AD #3781 - EV Sales Nosedive in EU; World's Fastest Charging EV; VW Tech Scares Kangaroos Away from Cars
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This is ut Aline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts the global automotive industry.
China has the world's fastest charging ev The refreshed version of the Zeker double oh one was able to add two hundred and sixty four kilometers or one hundred and sixty four miles of range in just five minutes, topping out at a peak charging rate of five hundred and forty six kilowatts. That's a little bit
faster than the Leatto Megavan, which is able to charge add up to five hundred and twenty one kilowatts, but it must have been able to maintain that rate for longer because the Megavan charged faster from ten to eighty percent. It
did it in just over ten minutes and thirty seconds, which is about a minute faster than the double oh one. Zeker, which is part of Ji,
went with the CTL shien Zing ninety five kilowat hour battery pack that features temperature control technology to allow it to charge that fast, But both the Zeker and the Liatto require new ultra fast charging stations to achieve those times. In
the case of Liatto, it's building out its own network with chargers up to four hundred and eighty kilowats, not like the five hundred and twenty plus kilowatts it achieved in its recent test. And Zeker is also building out its own
network, which will eventually include chargers capable of six hundred kilowats, but its current units peak out at three hundred and sixty, so it's going to take a while to spread. But it is interesting to see charging times getting closer
and closer to how long it takes to fill up a tank of gas, and I suspect for most people one hundred and sixty four miles and five minutes would be more than enough. Sales of electric cars took a nosedive in Europe
in the first quarter of the year. Automakers sold a bit over two hundred
and forty six thousand beeves, which was nearly seventy three thousand fewer than last year, a drop of almost twenty three percent. The Volkswagon group saw the
largest decline, down forty three percent, whilst Lantis was down forty percent and Tesla saw its sales drop twenty nine percent. This data comes from euev dot
com, a website that tracks vehicle registrations in Europe and serves as an indicator of how sales are going. Unlike the US market, which is seeing a
slowdown in the growth of electric cars, Europe is experiencing and outright drop in sales. European car buyers are turning away because of high EV prices and seem
to be waiting for lower price models, and this will be particularly alarming for European automakers because the rest of the car market is showing signs of recovery, so EV sales are going against market trends. Meanwhile, in China, it's
a different story. After a slow start to the year, sales of electrics
took off in March, though all the data has yet to come in.
Bloomberg reports that sales of new energy vehicles, which includes beevs and phs, we're up thirty three percent to eight hundred and twenty thousand units. But here's
a word of warning on the EV market in China. Of the one hundred
and twenty nine different brand selling electric cars, one hundred and nine of them have less than one percent market share, which almost certainly suggests that they're losing money. We're also waiting for all the automakers in the US market to report
their first quarter sales, but it looks like the market is growing. Analysts
expect the SAR or seasonally adjusted annual rate to come in around fifteen point eight million vehicles, up from fourteen point nine million a year ago. They'refore casting
Q one sales at three point eight million vehicles, up six percent from last year, but down three percent from the fourth quarter. Growing levels of inventory
along with more incentives is what they think is helping to move the metal.
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testing, Intrepid control Systems is here to help you work from anywhere. Intrepid
control systems driven by your data. Toyota is cutting down some of the silos
that typically help prop up legacy automakers. It finally completed its new R and
D and technical center in Japan that it started working on in twenty eighteen.
The vehicle development building has been built to feel and look like the pits at the Nurburgring, so members from all functions including planning and design, development and engineering, and prototyping and evaluation can gather in one place in develop cars together, along with other new technologies and two specialized test tracks, Toyota thinks this will help it make better cars. Noe, this isn't a la April fool's
joke. Hondai is calling off an aluminium deal due to a campaign from K
pop fans that were concerned about the environmental impact from producing the metal. In
twenty twenty two, Honday signed a deal with Indonesia's Adro Minerals to supply it with aluminum, but a climate activist group backed by K pop fans launched a campaign to end the deal because they're concerned about the amount of carbon emissions created from smelting aluminum with coal power. Obviously, Hondai cave to the pressure and
called it off. Speaking of Hundai, its Robotaxi is good enough that it
could get a US driver's license. The automaker showed it's autonomous Ionic five undergoing
a road test in Las Vegas from a certified DMV driving examiner, and of course, it passed with flying colors. Hondai says the av was subjected to
the same maneuvers required for a human being to get a US driver's license.
Motional, which is the name of the avy joint venture of the Hyundai Group and the technology company Active, currently operates a fleet of autonomous ionic fives in Las Vegas, and this video is all about generating more trust with its vehicles.
Traffic deaths in the US declined last year, but there's still above pre pandemic levels. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, for nine hund
ninety people were killed in car crashes last year, down from over forty two thy five hundred and twenty twenty two, or a three point six percent drop.
It's the second straight year that traffic deaths have dropped in the US.
They surged during COVID lockdowns because with less cars on the road, more drivers were speeding and driving under the influence. And while traffic deaths are falling,
Knitsa said in a separate report that pedestrian and cyclist fatalities are on the rise.
In twenty twenty two, pedestrian deaths increase point zero seven percent to seven thousand, five hundred and twenty two, the most since nineteen eighty one, and one thousand, one hundred and five cyclists were killed in twenty twenty two, a thirteen percent increase and the most since at least nineteen eighty. Liberty
Media is adding another trophy to its portfolio Liberty, which owns the commercial rights to Formula one, announced that it's acquiring Dorna Or, the company that owns the MotoGP motorcycle racing series. The deal, valued at four and a half
billion dollars, is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
Liberty bought F one in twenty seventeen and since then the sport is exploded in popularity, and no doubt Liberty is hoping to duplicate that success with MotoGP, though it doesn't get a lot of attention. Car accidents with deer are a
big problem and the numbers are staggering. In Europe, about three hundred people
are killed in accidents with d every year and ten thousand are injured. In
the US, deer hits cause two hundred human fatalities in ten thousand injuries.
In Australia they have a similar problem, but with kangaroos, which have about the same height, headsize and ears as a deer, and they kind of look the same too. So Volkswagen of Australias trying to develop an electronic sound
generator integrated right into the VW logo on the front of a car to scare kangaroos away from the road. They call it the Ru Badge. Working with
the University of Melbourne. It uses an app and GPS data to turn on
when a car drives into an area with a lot of kangaroos. The Roo
Badge amids sounds similar to animals that prey on kangaroos, like dingoes, as well as warning cries from birds and the thumps that kangaroos make with their hind legs to warrn other kangaroos. The sound projects as a high focus beam out
in front of the car, and when the sound hits a kangaroo, it warns them of approaching danger. The Rue Badge is still being tested, but
VW hopes it will apply to deer and other animals. And by the way,
we want to thank our viewer Robert scaberis sorry if I mispronounced your name, but we want to thank you for bringing this to our attention. We
have a very engaged group of viewers in Australia, so good on you, mates. And if you happen to see something that you think would be good
on Autoline Daily, please send it our way. But that brings us to
the end of today's show. Thanks for tuning in Autoline. Daily is brought
to you by Bridgetone Solutions for your journey and by Intrepid Control Systems over the air engineering boost your game, keeping your heart racing in and out of the gym, that's what really matters. Bridgetone pretends to sport as tires with a
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