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All-electric Mini Cooper SE priced starting at $29,900 in the US
The new all-electric Mini Cooper SE, the first Mini designed from the ground up as an electric car, is going to retail in the U.S. starting at $29,900 (plus an $850 Destination and Handling fee) — before any tax incentives are applied. That puts final pricing as low as around $17,900 when you consider federal and state tax incentives, plus additional benefits that EV owners gain in certain states, including access to lanes typically reserved for high-occupancy vehicles.
BMW Group-owned Mini unveiled the Mini Cooper SE back in July, marking the company’s first foray into the purely electric category. The car provides between 146 and 168 miles of range, which is not on par with vehicles like the Tesla Model 3 obviously, but which provides a decent amount of range for around-city commuting, at a price point that’s quite a bit under what Tesla’s sedan can match, even with incentives.
The Cooper SE can manage a 0-60 mph time of 6.9 seconds, which will probably feel plenty fast and fun, too. At the base price, it’s pretty well-appointed, too, with a 6.5-inch in-dash display and Apple CarPlay compatibility, heated front seats, cruise control, auto wipers and headlights, up to 50kW DC-based fast charging and more.
With home charging at up to 7.4 kW, the car can go from empty to full in as few as four hours, but that fast-charging at compatible charging stations will net you as much as 80% charge in as few as 35 minutes for when you’re on the road. If this sounds like a good mix, you’ll be able to start buying the Mini Cooper SE in the U.S. as soon as March 2020.
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Elon Musk predicts Tesla energy could be ‘bigger’ than its EV business
Tesla CEO Elon Musk forecast that the company’s energy business will eventually be the same size as — or even bigger than — its automotive sector, the latest sign that the company plans to put more time and resources to scaling up its solar and storage products.
“It could be bigger, but it will certainly be of a similar magnitude,” Musk said during an earnings call Wednesday. The company surprised Wall Street by reporting a return to profitability in the third quarter.
The bulk of Tesla’s revenue is generated from sales of its Model S, Model X and Model 3 electric vehicles. In the third quarter, automotive revenues were $5.35 billion. The company doesn’t break out revenue generated from solar, energy storage or other products and services. However, the total revenue in the third quarter was $6.3 billion, which gives some indication of the size of automotive compared to its other businesses.
Tesla’s energy and solar businesses languished for nearly two years as attention and resources were directed to the Model 3. That diversion of resources included redirecting to the car battery cell production lines meant for its home Powerwall and commercial Powerpack energy storage products because the company didn’t have enough cells.
“We had to do it because if we didn’t solve the Model 3, Tesla wouldn’t survived,” he said. “So, unfortunately that shorted other parts of the company.”
Now, the company is committed to scaling up energy storage and solar. Kunal Girotra, who initially joined Tesla in 2015 as a senior product manager for Powerwall, was promoted to senior director of the company’s energy operations.
In the third quarter, Tesla deployed 43 megawatts of solar, a 48% increase from the previous quarter. Solar installations are still 54% lower than the same period last year.
Energy storage deployments have continued to grow, reaching an all-time high of 477 MWh in the third quarter, according to earnings posted Wednesday.
Part of this new effort includes its solar roof tile product, which was originally unveiled in 2016. Musk said that a new, third iteration of its solar roof tile will debut Thursday afternoon.
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Here’s how much the all-electric Polestar 2 will cost in its launch markets
Volvo group’s Polestar electric performance car sub-brand has announced pricing for the Polestar 2, the company’s second production car, a four-door mid-sized fastback that will begin production in 2020 and start shipping as early as next June. Starting prices are set at between 58,800€ (around $63,720 U.S.). Those prices include three years of service and maintenance and European value-added tax (VAT). Polestar also previously communicated that its rough guide pricing for North America was at around $63,000, so this is consistent with that, but the final actual price for American buyers will be revealed later on.
That’s a pretty competitive price in the electric performance sedan market: The Model S starts at $75,000 U.S., for instance. The Polestar 2 is really much more a competitor for the Model 3, however, and is priced more closely to a kitted out version of that vehicle.
In terms of what the Polestar 2 packs in performance, its estimated EPA range is set at around 275 miles (the Model 3 starts at 240 but ranges up quickly to 310 and 325 miles depending on battery options). It offers around 408 horsepower from its 300 kW electric powertrain, again just short of the Model 3 when that’s equipped with its dual-motor performance configuration. Polestar say that it’ll do 0 to 60mph is under five seconds, again sort of in the middle of the pack when you look at the Model 3’s full configuration lineup.
Aside from its electric powertrain, the Polestar 2 will have some other interesting techie twists, including an infotainment system based entirely on Android OS and shipping complete with the full suite of Google services, including Google Assistant and the Google Play Store. This is a deeper integration than just Android Auto, which is powered by an Android phone and basically just displays an interface on the in-car screen.
Like the Model 3, the Polestar 2 will initially launch at a higher price point, with more affordable model variations coming later on, including a base model starting at around $45,000 U.S.
For now, here’s the full list of the prices for the initial markets here Polestar 2 will be available first:
- Norway NOK 469,000
- Sweden SEK 659,000
- Germany EUR 58,800
- United Kingdom GBP 49,900
- The Netherlands EUR 59,800
- Belgium EUR 59,800
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The 2020 Chevy Bolt EV now has a 259-mile range thanks to some cell chemistry tinkering
The 2020 Chevy Bolt EV now has 259 miles of range, a 9% increase from previous year models of the electric hatchback, according to the EPA.
To get there, the company focused on cell chemistry, not the battery pack. The GM brand did not add more battery cells or change the battery pack or the way it is integrated into the vehicle structure, a spokesperson confirmed.
Instead, Chevrolet’s battery engineering team made what the company described as “impactful changes to the cell chemistry.” The changes to the cell chemistry allowed the team to improve the energy of the cell electrodes, and ultimately enabled them to squeeze more range out of the battery.
The increase pushes the 2020 Chevy Bolt ahead of the Kia Niro and the standard range plus variant of the Tesla Model 3, with 239 and 240 miles of range, respectively. Other versions of the Model 3, the long-range and performance, have a much longer 310-mile range. It’s also just one mile better than the 258-mile range Hyundai Kona EV. Nissan Leaf Plus, the laggard in the group, can travel 226 miles on a single charge.
That might not seem like much. But in this small, yet growing pool of electric vehicle models, jumping from 238 to 259 miles could help Chevrolet sell more Bolt EVs next year. It could also cannibalize sales this year.
The electric vehicle has never been a top seller for the GM brand, particularly compared to its top-selling SUVs and trucks. It has beat out some of its other Chevy models and sales are high enough for the company to stick with the compact hatchback for now.
GM delivered 23,297 Chevy Bolt EVs in 2017, the first model year of the electric vehicle. But the following year, deliveries fell 22%, to 18,019. Sales have rebounded in the first half of the year.
The 2020 model year, which will be offered in two new exterior colors, is expected to arrive in dealerships later this year. The base price of the electric vehicle is $37,495, which includes destination and freight charges. Tax, title, license and dealer fees are excluded.
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Tesla starts rolling out Chess to ‘Tesla Arcade’ in-car gaming app
Tesla is making a new game available to its vehicle owners, with a roll-out starting today. The company started pushing out a new “Arcade” app for its in-car infotainment system back in June at the annual E3 gaming conference, and now it’s adding to the mix the most thrilling game around: Chess.
This isn’t the first time games have been on Tesla’s infotainment screens; it has had them available as “Easter eggs,” or hidden software features. Tesla began demoing Arcade in its showrooms back in June, too, so that visitors to their showrooms could come in and give it a try through June 30.
Tesla drivers can either play against their passengers, against their car or watch the car play against itself. Tesla’s teaser for the release of the Chess game includes a western-themed Tesla driver playing in a field, which is an interesting narrative choice. The promo also notably has the person using this while parked, which is the only way you can actually play the games, for obvious reasons.
When your car can do zero-to-sixty faster than you can make your next move, we call that a checkmate.
Chess begins rolling out to the Tesla Arcade globally today
pic.twitter.com/cNRf3kAtAA
— Tesla (@Tesla) July 26, 2019
In addition to the update going out broadly, Tesla also announced that “Beach Buggy Racing,” a kart racing game you can control with Tesla’s steering wheel, gets an update, which will let you use two game controllers at once to do local multiplayer with a passenger. Again, not while driving.
Bethesda also revealed at E3 the mobile game Fallout Shelter being played on the in-car display, and Elon Musk has discussed opening up the platform more broadly to developers, so we’ll see if that’s the next step after this rollout of the Arcade app to users.
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Tesla focuses on service with 25 new service centers in Q2, rate of new openings to ‘increase’
Tesla is set to aggressively ramp up the rate at which it opens new service facilities, according to CEO Elon Musk’s guidance on the company’s Q2 2019 earnings call. In total, Tesla opened 25 new service centers during the quarter, and added 100 new service vehicles to its existing fleet — which is in contrast to an earlier statement made by Musk that they’d look to close most of their physical stores in an effort to reduce costs.
Notably, Musk referred to the locations only as “service centers” during his comments on the subject on Wednesday’s earnings call, and never as stores — asked about “retail locations,” he corrected the analyst asking and again said that what Tesla opened were “service centers” specifically. He also emphasized the importance of ensuring that service scales in line with the size of Tesla’s overall fleet of vehicles in active use. Musk mentioned that the number of Tesla cars on the road doubled in the last year alone, meaning it’s seeing exponential growth in terms of the total size of the fleet it needs to service.
“Service scales not just with new production, but as the whole fleet sales,” Musk said, adding that they want to grow their service capabilities in a way that’s responsible when it comes to cost, but that that is “quite difficult” when it comes to the rate at which the company’s sales and shipments are increasing.
Even so, Tesla is taking on still more of its service work itself, rather than outsourcing to external vendors.
“We’ve in-sourced a great deal of the collision repair activities, which I think had quite a good impact on customer happiness,” Musk said. “This will continue in the months to come.” Musk also noted that the company is working hard to reset its processes in order to ensure that parts are available on-hand when and where needed for service, which is a gap that has prompted customer complaints in the past.
The Tesla CEO said that he meets with the Tesla service team “multiple times a week” to “get updates on the reliability of the vehicle,” noting the best service possible is “no service” because that would represent maximum reliability (and of course, lowest possible ongoing costs for Tesla). He also said that they’ve seen “fewer and fewer service visits for the most recent cars that we’re building, so we’re on a good trend there.”
Jerome Guillen, President of Automotive at Tesla also noted that the number one reason for service visits is actually people looking to learn how to use Autopilot, and in general education represents a high percentage of visits.
Tesla CFO Zach Kirkhorn addressed a question about the service center expansion later in the call, adding that the company is pursuing a path of systematic “focus on service and supercharging, as opposed to a retail presence.” He also noted that he believes efforts to improve their parts distribution, with a focus on ensuring that parts are available on-hand in inventory at the service centers where they’re needed will actually help bring down costs overall versus housing them centrally or ordering on-demand from suppliers and Tesla’s own fabrication facilities.
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Tesla’s new V3 Supercharger can charge up to 1,500 electric vehicles a day
Tesla has opened a massive next-generation electric vehicle charging station in Las Vegas that combines the company’s core products into one sustainable energy ecosystem, fulfilling a vision CEO Elon Musk laid out nearly three years ago.
The new V3 Supercharger, which supports a peak rate of up to 250 kilowatts, is designed to dramatically cut charging times for its electric vehicles. Tesla unveiled its first V3 Supercharger in March at its Fremont, Calif. factory. A second V3 Supercharger is located in Hawthorne, Calif., near the Tesla Design Studio. Both of these locations, which were initially used as test sites, lack two key Tesla products.
This new location in Las Vegas is considered the first V3 Supercharger. It’s notable, and not just because of the size — there are 39 total chargers in all. This V3 Supercharger also uses Tesla solar panels and its Powerpack batteries to generate and store the power needed to operate the chargers. The result is a complete system that generates its own energy and passes it along to thousands of Tesla vehicles.
The new Supercharger, located off the Las Vegas Strip, below the High Roller on the LINQ promenade, was built on Caesars Entertainment property. The site is part of Caesars Entertainment’s goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 30% by 2025.
There are caveats to the capabilities of this Supercharger station. Only one Tesla vehicle — the Model 3 Long Range iteration — can charge at the peak rate of 250 kW. The 250 kW results in up to 180 miles of range added to the battery in 15 minutes on a Model 3 Long Range.
The company’s new Model S and Model X vehicles can charge up to a 200 kW rate.
However, even older Model S and X vehicles and more basic versions of the Model 3 will experience faster charging rates at this location because there is no power sharing, a standard practice at Tesla’s other charging stations.
Improvements to charging times are critical for the company as it sells more Model 3 vehicles, its highest-volume car. Wait times at some popular Supercharger stations can be lengthy. Early adopters might have been content to wait, but as new Tesla customers come online, that patience could dwindle. And as more of these V3 Superchargers come online, potential customers might be encouraged to buy the pricier long-range version Model 3.
Tesla has said in the past that these improvements will allow the Supercharger network to serve more than twice as many vehicles per day at the end of 2019 compared with today.
The V3 is not a retrofit of the company’s previous generations. It’s an architecture shift that includes a new 1 MW power cabinet, similar to the company’s utility-scale products, and a liquid-cooled cable design, which enables charge rates of up to 1,000 miles per hour. Tesla uses air-cooled cables on V2 Superchargers.
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Tesla drops ‘Standard Range’ Model S and Model X, lowers prices of ‘Long Range’ variants and Model 3
Tesla has made a tweak to its model lineup, eliminating the entry-level Standard Range variants of its Model S and Model X vehicles. The change means that it’s now more expensive overall to get into either the all-electric Model S sedan or the Model X SUV, but the automakers also lowered the price of the new entry-level Long Range variants of each vehicle — and dropped the starting price of the Model 3 to $38,990.
“To make purchasing our vehicles even simpler, we are standardizing our global vehicle lineup and streamlining the number of trim packages offered for Model S, Model X and Model 3,” Tesla said in a statement to Reuters regarding the reason behind the pricing and lineup changes. “We are also adjusting our pricing in order to continue to improve affordability for customers.”
Reducing the number of model variants at the top end of Tesla’s lineup should help it minimize costs and focus high-end buyer appetite on trim levels with greater profit potential for the automaker. And the upside it gains there can be applied beneficially to the cost of the Model 3, which is increasingly the source of the automaker’s growth.
Tesla’s second-quarter vehicle deliveries were the highest on record, totaling 95,200 vehicles, with the most affordable car in the lineup, the Model 3, accounting for around 80% of the overall mix.
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Ford and Volkswagen team up on EVs, with Ford the first outside automaker to use VW’s MEB platform
Automakers Ford and Volkswagen have announced a partnership today that covers a number of areas, including autonomy (via a new investment by VW in Argo AI) and collaboration on development of electric vehicles. This EV tie-up will see Ford use Volkswagen’s MEB platform, which it’s using as the core of its forthcoming line of consumer electric vehicles, to develop “at least one” fully electric car for the European market that’s designed to be produced and sold at scale.
Volkswagen’s MEB is a big bet by the German automaker, meant to provide for all-electric models what the MQB platform before it did for the automaker’s internal combustion engine cars. The idea behind these platforms is that they are modular and flexible enough to cover a range of different vehicle types, while ensuring that there’s enough of a repeatable core that the cost of redevelopment from model to model is greatly decreased.
The MEB platform is already planned for use across a number of announced vehicles to be released by VW and VW-group automakers, including Audi, SEAT, Skoda and more between 2019 and 2023. Ford will be the first announced automaker outside of the Volkswagen Group to make use of the MEB. The automakers specify that there are only concrete plans for one model at the moment, but the option to expand that to more pending how that initial collaboration goes is baked into the deal.
Ford also plans to deliver more than 600,000 cars for the European market based on the MEB architecture over the course of six years for the first model alone, and the automakers note in a press release that there are considerations for a second Ford model to be developed based on the platform. Ford says in the release that this is just part of its overall, ongoing commitment to EVs, and that its work on crossover and other imported U.S. market models, including Mustang and Explorer, for Europe will continue. Both automakers will also remain independently and separately owned.
The general details of a partnership between the two automakers was reported as in the works by Reuters earlier this month, but is now confirmed as official by both automakers. VW also previously announced that German startup e.Go would be developing a vehicle based on the MEB, but details of that plan are not known and Ford is the first company that actually makes and delivers automobiles to make use of the Volkswagen Group tech in a model with concrete release timing and scale production intent.
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Toyota testing improved solar roof for electric cars that can charge while driving
Toyota is testing a new and improved version of the solar power cells it previously launched on the Japan-exclusive Prius PHV, in a pilot along with partners Sharp and Japanese national research organization NEDO. This demo car’s prototype cells can convert solar energy at 34% and up, which is much better than the existing commercial version’s 22.5%. And, unlike its predecessor, it also can charge the car’s driving battery while the car is actually moving, recouping significant range while the vehicle is in use.
The new system will provide up to 44.5 km (27.7 miles) of additional range per day while parked and soaking up sun, and can add up to 56.3 km (35 miles) of power to both the driving system and the auxiliary power battery on board, which runs the AC, navigation and more.
Using a redesigned solar battery cell film that measures only 0.03 mm (that’s 0.001 inches), the vehicle’s engineers could put the film over a much broader surface area of the vehicle compared to the existing production version, with solar cells that wrap around covered body components, the rear door and the hood with relative ease. And as mentioned, the system can now work while the car is actually driving, thanks to changes in how generated power is fed to the system, which is a huge step up from the last generation, which could only push power to that auxiliary battery to run the radio, etc. when in motion.
This new test vehicle will hit the road in Japan in late July, and perform trials across a range of different regions to test its abilities in different weather and driving conditions. Ultimately, the goal is to use this research to facilitate the commercial deployment of more efficient solar power generation tech that can work in a number of transportation applications.
Solar-powered cars to date have been a bit of an outlier proposition: There’s Toyota’s own Prius PHV, but it’s quite limited in terms of what you gain versus a traditional plug-in electric. Lightyear One, a startup from The Netherlands, unveiled its own solar electric consumer car last month, but production on that vehicle isn’t set to start until 2021, and it’s a new entrant into the market, at that.
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