DAILY: California Incentives, Germany Makes More EVs and Ford Overtakes Tesla In UK | 06 Feb 2026

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Welcome back to EV News Daily.

Today, California's got some new incentives,

Germany makes more EVs and Ford overtakes Tesla in the UK.

Plus, stay tuned because later in the show, I'll tell you why

the industry risks leaving women behind in the switch to EV.

Let's kick off, California has committed $200 million to zero emission vehicle rebates.

After Washington scrapped the federal tax credits on the 30th of September last year,

Governor Newsom's program includes an unusual twist.

Automakers must match the state incentives, dollar for dollar,

at point of sale, doubling the support to buyers.

The program covers new and used, light-duty EVs,

though only for first-time buyers.

Used cars qualify for purchase, but not leasing used cars.

A distinction that will shape how dealers structure the offer.

The California Air Resources Board, CARB, will manage the grant agreements

with the manufacturers and disperse the funds through the dealerships,

placing the administrative burden on Sacramento, not the buyers.

Price caps mirror those for the Inflation Reduction Act.

So $55,000 new passenger vehicles, $80,000 new vans, SUVs and new pickups.

$25,000, the price of a used EV is the cap.

All vehicles must be registered to a Californian resident.

The Air Resources Board plans a spring workshop to gather input

before finalizing the details, suggesting the program is a work in progress.

I know behind the scenes I've talked to two people about this.

It's very much a work in progress, but either the dealers

or the car makers themselves chipping in

and I didn't think it was going to be a dollar-for-dollar carmaker match.

I'm delighted to see that. Everyone's got skin in the game.

The federal one big, beautiful bill.

In an eliminated EV tax credits of $7,500 for new cars and four grand for used ones,

Newsom's advisors described the move as a reckless retreat from climate policy.

The Environmental Defense Fund has applauded California's response.

Though the applause may be premature, dealers support the initiative tentatively

but have questioned whether $200 million suffices for a market

that sells hundreds of thousands of EVs.

The mathematics are not encouraging.

If the average rebate is $5,000 and automakers match it,

well, then the fund would support 20,000 new vehicles.

California now has 2.5 million zero emission vehicles on the road.

There's a 300% increase in the last six years.

The momentum persists despite federal policy moving,

but momentum doesn't fund rebates.

I get the feeling that they've put as much money into this

as they can get away with for now.

And perhaps more funding would be forthcoming

if they can show that it works, that it cleans up the air,

that it's a popular thing.

So hopefully they've started small

because 20,000 cars in the grand scheme of California is a drop in the ocean.

Let's go to Germany.

Germany made 4.15 million cars last year,

of which 1.22 million were pure BEVs running solely on batteries

and 450,000 plug-in hybrid powertrains.

Electrified models, if you include plug sockets on the side,

were 40% of Germany's output,

a threshold that quietly ends a century-long rule of petrol engines.

Well, manufacturers are building a lot of these vehicles for export.

China and Europe demand zero exhaust emission models,

and the regulations in many markets around the world

punish anything that burns fuel.

Most new platforms now accommodate some form

of pure electric drivetrain.

Battery plants occupy sites where engine facilities wants to.

Investment flows from pistons to power electronics.

Materials like lithium, cobalt, silicon

are now the largest share of vehicle value

as cell production expands.

Germany actually ranks second worldwide for EV production.

That shouldn't be a surprise.

I guess if you think about that with your logical brain,

obviously China is going to be number one.

China made 16.5 million new energy vehicles last year.

That's their NEVs is what they call plugs on the side.

So that includes hydrogen, but they don't sell any of those.

So that's either pure BEVs, which is the majority

or plug-in hybrids and E-refs.

The United States is trailing Germany.

The VDA projects 6% growth this year.

So it should be 1.76 million plug-able vehicles

in Germany produced.

Manufacturing spreads beyond the German borders.

BMW, for instance, when they're making the new I-X3 in Hungary,

the new I-3, the new I-3, not the old one,

but the new one on Neue Classic.

That'll be made in Germany, but I-X3, Hungary.

Mercedes operates assembly lines in Europe

elsewhere outside of Germany.

And this approach where you distribute your production

strengthens the entire continent's position

in electrified transport.

Domestic demand, though, is lagging the actual production.

Charging infrastructure can be patchy

outside of major cities in Germany, but it's not terrible.

And the VDA president, Hildegard Müller,

calls the expanded charging networks important,

grid upgrades important, secure battery supply,

chains important as well.

Let's talk about Ford.

And let's go to the UK next, where there,

Ford have taken Britain's battery-electric crown in January,

doubling their year-on-year sales

and actually beating Tesla.

The American automaker has timed its push

to coincide with government incentives.

We have a mandate in the UK.

And so Ford have been one of the more outspoken ones,

saying they don't believe in mandates and hard limits.

But over the last two years, had it for two years now,

we're into year three, no car maker

has paid a fine to the government

for missing their amount.

So they've all complained about it

and some of them have missed their target

and they've had to do some emissions credit trading

with other car makers, the poll stars of the world,

that only make purebevs.

But no one's paid a government fine

for missing the percentage.

But boy, did they complain about it two years ago.

And boy, did they complain about it a year ago.

And boy, are they complaining about it now.

Go, we can never hit the 2026 targets.

My prediction, they'll get to the end of the year.

No one will pay fines.

Now look, it's inconvenient, margins are squeezed,

they're doing discounting to shift EVs

and it is inconvenient for them.

It also helps Ford that Tesla collapsed here.

Now the UK's been a really strong market.

So careful with the monthly numbers

because they do go up and down for Tesla.

But Tesla in the UK generally has had a tough time of it.

And so Ford's Puma Gen E,

that's the 20 sort of mid-20s one.

The Ford Puma is the most popular car they sell here.

But the Ford Puma electric version

does get the full government grant

of almost 4,000 pounds off of it.

Britain registered 30,000 purebevs last month in January,

matching the prior year.

Market share was 21%.

December, of course, was, well, we were 33% in December

as people were kind of just getting stock out the door

to hit the target.

The Model 3, Model Y are facing big pressure in the UK

because we have Chinese cars here as well.

We haven't got tariffs

and we didn't follow the European Union.

And so Tesla are doing some stuff with trade-in.

I'm on their mailing list.

So I'm getting stuff saying,

hey, get a Tesla trade-in your old car.

We'll pay you more than other ones like, you know,

we buy any car or the platforms

and that you can put your registration in

and they just give you an instant price

that's kind of guaranteed.

And Tesla emailing and saying,

hey, we'll beat that.

What is it?

We'll beat it.

And so they're doing some stuff

to get cars, new cars sold in the UK,

but certainly struggling.

Now, Ioniq 3 spy shots,

I can tell you more about these.

Hyundai's next big mass market EV.

Hyundai's Ioniq 3 has shed some more of its camouflage

in the Arctic Circle, the electric hatchback

caught testing weeks before its debut,

which should be March or April.

It's coming up.

Marks the Korean brand's first attempt

to build a compact EV

without the compromises of it also being a petrol car.

The Ioniq 3 borrows proportions of its largest sibling,

the five short overhangs.

A wheelbase of the Ioniq 5 3 meters

is shrunk by almost 12 inches.

So it's a 2.7 meter,

sort of 30 centimeter loss wheelbase on the Ioniq 3.

But again, they're doing that thing

where they put the wheels out as far as possible.

Same with the cabin space.

You never, like the Ioniq 5,

didn't have a cavernous boot or frunk,

but a big, big cabin space.

They stole the space from that.

So maybe the Ioniq 3 will look like it does the same.

Engineers are removed much of the wrapping

from the nose and the tail,

revealing the production-ready lights

and the panels beneath.

Arctic testing serves a purpose

beyond us having a look at it with the spy photos,

sub-zero temperatures, stress batteries,

power electronics, heat pump, all those kind of things.

Frozen surfaces give the engineers

loads of feedback on brake blending,

stability software,

long before production gets signed off.

Thermal management gets a lot of validation too.

Ioniq 3 uses the 400 volt version of EGMP architecture

rather than 800 volts.

That's absolutely fine

as long as the cost is reflective of that.

And generally with Kia and Hyundai, it is.

And so expected 300 miles or 480 kilometers

of range on the big battery version.

And this model represents Hyundai's purse

into profitable compact EV territory.

A dedicated EV platform engineered for efficiency,

delivering better economics,

no retrofitting combustion models this time,

unlike Kia Nero's and Hyundai Kona's,

enabling more competitive pricing.

And hopefully that translates into volume sales as well.

All right, we'll take a break.

And when we come back,

we're gonna talk Neo, Firefly in a moment.

And Stellantis and a problem with Peugeot

and some bottlenecks.

I'll tell you about those in a second.

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Welcome back to the podcast.

NEO's begun testing a UK registered

right-hand drive Firefly on British roads.

Ahead of its official launch,

the compact electric vehicle marks

the Chinese brand's entry to the mass market,

abandoning its current focus

on larger premium models from NEO.

The four-meter-long Firefly has

a relatively small battery, 41 kilowatt hours.

That's 205 miles or 330 kilometers

of range on WLTP at least.

That 41 kilowatt hour pack,

same as I had in my last Zoe that we owned many years ago.

But honestly, for a second car,

and heck, I took that thing on some really long journeys.

That Zoe was AC charging.

I took one for the team,

and I took that on some road trips.

I didn't have the DC charging Zoe,

so I was stopping for some serious lunch breaks

and stuff like that when I took it up the motorways

and some long distance road trips.

But 41 kilowatt hour pack,

now with faster DC charging,

also as a second car possibly.

It's all about use case.

It competes with things like Volkswagen's ID3,

MG4, Mini Cooper.

The rear-wheel drive hatchback from Firefly

is available with NEO's battery swapping technology,

but I don't think that really applies here in the UK.

Whether we end up with a bunch of battery swap stations,

it's not gonna happen.

NEO haven't got unlimited money.

And it's very expensive to build them.

Right-hand drive model production began in Singapore

in November.

That's where our cars will come from.

So NEO are in Europe with direct sales,

online channels, their so-called brand houses,

a lot of battery swapping on mainland Europe,

and Firefly bolsters their representation

in Britain's EV market,

along with the other big Chinese names like MG and BYD.

This testing phase will reveal some more

about how NEO wants to crack

one of the big European right-hand drive markets here,

where of course there are no tariffs

regardless of whether the cars are made in Singapore or not.

Leap Motor is becoming the first Chinese EV startup

with big sales in Europe.

So European sales at scale

by doing a deal with a Western partner.

All thanks to that deal with Stellantis.

So technically, if you buy a Leap Motor over here,

you're buying it from Leap Motor International.

That's a 51, 49 joint venture.

Stellantis is the bigger partner,

therefore not a Chinese company.

The company actually sold 67,500 vehicles in January last month.

Its joint venture with Stellantis internationally

only shifted 3,176 though,

but that's still up in what they've been selling.

Europe had about 2,600 of them,

about 300 in France, about 215 in Belgium,

Netherlands did okay,

driven by the little city car, the T03,

and their big SUV, the C10.

There is also a B10 as well.

Now, the C10 is built in Poland.

Still, they moved, I think in Serbia.

I think that because Poland voted for the Chinese tariffs

with the European Union, it got political,

they had to, you know, Beijing strongly suggested

that they weren't making cars in Poland anymore.

And because of the wonderful way that all this works,

then they stopped.

I think they moved some production to Serbia

and the C10 is the big SUV.

70 kilowatt hour pack, 300 miles of WLTP range,

140 kilowatt DC fast charging peak

as a range extender version of it as well.

That has a 30 kilowatt hour pack in

and the engine is just a generator

and it does vehicle to load that one as well I think.

So the little T03, that starts at,

well officially, something like 19,000 euros,

about 21,000 US dollars equivalent,

but get one that's either pre-reg

or sitting on a lot for a while

and you're gonna get one for 12 or 13 grand

for a brand new car.

It's a small city car, obviously,

but again, second car might be all you need.

Stellantis, while we're talking about them,

experiencing delivery delays of up to eight months

for their electric E3008 and E5008.

Because of battery supply,

automotive sales company, ACC,

have got some production challenges.

They're a front-joined venture backed by Stellantis

making the long range battery packs

for those long range versions.

The E5008 with the big battery pack

is one of the most compelling three row,

long range, 100 kilowatt hour cars

out there that we get at least over here.

Now, European automakers are trying to accelerate

their electric crossover launches.

Everyone's meeting different mandates

or emission standards.

So this is an ideal for them.

These growing pains reflect the essential work

happening in Europe with domestic battery manufacturing

and how it's not always smooth.

Stellantis, which of course is Jeep, Fiat, Chrysler, Peugeot

nor ACC have given any more guidance or comments on this.

This is a Reuters and Bloomberg report I'm reading here.

The delays follow Stellantis' January decision

to discontinue plug-in hybrid versions

of the Jeep Wrangler, the Grand Cherokee

and Chrysler Pacifica in the United States.

They claim weak demand.

Okay, let's talk about another new launch in Europe.

That'll be Cherry bringing their Lepus or Lepas brand.

This is the fourth brand they're gonna launch in the UK

as well following the actual Cherry brand,

Omoda and JQ.

They say Lepus stands for Leopard and Passion

which, all right, we'll go with it.

It's tenuous, but that's what the press release says.

So for some reason, if you ever wanted

to join Lepus and Passion together,

you could go by yourself a Lepus car.

I don't know, a name is a name is a name.

Ultimately, does a name really matter?

I don't think it's a great name.

It sounds, it does sound a little bit like Lepus,

but fine, you know, maybe other people's brains

don't work like mine.

So the timing reflects Cherry's rapid UK expansion.

They've been doing good business by the way

with JQ and Omoda.

Lepus, can't get my head around that.

I will do, Lepus, I don't know how to say it,

will introduce crossover models,

L4 and L6, multiple powertrain models.

Look, their platform is 800 volt.

They have 82 kilowatt hour battery packs.

So that is adding, you know,

a couple of hundred kilometers in 10 minutes time.

So really fast charging, the vehicles are nice.

And so, again, it's just whether British buyers

can get their head around new names,

new badges, new service centers,

dealerships and things like that.

And finally, this is a really important story

that it doesn't really get talked about,

but I can see it in my download figures

and there's definitely a bias towards

male listeners for the YouTube channels that I work on

because then I can see the stats in the background

and whatnot and there are more guys

tuning into electric vehicle content

whether it's podcasts or videos

and women buy half of all cars.

So they only buy 28% of new EVs though.

So half of all new cars in this country

are bought by women.

A third of them though,

only by electric vehicle purchases,

31% used EV purchases according to auto trader research.

The electric vehicles equality initiative

backed by auto trader warns that this disparity

has the potential to derail the move to going EV.

Prices are a barrier, 87% of women cite cost concerns

compared to 78% of men.

Well, that's often because at least with,

I'm being slightly cliche about this,

with men when we want a new toy,

we tend to go and get it.

Women are smarter, let's put it that way

because if it doesn't make sense financially,

they're not going to do it as much as,

I'm just again being very, very painting

with broad brushstrokes here,

just the people that I know in my own personality.

If you really want a new toy,

you're more likely to go ahead with it

even if the numbers aren't making perfect sense.

Again, more households have finances

where women control the discretionary spending

in households as well.

So if you look at the big purchasing decisions,

that's also a factor too.

Marketing amplifies the divide

by prioritizing things like performance specifications.

We talk about a new EV, how big's the battery?

How fast does it go?

And those kind of things can sometimes appeal

to male audiences more.

Women instead want a full breadth of information

according to this report.

They want to know all the information,

things like total cost of ownership,

any reliability issues, ease of use, real world range,

not just chasing official WLTP numbers.

They want the full gamut of information,

not just some of the performance things

or technical things.

The campaign calls on car makers, dealers

and charge point operators to redesign

some of their external comms, communications

around how they talk to various audiences

and to properly address women's priorities

and increase female representation

either in product development or how the cars are shown.

Bridging this gender gap presents a significant opportunity

to accelerate EV adoption

and strengthen Britain's transition

to zero emission transport.

From a sample size of one,

which is myself and my wife,

and so ignore this completely,

but it's a sample size of one.

If I'm watching something that I like on YouTube,

say a Doug Demuro review,

where he's quite a unique character,

let's say a kind of an exuberant over-the-top car reviewer,

she might walk into the room and go,

well, what's this you're watching?

Okay, but it's just car content

and she's sometimes a bit of a barrier up there.

If I'm watching something from electrifying.com

that has, I think probably a ratio

of maybe four to one of female presenters

to male presenters

and certainly the electrifying channel set up

and run by a well-known automotive journalist,

Ginny Buckley over here,

who's very experienced

and very well-known within the industry,

but then bringing in people

to present the videos as well in partnership.

Really great female presenters on that channel.

If I'm watching one of those, my wife comes in.

She's like, oh, this looks like a cool car.

Like, oh, and she'll really engage with that.

I've noticed it depends

on what I've got on the TV at the time.

And so, yeah, all these things are really important

to ensure that women are properly represented

in this move to EV

because there's no denying

that when you look at the raw data appealing to men,

in fact, male buyers are, at the moment,

outweighing female buyers.

That's your podcast for today.

Thanks to our premium partners,

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Have a good and see you tomorrow.

And remember, there's no such thing

as a self-charging hybrid.

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DAILY: California Incentives, Germany Makes More EVs and Ford Overtakes Tesla In UK | 06 Feb 2026

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