AD #3697 - Tesla Launches Supercharger Congestion Fee; Toyota Solid State Battery Will Be Low Volume; Pony.ai Tests Platooning on Public Roa

This is Outolige Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.

Tesla is spending a lot more time in court these days, and it's got some good news and some bad news. First, the good It just

won a case in China against a woman who claimed that the breaks on her Model three malfunctioned and caused an accident. She went viral at the Shanghai Auto

Show in twenty twenty one wearing a shirt that said break failure in Chinese.

Tesla sued the woman and a court ruled that there was no defect with her breaks, so it ordered her to pay damages, cover the cost for evaluating your car, and publicly apologizing to Tesla. Okay, Now the bad news.

A US judge in Florida is allowing a lawsuit over Tesla's autopilot system to go to trial because he said there is quote reasonable evidence that Elon Musk and Tesla were quote acutely aware that there was a defect in the system, but they still allowed the cars to be driven. The lawsuit involves a fatal crash

in twenty nineteen in which a Model three owner drove under the trailer of a semi truck that crossed its path and sheared off the roof, killing that driver.

Autopilot never detected the truck, so the judge ruled that the man's family can proceed with the lawsuit and seek punitive damages from Tesla for intentional misconduct and gross negligence. We've got a lot of battery news today, and we'll start

out with this report on northfoldt the Swedish battery company. As you know,

everybody is working on batteries that have fewer critical materials, which are mostly controlled by China, and Northfold is one of the first to come out with sodium ion cells, which replaced materials like lithium, nickel, cobalt, and graphite with iron and sodium. Because those materials are much more abundant and easier to

get, sodium ion batteries are cheaper to make. Some estimates put the current

cost to sodium ion batteries around eighty to eighty five dollars per kilowat hour, compared to about one hundred and twenty five dollars per kilowat hour for an average lithium ion battery, and with the same kind of scale as lithium, they'll be even cheaper. They're also safer, especially at high temperatures, so you

might be wondering why don't we hear more about sodium ion batteries. While the

cells produced by Northfolt have an energy density of one hundred and sixty watt hours per kilogram, which is about half of today's lithium ion batteries, that means they're really not suited for cars right now, and why Northfolt will first use them for energy storage. However, it didn't say when we would see those

systems. Speaking of battery chemistries, there's been a lot of headlines made about

solid state batteries being the breakthrough needed for mass EV adoption, so you might be a little disappointed at Toyota's production targets for the technology. According to its

own in house media outlet, the automaker will start coming out with solid state batteries in twenty twenty seven or twenty twenty eight, but even by the end of the decade it will only have enough capacity to make quote several tens of thousands of vehicles. Ford is cutting back on its EV battery plans because it

says EV adoption is not growing at the pace it expected, so it's slashing its investment, output and number of new jobs at the battery plant it's building in Michigan with COTL Ford is trimming one and a half billion dollars from its budget. We'll hire seventeen hundred new workers instead of twenty five hundred, and

will make twenty gigawatt hours of batteries instead of thirty five gigawatt hours. Production

of the LFP or lithium iron phosphate cells starts in twenty twenty six, and once it hits its twenty gigawatt hour output, that will be enough to power around two hundred and thirty thousand evs. But while Ford is scaling back its

EV operations, Stillantis is building its up. Literally. It officially started construction

of its new battery center and Windsor, Ontario. Stillantis will use the site

to test batteries. For example, it has thirty five climate test cells,

and it will also have the ability to make development battery packs. The battery

center is part of its two point eight billion dollar investment to make evs in Canada, and Stillantis expects the new site to be open in the middle of next year. The Tagent Automotive Technologies we combine world class composite materials expertise with

cutting edge designs because frankly, there are better ways to lightweight vehicles, So lighten up with taging automotive technologies the formula for better mobility. It's an ev

charging network. Ev Goo are partnering to offer people who rent EV's special charging

rates. Drivers who sign up for the promotion and rent any ev model through

Hurts can use any ev Goo station across the US with no monthly subscription fee or session fees for one year. But the deal is only available to new

EVgo customers who sign up for an EVgo account for a limited time only, and the charging rates will vary depending on the region and time of day.

And In other ev charging news, Tesla is now charging a congestion fee at some supercharger locations in the US to shortened session times. It's charging a dollar

per minute after you reach ninety percent state of charge. Owners will receive a

message if the station has a congestion fee and there's a five minute grace period.

This new congestion fee is replacing the idle fee that it introduced a few years back that would limit owners to only an eighty percent state of charge at busy stations. Remember like five to seven years ago when pretty much everybody was

talking about truck platooning, but even then it was not a new idea.

That's where a number of semi trucks, usually up to three, essentially play follow the leader. They're all wirelessly connected to each other, so they know

when the others are going to speed up, break, or turn, and the two trucks behind go exactly where the lead truck takes them. The goal

is to dramatically increase productivity because it allows one human driver to control multiple trucks.

The first experiments with truck platooning actually started in Europe during the late nineteen eighties under a program called Prometheus. While that did not lead directly to platooning

on public roads, the idea is still alive and kicking, and in China, pony Ai just got permission to test level four platooning on public roads around the city of Guangzhou. It says platooning allows trucks to drive really close together,

so they can literally draft each other for better aerodynamics and fuel efficiency.

Looks like Tesla and Toyota are not the only ones interested in a yoke steering wheel. GUI, the car brand that's a collaborative effort between GLE and by

Do, is offering customers the choice of a steering wheel yoke at no extra cost over a regular steering wheel. GUI says the yoke really improves visibility of

the big screen that sits on top of its instrument panel of its one model, and being able to see out of that screen is super important because GUI got rid of all the physical controls in the car, including the gear selector, shift paddles, center console buttons, and even the door handles. All

those operations are done through that big screen. Carbon Revolution, the Australian company

that makes carbon fiber wheels, is going to open a factory in North America because it sees strong growth ahead. Up till now, its wheels have been

aimed at high performance cars since the lighter wheels can improve handling and cornering speeds, but their lightweight efficiency is also making them attractive for big SUVs and electric vehicles. Jake Dingle, the CEO of Carbon Revolution, tells Autoline that they're

developing a twenty four inch wheel for a major OEM program that saves fifteen kilograms or thirty three pounds over an aluminum wheel. That's a savings of one hundred

and thirty two pounds for all four wheels, and one hundred and sixty five pounds if you include the spare and that kind of weight savings for bolt on technology is the kind of solution that automakers love to see. In a programming

note here, the Autolne staff will be off for the next two days for the Thanksgiving holiday, so there won't be an Autoline Daily or an auto Line after hours while we're off, but we will be back here on Monday, and for those of you who are celebrating Thanksgiving, we hope you have a wonderful holiday. Auto Line Daily is brought to you by Bridgestone Solutions for your

journey, Intrepid Control Systems over the Air engineering boost your game, Borg Warner Propulsion solutions that support a clean, energy efficient world, Scheffler we Pioneer Motion, and by Tajin Automotive Technologies the Formula for Better Mobility see as January ninth through twelve, twenty four and Trepid's looking forward to seeing you at our booth three six sixty six Las Vegas Convention Center in the West Hall. We'll be

demonstrating the latest and greatest in the software defined vehicles and journal architectures, automotive ethernet technologies like ten based two one s in multi gigibbit CUS CS twenty twenty four Las Vegas Convention Center in West Hall, Booth three six sixty six, or visit intrepidcs dot com slash sales at Scheffler we Pioneer Motion Electrifying mobility,

manufacturing smarter, reducing CO two emissions, making energy production clean. Scheffler Pioneer's

Motion to advance how the world moves. Wards is the industry leader for news

data and analysis. That's why companies across the globe subscribe to our premium service.

Maybe even your own log in for subscriber access. Now check your company's

intranet for details and rely on wardsauto dot com to keep you informed.

AD #3697 - Tesla Launches Supercharger Congestion Fee; Toyota Solid State Battery Will Be Low Volume; Pony.ai Tests Platooning on Public Roa

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