The BMW M3 is a fast and sporty car that comes from the BMW 3 Series line. It's designed for people who want a car that's fun to drive and can also be used every day.
Battery swapping is when you take out a dead battery from an electric car and replace it with a fully charged one. This helps you get back on the road faster than waiting for a battery to charge.
Electrification means using electricity to power cars instead of gasoline. It's a big change happening in the car industry to make vehicles cleaner and better for the environment.
The BMW M6 is a fancy sports car that is really fast and has a lot of cool features. It's designed for people who love to drive and want a mix of luxury and speed.
Term
soundscape
Soundscape is a term used to describe all the sounds you hear from something. Here, it means the mix of sounds from the electric car and the recorded engine sounds.
Electric motors help cars move by using electricity instead of gas. They can make cars very fast and responsive because they can provide power immediately.
Kilowatt hours tell you how much energy a battery can hold. The more kilowatt hours, the longer the car can drive before needing to recharge.
Term
structural member
A structural member is a part of the car that helps hold it together and makes it strong. Sometimes, batteries are used as part of this structure to save space and weight.
The Dodge Charger is a big car that looks sporty and can go really fast. It's popular because it combines a lot of power with a comfortable interior, making it fun to drive.
The BYD Z9 GT is a new electric car that will be available soon. It's designed to be fast and efficient, making it a part of the growing electric vehicle market.
Term
flash chargers
Flash chargers are special charging stations that can charge electric cars very quickly, so drivers don't have to wait long to get back on the road.
Term
miles of range per second
Miles of range per second tells you how fast an electric car can get more driving distance while it's charging. It's an important number for understanding how quickly you can get back on the road.
Car
Geely Starray EMI
The Geely Starray EMI is a type of car that can use both gasoline and electricity. It's designed to look different from other electric cars made by the same company, Geely.
Volvo is a car brand from Sweden that makes safe and reliable vehicles. They are now focusing on electric and hybrid cars to be more environmentally friendly.
Range anxiety is the worry that an electric car will run out of battery before you can recharge it. It's a common concern for people thinking about buying electric cars.
Term
electric only
Electric only means a car that runs only on electricity and doesn't use gasoline at all. These cars are good for the environment because they don't pollute the air.
Electric vehicles are cars that run on electricity instead of gasoline. They are often better for the environment because they produce no exhaust fumes.
LIVE
Hiya, Kenny the Hamster here, beloved pet of Doug and Carol Brookbank. Now, I've got
to hand it to Doug and Kazza. They're doing school pickups, jobs, trips to the supermarket
and still find time to get healthy. Apparently, it's down to some NHS Healthy Choices quiz.
Only took them five minutes to do, then gave them a simple plan to get started. Total amazeballs!
Take your first little step to healthy. Search NHS Healthy Choices quiz to get a score and
a plan that's right for you. I've never been one for keeping secrets. But that's good news for you.
You see, EMR secret fare tickets bag you a serious bargain on train travel. I mean seriously, save
up to 50%. Simply choose morning, afternoon or evening for the day you want, then we'll pick
the train that'll save you money. It's time to say yes to those last minute plans. Search East
conditions apply. But remember, it's a secret. Hiya, Kenny the Hamster here, proud pet of Doug
and Carol. Hey, oh, looks like my mum carols off out with the girls again. I tell you, since
she took that quick NHS Healthy Choices quiz, she's drinking less but going out more. And
to think, she thought being healthy would mean being boring. You might want to give it a go
Go girlfriend! Take your first little step to healthy. Search NHS Healthy Choices quiz
to get a score and a simple plan to follow. Welcome back to EV news daily. Today Alpine's
bet pays off the electric BMW M3 and it's Tesla shrinking Berlin. Plus stay tuned later in the
show. I'll tell you how battery swapping is going outside of China right here in Europe. No
deep dive into how the East is shaping the global EV landscape returns on Monday. Now Alpine
sold almost 11,000 cars last year. That's not many, but it is up 140% on the previous year. For
the first time, the French mark, the sporty bits of Renault crossed the 10k mark driven by, ah,
your beat meter, the punchline again. It's all thanks to electric vehicles. It always is. The
figures show how a niche sports car badge, which if you know your cars and some people listening
to this podcast will be into EVs, but also general kind of car stuff as well. Alpine,
very well known in a small group of people. Alpine is now being known a bit farther and wider,
thanks to electrification. While large car makers complain about they say it's a soft EV demand,
Alpine couldn't disagree more. The real shift came from the Alpine 290. You know the little
Renault 5? Yeah, Alpine's A290. Huge smiles if you have one of those. The firm's first fully
electric hot hatch launched last year. It accounted for over 8,000 of the units, 75% of their business.
The A290 was car of the year and several other prizes as well. Alpine pushed their sales network
wider. 15 new points of sale opened last year, taking the total to 117. 25 countries as well,
seen a few driving around, seen a few Renault 5s as well. They're super cute.
And a few Alpine A290s. Yep, very envious. They're lovely. Now, BMW's first all electric M3
wants to shout about it. The M3 will be the first battery powered M car and they say it will play
recorded combustion pops and bangs inside the cabin. If you just can't get over the fact
that it's battery powered, engineers have recorded three engines in an anechoic chamber,
a 4.4-litre V8 from an M3 GTS, a 5-litre V10 from the M6, and a twin-turbo 3-litre inline
6 from an M4 GTS. Microphones sat so close that a few revs partly melted the microphone's windscreen.
The roar of a V10 will mix, they say, with the electric drive sounds to form what BMW is creating,
they say a soundscape for the future of electric. Yet the firm hints the drivers will be able to
switch the feature off, which of course they say is a nod to purists. I'm not sure purists is the
right word, because purists sounds sniffy, right? If you're a music purist, you're probably listening
on vinyl in a separate room, the kids aren't allowed in on some speakers that cost more than your car.
A purist does sound rather elitist, doesn't it? I don't know if to enjoy an electric M car from
BMW, you need vroom vroom bang bang, but if you are the kind of person who can't enjoy a car without
some noises, then it's an option, right? It cares, it's an option. The hardware matters more than
the soundtrack. The M3 will use four electric motors, I've mentioned this stats already on the podcast
last week, so that's a motor-pair wheel. It can decouple the front pair if you want to do rear-wheel
drive honing, BMW developing a new battery pack as well, 100 kilowatt hours usable,
related to Neuer-class iX3, so these new 6th gen round cells and engineers plan to bolt the M3's
battery, they say to the front axle, so it doubles as a structural member, stiffening the car and
feeding it as well with some electrons. Prototypes in BMW's recent videos still relied on some earlier
technology, but it'll be fully updated by the time it arrives into market when it does it'll
bring four motors and some interesting sounds as well. Tesla could be shrinking Berlin. Tesla's
German bet might be getting smaller over the past year. Data routes today shows the firm has cut
around 1,700 jobs a gig of Berlin. They reduced the workforce by a significant amount, it was 12,415
and it's now 10,703. That's a 14% drop and this is all to do with the works council elections
and because of that they have to publish how many people are working there. However, Tesla have denied
that there have been any numbers going down, so the plant manager there, Andre Teary, often talks
publicly and says there has been no cuts, so I wonder what accounts for the the reduction Berlin
was going to be the anchor, I guess call it that, of Tesla's European growth and previous claim of
one time it was called unlimited demand in Europe for Tesla's. The factory now has more production
capacity than it could possibly use, so it's shipping cars to Canada and other places. The
job losses there fit a broader pattern. In 2024 Tesla trimmed 10% of its global workforce, sales
have slipped in Europe as Europeans have voted with their wallets in the last 12 months. Sales
have slipped as Chinese EV makers have established presence on the continent, how Tesla executed
the cuts in Berlin, which they deny they have, remains unclear. The 14% drop in headcount could
be direct layoffs, could be voluntary buyouts, we call them redundancies, or temporary contracts
that weren't renewed. We'd like some clarity around this. I have seen people online predicting
that they would start to wind down giga Berlin as demand for Tesla's can be easily met from Shanghai
now and it's cheaper to make the cars there and that the Berlin factory would be sold to perhaps
another car company. That's maybe a little fanciful at this stage, but we'll see.
BYD will install 300 of their ultra rapid charges. When I say ultra, I mean a thousand
kilowatts. Okay, megawatt charging from BYD. We've seen these rolling out. We've seen
in China very fast charging. Tesla's pure V4, so the V4 dispenser and V4 cabinets
have been very slow. There's one site in the US and that's half open. BYD want to put
300 of them in within one year. Wow. The UK's country manager for BYD set out the plan at a
media launch whilst they were launching the BYD C-Line 5. That's the SUV. The rollout marks a new
push by the Chinese group to deepen its presence in Britain as it brings its premium sub-brand
denser here as well. It shows BYD wants to not only shape what we drive but how we charge. The
as they called. Nice. Got a flash new motor. Yeah, got a flash charger as well. Sorry, enjoy.
There will be a denser Z9 GT coming in April in the UK. BYD says the technology will add 250
miles of range in five minutes. I've been talking for almost eight already. The 1.2 miles of range
a second in case you were wondering if it works in real use and a lot depends on
the site and temperatures of your battery and all sorts of things but you know I'd be pretty
happy with whatever speed if it got anywhere near that as well. BYD will expand the flash
chargers beyond the initial 300 sites but only after it studies how drivers are using the new
units. I presume very quickly. Price will be part of the pitch. BYD plans to keep charging costs
reasonable they say as they grow the network. More details on both the denser Z9 GT and their
flash chargers. A due before the April launch BYD's promise of 1.2 miles of range per second
makes clear that at least in Britain the fight for EV buys now runs through the charging bays
as much as the forecourt. That would change the game here. Now let's talk about Ford,
Doug Ford that would be not Ford Motor Company. This has been a sketchy week in Canada so just
the recap. Canada opened its doors again to Chinese EVs. Doug Ford wants Ontarians to shun
Chinese cars before they arrive to officially boycott Chinese cars. That'll be easier said than
done there aren't any really to speak of in Canada but still but still it'll be a moral victory
either way. The province's premier has urged drivers not to buy any Chinese cars as Otto
awaits its own response to a wave of these low-cost models hitting Europe and they're gonna arrive in
America. We know they are. The appeal matters less for today's sales than for tomorrow's market
because Ontario anchors Canada's car industry, hosts most of the assembly plants and is spending
billions to lure battery investment. Mr Ford argues that a flood of low-priced Chinese EVs
would undercut those bets and shift jobs to Asia as the legacy firms are retooling well it's
only 49,000 vehicles a year isn't it and that was what they were doing a couple of years ago
before the tariffs. So hardly a flood hardly a flood. His stance lines up with Washington
which has put tariffs on EVs of 100% from China and with Brussels which has launched an anti-subsidy
probe yet Canada has so far held back no federal tariffs on Chinese EVs of 100% anymore. Chinese
brands have cut the cost in the supply chain from sales to software the cars land in Europe at prices
that undercut the western rivals with badges that nobody knows but the tech on offer is huge and
what's interesting about this next phase of Chinese EVs which is why I started the spin-off
podcast EP News China is because there is a section of the population that goes they're nice
they're cheap and all that which is nice but they're a bit ropey and actually this I think the
story of Chinese cars this year maybe to the end of the decade we'll see as you and I discuss it on
the podcast I think that the emerging storylines are going to be one of quality of standards and
of wanting to lead the conversation and they're lining up the pieces to do that by the way.
Mr. Ford's boycott remains symbolic because there are no Chinese EVs really in Canada
but symbols can move ahead of trade law if Ottawa follows America and Europe with its own curbs.
Today's plea to drivers would just be an opening move in a fight that I think will go on and on.
Geely is on the way we'll talk about them we'll talk about Volvos plug-in hybrids
and Volkswagen they're rolling in cash.
Bish back in a moment after a break.
Take your first little step to healthy.
Search NHS Healthy Choices Quiz to get a score and a simple plan to follow.
Hiya Kenny the hamster here proud pet of Doug and Carol.
Hey up looks like my mum Carol's off out with the girls again.
I tell you since she took that quick NHS Healthy Choices Quiz she's drinking less but going out
more and to think she thought being healthy would mean being boring you might want to give it a go
yourself. Go girlfriend. Take your first little step to healthy.
Search NHS Healthy Choices Quiz to get a score and a simple plan to follow.
Welcome back to the podcast now Geely has shaped their new plug-in hybrid for Britain
the Starray EMI to look nothing like their auto electric siblings the EX5 despite sharing many
parts actually the firm wants clear boundaries between its BEVs and plug-in hybrids and rejects
what this is the Russian doll family look the split now sits at the heart of how car makers
sell EVs the Starray which is a bit of a weird name but we'll get used to it the Starray EMI
shares 60% of its interior with the all-electric EX5 and yet it's got a different front end.
Geely's designers finished the project in three and a half months they say pushing full-scale
clay models and rapid digital iterations through engineering checks the car's nose
does most of the work in terms of the changes Geely closed the grille to cut drag claiming a drag
coefficient of 0.288 not spectacular but good a split headlamp layout aims to sharpen the face
and lowering the glare for oncoming traffic at small but useful thing if you're driving opposite
one of towards one of those the firm insists it's a design with a job to do not just a different
face for the sake of it inside they have tried to balance digital convenience with familiar
controls the cockpit has a 15.4 inch screen a 10.2 inch LCD cluster and a 13.8 inch head-up display
the Starray EMI began as a Chinese car but coming over here to certainly the UK
be very interesting to see whether that's a plug-in hybrid that UK buyers are interested in
talking of that Volvo will not drag its buyers into a battery only future for now many still want
the backup of a fuel tank it wouldn't be for me but I totally understand the logic so the
firm is rolling out next-gen plug-in hybrids the company pitches these cars as a practical answer
to range anxiety and patchy charging I don't experience either but maybe you do um Michael
Flase Volvo's chief strategy and product officer said that the new series of plug-in hybrids will
be electric only of 100 miles that would take them far beyond today's typical plug-in hybrids yet
Volvo wants long-distance flexibility they want a combined driving driving range of up to a thousand
kilometers or 620 miles all in when the battery runs low of course you can just fill it up with some
fossils but the layout sets Volvo's plug-in hybrids apart from many in the industry and I think 100
miles if you're going to go plug-in hybrid over the next 10 years maybe that's what governments
and regulators and the lawmakers should be looking at it's a nice round number isn't it 100 miles 100
miles of range um wouldn't be for me because unless you're leasing a vehicle for two or three years
and then it's somebody else's problem I've had too many old cars with oily bits that cost me money
and this all seems nice now but wait till those plug-in hybrids have got both an aging battery
and an aging engine I just don't I don't understand the logic now it's kind of 10
years ago thinking but there are many people my wife would be one of them if it wasn't for me
she's all up for trying new like electric car stuff um but if it wasn't for me in the household
she'd probably have a plug-in hybrid just because I forgot to charge it so I'll just use the petrol
diesel whereas I don't see a need in them anymore but I respect people that do and Volvo say they'll
now drive them 100 miles on electric only power. Volkswagen's automotive arm managed to generate
6 billion euros of net cash flow in 2025 having earlier told investors to expect
none what a pleasant surprise to find down the back of the sofa the surprise sent its
shares up more than 5% in trading the cash haul matters more than most line items because
net liquidity in the automotive division hit 34 billion euros at the end of the year that's
four billion more than they even forecast themselves they've been selling a lot of electric vehicles
I told you recently the Volkswagen brand is now bigger than Tesla in Europe many years ago they
said they would do that and many people laughed I might have been one of them the laughed I just
got a Herbert D Sierra the old the old boss of Volkswagen when him and Elon Musk had a bit of a
loving uh a bit of a bromance and you know they said at the time well we'll be we'll be bigger than
Tesla at least in Europe I may have mocked slightly because there's no sign at the time that they had
a serious chance of catching up what we believed at the time was Tesla when they said oh we're
do 20 million vehicles a year by the end of the decade well the last two years have been
in decline now for Tesla and they've pivoted away we're not a car company we're robots and
I don't know autonomy and home storage don't don't look at the car business
so that's why it's happened is you know Tesla hasn't grown at the rates that it
it uh it said it would and we all thought they would carry on growing at that pace
and Volkswagen has really smashed it they they started wobbly and they fixed a lot of stuff the
improvement came from tighter working capital management and lower than expected capital
expenditure yet the car division which still anchors VW's business across 10 brands plus
their battery businesses and engineering operations is is a harsh world the group wants to strip out
six billion euros of costs by the end of the decade as it wrestles with lower sales in China
and things being expensive to make here in Europe VW has already agreed to slash out
but at German plants and cut 35 000 jobs in the country by 2030 under a plan struck at the end of
2024 it's also trimmed its rolling five-year investment budget to 160 billion from 180 billion
now here our government have something called the warm homes plan sounds nice this time of year
in our winter 15 billion pounds going to warm homes a new scheme that amounts to an EV
policy by stealth if you ask me the plan will fund solar panels and battery storage and heat pumps
and insulation on paper the aim is to warm our housing stock we have a terrible housing stock
in this country ours are pretty well built compared to some countries we tend to build
solid materials however they're aging and we haven't needed to build them like say the Nordic
countries have a long history of you know needing to build warm homes we get a couple of really cold
months and historically we just sort of fumbled through in this country lighter fire in the lounge
kind of thing whereas the government now say if we can update our housing stock and warm everybody
up it's good for the nation well in practice it changes how britains power their homes and
therefore their cars just as much as their radiators home charging underpins EV economics
i talk about it all the time we rave about fast charging and then we always charge our cars at
home if you can charge your car at home then you absolutely should do obviously it's far far cheaper
cost and convenience though still block buyers i mean there's an electric car grant either a
1500 quid or almost 4 000 pounds as new public ad campaign to go EV 25 percent of cars were EV last
year 33 percent in december alone that's actually funnily enough this year's mandate number letting
households generate and store their own clean power makes EV ownership more attractive and
don't i know it uh since we put 16 panels on the roof and a 10 kilowatt hour battery into this
place we just moved in when we did it and so we knew that we are between two good schools so that's
seven years of schooling and our little girl starts in september so we're here like we were in this
house for a long time well i don't want to move again it's too much hassle i hate paying stamp
duty tax and so we're here right so we over an hour said we also put them on at around the time of
russia's invasion of ukraine and so energy prices went crazy and payback went from like 12 years to
four years so it was an insane time but in the summer when we're generating loads it just all
goes into the car and people notice when your neighbors are doing that and you realize your
neighbors driving for free obviously it's not free but that's kind of the way that you think
about it letting households generate and store their own clean power is a really good idea and so
heat pumps and rooftop solar push households towards smart energy i couldn't wait to rip out the gas
hob that we had here so induction cooking obviously and then the next job is the heat pump and it's
a really hard justification for us with a young family and without a lot of spare money to just
rip out a working gas boiler and that was here when we bought the house would love a heat pump
now there's seven and a half thousand pounds off a heat pump at the minute in this country
i think octopus say the average on top of that is about three grand that will not fly
with mrs lee uh we have heating that works and but when the boiler dies then it'll i don't know
what like 1500 quid two grand for a new gas boiler or three for a heat pump
um you can kind of make the argument can't you but the uk already sells more evs than ever add in
some subsidized generation looking forward to what uh what shape that takes and bit of storage
this is great news for evs although they were never mentioned right finally let's talk about neo
they have clocked 250 000 battery swaps now in europe four years after opening its first station
in norway in january 2022 it took them four years to get 250 000 swaps under their belt the chinese
ev maker still treats europe as a test bed yet its swap data now shows a bit of momentum at home
they run 3 700 swap stations and it's closing in on 100 million chinese swaps they do about 100
thousand a day so it took them four years here will take some two and a half days back at home
europe is tiny in terms of battery swapping the pace is quickening but not enough neo has
begun to retrench it shut its first danish station it's only danish station the first closure in
europe since they launched where the swapping reaches european markets now lies with neo's
local plans which also handle the cheaper firefly sub brand as well neo doubled their european
market presence last year but that was 1300 vehicles so we'll wait and see if battery swapping ever
does work outside of china and that's your podcast for today thanks to national car charging on the
u.s mainland and the loha charge in hawaii and test ev avalos trusted partner for independent ev
battery health testing in australia and new zealand have a good and cinema and remember
there's no such thing as a self-charging hybrid
hiya kenny the hamster here proud pet of doug and carol hey oh looks like my mom carol's off
out with the girls again i tell you since she took that quick nhs healthy choices quiz she's
drinking less but going out more and to think she thought being healthy would mean being boring
you might want to give it a go yourself go girlfriend take your first little step to
healthy search nhs healthy choices quiz to get a score and a simple plan to follow
About this episode
Alpine's sales surged by 140% last year, largely due to the success of their electric A290 model, while BMW reveals plans for an electric M3 that will feature recorded engine sounds to appeal to traditionalists. Meanwhile, Tesla faces challenges in Berlin with a reported 14% workforce reduction, raising questions about demand. The episode also discusses BYD's ambitious charging infrastructure plans in the UK, Volvo's new plug-in hybrids, and the competitive landscape for EVs as Chinese brands gain traction in Europe.
