavy-duty vehicles." Why it matters: "The approved plans mark the state’s largest investment in electrification to date and build on smaller-scale utility-sponsored EV programs now underway," Greentech Media writes in this detailed piece. New York: The state announced a $250 million plan to expand charging infrastructure. Via AP, the plan includes up to 200 fast-chargers along highways and certain urban areas. And... "The [New York] Power Authority is installing 400 public chargers at airports, train stations and municipal parking lots, and high-speed chargers are planned for Thruway service areas between New York City and Buffalo," AP reports. New Jersey: The state's big power company, PSEG, announced a $300 million EV infrastructure plan as part of its much larger, five-year, multi-billion dollar investment cycle, per northjersey.com.

[Count Bobulescu]

An EV milestone and more Tesla intrigue

The big picture: Cumulative global sales of electric passenger vehicles will reach 4 million this week, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance — but what's even more interesting is the rate of increase. They said in a report Thursday... The time needed to reach each consecutive million EVs sold has shrunk from 17 months for the second million to 6 months for the fourth million. There are several new EV models that we expect to come to the market before the end of 2018, which should help increase sales numbers globally. Tesla: Reuters broke the news last night that funds controlled by BlackRock, the investment powerhouse, supported a failed attempt to replace Elon Musk with an independent chairman of the board. Tesla investors overwhelmingly voted down the proposal the split the CEO and board chairman duties at the electric automaker's shareholder meeting in June. Why it matters: While the motion failed, BlackRock's stance signals that a major shareholder that's one of the nation's most powerful investors believes there should be a fundamental change in Tesla's management structure. And that was even before the more recent tumult over the aborted take-private plan and some other recent Musk controversies. Per Reuters, "BlackRock funds are a top-10 Tesla stockholder, controlling nearly 6.5 million of Tesla’s 170 million shares."

[Count Bobulescu]

Chart of the week: Cumulative global EV sales hit 4 million

Cumulative passenger EV sales were set to hit 4 million at the end of August. This includes battery electric passenger vehicles and plug-in hybrid passenger vehicles. The time needed to reach each consecutive million EVs sold has shrunk, we estimate it will take just over 6 months to hit 5 million EVs sold. The acceleration aligns with major markets – China, Europe and North America – approaching or exceeding EVs accounting for a 2% share in new car sales. In 2Q 2018, the share of EVs in new car sales was at 4%, 2.3% and 1.6% in China, Europe and North America, respectively.

[Count Bobulescu]

Tesla fleet collectively hits 9 billion miles. All that info is being processed to develop driverless.



The Model 3 is helping Tesla’s fleet grow at a record pace and that expanded fleet is accumulating a record number of miles.
Electrek has learned that it has now reached a total of 9 billion electric miles.



Back in October 2016, we reported on Tesla reaching the 3 billion electric mile milestone and the company’s global fleet managed to add 500 million more miles 3 months later – bringing the total to 3.5 billion in December and another half a billion more by March 2017.

At the time, Tesla’s fleet was driving about 5 million miles a day on average.
We were able to track the progress through the Tesla road trip page and Tesla confirmed that its global fleet reached over 5 billion electric miles driven in July 2017.
The average went up to almost 7 million miles per day when Tesla slowly started Model 3 production.


Tesla removed the counter from the Tesla road trip page and we haven’t been able to track the fleet mileage since, but now a source familiar with the data point confirmed to Electrek that the fleet surpassed 9 billion total miles this week.


Of course, the automaker is now also adding miles at a higher pace than ever before thanks to the Model 3 production ramp up.
In the past 7 days, Tesla drivers averaged almost 20 million miles per day – close to 4 times the average from just 2 years ago.
At this pace, Tesla’s fleet will cross the 10 billion-mile mark by Thanksgiving.


Electrek’s Take
That’s the rEVolution.
That’s what it is all about. If it wasn’t for Tesla and Tesla buyers, those 9 billion miles would have been traveled by polluting gas-powered cars.
Now electric powertrains are powering the mileage from much less polluting electric sources – sometimes even from zero-emission sources, like solar, wind, and hydro.
Congrats to all Tesla and EV drivers contributing to that goal and especially to those who make a conscious choice about where their electricity is coming from.

[Count Bobulescu]

What's old is new again......



https://electrek.co/2018/09/14/micro...car-preorders/

[Publicrealm]

Apart from range issues (I need 400km and charging at either end - where none exists at present) how, in terms of environmental impacts, can electric beat the 72 mpg I get at the moment in a diesel?

My driving is atypical - 90% long-distance (and mostly bicycle for city or short distances)

[Count Bobulescu]

Apart from range issues (I need 400km and charging at either end - where none exists at present) how, in terms of environmental impacts, can electric beat the 72 mpg I get at the moment in a diesel?

My driving is atypical - 90% long-distance (and mostly bicycle for city or short distances)

Many and varied factors go into the calculation, and in the US it also varies by region depending on how the electricity is generated, but an average of 80 mpg equivalent in emissions, is the currently accepted figure. That may not be much better than your 72 mpg, but 72 miles of battery electricity will "likely" cost a lot less than a gallon of diesel, at least for now, or until the gummint imposes new taxes.
BEV's currently make more sense in high gas tax EU than low tax US.
Tesla has a high end model that claims 340 miles, and you can install a private fast charging (4-5 hours) system in your garage for about $1,500.
Just yesterday Lucid Motors announced a $1B Saudi investment and plans to launch a high end model with a 400 mile range in 2020.

[Count Bobulescu]

Elon Musk is a billionaire who's started two of the most famous companies on Earth. He's also single-handedly created a blowback storm that has led to endless bad publicity and circling stock market sharks, writes Axios' Ben Geman in our Generate newsletter (sign up here). The big picture: Musk faces legal problems on several fronts and is bleeding key talent at Tesla, with newer players eyeing the electric vehicle market and established automakers like Audi expanding their offerings. The state of Elon: He's under investigation: Tuesday brought the news, first reported by Bloomberg, that the Justice Department is probingMusk's Aug. 7 announcement of (now aborted) plans to take the company private. The Securities and Exchange Commission is conducting a separate inquiry following Musk's infamous Aug. 7 tweet that inaccurately claimed to have "funding secured" for the deal. He's facing litigation: British cave diver Vernon Unsworth, who helped rescue the trapped Thai soccer team, sued Musk this week for tweets calling him a pedophile. Those allegations come on top of other instances of erratic behavior by Musk, who admits he's exhausted from a punishing work schedule. Executives are leaving: Chief accounting officer Dave Morton recently resigned after just a month on the job, the latest in a string of departures. More potential rivals are circling: Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund on Monday announced that it's pumping over $1 billion into the startup Lucid Motors, which plans to start producing a luxury EV in 2020. The other side: You don't have to be a fanboy to think that Tesla remains in a fundamentally good spot despite the mishaps. Tesla has sold more pure electric vehicles than any other company in the world, has plenty of name recognition and — unlike upstarts like Nio and Lucid Motors — has a track record of producing lots of cars. While the stock price has been on a roller coaster for months — dropping sharply after the DOJ news and trading down roughly 20% overall since early August — it has hardly collapsed.

[Publicrealm]

Many and varied factors go into the calculation, and in the US it also varies by region depending on how the electricity is generated, but an average of 80 mpg equivalent in emissions, is the currently accepted figure. That may not be much better than your 72 mpg, but 72 miles of battery electricity will "likely" cost a lot less than a gallon of diesel, at least for now, or until the gummint imposes new taxes.
BEV's currently make more sense in high gas tax EU than low tax US.
Tesla has a high end model that claims 340 miles, and you can install a private fast charging (4-5 hours) system in your garage for about $1,500.
Just yesterday Lucid Motors announced a $1B Saudi investment and plans to launch a high end model with a 400 mile range in 2020.

I might go for it if Tesla was a bit cheaper to buy and hit 400 miles. I drive regularly to a remote location where I park in a tiny village car park - no chance of recharging while I'm there. This means I must stop for a period to recharge when en-route - a nuisance as the drive time is already 4.5 hours. Also, most city folks don't have garages - they live in shoe-boxes if they are lucky.

I'm sure the infrastructure will be sorted in time - but it will take a decade imo (in Ireland anyway).

(In fairness, my range requirements may be atypical.)