Weekly-ish News - Episode 26 (September 14, 2021)

If you have any feedback or suggestions, please feel free to find me on Twitter @archduketyler

 

Electric Vehicles:

If Chevy ends up needing to replace all the battery packs in Bolts due to the recall, owners may end up with a range increase due to newer, better batteries.

This may mean 8% more range, and the new batteries would have a separate, new warranty.They've paused production until the issues are resolved, unsurprisingly.

The Lucid Air Dream Edition (read: Expensiver Edition) has been driven/reviewed by MotorTrend.

The review is pretty glowing, but the only part I find particularly worth mentioning is that it appears to have a range of over 500mi (805km) in real-world driving.It costs like $170k.

Rivian filed for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) with a valuation of $80b.

The actual IPO would occur around November.

We officially have range numbers for the Rivian R1T and R1S at 314mi (505km) and 316mi (508km) respectively.

The Tesla Cybertruck is officially delayed to late 2022. The Roadster is also delayed to 2023, but let's be honest, it'll be later than that.

In happier Tesla news, they've released their 2020 Impact Report, and part of it is a claim that they can recover 92% of battery materials in their recycling process.

The Tesla Model S Plaid has officially broken the record for fastest production EV ever at the Nürburgring.

Ford has doubled their annual production goals for the F-150 Lightning from 40k by 2024 to 80k by 2024.

This is still a small number, but an increase is nice.They allegedly have 120k+ reservationsThe target increases to 160k annually by 2025.

Toyota will invest $13.6b in battery tech over the next decade.

$9b of this will be dedicated to battery production.They intend to eventually produce 200GWh of batteries (presumably annually).There's more being reported about this, but frankly it's all just words at this point and I don't have much patience for Toyota when it comes to EVs so I'm keeping it to these three numbers until we have more compelling info.

In the first week of deliveries, the Tesla Model Y has become the best-selling vehicle of any kind in Norway.

This will obviously not continue, but it's fun.The article also referred to Norwegians as Vikings with a capital "v", I'm sure that stereotype should be continued in 2021.

The Electrify America app is now compatible with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

The FAA has announced $20.4m in grants to electrify airports.

This includes stuff like electric buses, charging stations, and shore power.

Australia's Renewable Energy Agency awarded $26.8m to fund 403 EV stations (around $67k per station).

These will be at least 50kW stations.

Shell and its subsidiary, Ubitricity, are apparently going to install 50k on-street EV chargers in the United Kingdom by 2025.

These chargers will be integrated into lamp-poles, and will presumably be Level 2 chargers, but details are scant.

Oak Ridge National Labs has licensed its wireless EV charging technology to HEVO.

They will make 300kW wireless chargers with this tech.The original Oak Ridge demo yielded 120kW charging at 97% efficiency through a 6 inch airgap!They've also demonstrated 20kW charging through an 11 inch airgap with 92% efficiency.HEVO expects to get between 90-96.5% efficiency at 300kW, potentially at highway speeds for under-road charging.

The Atlas Public Policy group has released a report claiming that fully electrifying the federal fleet could save nearly $5.5b USD by 2030.

Norway will pilot an autonomous, electric cargo ship!

The Norwegian chemical firm Yara International developed the ship.Its first voyage will occur later this year, allegedly.It will sail between the towns of Herøya and Brevik (which is like, a couple of miles (a few kilometers)).The plan is for it to replace 40k truck journeys.

Waymo is now offering rides to the public for the first time in their autonomous vehicles in San Francisco using Jaguar iPaces.

 

The YouTube channel, MKBHD, did a fantastic video about a 1000 mile (1600km) trip taken in a gas-powered Audi, a Mach-E, and a Tesla Model S to compare the trip times:

Main channel video.Longer, second channel video (first video in the series).Podcast episode about the experiment (YouTube link).

 

Energy:

Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas are getting some new wind power!

In the most cursed portmanteau ever, ArkLaTex is getting around 287MW of new wind power.It will be joined by a 999MW addition in early 2022.The total project will allegedly save $2b over its 30y lifetime.

42% of new generation capacity in 2020 in the U.S. was wind power!

We added nearly 17GW of wind power.Wind accounted for 11% of total energy production in 2020.Solar accounted for 38% of new power, followed by natural gas at 20%

A new study by the University of Michigan estimates that carbon capture and utilization (CCU) can reduce carbon emissions by 15% and save $800b.

Full text of the study is available at the link below the article, but the article gives a nice summary.One interesting note from the study is that it classified emissions savings by looking at every pathway's probability of reducing carbon emissions, which points to the uncertainty in the effectiveness of different technologies.

 

Policy:

New York has passed legislation to work on banning internal combustion engines by 2035 for passenger and off-road vehicles, and by 2045 for heavy-duty vehicles.

"Provides that one hundred percent of in-state sales of new passenger cars and trucks shall be zero-emissions by two thousand thirty-five, medium-duty and heavy-duty vehicles by two thousand forty-five and off-road vehicles and equipment by two thousand thirty-five."Some of the lines say "where feasible" for the requirement.There's no consequence outlines as far as I could tell.This is being reported as a ban and I don't see anywhere in the text of the legislation (which is very short) that it *is* a proper ban.

 

To End:

The Martin Drake Coal Plant in Colorado is shifting from coal to natural gas, then being retired in favor of renewables, all before 2023. This article is incredible.

Somer Mese, the manager of the plant, “I get the big picture, coal is dirty. Natural gas is cleaner. Renewables are even better. I understand the need for change and to move forward with technology from a hundred-year-old coal fired power plant to something state-of-the-art.” They are offering retraining for new jobs at the new renewable facilities to every single employee, no one will be left behind.

 

Walkable City by Jeff Speck

 

Thank you Adrian for providing the pronunciation of Nürburgring.