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Automakers have battery anxiety, so they’re taking control of the supply
Battery joint ventures have become the hot must-have deal for automakers that have set ambitious targets to deliver millions of electric vehicles in the next few years.
It’s no longer just about securing a supply of cells. The string of partnerships and joint ventures show that automakers are taking a more active role in the development and even production of battery cells.
Automakers are taking a more active role in the development and even production of battery cells.
And the deals don’t appear to be slowing down. Just this week, Mercedes-Benz announced its $47 billion plan to become an electric-only automaker by 2030. Securing its battery supply chain by expanding existing partnerships or locking in new ones to jointly develop and produce battery cells and modules is a critical piece of its plan.
Mercedes, like other automakers, is also focused on developing and deploying advanced battery technology. In addition to setting up eight new battery plants to supply its future EVs, the German automaker said it was partnering with Sila Nano, the Silicon Valley battery chemistry startup that it has previously invested in, to increase energy density, which should in turn improve range and allow for shorter charging times.
“This follows a trend that we’ve seen of automakers realizing how critical the battery is and taking more control of the production of the cells in order to ensure their own supply,” Sila Nano CEO Gene Berdichevsky said in a recent interview. “Like if you’re VW, and you say, ‘We’re going to go 50% electric by whatever year,’ but then the batteries don’t show up, you’re bankrupt, you’re dead. Their scale is so big that even if their cell partners have promised them to deliver, automakers are scared that they won’t.”
Tesla, BMW and Volkswagen were early adopters of the battery joint-venture strategy. In 2014,Tesla and Panasonic signed an agreement to build a large battery manufacturing plant, or a gigafactory as everyone is now calling it, in the U.S. and have worked together since. BMW began working with Solid Power in 2017 to create solid-state batteries for high-performance EVs that could potentially lower costs by requiring less safety features than lithium-ion batteries.
In addition to its partnership with Northvolt, VW is also in talks with suppliers to secure more direct access to supplies like semiconductors and lithium so it can keep its existing plants running at full speed.
Now the rest of the industry is moving to work with battery companies, to share knowledge and resources and essentially become the manufacturer.
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Porsche is researching synthetic fuels to make gas-powered cars sustainable
The road to sustainable vehicles likely ends at electric cars, yet the route to this goal isn’t clear. There are multiple ways to get there, and Porsche is looking at synthetic fuels as a potential path. These so-called eFuels are produced from CO2 and hydrogen. If produced using renewable energy, they can help vehicles powered by internal combustion engines (ICE) become more sustainable before the end of their life.
Earlier this week, Porsche AG’s Detlev von Platen spoke to this alternative fuel at TechCrunch Sessions: Mobility.
Looking at Porsche’s current lineup, it’s easy to see where the automaker is heading: Electric sports cars. Right now, in 2020, the automaker has one electric sports sedan and an electric version of its small SUV coming soon. The automaker has a handful of plug-in hybrids available, too. The automaker says half of its vehicles will be electric by 2025.
“We are seeing a lot of new regulations coming up everywhere in the world,” Detlev von Platen, member of the Executive Board, Sales and Marketing, said at TC Sessions: Mobility 2020. “California is one example. Europe and China will become even more complicated in the future, and we see the transformation coming up very quickly. And to a certain point of time, developing and producing combustion engines and cars around this technology will become even more expensive than a battery vehicle. Things are moving very fast.”
Governments worldwide are using aggressive regulations to push automakers toward an electric future, though that goal doesn’t address the millions of gasoline-powered vehicles already on the road.
Von Platen explains that it’s Porsche’s goal to reach the commitments laid out by the Paris Climate Accord ahead of schedule. To do so means reducing the environmental impact of the entire car industry, and Porsche sees eFuels as a way to reduce the environmental impact of current and future internal combustion vehicles. If produced using renewable energy, it would result in ICE-powered vehicles being powered by a renewable source fuel.
Porsche is in a unique position: 70% of the vehicles it ever produced are still on the road. Their owners are generally enthusiastic and unlikely to trade-in their classic air-cooled Porsche coupes for an electric vehicle. The company sees eFuel as a way to reduce the environmental impact of those vehicles while keeping them on the road.
This new type of synthetic fuel is produced out of hydrogen and CO2. Porsche says that this fuel shares properties with kerosene, diesel and gasoline produced from crude oil in its most basic term.
“This technology is particularly important because the combustion engine will continue to dominate the automotive world for many years to come,” said Michael Steiner, member of the Executive Board, Research and Development, in a statement released in September. “If you want to operate the existing fleet in a sustainable manner, eFuels are a fundamental component.”
Synthetic fuels were tried in the past and gained little long-term traction. Porsche wants to influence this new breed of synthetic fuel specifications to ensure the eFuel works within Porsche’s performance engines. “When E10 came onto the market, the blend had some disadvantages. It must be different this time: it must have advantages,” Steiner said.
“We started a pilot program to talk about the industrialization of this fuel technology to make it cheaper, as it is still quite expensive compared to fossil fuels,” von Platen said. “If this works in the future, we can have something that will increase the speed of creating sustainability besides battery technology.”
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With $18M in new funding, Braintrust says it’s creating a fairer model for freelancers
Braintrust, a network for freelance technical and design talent that launched over the summer, is announcing that it has raised $18 million in new funding.
Co-founder and CEO Adam Jackson has written for TechCrunch about how tech companies need to treat independent contractors with more empathy. He told me via email that the San Francisco-based startup is making that idea a reality by offering a very different approach than existing marketplaces for freelance work.
For one thing, Braintrust only charges the companies doing the hiring — freelancers won’t have to pay to join or to bid on a project, and Braintrust won’t charge a fee on their project payments. In addition, the startup is using a cryptocurrency token that it calls Btrust to reward users who build the network, for example by inviting new customers or vetting freelancers. Apparently, the token will give users a stake in how the network evolves in the future.
“Just imagine if Uber had given all of its drivers some ownership in the company what a different company it would be today,” Jackson said. “Braintrust will be 100% user-owned. Everyone who participates on the platform has skin in the game.”
And for companies, Braintrust is supposed to allow them to tap freelancers for work that they’d normally do in-house. The startup’s clients already include Nestlé, Pacific Life, Deloitte, Porsche, Blue Cross Blue Shield and TaskRabbit.
According to Jackson, most of the talent on the platform consists of career freelancers, but with many people losing their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic, “we’ve seen an influx of talent coming looking to join the ranks of the freelancers.”
He added that the startup already became profitable after raising its $6 million seed round, so the new funding will allow it to build the core team and also bring in more work.
“We exist to help companies accelerate their product roadmaps and innovation, and this injection of funding will help us do just that,” Jackson said.
The new funding was led by ACME and Blockchange, with participation from new investors Pantera, Multicoin and Variant.
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The electric Porsche Taycan Turbo has an EPA range of 201 miles
The Porsche Taycan Turbo, one of several variants of the German automaker’s first all-electric vehicles, has an EPA estimated range of 201 miles, according to government ratings posted Wednesday.
This is the first variant of the Taycan — Porsche’s first all-electric vehicle — to receive an estimated range from the EPA. The range, which indicates how far the vehicle can travel on a single charge, is far behind other competitors in the space, notably the Tesla Model S. But it also trails other high-end electric vehicles, including the Jaguar I-Pace and the Audi e-tron.
The biggest gulf is between the Taycan Turbo and the long-range version of the Model S, which has an EPA range of 373 miles. The performance version of the Model S has a range of 348 miles. It was also below the Jaguar I-Pace, an electric vehicle that launched in 2018. The EPA has given the Jaguar I-Pace an official estimated range of 234. However, the company recently said it was able to add another 12 miles of range to the vehicle through what it learned in the I-Pace racing series.
The European standard known as the WLTP placed the range of the Porsche Taycan Turbo at up to 279 miles.
Despite the lower EPA range estimate, Porsche said it’s not disappointed.
“We sought to build a true Porsche, balancing legendary performance our customers expect of our products with range sufficient to meet their everyday needs,” a Porsche spokesperson told TechCrunch. “The Taycan is a phenomenal car built to perform and drive as a Porsche should. We stand by that.”
Porsche introduced in September the Taycan Turbo S and Taycan Turbo — the more powerful and expensive versions of its all-electric four-door sports car with base prices of $185,000 and $150,900, respectively.
In October, the German automaker revealed a cheaper version called the Porsche Taycan 4S that is more than $80,000 cheaper than its leading model. All of the Taycans, including the 4S, are the same chassis and suspension, permanent magnet synchronous motors and other bits. However, this third version, which will offer a performance-battery-plus option, is a little lighter, cheaper and slightly slower than the high-end versions of the Taycan that were introduced earlier this year. Theoretically, the 4S should also have a higher range.
Porsche has always said it would have multiple versions of the Taycan. The 2020 Taycan Turbo will be among the first models to arrive in the United States.
While Porsche said it isn’t disputing the EPA range, the automaker did send an email to dealers Wednesday to share additional data that shows a far rosier picture.
Porsche asked AMCI Testing to conduct independent tests to evaluate the Taycan Turbo range, according to an email the automaker sent to dealers for Taycan customers. The independent automotive research firm came up with a range of 275 miles, a result that was calculated by averaging the vehicle’s performance over five test cycles.
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Porsche’s all-electric evolution: from sketch to Mission E concept to Porsche Taycan
The Porsche Taycan, the German automaker’s first all-electric sports car, has arrived. After four years of development, the company lifted the veil Wednesday on the Porsche Taycan.
Here’s a look back at how this four-door electric vehicle developed from a few sketches to the Mission E concept, and then to the Taycan prototype and final production model.
September 2015: Porsche unveils the Mission E at the Frankfurt International Motor Show. Porsche says the concept has the first 800-volt drive system, will produce more than 600 horsepower (or 440 kilowatts in system power) and about a 310-mile battery range. Other concept-era stats include all-wheel drive and all-wheel steering, the ability to go from zero to 100 km/h (62 miles per hour) in less than 3.5 seconds and a charging time of around 15 minutes to reach an 80% charge of electrical energy.
The tech inside the concept includes instruments that are intuitively operated by eye-tracking and gesture control, some even via holograms — highly oriented toward the driver by automatically adjusting the displays to the driver’s position.
December 2015: Porsche AG board funds Mission E. This means Porsche makes it official and announces plans to bring the all-electric four-door sports car into production by the end of the decade. The company says it won’t hit the road until at least 2020.
Porsche also says it will spend more than $760 million and add 1,000 new jobs at its Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen facility to produce the all-electric sports car.
January 2016: Porsche AG Chairman Oliver Blume reiterates the company’s commitment to plug-in hybrids and the all-electric Mission E concept car. Porsche will spend $1 billion to develop the Mission E, Blume says at the time. That’s a nearly 30% increase from what the company had previously shared about its investment.
September 2017: Blume indicates that the Mission E will go on sale at the end of 2019. The company is preparing to send its prototypes onto public roads.
Blume doesn’t provide details on the price. However, he tells CAR in an interview that the all-electric four-door sports car is designed to sit between the Panamera and the 911 in Porsche’s portfolio. And it will be priced like an entry-level Panamera, which is $85,000.
June 2018: Porsche gives electric sports car an official name. It will be called the Porsche Taycan, which is pronounced tai-kan. The automaker says Taycan is roughly translated as “lively, young horse” in a nod to its iconic emblem.
March 2019: Porsche’s Blume says during the 2019 Geneva International Motor Show that more than 20,000 people have registered to join a list of prospective buyers for the Taycan, which requires a down payment of €2,500.
The company had planned for an annual production of 20,000 Taycans. Due to higher than expected interest, Porsche decides to increase production capacity, Blume says in an interview with autogazette.de.
July 2019: Porsche Taycan reservations have hit 30,000 deposits, according to Bloomberg and Porsche HR head Andreas Haffner in an interview with German business publication Handelsblatt.
August 2019: Porsche announces it will integrate Apple Music into the Taycan sports car, the first time the music streaming service has been offered as a standalone app within a vehicle. The Apple Music integration will begin with the Taycan. However, the relationship between Apple and Porsche won’t end there, Porsche North America CEO Klaus Zellmer tells TechCrunch.
August 2019: Porsche Taycan sets a narrow, yet notable record lap time at the famous Nürburgring Nordschleife test track in Germany. The vehicle completes the 12.8-mile course in 7 minutes and 42 seconds. This is the fastest lap for a four-door electric vehicle. The record time was set in a pre-series Taycan driven by Lars Kern.
September 4: Porsche unveils the production version of its first all-electric vehicle. The company will launch with two variants, the Porsche Taycan Turbo S and the Porsche Taycan Turbo. Deliveries are expected to begin before the end of the year.
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Porsche Taycan vs Tesla Model S: Spec for spec, price for price
The Porsche Taycan is a missile aimed straight at Tesla. The German electric sedan packs everything needed to give the Model S its first real fight. The Porsche is just as fast, is sleeker thanks to a lower drag coefficient and packs several technical goodies missing from Tesla’s sedan. However, the Tesla Model S has a longer range and is much less expensive.
Specs alone cannot properly illustrate a vehicle’s worth, but they’re a good starting point. What follows are several key areas comparing the two trim levels of the Porsche Taycan against the two versions of the Model S currently available.
The chart here does not list self-driving features or capabilities, a key feature to the Tesla Model S. As of writing, Porsche has yet to revel any self-driving capabilities of the Taycan besides the standard driver assistance features found on all Porsche vehicles.
Please note, the EPA has yet to release official range numbers for the Porsche Taycan. Currently, Porsche is only noting that the new European rating system, (WLTP), rates the sedan with the max range of 279 miles. The EPA says the Model S Long Range has a range of 370 miles.
- Source: Motor Trend
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Porsche unveils the $150,900 Taycan Turbo electric sedan
Porsche has poured more than $1 billion into the development of its first all-electric vehicle, a sleek four-door specimen that marks the beginning of a new chapter for the German automaker and its biggest bet in more than a generation.
On Wednesday, in three simultaneous events in Canada, China and Germany, Porsche finally introduced the world to the vehicle that has been more than four years in the making. TechCrunch was on hand for the reveal in Canada, a splashy event held in a building erected just for the occasion on the edge of Niagara Falls. It was here that Porsche showed off not one, but two flavors of the Taycan.
Behold, the Porsche Taycan Turbo S and Porsche Taycan Turbo, two electric machines with the styling, power and performance one would expect from the German automaker. Oh, and range between 250 and 280 miles, depending on the variant.
Both of these Taycans fall into the more expensive, more powerful category of its upcoming portfolio, with base prices of $185,000 and $150,900, respectively.
All three Porsche Taycan events were staged near renewable energy installments — hydropower at Niagara Falls in Canada, solar in Neuhardenberg near Berlin and a wind farm on Pingtan Island, less than a mile from the Chinese city of Fuzhou — a physical symbol of Porsche’s move to electrification.
“The Taycan stands for the change necessary for Porsche to remain Porsche,” Detlev von Platen, Porsche AG board member of sales and marketing said during the presentation.
And it’s not stopping at the Taycan. By 2025, half of all Porsche vehicles will be electrified, according to von Platen.
Less powerful variants (and therefore less expensive) of these all-wheel drive vehicles will follow this year, and the first derivative to be added will be the Taycan Cross Turismo at the end of 2020.
The Taycan may represent a new direction for the automaker, but there’s still no mistaking this electric vehicle for a Porsche. The Taycan has a big and low stance with a body line that still looks and feels like a Porsche. Bigger than a 911 and smaller than a Panamera, the body of the Taycan is wide and flat with contoured wings and a sporty roof that slopes down to the sharply emphasized and classic Porsche rear.
Inside is the good stuff. Both the Porsche Taycan Turbo S and Porsche Taycan Turbo are outfitted with two electric motors, one on the front axle and one on the rear axle, a two-speed transmission installed on the rear axle, and an 800-volt architecture — the same technology that helped the company’s 919 Hybrid win the 24 Hours of Le Mans three times in a row.
The interior of the Taycan, which was revealed last month, includes a sleek all-digital dashboard clearly inspired by the 1963 Porsche 911.
Now to the power. The flagship Turbo S version of the Taycan can generate up to 750 horsepower (560 kW) of power in combination with “launch control” and overboost features that translate into accelerating from zero to 60 miles per hour in 2.8 seconds. The Taycan Turbo can produce up to 670 horsepower (500 kW), allowing it to go from a standstill to 60 mph in 3 seconds. Both vehicles have a top track speed of 161 mph.
The Taycan is ready for the race track,” Stefan Weckbach, vice president of the Taycan and Porsche Battery Electric Vehicle Product Line, said during the event Wednesday.
And then there’s the 800-volt system, double the more commonly used 400 volt architecture found in other electric vehicles. The 800-volt system allows the Taycan to charge from 5% to 80% in 22.5 minutes with a maximum charging power of up to 270 kw. The vehicle’s 800-volt system will allow the Taycan to add 62 miles of charge in a snappy five minutes, Weckbach said.
The overall capacity of the 800V high-voltage battery is 93.4 kWh. Porsche is throwing in three years of free charging at hundreds of Electrify America public stations that will blanket the U.S. in the coming months.
The EPA range estimate for the North American market is pending for both vehicles. Under Europe’s WLTP estimates, the Turbo S can travel 256 miles on a single charge, while the Turbo has a range of 280 miles.
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The future of car ownership: Cars-as-a-service
Car shoppers now have several new options to avoid long-term debt and commitments. Automakers and startups alike are increasingly offering services that give buyers new opportunities and greater flexibility around owning and using vehicles.
Cars-as-a-Service
In the first part of this feature, we explored the different startups attempting to change car buying. But not everyone wants to buy a car. After all, a vehicle traditionally loses its value at a dramatic rate.
Some startups are attempting to reinvent car ownership rather than car buying.
Don’t buy, lease
My favorite car blog Jalopnik said it best: “Cars Sales Could Be Heading Straight Into the Toilet.” Citing a Bloomberg report, the site explains automakers may have had the worst first half for new-vehicle retail sales since 2013. Car sales are tanking, but people still need cars.
Companies like Fair are offering new types of leases combining a traditional auto financing option with modern conveniences. Even car makers are looking at different ways to move vehicles from dealer lots.
Fair was founded in 2016 by an all-star team made up of automotive, retail and banking executives including Scott Painter, former founder and CEO of TrueCar.
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Canoo, the electric vehicle startup formed from Faraday Future’s ashes, seeks $200 million
Less than a month after rebranding as Canoo, the startup electric vehicle company formerly known as Evelozcity is on the hunt for $200 million in new capital.
The startup, which is backed by a clutch of private individuals and family offices hailing from China, Germany and Taiwan, is hoping to line up the new capital from some more recognizable names as it finalizes supply deals with vendors, according to a person with knowledge of the company’s plans.
Canoo is locking in final contracts with its vendors and is going to be in production with prototypes before the end of the year. The company, which will make its vehicles available through a subscription-based model, already has 400 employees and just announced new key hires along with its rebranding.
It’s a quick ramp for a company that only two years ago was struggling to extricate itself from the morass that was Faraday Future.
Canoo began life as Evelozcity back in 2017. It was formed after Stefan Krause, a former executive at BMW and Deutsche Bank, and another former BMW executive, Ulrich Kranz, absconded from Faraday Future amid that company’s struggles.
Reportedly, Krause and Kranz left over repeated clashes with Faraday’s founding team of Jia Yueting, the main investor and shareholder, and Chaoying Deng, according to the Verge.
The situation at Evelozcity became so toxic that after the two men left, Jia accused them of “malfeasance and dereliction of duty.”
The company was launched in secret, but news of its existence came to light after Faraday Future filed a lawsuit accusing the new company of the theft of trade secrets.
Now, Canoo is rounding out its executive team and pushing forward with plans to bring prototype vehicles to market by the end of the year.
Olivier Bellin joined the company as its head of operations from STMicroelectronics, a Geneva-based semiconductor company where he served as chief financial officer of the company’s U.S. operations.
Former president of BMW manufacturing Clemens Schmitz-Justen also joined the company as its head of manufacturing — overseeing the contract manufacturing strategy, which will see the company outsource production of vehicles in the U.S. and China.
Canoo said that it intends to use a modular “skateboard” approach to its vehicle design where different form factors can rest atop its chassis. The company touts that its different cabins can be tailored to suit the needs of different customers — ranging from commuter vehicles, public or group transportation, delivery vehicles and private cars.
The company is also crafting its user interface and subscription services around its passengers and renters. To that end, Canoo has brought on James Cox, a former Uber executive in charge of product operations for the ride-hailing business’ rider application, who will be developing digital products for the company’s initial customers, according to a March statement.
Initially, Canoo will target customers in Los Angeles and the Bay Area, with additional plans to expand to San Diego and Seattle when the company brings its commercial vehicles to market in 2021.
Canoo plans to use blockchain technology to secure its subscription services and ensure an asset-light approach to development by outsourcing its manufacturing in the U.S. and China, according to one person with knowledge of the company’s plans.
With the development of that subscription model, the car company is taking a page from the playbook other automakers are beginning to toy with. Despite the fact that Cadillac cancelled its Book subscription service late last year, companies like BMW, Volvo and Porsche have all pressed on with their experiments with subscriptions.
As it rolls out its subscription service, Canoo is targeting a lower price point than its competitors for its fully electric and “autonomous-ready” vehicles.
At the end of the day the company believes that there are more than 35 cities around the world that are suitable for its offering.
And now that the lawsuits are over and Faraday Future continues to wobble, it seems that plans for Canoo are gathering steam.
The rebranding effort, and the company’s new name itself, is indicative of its goals.
“We picked Canoo because it sounds distinctive, looks cool and creates a feeling of both relaxation and movement,” said Krause, in a statement. “For thousands of years, a canoe has been a simple, sustainable transportation device used all over the world.”
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Porsche’s Mission E Cross Turismo is the EV crossover you want
Porsche unveiled a new concept version of its forthcoming Mission E all-electric car today at the Geneva Motor Show. The Mission E Cross Turismo is a crossover utility vehicle with all-wheel drive, four doors and a larger cargo capacity for making sure you have plenty of room to stow your skis before you hit the slopes since this is definitely the kind of car that appeals to people who ski.… Read More
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