AD #4334 - Lucid Denies Bankruptcy Rumors; Range Anxiety Plummets as Batteries Improve; Horse Unveils Methanol EREV

AD #4334 - Lucid Denies Bankruptcy Rumors; Range Anxiety Plummets as Batteries Improve; Horse Unveils Methanol EREV Autoline Daily · Jul 15, 2026

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Company

Alex Partners

Alex Partners is a company that helps other companies when they’re in financial trouble. The hosts mention it because people thought Lucid was heading toward bankruptcy, but Lucid says it hired them to improve its situation.

Term

burn rate

Burn rate is the rate at which a company is spending its cash. If it’s too high, the company can run out of money unless it raises funds or cuts costs.

Term

EV charger deployment

EV charger deployment just means how quickly and how widely charging stations are being installed. More chargers generally makes EV ownership easier because you have more places to recharge.

Company

Walmart

Walmart is a big retailer that’s adding EV charging stations at its locations. The point here is that it’s been installing a lot of chargers recently, even though it’s not the biggest player overall.

Term

station wagon

A station wagon is like a sedan, but with extra space behind the back seats for cargo. It’s a practical family shape that can carry more than a typical trunk.

Car

Chevrolet Volt

The Chevrolet Volt is a car that can run on electricity from a plug-in battery. When the battery gets low, it uses a small gasoline engine to keep the car going by making electricity. It’s mentioned a lot when people talk about how high-voltage electric systems work in real cars.

Term

eight hundred volt architecture

An 800-volt EV system is designed to move more charging power with less current. That can help the car charge faster and work more efficiently at high power levels.

Term

diagnostic trouble codes

Diagnostic trouble codes are like the car’s error messages. When something goes wrong, the car saves a code so technicians can figure out what system needs attention.

Term

non-compliant vehicles

Non-compliant vehicles are cars that don’t meet certain rules or requirements. The hosts are saying the software can flag which cars are out of spec so they can be handled quickly.

Term

EV

EV means electric vehicle. It’s a car that runs on electricity stored in a battery.

Term

range anxiety

Range anxiety is the worry that your electric car won’t have enough battery to get where you’re going. People worry about finding a charger in time.

Term

range extender

A range extender is a backup system in an electric car that helps you go farther. It makes electricity so the battery doesn’t run out as quickly.

Brand

horsepower

Horse is the company behind the system being described. They’re using a methanol engine to help generate electricity for an electric car.

Term

methanol

Methanol is a type of fuel. Here it’s used in a small engine to help make electricity for the electric car.

Term

axial flux (pancake motors)

An axial-flux (pancake) motor is a type of electric motor that’s designed to be flatter and take up less space. That can make it easier to fit into an electric car.

Brand

Mercedes-AMG

Mercedes-AMG is Mercedes’ performance division. They’re mentioned here as using the same kind of compact electric motor in new electric performance cars.

Term

renewable gasoline

Renewable gasoline is a fuel that’s made from renewable sources. The idea is to use it in regular vehicles to cut emissions while keeping things familiar.

Term

pilot program

A pilot program is a trial run. It’s used to collect real-world data before a bigger rollout.

Term

digital fuel tracking technology

Digital fuel tracking technology is a system that records what fuel is used and how it’s performing. It helps researchers collect proof from real-world driving.

Term

data centers

Data centers are buildings full of computers that run online services. The segment says some automakers want to use their battery and cooling know-how for that market.

Term

thermal management

Thermal management is how engineers keep things from overheating. Here it means designing cooling systems that move heat away from electronics.

Brand

VW brand

VW brand means Volkswagen the car brand. They’re saying Volkswagen’s next cheaper electric cars are less likely to be canceled even if the group cuts other models.

Brand

VW Group

VW Group is Volkswagen’s big company umbrella that includes multiple car brands. They’re mentioned as potentially reducing the number of models they sell.

Term

MEB Plus platform

An EV platform is the car’s “building system” for electric parts. MEB plus is Volkswagen’s shared design that lets them make multiple electric models without reinventing everything each time.

Term

WLTP test cycle

WLTP is a standardized testing method used to estimate how far an EV can go on a charge. It’s a useful comparison number, but your real range can be different depending on driving and weather.

Term

kilowatt hours

Kilowatt-hours tell you how big the battery is. A bigger battery usually means you can drive farther before needing to recharge.

Term

electric motor

The electric motor is what actually drives the wheels using electricity from the battery. Here, they’re offering different motor power levels, so the car can be configured for different driving needs.

LIVE

Speaker 1: This is Autoligne Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry. The situation at Lucid is going

from bad to worse. Its stock is down fifty eight

percent this year and down ninety eight percent since the company went public.

Speaker 2: At its peak.

Speaker 1: During EV Mania in November of twenty twenty one, the company was trading at five hundred and fifty two dollars a share. Now it's at four dollars and sixty two cents. Yesterday,

rumors broke that the company would file for bankruptcy after word got out that Lucid hired Alex Partners, which is known for its expertise in bankruptcies. But Alex, which is

a sponsor of Audolne, is also known for its expertise and turning companies around, and Lucid says that's why it hired Alex to get back on its feet, not to file for bankruptcy. Even so, at its current burn rate,

Lucid will run out of cash next year, and that's why we think there could be some pretty drastic action.

Our fourteen hundred dollars estimate for Slade's destination charges was pretty spot on. Inside EV's reports it's fourteen hundred and

fifty dollars, so that means the official starting price for the bare bones or what the company calls the blank slate pickup truck, is twenty six four hundred dollars. But

with over two hundred accessories already available, including a square and fastback suv kit that costs five to seven thousand dollars, most customers will probably modify their vehicle in some way, and some of those customers are on track to take delivery before the end of this year. Tesla still dominates

everyone else in the US when it comes to EV charger deployment, but there's another player moving up the charts fast and it might just surprise you. According to data

from paren, Walmart installed the second most amount of EV e ch chargers in the second quarter, beating out other companies like charge Point and Electrify America. While the retail

giant doesn't even have a one percent share of the overall charging market in the US, in Q four of last year, it wasn't even in the top ten, and in Q one of this year it wasn't ninth, so it's made a big surge in the last few months.

Overall companies added nearly forty four hundred charging ports in the second quarter of this year in the US, down ten percent from last year. About a year after dropping

the last sedan and wagon from its lineup in the US, Volvo is considering bringing them back. Automotive News reports that

the automaker is studying bringing back an electric mid sized sedan and station wagon to the US that could go on sale as soon as twenty twenty eight. The vehicles

are already being developed for Europe, and it won't be difficult for Volvo to adapt them for the US. Both

models will ride on Jil's SPA three platform, which is an eight hundred volt architecture. While they'll be relatively affordable

for Evolvo, priced in the low fifty thousand dollars range, the company doesn't expect them to be big sellers in the US. Sales are estimated at ten thousand vehicles a

year because of the soft EV market.

Speaker 2: AD Intrepid we produce network hardware and software solutions, enabling vehicle manufacturers to innovate and design the next generation of modern mobility. Delivering scalable next generation solutions requires thorough testing

and validation of vehicle platforms. Intrepid's Neovi cloud platform helps

manufacturers quickly identify diagnostic trouble codes and defects by pinpointing which vehicles have specific software versions. This allows them to

isolate non compliant vehicles in real time using analytics, part numbers, DTCs, and organized secure cloud based data. All of these steps

ensure vehicles are cleared for production and ready for the road, Taking your fleet testing into the future of mobility, Intrepid control systems driven by your data.

Speaker 1: Range anxiety used to be one of the top reasons car buyers were reluctant to get an EV. In twenty

twenty three, a mckensey survey found that forty four percent of US consumers said range was an obstacle to switching, but now that's down to eighteen percent. People aren't as

worried about range because most evs are now capable of going more than three hundred miles on a single charge.

The survey found that thirty four percent of consumers cite not being able to charge at home as the top reason not to switch. That's followed by concerns over high

prices at thirty two percent. But despite those more buyers

are open to owning an EV. According to the sure

of A, seventeen percent of consumers planned to buy an EV as their next vehicle, up from just eleven percent and twenty twenty three. At the same time, fewer buyers

say they'll never make the switch. It was thirty four

percent and twenty twenty three, and now thirty percent say they don't want an EV horsepower train, the joint venture between Renaul and Jeeli is launching an interesting.

Speaker 3: New range extender.

Speaker 1: It features a two liter turbocharged four cylinder engine that makes about one hundred and forty horse power, but instead of running on gas or diesel, it runs on methanol to help improve emissions. That engine spins an attached generator,

which would send electricity to the vehicle's battery pack, but instead of using a traditional electric motor, Horse uses an axial flux or pancake motor, which takes up forty six percent less space. Mercedes AMG are using the same type

of motors in their newest electric performance cars. And speaking

of alternative fuels, BMW, Toyota, Bosch and Spanish energy company Repsol formed a partnership to test vehicles running on one hundred percent renewable gasoline in the real world. The six

month pilot program launched in Spain earlier this month with a fleet of twenty BMW and Toyota vehicles. The cars

will run on Repsol's renewable gasoline and Bosch will monitor them with its advanced digital fuel tracking technology. The goal

of a pilot is to provide evidence that running on renewable fuels can be deployed at scale using existing vehicles and infrastructure, and to also provide data to support that renewables can contribute to Europe's effort to reduce CO two emissions in addition to electrification. As automakers and suppliers search

for new areas of business to get into, one thing that caught their eye is data centers. Ford announced it

would pivot part of it its EV battery manufacturing capacity to making batteries for data centers. General Motor says it's

going to do the same thing. When Joe Fidul, the

CEO of Borg Warner, was on Autoline after Hours, he talked about how they're using their expertise and turbochargers to make gas turbine generators for data centers and now Mala the German supplier is using its expertise and thermal management to make cooling units for data centers. Mala says the

cooling unit is about the size of two chocolate bars on top of each other and are installed directly on circuit boards that control electronic switch functions, using a coolant to dissipate heat. Mala is working with Infinion to develop

the coolers and went from concept to working prototypes in only four months. While the VW Group may need to

slash as much as fifty percent of its models, the VW brand's new family of more affordable evs will not be on the chopping block. The all new ID Cross

is now available to order in parts of Europe with a starting price just under twenty eight thousand euros. It

rides on the automaker's new MEB plus platform and is like the suv version of the ID Polo. The front

electric motor comes in three outputs eighty five, ninety nine and one hundred and fifty five kilowatts, and there's two battery sizes thirty seven and fifty five kilowatt hours, the latter of which provides up to four hundred and twenty seven kilometers or about two hundred and sixty five miles of range on the WLTP test cycle. Models with the

big motor and battery start at just over thirty six thousand, five hundred euros, and that brings us to the end of today's show. Thanks for tuning in.

Speaker 3: Auto Line Daily is brought to you by alex Partners When It Really Matters CSP the co pose its solution partner Intrepid Control Systems, over the Air Engineering, Boost your game and thanks to the following YouTube and Patreon members.

Speaker 4: At CSP, we work with OEM engineers across the country on their journeys to lighter, safer, and more eco friendly vehicles.

Learn more at VCSP dot com. We act, we grow,

we transform, We protect, we rescue in moments that define the future.

Speaker 3: We are the partner you can trust alex Partners When it Really Matters

0:00

9:45

Alex Partners

burn rate

EV charger deployment

Walmart

station wagon

Chevrolet Volt

eight hundred volt architecture

diagnostic trouble codes

non-compliant vehicles

EV

range anxiety

range extender

horsepower

methanol

axial flux (pancake motors)

Mercedes-AMG

renewable gasoline

pilot program

digital fuel tracking technology

data centers

thermal management

VW brand

VW Group

MEB Plus platform

WLTP test cycle

kilowatt hours

electric motor

About this episode

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