AD #3411 – GM Steps Up Battery Recycling; Tesla Sells $250 CCS Adapter; Toyota Says Fuel Cells Ready to Replace Diesels
September 22nd, 2022 at 11:56am
Listen to “AD #3411 – GM Steps Up Battery Recycling; Tesla Sells $250 CCS Adapter; Toyota Says Fuel Cells Ready to Replace Diesels” on Spreaker.
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Runtime: 11:33
0:00 GM Steps Up EV Battery Recycling
0:54 Tesla Sells $250 CCS Adapter
1:42 BNEF Predicts Big Surge in Electrification
3:01 Baojun’s Cute EVs
4:03 Mercedes Unveils Monster AMG C-Class
5:14 Toyota Says Fuel Cells Ready to Replace Diesels
5:57 EPA Wants Tougher Big Truck Regs
7:27 Renault’s Electric R5 Pocket Rocket
8:44 Volvo EX90 Flagship is All Electric
9:44 Bugatti Launches Certified Pre-Owned Program
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GM STEPS UP EV BATTERY RECYCLING
EV battery recycling just took another step forward. GM is investing in a company called Lithion which will recycle materials from old batteries to produce new ones. Lithion, which is based in Montreal, says it can recover 95% of the materials in an old battery and with Quebec’s green hydro energy, its operations reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over 75% and water usage by over 90% compared to mining new materials. Lithion will start operating next year and its facility will have the capacity to recycle 7,500 metric tons per year. It also plans to open facilities in the U.S., Europe and South Korea.
TESLA SELLS $250 CCS ADAPTER
So far Tesla seems to be the only company that knows how to build out a large network of reliable EV chargers. But even Tesla Superchargers aren’t everywhere, so to help Tesla owners use any public EV charger it’s offering customers a CCS adaptor, which costs $250. But the adapter doesn’t work with older Teslas so the company suggests that owners log into their Tesla account to see if their car is compatible. Tesla has hinted it might open up its Supercharger network to non-Tesla owners in the U.S. But so far that hasn’t happened. One thing we’ve got to point out: look how big and clunky the CCS plug looks next to the Tesla one.
BNEF PREDICTS BIG SURGE IN ELECTRIFICATION
Legacy automakers have been surprised that customer demand for EVs is coming in stronger than expected. And now a new report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance says electrified vehicle sales, including PHEVs, in the U.S. will soar by the end of the decade. It predicts they’ll account for more than half of new car sales by 2030. Previously, it forecasted electrified vehicles would reach 43% of sales by that time. Bloomberg believes the tax credits in the new Inflation Reduction Act will speed up adoption, since they’ll be at the point of sale which means buyers get the discount immediately instead of waiting to get the credit when filing their taxes.
BAOJUN’S CUTE EVs
GM’s subsidiary in China called Baojun is coming out with some really cool looking electric cars. This cute little 4×4 is branded the KIWI but we don’t really know if that’s the name of the vehicle, or a new brand name for a lineup of electrics under the Baojun brand. Last week Baojun unveiled this little electric commuter car, also branded KiWi. The commuter car has a rear mounted electric motor with either 54 or 68 horsepower, and the 4×4 will have a motor in the rear and the front. But that’s about all we know so far. Baojun is an interesting brand. Over a decade ago the Chinese government asked foreign automakers to create a Chinese brand with cars completely designed and developed in China by Chinese engineers. General Motors was about the only foreign automaker to do it, and that’s how the Baojun brand was born.
MERCEDES UNVEILS MONSTER AMG C-CLASS
At the opposite end of the product spectrum, Mercedes unveiled the AMG version of the C-class, officially called the C 63 E Performance. It’s a hybrid, with a combined 680 horsepower. 470 of those horses come from a turbo-4 and 210 horses come from a two-speed electric motor mounted on the rear axle. Interestingly, the electric motor is powered by a 400 volt battery developed in-house by AMG. Mercedes says the turbo-4 uses Formula One inspired electric assist for the turbo to eliminate turbo lag. The engine develops an amazing 238 horsepower per liter. All this power will rocket the car from 0 to 100 kilometers an hour in 3.4 seconds. Some other notable features: there’s a drift mode that will lock up the rear tires, there’s rear steering, and for the first time ever, the AMG badge is on the hood, not the Mercedes three pointed star.
TOYOTA SAYS FUEL CELLS READY TO REPLACE DIESELS
Toyota says it proved that fuel cells can replace diesels in big trucks. It just wrapped up its real-world test of fuel-cell semis at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.The Class 8 semi-trucks were built by Kenworth and Toyota provided the fuel cell system. They have a range of 300 plus miles when fully loaded to 82,000 pounds. The trucks were able to run multiple shifts a day and cover 400 to 500 miles. Toyota says they reduced greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 75 metric tons of CO2 per truck annually compared to the diesel-powered ones. And all this presumably paves the way to put fuel cell trucks into production.
EPA WANTS TOUGHER BIG TRUCK REGS
And in related news, Reuters reports that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wants to ratchet up greenhouse gas emission regulations for heavy-duty trucks. With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which provides a up to a $40,000 tax credit for medium and heavy-duty electric trucks, the EPA wants to reduce CO2 emissions from big trucks by 25% for model years 2027 to 2029 and it plans to finalize the rules in December.
RENAULT’S ELECTRIC R5 POCKET ROCKET
Renault wanted to demonstrate that electric cars can be a blast to drive, so it created the R5 Turbo 3E concept. It’s sort of a reinterpretation of Renault 5 Turbo 2, but this one features a completely tubular frame with carbon fiber body panels. It’s also all-electric. Two electric motors that drive the rear wheels combine for 280 kW or 380 horsepower and help propel the car from 0-100 km/h in 3.5 seconds. The R5 Turbo 3E is surprisingly light for an electric. It weighs 980 kilograms or a little over 2,150 pounds but more than half of that comes from its 42 kWh battery pack. A reason to keep weight so low is to improve performance and handling as Renault sees this as a real drift king, which is helped made evident by the huge drift lever in the center console. Who knows if we’ll ever see anything like this in production, but the R5 Turbo 3E will be available in video games and as a series of NFTs.
VOLVO EX90 FLAGSHIP IS ALL ELECTRIC
Volvo is going to reveal the next-generation of its flagship SUV on November 9th, which will now be fully electric and called the EX90. In the lead up to its debut, Volvo is showcasing some of the technology we can expect to see. It says the EX90’s ADAS system will have one of the most advanced sensor sets on the market. Lidar will be standard and its crash prevention system also includes 8 cameras, 5 radar and 16 ultrasonic sensors. With this system Volvo believes it can reduce severe accidents by 20%. Another piece of tech is a driver understanding system. Not only does it use multiple sensors to make sure the driver is paying attention, but it can also detect if they’re stressed, drowsy or impaired and the vehicle will be able to take action if need be.
BUGATTI OFFERS PRE-OWNED PROGRAM
Buying a used vehicle can be a roll of the dice, you never really know what you’re going to get. It’s one reason certified pre-owned vehicles are popular. You know they’ve gone through a multi-point inspection of the most critical parts. We can only imagine this is even more important for someone spending millions on a vehicle. Bugatti just launched a certified pre-owned program for the Veyron and Chiron. Not only will a customer know the vehicle has been looked over completely, they get a one-year limited warranty that covers all mechanical and electrical items as well as the cost of parts and labor. When a used Veyron still costs over a million bucks and a Chiron two to three times that, it’s probably a good idea to have it checked out first.
KUNISKIS ON AAH
What’s it going to take to get hard-core piston-heads with gasoline running through their veins to switch over to electric muscle cars. Can it even be done? That’s what we’re going to be asking Tim Kuniskis this afternoon. The head of Dodge will be on Autoline After Hours and if you’d like to pose a question to him, post it below or send it to [email protected]. We’ll go live at 3 pm eastern time and this promises to be one raucous show.
But that’s a wrap for today’s show. Thanks for tuning in.
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Comments (23)
September 22nd, 2022 at 12:23 pm
I really wish the ICE bans had not been announced as I could really see a BHEV being a really good fit and step toward electrification. But now that announcement will basically kill any more hybrid development. So now I will hold onto my ICE until I’m ready for a EV. I would have been in a BHEV sooner and may still in a used version.
I’m interested in what Kuniskis has to say on the Challenger EV. The folks out there that take a vehicle and thrive on how to make it faster will likely transition over to EV’s but I also think many old timers and pure gear heads will call it quits. Sorta like when everything went computer controlled. Those guys that knew points and plugs but refused to learn fuel mapping just decided it was time to quit. Either way it will be much different and a change in whos the best.
I’m not that familiar myself with EV powertrains so I just wonder if there is as much opportunity to tweek out speed like there has been with ICE’s? One thing for sure is when money is on the line teams will figure out how to make them faster and more effecient. All stuff thats needed right now.
September 22nd, 2022 at 12:29 pm
1 How would future ICE bans “kill any more hybrid development”? Hybrids are the interim future. Toyota is selling them as fast as they can build them.
September 22nd, 2022 at 12:41 pm
1) The bans, when you read the fine print, are banning pure ICE cars. PHEV is a significant portion of the future and is expected to be a higher sales percentage then BEV. That is why you have seen recently some PHEVs being introduced with high all electric ranges such as the RAV4 Prime(50 miles) or the soon to be released Mercedes GLE(62 Miles). I would buy either one of those 2 PHEVs as the EV mileage works for my normal commute but I have ICE as a back up for the myriad of trips I do where recharging times would be a hindrance. Unfortunately the RAV4 Prime is being overpriced in the market to the point that it is not worth buying. So I will wait as it will likely end up that I can get the Mercedes cheaper than the Rav4 which seems like a silly thing to say, but these are silly times.
September 22nd, 2022 at 12:46 pm
Toyota fuel cell semi truck doing 400 to 500 miles a day is pretty poor. Typically, semi truck drivers go 600 to 650 mile per day. The 300 mile range on full tanks is really poor and add on top of that there are very few places to fil up at. A diesel semi truck can go 2100 on full tanks.
September 22nd, 2022 at 12:46 pm
For Tim Kiniskis–
Will the venerable HEMI adornment make the leap to Dodge’s coming BEV range of performance vehicles?
September 22nd, 2022 at 12:47 pm
The cost to manufacturer and assemble a single power source and combine with a electric motor is would be the lowest. I think it was me tion on Autoline that GM is going from 500 engine and battery combinations to just 19 when the dust settles on BEV conversion.
September 22nd, 2022 at 12:54 pm
3) we picked up a 2018 CT6 2.0E plug-in with 575 miles on thr clock for half price back in March 2020, right before everything locked. With 37k miles it is the most efficient and favorite vehicle I have owned. The 200+ mpg and 3,000 miles per tank with a cruising range of about 600 miles is icing on the cake!
September 22nd, 2022 at 12:59 pm
4) All true for long haul. I assume that this is meant to address the local haul use cases where the vehicles are used for a few hundred miles per shift and require short refuel times between shifts. Long haul is likely to retain diesel for a very long time.
September 22nd, 2022 at 1:23 pm
There are more than a couple scientists questioning the overall impact of the CO2 in the atmosphere, but has anyone pondered the impact of lower CO2 emissions? We do need enough of that stuff out there for the plants to properly convert it to oxygen. What if this rush to reduce emissions ends up having a more harmful overall effect on the environment?
September 22nd, 2022 at 1:28 pm
As for what it will take to make an old-school gearhead to switch over? Affordability of the vehicle and the ability to make personal modifications. We can’t forget a lot of hot rodding was bourne from gearheads trying to get the most out of their meager funds by modifying what was basically affordable junk.
September 22nd, 2022 at 1:30 pm
The Toyota announcement of fuel-cell trucks is a reminder of the Trevor Milton, fraud trial over his Nikola claims. Even the pictures of Toyota semi-trucks resembles the Trevor Milton ‘glider’ shown ‘rolling down the road’ by trick photography.
As for the 300 mile range, it comes with high-pressure, hydrogen tanks. Longer ranges are easily achieved by using anhydrous ammonia and chemically breaking it into nitrogen and hydrogen. Fortunately, the economics of hydrogen need not be discussed … except by the customers.
September 22nd, 2022 at 1:43 pm
9 Atmospheric concentration of CO2 has increased about 50% since the start of the industrial revolution, so I don’t think we need to worry about not having enough CO2 in the atmosphere.
https://www.climate.gov/media/14596
September 22nd, 2022 at 1:57 pm
11 Can reactors to dissociate ammonia be small enough to do it on board a truck? If so, that could be useful, as ammonia liquifies at a pressure that allows a lot of it to be stored in small volume.
I’m not sure how great it would be environmentally, though, as most ammonia is produced commercially by combining hydrogen from natural gas with nitrogen using a process that consumes more natural gas.
September 22nd, 2022 at 2:01 pm
11,13 I find that fuel cells can use ammonia directly, but commercial ammonia uses a lot of natural gas to produce.
September 22nd, 2022 at 2:45 pm
2 It just seems that engine development has gone belly up. I think it was two years ago ALD reported that no OEM’s had anymore new engine developments in their future plans. So all hybrids will be with existing technology?
That doesnt seem right because most hybrids really lean toward Atkinson cycle engines. So one would think there would be some serious development into a real efficient small Atkinson engines.
3 Thanks I did not hear the bans were on ICE only vehicles. They never state it that way. Just that it bans ICE sales. In that case I could see BEV’s accounting for 50% sales by 2030 when HBEVs are included.
September 22nd, 2022 at 3:03 pm
4, 8 – The Toyota trucks were part of a test, based out of the LA and Long Beach ports. Those trucks make many short runs per day to get containers out of the ports and into distribution centers. The ports have some of the dirtiest air on the planet because of all the diesel exhaust. California encouraged this test to see what the air quality improvement would be and to prove the viability of fuel cell trucks. So, yes – these trucks were configured for this specific use case.
However, fuel cell powered trucks can be configured for long haul as well, mostly by fitting larger hydrogen tanks. Soon, those will be able to be refueled at truck stops along major trucking routes, making long haul fuel cell trucks viable competitors to diesel. Every major truck manufacturer has fuel cell models in development and testing. It is going to start taking over heavy duty trucking.
While Milton was too much of a huckster for his own good, he was not wrong about the concept and Nikola is still one of the leaders in the field.
September 22nd, 2022 at 4:27 pm
15 I suspect there is still some new devopment of ICEs, at least on the margins. The engine in my Highlander is a mildly hopped up Atkinson tuned version of the 2.5 in my 2018 Camry hybrid. The version in the Highlander was new in 2020, and refinement will continue.
As far as ICEs in general, can they get much more efficient? I doubt it.
September 22nd, 2022 at 4:45 pm
#15.) While it may be true that the engine tech may be older, it stands to reason that the hybrid tech would become more advanced and allow for longer engine off times. The issues with the engines, is that automakers were have to add more and more expensive tech to make the ICE more emissions compliant. With the greater expense with each generation, the more the OEM had to either eat the cost or past some or all over to the buyer! With hybrids or PHEVs, the longer the vehicle runs in EV as a result of newer battery chemistry, or an overall light vehicle platform/architecture, the less the ICE runs and less of a need to update the engine and emissions tech! The better the battery side of the hybrid, the less work and money on the engine/emissions side. Why invest heavily in something the industry is moving and has been moving away from? The big heavy duty engines may still have a longer life cycle, but the smaller displacement, passenger vehicle, IC engines don’t appear to have much of a future. Time will tell how long that might be!
September 22nd, 2022 at 4:51 pm
Finally, an EV that doesn’t just take a battery and stuff it into a car frame. The KIWI has some interesting designs.
Not a muscle car guy but having a tough time with the phrase EMC Electric Muscle Car.
September 22nd, 2022 at 6:14 pm
18 There may be ways to improve effiency of hybrids, but I’m impressed with what’s currently available. I get ~40 mpg in a mix of 3-6 mile trips, and some 60-62 mph highway driving with a too heavy, too tall Highlander hybrid. That seems good to me, for the nature of the vehicle. How much better can they do?
September 22nd, 2022 at 6:16 pm
19, I’m with you. When there is an option to add fake sound to your electric muscle car, that says a lot. But I’m sure there will be a lot of takers.
September 22nd, 2022 at 6:23 pm
Just saw ALAH and what a great show! Mr. Kiniskis and his team, sound that have done a lot of work to make their product unique in the market place, has labor vision o who they are their target customer and what they want. I think what the do with the ‘e’ muscle car, will impact what and how Ford and Chevy will eventually do with the EV Mustang, Camaro and the Corvette too! I also think the BEV Cayman and Boxster will as well. While it is easy to lump the Challenger in with the Mustang and Camaro, but Mr. Kiniskis was very clear that the Challenger and Charger are ‘muscle cars’ and not pony car! Will Dodge loose some gear heads? Sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they gained more followers then they lost! The future is a very exciting place, if your buckled into the driver’s set at Dodge!
September 22nd, 2022 at 6:34 pm
22 I just hope they will make it easy to turn off the fake engine noise, and have it stay off. That big hatchback looks appealing, except for the noise.