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00:15
$50 every paycheck.
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Or let the app automatically move small amounts of cash when you can afford it.
00:21
In a week, you'll forget you set it up.
00:23
In a month, you'll see real dollars piling up.
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In a year, you'll be shocked at how much money you've saved.
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Upload an internet or phone bill and let rocket money try to lower it.
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You only pay if they find you savings.
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On average, rocket money members can save up to $740 a year
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when using all of the app's premium features.
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Users love the app with over 186,000 five-star ratings.
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$50 every paycheck or let the app automatically move small amounts of cash when you can afford it.
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In a week, you'll forget you set it up.
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In a month, you'll see real dollars piling up.
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Upload an internet or phone bill and let Rocketmoney try to lower it.
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You only pay if they find you savings.
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Users love the app with over 186,000 five-star ratings.
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02:59
Welcome back to EV News Daily.
03:01
Today, Ford's UEV platform, France's Bev Sales Jump
03:06
and the Ferrari Luce gets closer.
03:08
Plus, they tuned later in the show.
03:11
Personal safety shapes how many women use public EV charging.
03:17
Over on EV News China today, we're talking about BYD and Geely
03:21
fighting over a Mexico plant.
03:22
China cutting tariffs and solid state battery factories.
03:26
Now, let's get into this big news, big video released by Ford
03:31
setting out their UEV platform.
03:33
This is how Ford says as an established car maker,
03:37
they will fight off the Chinese innovation, the competition,
03:40
how they'll make a profit on a $30,000 pickup electric truck.
03:45
Ford's unveiled what it calls the universal EV platform,
03:48
UEV, and CEO Jim Farley isn't being subtle about the ambition.
03:52
He described it as one of the most audacious and important projects
03:56
in Ford's history and took a pointed swipe at rivals,
03:59
saying Ford is done watching the competition take good college
04:04
tries at affordable EVs.
04:06
The first vehicle built on the platform will be a midsize
04:10
electric pickup truck.
04:11
Don't call it an electric maverick, whatever you do.
04:13
Plan for 2027 and targeting a price starting at $30,000.
04:19
And there's obviously caveats in that, even though they've
04:21
not said this, there's probably going
04:22
to be a range of battery sizes.
04:24
Obviously, that's the smallest one.
04:26
There'll be a range of trims.
04:28
Ford says it'll be made at the Louisville Assembly
04:31
Aerodynamics sit at the heart of Ford's pitch.
04:34
The company says it's recruited more than half
04:36
of its aero team from the world of Formula One
04:39
and claims the new truck is 15% more aerodynamically
04:43
efficient than the nearest pickup on the market.
04:48
Again, nobody mentioned the maverick.
04:50
Ford argues that if you apply that advantage
04:52
against the slipperist, that's a word,
04:56
midsize petrol truck in the US, you'd
04:59
get 50 miles more range.
05:02
At highway speeds where aero drag dominates,
05:06
the gain is up to 30%.
05:08
The design team ran internal bounties,
05:12
which I love to chase every marginal improvement.
05:16
The roofline uses a teardrop profile
05:18
to create what Ford calls a virtual surface for air
05:23
to flow over, while the underbody work includes bolts that
05:27
sit flush with the floor and channels that direct air
05:30
flow around the tires and suspension.
05:32
Ford even says it's hidden the rear wheel treatment alone
05:38
worth 4.5 extra miles of range.
05:42
And OK, 4.5 miles of range doesn't sound a lot.
05:45
But if you're hiding the rear wheel treatment,
05:48
whatever that means, plus hiding the bolts,
05:51
plus working on slippery surfaces, that stacks, doesn't it?
05:54
On cost and weight, Ford points to the battery pack
05:57
as the central problem to solve.
05:59
That's 40% of vehicle cost and 25% of weight.
06:03
Ford's answer is to become the first US automaker
06:06
to manufacture a prismatic LFP, lithium iron phosphate.
06:11
That's the type of chemistry.
06:14
And they'll make it domestically in America.
06:16
LFP is cheaper than nickel-based alternatives
06:18
and the prismatic cell format compared
06:21
to either cylindricals, probably famously with Tesla,
06:24
or pouch cells, unlocks cost savings and frees up space.
06:28
Ford claims the resulting truck will have a lower total cost
06:32
of ownership than a Tesla Model Y and more interior space
06:35
than a Toyota RAV4.
06:37
Manufacturing simplification rounds out the story.
06:40
Ford says it will use large-scale unicasting,
06:44
the same principle that's been used in other industries.
06:48
Tesla kind of popularized it by buying in those giga presses
06:52
to dramatically cut the complexity of the body structure.
06:55
In fact, many of the people working on this are ex-Tesla.
06:59
It's gonna have a 48 volts low-voltage system,
07:02
so getting rid of the old 12-volt battery
07:04
that's been around about 1,000 years.
07:06
Again, many of the things under the surface,
07:08
people are saying it's like a mini-cybertruck,
07:11
but styled like a conventional vehicle.
07:14
The current Maverick has 146 separate body parts.
07:19
The UEV will have two.
07:22
That kind of parts reduction is the most consequential detail
07:25
in this whole announcement,
07:26
because it's the lever that makes $30,000 achievable,
07:30
even with a small battery stripped down.
07:32
That's all fine, I don't mind that,
07:33
because as long as they offer a bigger battery,
07:35
maybe this is gonna be for the 45 or 50 kilowatt-hour pack.
07:38
Maybe there's a 75 or 80 kilowatt-hour pack.
07:42
That's 80 kilowatt-hours for $45,000.
07:47
Just give me the option when I can't buy this truck,
07:49
but give buyers the option.
07:51
You have the hard work now.
07:53
It's turning a bold platform concept
07:55
into production reality in the next 18 months
07:58
and filling in the gaps that Ford hasn't told us about.
08:02
EPA range, obviously it's not EPA yet,
08:04
but what's the target range?
08:06
What is the battery capacity?
08:07
I'm speculating at 50 and 75.
08:10
What's the towing rating?
08:13
What's the charging performance?
08:15
400-volt platform, we know that.
08:18
So it won't be the quickest charging vehicle,
08:21
all about keeping the cost down.
08:24
This is interesting.
08:24
First of many vehicles on that platform.
08:26
All right, let's move on.
08:28
France registered last month in January,
08:36
That's up 50% year on year.
08:38
Pure EVs had a 25.3% share of the new car market
08:44
in the private passenger car segment.
08:50
because that 25 share was all new registrations.
08:52
And so private buyers accounting
08:55
for about half of registrations
08:57
alongside businesses, about 50-50 split.
08:59
Much of the growth ties to France's social leasing scheme,
09:05
the leasing social Devoiture Electronique,
09:09
which targets low-income earners with monthly rates
09:12
from 95 euros a month to lease the car.
09:16
No down payment and subsidies up to 7,000 euros per vehicle.
09:21
Look in the first round of this scheme,
09:23
it was 13,000 euros per vehicle.
09:27
Now there's a second round approved of 50,000 vehicles.
09:31
And across both rounds,
09:32
that means 100,000 low-income earners can get EV.
09:35
French brands are dominating the scheme.
09:38
The top seven bev models, led by the Renault 5 Renault,
09:43
Scenic Peugeot 208.
09:46
Also in the top 10, Volkswagen and the Scotta LROC.
09:49
France also registered just over 5,000
09:52
plug-in hybrids in January.
09:54
So clearly a long way behind pure bevs.
09:59
Now Ferrari's first electric car,
10:01
the Luce gets, I mean, I could just say Luce, couldn't I?
10:05
But I feel like I should Italian it up a little bit.
10:08
Ferrari's first Italian car, the Luce,
10:10
gets its full public reveal in May.
10:14
We now have a date, it's gonna be at Marinello,
10:17
the four-door, four-seat GT, 1,000 horsepower,
10:20
four motor powertrain, and a battery,
10:22
which Ferrari says is gonna be huge.
10:24
I'm not sure what Italian is for huge.
10:27
I could have looked it up, couldn't I,
10:28
on Duolingo a moment ago.
10:29
It's ride heights, it's close to the Puro Sangue, though.
10:33
Heavily camouflaged test versions
10:35
are seen on public roads already.
10:36
Now, who's involved with what it will look like
10:41
if you're a fan of the Apple iPhone
10:44
or even the Apple ecosystem aesthetic?
10:47
You may be interested to know that Johnny Ive,
10:50
the former Apple design chief,
10:53
has been leading the design
10:55
inside and out of the new Ferrari.
10:57
I find that a fascinating piece of information.
11:00
Cabin and body were developed simultaneously.
11:03
Mr. Ive says working with no disconnection
11:07
with cabin and body between them makes the Luce
11:10
a cohesive and singular product,
11:13
unlike the typical approach of car building.
11:15
Piero Ferrari backed the push towards purity
11:18
and simplicity, not designed by committee.
11:21
The designers frame the Luce as still clearly a Ferrari,
11:25
but with a different manifestation.
11:28
I'm fascinated to see it.
11:29
I can't wait to see what they come with
11:32
because does Ferrari need to go EV?
11:36
Ferrari, Lamborghini, Bugatti,
11:37
do they need to go EV?
11:41
And we don't need to worry about those cars, by the way.
11:43
As long as 99% of car journeys are done with electrons
11:49
and our deliveries are done that way
11:51
and hopefully our trains are powered that way
11:54
and we take out the bin lorries that are, you know,
11:58
when an un-diesel, if somebody wants to go spend half a million.
12:01
And by the way, we think starting price half a million
12:04
and you've probably got to have a bunch of Ferraris
12:05
in your garage to even get a call, to even buy one.
12:09
It's the way Ferrari works, you see.
12:11
We don't need to worry about that.
12:14
Not really causing a lot of damage to the planet.
12:16
However, I love the fact they're doing it.
12:18
Now, the European Union is floating a new class
12:21
of cheap city EVs, technically called the M1E class.
12:25
And that's for cars up to 4.2 meters long.
12:27
I've talked a bit about this recently.
12:29
Might even make a special program about it at one point
12:31
because I'm kind of fascinated by it.
12:33
So it's, you know, bigger than a quadricycle, no, obviously.
12:37
That's things like the Citroën AME.
12:40
Think about Japan's K-car system,
12:42
which I don't know an enormous amount about
12:44
but I need to educate myself.
12:46
But this is 15,000 euro kind of vehicles.
12:50
And the framework introduces a super credit.
12:53
Every M1E vehicle that would be sold
12:56
would be 1.3 units, if that makes sense.
13:00
So effectively it counts for 1.3 cars
13:02
in terms of the CO2 reduction targets.
13:06
So the companies that make small cars
13:08
that could go electric, Dacia, BYD, Peugeot, Citroën
13:12
would all want to make these cars
13:13
because you can rack up more credits.
13:15
And if you don't need them,
13:16
you can sell them to your competitors.
13:17
Hyundai Europe's CEO, Xavier Martinet,
13:20
called the M1E an interesting route
13:22
but wants to know what would be cut out of these vehicles.
13:27
He also noted that some industry voices
13:29
want combustion powertrains under the new M1E system.
13:34
I would obviously disagree with that.
13:35
It should be EV only.
13:37
And we should remove some of the growing regulatory burden.
13:42
And so over here in Europe,
13:45
I mean, it's probably the same all around the world
13:47
like I only speak to Europe and the European Union
13:49
although we're not in it anymore,
13:51
is driving up vehicle costs and size.
13:53
If you think all cars are fat these days,
13:55
well they are because of safety and they have to be.
13:58
And so a small city car that's not gonna spend its life
14:03
doing 150 miles on the motorway,
14:05
you can argue, does it need the same expensive
14:09
basic set of safety suites?
14:11
And obviously you can improve on them
14:14
and different levels of drive resistance.
14:17
But those things that drive up cost of a car,
14:20
if it's limited to say 60 or 65 miles an hour
14:23
and not limiting the roads that it can drive on,
14:25
that would be kind of crazy,
14:26
but suddenly limiting the specs,
14:28
can that bring down the cost of cars?
14:30
I'm fascinated by that topic.
14:32
I don't think that's a safety issue.
14:34
I think it's a pragmatic way of bringing down
14:37
those 15,000 cars because in three years time
14:41
they're 8,000 or 7,000 euro cars with depreciation.
14:45
And then when they get sold for a third time
14:47
to someone who's just passed their test
14:49
because they're 17 years old
14:50
but can't afford the insurance
14:52
because all insurance is nuts for 17, 18 year olds now.
14:55
I mean all insurance is nuts generally, isn't it?
14:58
Then those cars are worth 3,000 or 4,000 euros.
15:01
Do you get where I'm going with this?
15:04
So I think that is a huge possibility
15:06
over the next 10 to 15 years that I'm thinking
15:09
of where these cars end up.
15:11
And I guess I do think about that
15:13
like my kids are three and seven,
15:15
like neither of them are gonna learn
15:17
to drive a petrol car nor a manual car
15:19
if they don't want to, obviously they can.
15:22
And so they'll only ever drive EV.
15:25
So they'll think a lot about the cars
15:26
that are being advertised now
15:27
that hey in 10 years time
15:28
that could be someone's first car.
15:30
So let's take a break, we'll come back.
15:32
We'll talk about one of those small cars
15:34
that is a quadrocycle and a bit of Audi news
15:37
and some battery recycling as well.
15:39
Stick around back in a mo.
15:41
Let's do the 60 second savings challenge.
15:44
Step one, download rocket money.
15:46
Step two, link your accounts
15:48
and see every subscription you're paying for.
15:51
Tap one you don't use and cancel it.
15:53
That's money back every month.
15:55
Step three, create a financial goal.
15:57
$50 every paycheck or let the app automatically move
16:01
small amounts of cash when you can afford it.
16:03
In a week, you'll forget you set it up.
16:05
In a month, you'll see real dollars piling up.
16:08
In a year, you'll be shocked
16:09
at how much money you've saved.
16:11
Bonus challenge, upload an internet or phone bill
16:13
and let rocket money try to lower it.
16:15
You only pay if they find you savings.
16:18
On average, rocket money members
16:20
can save up to $740 a year
16:22
when using all the app's premium features.
16:24
Users love the app with over 186,000 five star ratings.
16:28
Make saving money the resolution you actually keep.
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Start the 60 second savings challenge
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at rocketmoney.com slash cancel.
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Rocketmoney.com slash cancel.
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Let's do the 60 second savings challenge.
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Step one, download rocket money.
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Step two, link your accounts
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and see every subscription you're paying for.
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Tap one you don't use and cancel it.
17:25
That's money back every month.
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Step three, create a financial goal.
17:31
or let the app automatically move
17:33
small amounts of cash when you can afford it.
17:35
In a week, you'll forget you set it up.
17:37
In a month, you'll see real dollars piling up.
17:40
In a year, you'll be shocked at how much money you've saved.
17:43
Bonus challenge, upload an internet or phone bill
17:46
and let rocket money try to lower it.
17:48
You only pay if they find you savings.
17:50
On average, rocket money members
17:52
can save up to $740 a year
17:54
when using all of the app's premium features.
17:57
Users love the app with over 186,000 five-star ratings.
18:01
Make saving money the resolution you actually keep.
18:04
Start the 60 second savings challenge
18:05
at rocketmoney.com slash cancel.
18:07
That's rocketmoney.com slash cancel.
18:10
Rocketmoney.com slash cancel.
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Warning, the following Zip Recruiter radio spot
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19:14
Welcome back to the podcast.
19:16
Let's go to Norway.
19:17
MicroLino has entered Norway through local partner
19:20
Knight MicroLino Norge AS,
19:21
which covers customer advisory,
19:24
maintenance, servicing, and warranty processing.
19:26
The company's headquarters are in Sandnes,
19:30
Sandnes with an operational hub near Stavanger
19:35
with technical support and after sales
19:37
co-located with Englund Auto.
19:39
You think I'd be better at these Norwegian names?
19:41
I have been to Norway and Stavanger,
19:43
if that's how I say the name, I think that's how I say it,
19:46
and we're going back in May.
19:47
So I actually adore Norway.
19:49
And I went there, I don't know,
19:51
eight years ago or something to go and look at
19:52
how EVs were already taking over.
19:56
And it was an eye-opener because it was not
19:58
unlike the world here because everything was EV already.
20:00
And I loved it and I can't wait to go back.
20:03
So we're back in Norway in May with both kids as well.
20:08
And I've got to book some day trips now,
20:09
I think about it to go and see some of the
20:12
the fjords and things like that
20:13
because the younger one won't really get it,
20:15
but it'll be nice photos.
20:16
But the older one, he'll get it.
20:18
And so that'll be great to go back
20:21
and see where Norway is,
20:23
not been back to Norway in a while.
20:24
I'm really looking forward to it.
20:26
My six and microlinos because they're going to be priced
20:28
from 19,000 euros on the road.
20:32
Two variants available.
20:33
These little ones are capped.
20:34
The microlino lights at 45 kilometers an hour.
20:38
And the standard model, which will go 90 kilometers an hour.
20:42
Battery capacity up to 208 kilometers.
20:46
This is the little compact front door opening
20:49
classic ISETA kind of vehicles heading to Norway.
20:53
Audi's CEO confirming the production version
20:57
That Concept C was a wild looking sports car,
21:01
but it's going ahead in 2027,
21:04
known internally as the C Sport,
21:06
sharing its platform,
21:07
drive trains and battery with Porsche's planned
21:09
electric vehicles like the 718 Boxster and Cayman,
21:13
both co-developed within Volkswagen.
21:14
Of course, concern followed Bloomberg's report
21:17
that the new Porsche CEO,
21:19
who replaced Oliver Bloom at the beginning of this year
21:21
was cancelling future Porsche sports cars.
21:24
But the Audi CEO kind of addressing the Porsche issue,
21:29
saying that all those vehicles are going to be co-developed.
21:31
He was obviously talking about the Audi,
21:33
but he sort of indirectly confirmed
21:35
that the Porsches are coming as well.
21:37
So the two seater sports car
21:40
that we saw at September's Munich Motor Show,
21:43
wait and see how much of that kind of wild styling ends up.
21:46
It's on the good stuff.
21:47
It's the PPE architecture, premium platform, electric.
21:50
And so a low seating position,
21:52
the battery gets moved away from underneath the driver,
21:54
so you can push the seats down,
21:57
a sports car kind of cabin,
21:59
wait and see what that looks like
22:00
and the specs they come with.
22:01
Let's talk about battery recycling.
22:03
McKinsey projects battery recycling.
22:06
Revenues will grow from 2.5 billion a year now
22:10
to 70 billion a year by 2040,
22:14
driven by a wave of post EVs from 2030 onwards.
22:18
And that kind of makes sense.
22:19
Because if an EV was out in 2014 or 2015, by 2030,
22:24
it's probably reaching the end of its mechanical life
22:27
in terms of the cost to keep it going.
22:29
Of course, many will,
22:30
but the metal bits start to get a bit rusty
22:34
and a bit more expensive to fix the battery though.
22:37
It's absolutely worth a huge amount of money.
22:40
The European Union's battery regulations
22:43
require a 70% lithium recycling rate by 2030.
22:47
While the European Critical Raw Materials Act
22:49
mandated 25% of raw materials come from EU recycling,
22:53
which obviously is all about cutting the ties to China,
22:56
China is tightening its take back rules as well.
22:58
Lithium and cobalt scarcity adds some pressure.
23:01
The Gartner VP, Pedro Pacheco,
23:05
warning that rising EV demand pushes raw materials higher
23:09
as recyclers race to cut costs.
23:12
Manual disassembly would be a bottleneck,
23:15
but certain robotics companies
23:17
also make the end of life Bev disassembly.
23:20
They're working with companies already,
23:22
a Luxembourg company called R3 with Hyundai and Jaguar
23:26
when and reducing the costs around Bev,
23:29
lithium ion pack recycling as well.
23:32
But also the drive motors, the drive units,
23:36
the power electronics all being recycled.
23:38
That's interesting.
23:39
Now, Helix, a UK based company,
23:43
they're in Milton Keynes
23:45
has built the motor system for the McMurtry Spearling.
23:49
That's the single seater fan car
23:52
that shot its way up the Goodwood Hill climb
23:57
They've made the motors.
23:58
So two rear mounted motors
24:00
deliver a thousand horsepower
24:03
from a 66 kilogram package.
24:06
So each way is 33 kilograms.
24:08
The McMurtry has done their own gearbox for it.
24:11
The most powerful, amongst the most powerful motors
24:13
that Helix have made and they provide the motors.
24:16
So a bit of a UK project going on there.
24:19
The McMurtry does not a 60 in 1.5 seconds,
24:22
does the quarter mile in eight seconds.
24:25
Hold on to your breakfast.
24:26
It went up the Goodwood Festival of Speed,
24:29
hill climb in record time.
24:31
Also it's done Laguna Saker, hill climb
24:32
and the top gear test track,
24:34
setting the fastest times.
24:36
Helix automotive chief engineer Simon Mead
24:38
says that propulsion featured throughout development
24:42
from prototyping of the McMurtry
24:44
all the way through to these vehicles,
24:45
which will now be made.
24:47
And so Helix make motors for things like Formula Re,
24:51
the Lotus Evaya and more.
24:53
And you can get one of these McMurtrys
24:54
if you have a spare million pounds lying around
24:57
and hopefully a hill climb away from the public roads
25:01
to wind up your fan car.
25:04
Okay, let's move on.
25:05
Tesla launched its Austin RoboTaxi cyber cab service
25:13
They took around 10 model-wise,
25:15
put safety monitors in the passenger seat
25:18
with their finger on a kill switch.
25:20
Not quite the driverless cars that Elon Musk
25:21
had promised by the fourth quarter of 2024,
25:25
but Tesla fans say, oh, they always get there,
25:27
just maybe not the timescales which have been promised.
25:30
Mr. Musk, the chief executive had forecast
25:32
to roll out across up to 10 cities
25:36
covering the half of the US population
25:40
by the end of December 2025.
25:42
And if you're anywhere near a calendar,
25:43
you'll notice they're nowhere near 10 cities,
25:46
nor half the US population,
25:48
and it's somewhat after December 2025.
25:51
Tesla slashed their Austin target itself.
25:54
They were gonna have 500 vehicles on Austin's roads
25:58
by November last year.
26:00
The unofficial count was somewhere
26:01
around 60, possibly less.
26:04
On the fourth quarter earnings call,
26:05
the chief executive declared well over 500 vehicles
26:10
operating in Austin and the Bay Area.
26:14
But remember the Bay Area is not a robot taxi
26:18
slash cyber truck service.
26:21
because they have to put the driver in the passenger seat
26:24
and the driver is driving the vehicle.
26:25
So that's basically Tesla did Uber, well done.
26:29
Over a 48-hour window,
26:32
the Austin vehicles served passengers
26:35
for 19% of the opening hours, operating hours.
26:38
According to this article from Electric,
26:40
who, yes, is an outlet, have become a lot more pessimistic
26:43
around Tesla's stories, more critical of the behavior
26:46
and the politics of the chief executives.
26:49
So all that context added,
26:50
I'm taking this story from Electric,
26:52
but they do run through the numbers really interestingly
26:54
and do the work that I haven't got time to do.
26:56
They pointed out the Waymo runs 2,500 robotaxes
27:01
and in Austin alone, 200.
27:04
And they say that Mr. Musk once dismissed
27:09
these figures as rookie numbers.
27:11
And yet Tesla announced unsupervised rides
27:14
on the 22nd of January earlier this year,
27:17
but confirmed on an earnings call then
27:19
that safety monitors have to ride behind them
27:21
in so-called chase cars.
27:23
The head of autopilot,
27:25
acknowledging that only a few
27:27
of these unsupervised vehicles were even working.
27:30
That announcement came and went
27:32
and now it appears so have those vehicles.
27:35
They were, according to this,
27:37
a stunt around the earnings call.
27:40
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration,
27:42
NHTSA, NHTSA shows nine crashes in 500,000 miles.
27:51
That's one per 55,000 miles
27:53
against one per 500,000 miles
27:57
for the average human driver.
27:59
The incidents include driving on the wrong side
28:02
of the road, hitting a cyclist,
28:05
hitting an animal at 27 miles an hour
28:08
and emergency intervention at a train crossing.
28:13
Tesla are able to redact any of the narratives
28:17
around the crash, which they choose to do so.
28:21
Waymo and Zooks choose not to in the names,
28:25
in the name of transparency
28:26
to understand where autonomy is and the challenges.
28:29
Tesla choose to redact every bit of information
28:31
they're absolutely allowed to,
28:34
but have a much higher rate of incidents.
28:38
Nine crashes in the half million miles driven.
28:42
Significantly worse than a human.
28:47
Tesla's camera system, vision only.
28:49
Doesn't work in the rain.
28:51
Austin records 80 wet days a year.
28:54
Tesla asked the NHTSA to also withhold
28:57
its low visibility protocols from public scrutiny.
29:00
Waymo point out they have radar, radar,
29:02
and cameras that work in all conditions.
29:05
Eight months after launch,
29:06
Tesla operates in only two cities,
29:09
not the 10 promised.
29:11
Seven more are planned, they say.
29:13
Mr. Musk puts 10 billion miles
29:16
as the threshold for safe, unsupervised driving.
29:19
And yet at the minute, they crash every 55,000 miles
29:22
and quite seriously by the look of it.
29:24
As I say, this is an electric article
29:28
who have a certain editorial take
29:32
at the minute on Tesla.
29:33
So put that through your filter if you will.
29:35
Volkswagen's introduced a factory partition
29:39
The five seat model developed as a factory option.
29:42
So it sits behind the second row
29:45
and it completely blocks the passengers
29:47
from any cargo area behind
29:50
unlike a commercial ID buzz cargo.
29:52
So you've got the full passenger body
29:54
and all the glazing and the cargo
29:57
obviously can be stacked to the roof
29:59
without encroaching in the cabin
30:01
while the solid partition also reduces noise
30:03
and keeps any dirt out of the passenger area.
30:06
There's a small window in the partition
30:07
for rearward visibility using lightweight compositing.
30:10
Volkswagen notes the reduced cabin volume
30:12
can improve climate control as well
30:13
because you're heating a smaller area
30:15
and if you are completely partitioning off
30:18
the rear of the ID buzz,
30:19
you can load it full of stuff
30:22
and it's absolutely safe as you would a van.
30:26
And you probably wouldn't want to do that
30:27
with a passenger car and do things right up at head high
30:29
and things that can become projectiles in a crash.
30:32
And so I wonder how many people
30:34
will take them up on the offer of the 1800 Euro option.
30:37
Right, finally, because I've gone far too long today,
30:40
Europe car research shows 70%
30:43
to female EV drivers factor personal safety
30:46
into where they charge
30:48
and 54% actively avoid certain locations.
30:51
The concern peaks amongst 35 to 44s at 75%
30:56
compared to 63% of 25, 34s.
31:00
Two thirds of women much prefer home charging,
31:02
citing safety and convenience.
31:03
Europe car noting that infrastructure,
31:05
location and design affects all drivers,
31:07
better lighting, monitoring and visible safety features
31:11
The same anxiety show up in leasing data.
31:13
Women are twice as likely to choose a hybrid
31:15
as a fully electric vehicle.
31:17
Male drivers lease EVs at 16%, not 11% for women.
31:22
Retirees are the strongest preference for hybrids they say.
31:27
Public charging needs not just more charge points
31:29
but locations and designs
31:32
where female drivers feel safe using them.
31:36
Not sure I've ever reported
31:38
on the gender specifics of EV charging
31:40
or the many times I've pointed out
31:41
that there are many great locations of EV charging,
31:45
just not the actual charges.
31:47
They're in a really good spot on a highway.
31:49
Like, I need to pull off just here, yes.
31:52
And then there you go.
31:53
In the back of the car park
31:54
around where the bins are and stuff.
31:56
This is pretty sketchy around here.
31:58
So anyway, that's your podcast for today.
32:01
Thanks for listening and thanks for supporting the show,
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our premium partners, National Car Charging
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on the US mainland and the low-high charge in Hawaii
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and Test EV, Avalu's trusted partner
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for independent battery health testing
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in Australia and New Zealand.
32:13
Have a good and see you tomorrow.
32:14
And remember there's no such thing
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