AD #3343 – Lightyear EV Priced at Stunning €250,000; Good-Bye Lead Acid Batteries; Cadillac’s LMDh Race Car

This is Autoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.

SKY HIGH GAS PRICES STILL BELOW RECORD
People are up in arms over the price of gasoline and diesel. According to GasBuddy, the average price in the US went up $0.66 cents a gallon last month and for the first time ever, the national average topped $5 a gallon. But guess what? That’s not the highest it’s ever been. Not if you account for inflation. The record was set in 2008, when, adjusted for inflation, the national average was $5.57 a gallon.

STUNNING LIGHTYEAR EV PRICED AT STUNNING €250,000
I would bet many of the people that haven’t been paying attention to gas prices are EV owners. And here’s an EV from a company that claims you could drive for months without charging. How? This is the Lightyear 0, an electric car fitted with solar panels that can add up to 70 kilometers or over 43 miles of range a day. That could work out to 11,000 kilometers or about 6,800 miles of range provided every year just with solar power. Obviously, that’s going to depend on where you live. It’s very aerodynamic body also helps to extend the driving range and when combined with its 60-kWh battery pack, it’ll travel an estimated 625 kilometers or 388 miles, based on the WLTP test cycle. And while it’s powered by 4 in-wheel motors, the Lightyear 0 is not particularly fast. It’ll do 0-100 km/h in 10 seconds. It’s taken 6 years to reach this point but orders are open now and deliveries are scheduled for the fall. But are you ready for a shocker. Prices start at 250,000 euro or over $263,000.

EV BATTERY PRODUCTION IN CHINA SOARING
EV battery production in China is soaring. According to the China Automotive Power Battery Industry Innovation Alliance, battery output hit 35.6 GWh in May, up nearly 160% compared to a year ago and 22% higher than in April. CATL is by far and away the leader, accounting for 47% of China’s capacity, well ahead of BYD at 22%.

CHINA INSTALLS NEARLY 1M CHARGING STATIONS 
At the same time, the number of EV charging stations in China is also exploding. According to the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, so far this year 963,000 charging outlets were built, up more than 400% compared to last year. There are now just under 3.6 million charging piles installed across China.

GOOD-BYE LEAD ACID BATTERIES, HELLO LITHIUM-ZINC
A California startup called Enzinc has developed a lithium-zinc battery that could replace the lead acid batteries in cars. In a full-size SUV, for example, the lead acid battery can weigh 30 kilos, or about 60 pounds. But Enzinc’s battery is only 10 kilos and can last three times longer. Historically, zinc batteries don’t last long, they have problems with dendrites which cause them to fail after a few dozen cycles. But Enzinc figured out how to fix that. Michael Burz, the CEO of Enzinc, explains how they did it.

“Typically people use particles of zinc suspended in an electro-conductive paste. And what happens is, on discharge, the zinc converts to zinc oxide, which is an insulator. And over time, more and more of the zinc gets coated and doesn’t reduce back to pure zinc. And as most of your listeners will know, as you try to force more current through smaller and smaller pathways you get a higher resistance, which means you generate more dendrites really, really quickly. What the US Navy and we recognized, is that if you can make a 3-dimensional structure out of it, not just a bunch of particles, but a 3-dimensional sponge structure, just like the sponge on your kitchen sink, then at the microscale then that zinc oxide forms on just the outside surface of the sponge but it leaves the inside as pure zinc, which acts as a current collector. So you get no impeded flow of the current, therefore no dendrites, therefore a rechargeable battery.”

One of the most impressive aspects of Enzinc’s battery is that it can be made in existing lead acid battery factories with very little retooling. Its first target is to replace lead acid batteries in cars, but it also sees electric scooters and 3-wheelers and urban EVs as natural markets for its lithium zinc battery. Michael Burz was our guest on Autoline After Hours and you can learn more about Enzinc by looking for the link to that show in today’s transcript.

TESLA CANCELS CHINA HIRING
So did Tesla stop hiring new people, or not? Last week, Elon Musk said he had a “super bad feeling” about a recession and said Tesla needed to cut its salaried workforce by 10%. But not in China. As of yesterday, Tesla said it was going to hold three hiring events this month there. But today Reuters reports that Tesla is canceling those hiring events. It’s still allowing applicants to submit resumes for 1,000 job openings via WeChat. But it’s hard to figure out what’s really going on.

NHTSA COULD RECALL TESLA AUTOPILOT
And speaking of Tesla, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration or NHTSA, is one step closer to issuing a recall for Autopilot. The agency said it is upgrading its investigation to an engineering analysis, which is required before issuing a recall. NHTSA began its investigation into Autopilot last August because nearly a dozen Tesla’s crashed into stopped emergency vehicles while operating on the advanced driver assistance system. NHTSA says it’s since identified six more crashes. It’s also looking into whether the vehicle’s adequately make sure the driver is paying attention.

JIDU UNVEILS PURPOSE-BUILT ROBOCAR
JIDU is a Chinese robocar company that’s backed by Geely and Baidu. And here’s our first look at its first car, which they call the Robo-01. It features a giant panoramic roof for great viewing, and front-hinged doors that open wide for easy entry. There’s no B-pillar, either. Inside you’ll notice a stowable steering yoke and a huge borderless screen that stretches across the entire instrument panel. The lidar units also stow away when it’s not in autonomous mode. The Robo-01 uses 31 external sensors, including 2 Lidar, 5 millimeter-level wave radars, 12 ultrasonic radars and 12 cameras. And it’s all powered by NVIDIA’s Orin X chips. Right now, the auto industry is focusing on the transition to electric vehicles, but JIDU says the next transition will be to autonomous cars, where artificial intelligence replaces human drivers. It’s calling this transition Intelligent Car 3.0. 

MACK ASSEMBLY PLANT GETS GIANT MURAL
Here’s something for art fans. Stellantis has commissioned Dr. Hubert Massy, a renowned Detroit fresco artist, to create the largest municipal art installation in Detroit’s history. It will have something to do with the sound barrier and will be located outside of its Mack assembly plant in the city.

CADILLAC’S LMDh RACE CAR
We told you recently that Cadillac would unveil its new race car soon and, well, here it is. Called the Project GTP Hypercar, it will race in the LMDh category, which allows cars to run in both the WEC and IMSA racing series. Power comes from an all-new 5.5L DOHC V8 and a hybrid system that’s common to all the cars in the class. On-track testing starts this summer and its first racing is in January of next year. That’s not a lot of time to prepare.

CADILLAC ESCALADE V-SERIES’ EXHAUSTIVE ENGINEERING
Speaking of Cadillac, it has pretty much been teasing the V-Series Escalade, its first SUV to wear the badge, all year and fully revealed it about a month ago. I just got back from the media drive for the vehicle and while my impressions are embargoed for a little while longer, there is one thing I’d like to highlight. Obviously, with any V-Series vehicle performance is key. So, engineers went to great lengths to make sure the dual exhaust pipes were equal in length. That can smooth out engine operation, make tuning easier and provide better torque. Since the driver-side exhaust crosses over to the passenger side and then back again, the passenger-side exhaust had to be extended, which required a near-loop-the-loop in the piping. As you can see from these images, the exhaust coming from the engine on the right side is pretty normal until it reaches the support bracket for the transfer case, which is about even with the B-pillar. That’s where it comes into this near-360-degree loop before making its way to the back of the vehicle. It also helps the 682-horsepower supercharged 6.2L V8 sing a real pretty tune. And while that’s all for today’s show and I hope you have a great weekend, we’ll leave you with this video of an Escalade V ripping across a bridge in Arizona with its exhaust echoing off the rock wall around and the water below. Thanks for watching.