This week Automotive IQ has been celebrating the milestone of reaching 75,000 members. It’s an important achievement, so welcome to all the brand new auto business professionals who at the moment are having fun with what we produce.
On the positioning proper now, we’ve been contemplating the practicalities of the EV revolution. Not least, the place will all of the batteries come from to fulfill European carmaker calls for? Our Prime 5 takes a glance.
For those who haven’t but had the prospect, don’t overlook to enroll in Autonomous Automobiles On-line within the hyperlink beneath. We now have our full line-up of audio system confirmed, and stay up for over 1,500 registrants becoming a member of us on Could 26-27.
Right here’s just a few different tales that caught our eye this week:
Ford goes electrical drag racing
Ford is constant its emphasis on electrification with the announcement of a one-off all-electric Mustang Cobra Jet drag automobile. The automobile has been created to extend the agency’s information of efficiency electrical automobiles, with the Mustang aiming for a low eight second quarter-mile time at over 170mph.
Ford hasn’t confirmed a lot in regards to the automobile simply but, besides that its motors produce over 1,400hp and 1500Nm of torque. Nevertheless, it has introduced just a few of the companions that helped get the Mustang up and operating.
These embody MLe Racecars, which designed and constructed the automobile; Watson Engineering, who developed the chassis and constructed the rollcage; AEM EV, who took care of software program and motor calibration and controls; and Cascadia, who provided the inverter and electrical motor.
GM shuts Maven, exits carsharing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u4-pYk7f18
After 4 years in service within the US, GM has closed its Maven carsharing service for good. Maven had already been scaled again, lowering its presence in 17 North American cities to Detroit, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and Toronto, and the service had additionally been placed on maintain because of the unfold of Covid-19.
Nevertheless, and e mail went to clients this week asserting that Maven will stop to function, and GM has no plans proper now to reenter the carsharing recreation.
In an announcement, Pamela Fletcher, GM’s vp of world innovation, mentioned “We’ve gained extraordinarily helpful insights from working our personal car-sharing enterprise. Our learnings and developments from Maven will go on to profit and speed up the expansion of different areas of GM enterprise.” These embody its give attention to getting Cruise off the bottom.
It’s one other actuality test for the automobile sharing business – with the operating prices making such schemes powerful to run sustainably for now.
Daimler ditches gasoline cells for vehicles
Daimler has introduced a shift in technique for its growth of hydrogen gasoline cells – a expertise the agency has been refining for over 30 years. First up, it doesn’t see a future for the expertise in vehicles, so manufacturing of the GLC F-Cell SUV will come to an finish.
The F-Cell featured two floor-mounted hydrogen tanks with a capability of 4.4kg. The gasoline cell might provide the on-board 13.5kW battery with sufficient energy for a hydrogen-only vary of 400km. Draining the battery after this added an extra 50km of vary. Filling the tanks took three minutes.
As a substitute, Daimler’s gasoline cell expertise focus is now long-distance trucking. The agency has simply entered right into a 50:50 three way partnership value 1.2bn€ with Volvo Vans to extend the pace of the commercialization of the expertise, with the purpose to have gasoline cell-powered truck on the highway from 2025.
