Tag: EVs

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Rivian Delivers Expansion

Rivian, the automaker who makes the quite-cool-looking fully-electric delivery vans for Amazon, has gotten its wish. The company has ended its exclusivity with Amazon and is ready to expand its van business to other customers. Now any company in the delivery business can nab one of these snazzy vehicles. Jameson Dow at Electrek has more. Amazon ordered 100,000 of these vans in 2019, and Rivian has steadily been fulfilling that order, which goes through 2030. They’re starting to appear out and about, but the order will take years for the company to fulfill as it ramps up production. So far, Rivian has…

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The NACS Have It

More dominoes have fallen in the auto industry’s switch to NACS, the Tesla plug for EVs. Toyota, who has basically zero EVs, has joined the club in adopting the North American Charging Standard in 2025. Of course this means future Toyota cars will also get access to the supercharger network too. Umar Shakir at The Verge has more. One of Toyota’s first vehicles to include a NACS connector is a future three-row SUV it is planning for 2025, which will be assembled at the automaker’s plant in Kentucky. Toyota is currently light on EV options compared to most other automakers…

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Rivian Joins the Plug Club

Last week I wondered how other EV manufacturers would fare in the sudden rapid adoption of Tesla’s “NACS” charger plug: “Only time will tell but the dominoes are falling.” https://timemachiner.io/2023/06/13/teslas-supercharger-superpowers/ Now today Rivian has announced they’ll switch from CCS to NACS beginning next year. This adds a third non-Tesla manufacturer to the list of companies outright changing the types of plugs on their cars. Jonathan M. Gitlin at Ars Technica has more. [T]oday Rivian revealed that it, too, is switching from CCS to NACS, Tesla’s competing standard, in 2024. Unlike the two automakers that preceded it, Rivian did not have…

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Tesla’s Supercharger Superpowers

For all the ways in which Tesla’s CEO is a buffoon, there’s a prior stroke of genius reverberating today. In its attempts to be competitive in the EV space, Tesla built out its supercharger network and has used its ease as a major selling point. It has worked. For years, it’s been Tesla’s charging port (NACS) vs CCS plugs. Now though Tesla is about to become the de facto standard for all public charging in the US. Aarian Marshall at Wired has more Yesterday, it was General Motors CEO Mary Barra’s turn to make a Twitter Spaces appearance. (Barra had…

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Rivian’s Fork on Amazon’s Route

The future of delivery trucks should be electric. The USPS is finally going to head into this direction. Amazon has been part of this change too. Their 2019 deal with Rivian created an electric delivery van that looks amazing and is great for the environment. But in typical Amazon style, they’re barely living up to their end of the agreement. And as-such, Rivian wants out. Emma Roth at The Verge has more. …with Amazon reportedly only meeting the bare minimum of ordering 10,000 vehicles this year, the two are renegotiating. In 2021, The Verge reported that the terms of the original deal gave…

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Stamping Out Emissions

Slowly but surely, electric vehicles (EVs) are breaking through into the mainstream. As much as I hate to give credit to Lord Manchild, his company has been a difference-maker in this area. Now we’re seeing the government get involved here in the US. The United States Postal Service (USPS) is making strides toward electrifying its fleet of delivery vehicles, and it’s turning to Oshkosh and Ford to help make it happen. It announced plans to purchase over 100,000 electric delivery vehicles over the next decade. Mitchell Clark at The Verge has more. In an announcement post on Tuesday, the agency said it…

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Nissan Phases out Leaf EV

The Nissan Leaf was one of the first electric cars to sell en masse. The automaker made a big splash in 2011 with a car that was somewhat affordable, but also had decent styling. Now, the Nissan Leaf is no more. The company has announced they will be phasing out the car by 2025. Nathan Bomey at Axios has the story. After its debut in 2011, the Leaf quickly became the best-selling EV in the world. But it soon ceded the throne to Tesla, and never came close to achieving the vision laid out by former Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn:…

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NC Bill Demands Free Gas

I’m a big fan of electric vehicles (EVs). I used to talk about them extensively in my previous days as a podcaster. With the past decade ushering in actual EVs people can buy, some attention has been put on infrastructure. Some geniuses in North Carolina don’t like the idea of public charging. Now they are looking to stop those pesky chargers in their tracks. Nico Demattia at The Drive has more. Republican North Carolina State Representative Ben Moss has introduced a new bill, H.B. 1049, that would ban free public electric vehicle chargers, unless free gas and diesel pump alternatives…

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This Sucker’s Electrical

It’s impossible to write TimeMachiner and not talk about the reveal of the “New Delorean”. For a few months the Delorean Motor Company (no relation to the original DMC) has been teasing something new. A couple of silhouettes were put onto their homepage and that was it. Some rumors were floating around on whether it would be stainless steel, how powerful it would be, and what it would price at. Now we have our answers. This new “delorean” is dubbed the Alpha5. It’s a fully-electric car sporting a 100kWh battery pack, a 2.99 second 0-60 and a $175,000 price. From…

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Electric Buzz

After a very public and very humiliating experience with trying to get around car emission requirements, Volkswagen promised to do better. They also promised to go all-in on building electric vehicles. The ID4 was released with a nice look to it and now VW has dipped into the nostalgia well with the ID Buzz, an electric reimagining of the classic VW Bus. While the car only releases in Europe this year and won’t come to America for another 2 to 3 years, it is worth noting this is a production car and IS coming. The Buzz looks really cool with…

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Fifty And Charge

In a further push to get electric vehicles into more driveways comes a plan by the US government to set up charging stations at set intervals. The first iteration of predictable stops to charge a car is set to build chargers every 50 miles along interstate highways. When those stations are built, they must contain a minimum of four chargers and each with the capacity to provide 150 kW. Tim De Chant at ArsTechnica has more. Once states have completed the Interstate charging network, they’ll be able to apply for grants to fill in gaps elsewhere. The Joint Office of…

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Go, Ford Lightning

We seem to be reaching an inflection point for car manufacturers’ embracing of electric vehicles. Whether it’s for financial reasons, a response to customer’s embracing of Tesla, or other reasons we don’t exactly know, it’s great to see nearly every company make public statements. They are not designing prototype or “compliance” cars for California. They’re making full-fledged EVs for everyone. Personally, I believe a car needs to look normal. It should be electric as an “extra” in order to appeal to people. Nobody wants a Jetsons car. With the F150 Lightning, Ford is ready to make waves. Ford says its…