Volvo EX90 particulars, Wrangler 4xe recall, EV battery costs, Tesla Cybertruck: The Week in Reverse

What did Hyundai and Kia current as higher than in-wheel motors?

And which electrical truck are customers most enthusiastic about? Trace: It’s not the Cybertruck. 

That is our look again on the Week In Reverse—proper right here at Inexperienced Automotive Stories—for the week ending December 1, 2023.

The Tesla Cybertruck was revealed Thursday in manufacturing type, and the Cybertruck’s stainless-steel building, steer-by-wire system, and packaging like no different truck are all noteworthy firsts. Tesla made loads of claims about its efficiency—like out-accelerating a Porsche 911, whereas towing a 911—but it surely didn’t reside as much as a number of the key pragmatic targets it had beforehand set for pricing and vary. However the Cybertruck may even be the primary Tesla with bidirectional charging. With the rollout of Powershare, the Cybertruck and future Tesla fashions will be capable to present energy for worksites or campsites, or for residence backup, or for charging different EVs.

U.S. pricing for the 2025 Volvo EX90 electrical SUV is out—and at $77,990 to start out, this luxurious mannequin’s lineup picks up proper round the place the Kia EV9 tops out. And at underneath $80,000, this U.S.-made EV is more likely to be tax-credit-eligible. 

Some homeowners of the 2021-2024 Jeep Wrangler 4xe—sure, that’s the bestselling plug-in hybrid within the U.S.—are being informed to not cost, and to not park close to buildings or different autos. In about 32,000 probably affected autos, Stellantis will likely be utilizing diagnostic software program to verify for a battery-pack concern, however the variety of autos with the flaw is way smaller. 

Volkswagen’s Scout EV model is reportedly planning to outsource the event of its upcoming electrical SUV and pickup to Austria’s Magna—the identical agency that builds the Mercedes G-Class, Jaguar I-Tempo, and Fisker Ocean. These may very well be the 2 merchandise set to be made in South Carolina in 2026, so it’s but unclear how Magna may additionally develop into concerned in that.

Nissan on Monday confirmed that it’ll make the next-generation Nissan Leaf plus electrical variations of the Juke and Qashqai crossovers, at its U.Okay. manufacturing unit for the European market. With that, it confirmed the look of those upcoming fashions as taking after the Chill-Out, Hyper Punk, and Hyper City ideas, respectively. 

Hyundai and Kia have proven an alternative choice to in-wheel motors that accomplishes a number of the similar packaging targets. Known as the Common Wheel Drive System, or Uni Wheel, it strikes a planetary gearset into the wheel, with downsized motors close by, bypassing the necessity for CV joints. 

In response to the newest annual survey from Shopper Stories, EV reliability is worse than ICE fashions. Drawing from greater than 330,000 autos from the previous a number of mannequin years, CR discovered that autos with a cost port had been extra trouble-prone—with plug-in hybrids the worst—whereas hybrid reliability continues to surpass that of non-hybrids.

An annual survey assessing shopper curiosity in electrical vans, out this morning, confirmed “a slowdown in enthusiasm from customers of all stripes”—though customers stay very excited in regards to the Tesla Cybertruck and the potential of a Toyota electrical pickup. 

Stable-state battery tech guarantees positive aspects in power density and charging, and their arrival may very well be a game-changing second for the EV market. However based on current figures from Toyota, which is without doubt one of the leaders in creating the tech, it should stay in area of interest provide even by 2030—a lot that, by then, Toyota seems to see extra hydrogen fuel-cell autos than solid-state EVs.

EV battery costs are dropping once more. Due to quite a few elements—most notably, the underutilization of battery crops, which freed up supplies and lowered costs—lithium-ion EV battery pack costs have dropped 14% this 12 months to a brand new low of $139/kwh. 

The efficiency model Lotus is thought for its quick automobiles, however now it’s providing up a number of the quickest EV chargers on the planet. Whereas they’re set to benefit from its upcoming Eletre electrical SUV, the record of EVs that may benefit from the additional cost energy at this level could be very quick. 

Fewer EV drivers might have to fret about plugging in every night time because of some ultimate steering introduced final week relating to {hardware} parts for EV wi-fi charging. This “lacking piece” of standardization that permits car parking techniques to help with exact alignment over charging pads, might give the tech a long-awaited jumpstart. 

Nio is on to one thing with its battery-swapping enterprise, which has not too long ago began scaling up in Europe. Geely, the dad or mum of Volvo, Polestar, and Lotus, has simply partnered with Nio for battery-swapping in China—and for future “a unified battery swap operation” between manufacturers. 

And Inexperienced Automotive Stories rounded up all of the manufacturers which have introduced a shift to the Tesla NACS cost port for EV charging. It began in Might with a joint announcement between Tesla and Ford CEOs, however the shift has continued even this month with bulletins from Subaru and Lucid. Getting EVs from all these manufacturers beginning to flood Supercharger stations subsequent 12 months may very well be one of many causes Tesla is imposing a $1-per-minute Supercharger congestion price.

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