DAILY: Ford Turns To Renault, BYD Wants Small EVs in Europe and BMW Launch V2G | 13 Feb 2026

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Welcome back to EV News Daily.

Today, Ford turns to Renault.

BYD wants small EVs in Europe,

and BMW launch vehicle to grid.

And if you stay tuned later in the show,

I'll tell you what EVs are doing to the grid in Kenya.

On EV News China today, our spin-off podcast,

looking at what happens in the East

and how it affects the global industry.

We're talking about how China edges towards an EU deal.

Xiaomi, top 600,000 deliveries and January's evening numbers.

All right, let's kick off with Ford.

They will partner with Renault in Europe

to develop two small electric cars arriving firstly in 2028.

Chief Executive Jim Farley said the deal

aims at cutting costs and improving profitability.

After Ford recorded an $8.2 billion full-year loss last year.

That loss followed $15.5 billion in fourth quarter write-offs,

largely from EV programs,

including the Mustang Mach-E and Puma Gen-E.

Renault will handle development and production of new small EVs.

Ford retains control of design and chassis.

Ford's current European battery electric range

is the Puma Gen-E.

The Puma is the most popular car in this country

and going electrics a big deal.

But it's not selling in huge numbers,

plus the Explorer and the Capri.

SUVs built on Volkswagen's MEB platform,

their version of the ID495, if you like.

European battery electric sales reached about 98,000 units last year.

That was up on the previous year.

It was led by the Explorer and then the Puma,

doing about half the numbers of the Explorer.

Those results helped narrow Ford's Model E division loss.

Last year, it lost $4.8 billion, the previous year, $5.1 billion.

Chief Financial Officer Sherry House

said the unified electric vehicle products,

which come next year in 2027,

will cut the losses further,

with the Renault B-segment vehicles

contributing to better margins from 2028 onwards.

So in the United States,

we know Ford have cancelled the F-150 Lightning production,

and a three-row electric SUV is now off the table.

Instead, in America, they've turned to the UEV platform instead.

The first UEV model is going to be a pickup,

priced between $30,000 and $35,000 US dollars,

and it comes next year.

Mr. Farley took aim at the European Union

and United Kingdom regulators casting EV policy

as a choice between CO2 reduction and jobs.

Let's move on.

BYD is taking aim at Europe's small car plug-in hybrids.

The small SUV plug-in hybrid segment in Europe is,

well, I'll put it plainly, empty.

Of the 2.2 million small EVs sold across the continent last year,

about 3,500 of them had a plug-in hybrid powertrain.

Renault pulled the Capture plug-in hybrid a couple of years ago.

Jeep ended Renegade plug-in hybrid production,

a model that alone accounted for, well, 9 out of 10 segment sales,

into this near-deserted space.

BYD is driving the Atto-2 DMI, and the timing is no accident.

BYD faces 27% EU tariffs on battery electric vehicles imported from China,

but only the standard 10% import duty on plug-in hybrids.

That is a big advantage that shapes the company's European strategy.

It's SEAL-U demonstrated what that advantage can yield.

European sales surged by nearly 600% last year to almost 80,000 units,

and making it the continent's best-selling mid-sized plug-in hybrid.

The Atto-2 arrives as the next chapter.

The car comes in a couple of variants.

There's the active trim.

That's a 7.8 kilowatt-hour battery, 40 kilometers of all-electric range.

Then there's the boost trim with an 18 kilowatt-hour battery,

more than twice the size.

It'll do 90 kilometers of electric range.

Both will do 62 miles an hour in 7.5 seconds,

and go on to 112 miles an hour.

A low fuel consumption if you charge it overnight.

6.6 kilowatts AC charging is going to be your limit.

The active trim opens at 36,000 euros.

That's 37,500 US dollars equivalent,

and it goes down to 24,500 euros.

After company e-bonuses,

there's lease options as well from 145 euros a month.

BYD is backing their models with a six-year vehicle warranty

and an eight-year battery and drivetrain guarantee.

In a segment these rivals have abandoned, BYD is hopeful.

BMW is next in the news.

Getting together with EON, the energy company,

to launch Germany's first vehicle to grid offer for private customers.

We've been waiting for such a long time for a turnkey solution,

and it's been done in trials, and it is starting to get out there.

But what we want is to go and buy the EV that we want to buy

and hopefully join the tariff that is suitable in the country that we live.

And between the carmakers and the energy companies say,

well, here's the hardware on the side of your wall.

Here's the hardware that might need to go

where your electricity distribution box goes.

For me, it's under the stairs, but this to make it safe.

And this is how we do vehicle to grid.

And that's all we want.

And BMW are doing that, building it around the NeueKlasse platform

and the all-new iX3.

It's the first NeueKlasse model

to carry their sixth-gen eDrive technology.

It supports vehicle to grid, which is feeding the public grid.

It sends it back down the cable,

and your neighbor makes a slice of toast,

and they're using it from your car.

There's vehicle to home, or power to household, and V2L,

which is vehicle to load.

The ability to draw load from your car when you're not at home.

So you're running tools at a job site.

You're inflating your paddle board at the beach,

or you're cooking when you're camping, that kind of thing.

The full package bundles the 11 kilowatt BMW wall box,

one of the first bi-directional home chargers

to reach the German market,

with Eons home and drive V2G tariff.

That is a feed-in contract,

and they'll do the smart meter installation.

A jointly developed algorithm handles charging and discharging.

Drivers set what the target is,

and you get bonuses in the BMW app,

which tells you how you're doing in terms of making some money,

but also keeping the battery within its optimal range.

Of course, you can override the system

because you might have a long journey the next day,

and you just don't want to risk it,

but often the algorithm they say will learn

and keep your battery within a window of usable amount.

You can always boost it.

The financial case says customers can earn up to 720 euros.

That could be one of your monthly lease payments,

for instance, covered just by trading energy.

Imagine if everyone in your streets did that in time,

obviously, but I know you're a forward thinker

as you listen to this podcast.

Imagine everyone in the street next to yours does that.

Maybe everybody in your community

and maybe everybody in a whole town or city

starts to use stored energy.

Well, it changes everything,

and they cap it at 60 euros per month,

regardless of whether the energy flows back to the grid.

You can't just sit there making money from it all day,

but look, these are baby steps.

You sell back to the grid at 40 cents,

40 euro cents.

That's 47 US cents equivalent per kilowatt hour.

To mark the launch,

the first 100 IX3 customers to sign up for it get a discount of 700 euros.

Okay, let's move on.

Kia's PV5 is a vehicle I've been looking at

because, as I've mentioned a few times,

the Polestar's got to go this year,

and I really, really don't want it to go,

but we need a van.

So what do we do?

Well, we could get a used Mercedes-Benz EQV.

They're down at around 30 grand for a half-decent one,

25,000 for one that needs a little bit of love.

That was a 90,000 dollar van,

90,000 pound van, all of five minutes ago.

Or do we go something newer,

like the Kia PV5?

Well, it just became Korea's first international van of the year,

and the first electric van from Asia to take the title,

and now you can get your head down in it and have a kip.

The PV5 comes in passenger cargo and open bed variants,

and it's the passenger model that's attracted the most attention

with this new addition, a camper van conversion kit.

There's a US startup called VanLab, developed alongside Hyundai,

and this thing slides in the back of the van.

Assembly requires only a screwdriver.

You can do it.

It takes minutes.

The kit packs a bed, drawers, counter space,

and an induction hob for cooking.

Power for the hob and refrigerator comes from the vehicle's traction battery.

That makes a lot of sense, and it's compelling to use this.

There's some kits like this in the VW ID Buz area,

that they will literally slide in the back of the ID Buz and bolt in.

You can take them out during the week if you use that vehicle

for different purposes, and then you go camping at the weekend.

You can put the thing in.

It's got the pull-out induction hob and the little refrigerator and things.

In Korea, the kit launched as an official Kia collection product

through Kia's website, priced at US$2,000 equivalent.

VanLab say they're coming to Japan, Europe, and the United Kingdom.

The US position is less clear, though.

Kia has not announced PV5 launching there.

All right, we'll take a break.

We'll come back.

We'll talk Rivian, Tennessee, and door handles.

Stick around.

Back in a moment.

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Okay, welcome back to the podcast.

Let's talk Rivian.

The OS 2.0 will debut alongside the new Rivian R2 SUV

at the reveal on 12th of March.

You saw your chief software officer, Westseam Ben Said,

confirming the update will roll out to R1 vehicles later this year.

Hardware news is more straightforward, though.

We know that the R2 gets its rear drop glass

that opens independently of the tailgate,

ceiling mounted physical switches as well,

a nod to the chorus of buyers who want buttons.

And a current driver reporting a new pattern filing

showing Rivian also plans a row of physical dashboard buttons

for the R2 and the facelifted R1S.

The R2's electronic door latches, though,

have been at a point of contention over the last few days.

One of the YouTubers getting access,

Zack Nelson has a channel called JerryRigEverything.

And pretty awesome it is as well.

Found that the driver's door uses a very straightforward pull latch.

Obviously, it has electronic, not obviously,

but it does have electronic buttons to open the door.

But should they not work, or in the event of an emergency,

there is an override pull latch you can do.

While the three rear doors require removing a small plastic panel

and pulling a cord, much like some EVs do

for the emergency release of the bonnet or the hood,

that was a sequence that Zack Nelson branded

unwelcome in an emergency situation.

The concern obviously happens because a lot of the cars

have got electronic door releases

and some of them have been involved in accidents

where people have been hurt or worse.

And in China, they're being now outlawed.

Mr. Ben Said replied on Reddit.

He said that the Rivian system is not the Tesla system.

It's fully redundant, fault isolating power

across the high voltage system.

He says on child safety, pointing out the traditional

mechanical child locks physically disconnect the inside handle,

potentially trapping rear passengers after a crash.

Whereas Rivian's E-Latch automatically releases child locks

and unlocks any rear doors if there is a collision.

A lot of cars should do this automatically.

In the event of any collision airbags being deployed,

any sensors being triggered, all the doors unlock.

So if you need to exit the vehicle in a hurry, you can do.

He can clarify that the cord and panel release

is a service tool.

It's not designed for in an accident.

You've got to try and get your kids to

wedge you off a bit of plastic and pull a cord.

That's actually for service technicians.

Rivian R2 deliveries are due sometime in Q2.

Like I said, throughout the March, we'll find out more.

Tennessee pulled the plug on a proposed excise tax on EV charging.

The representative Dave Wright withdrew a house bill.

Senator Page Wally followed suit the next day,

killing the Senate companion.

This was due to be a three cent per kilowatt hour excise tax.

Mr. Wright's bill aimed at public DC fast charging,

not home charging.

Mr. Wally's, he was frank about the floor,

attacks so narrowly drawn would fall mainly on out-of-state drivers

passing through Tennessee rather than on residents

making it less a road funding mechanism

than an unofficial Tennessee road toll.

The numbers were modest anyway.

I mean, state analysts predicted

that the tax would raise $776,000 a year.

That is somewhat of a rounding error

against Tennessee's $58 billion road maintenance backlog,

but it would obviously get a reputation for Tennessee

being a higher tax state for drivers.

EV drivers in Tennessee bristled even before the bill appeared

under the Transportation Modernization Act of 2023.

EV owners have paid $200 a year in annual registration fees,

rising to $274 next year.

Hybrid owners pay $100.

ICE drivers, of course, don't pay.

The electrification coalition arguing that a charging tax

heaps further costs on a group of people

carrying more than its fair share of financial burden

as we reduce emissions.

Okay, let's move on.

Now, a door that can't be opened from the inside is not a door.

It is a death trap.

That, in essence, is the argument behind

the new Safe Exit Act in the United States.

That's cleared the US House subcommittee

heading to the fall committee now.

Robin Kelly, a Democrat from Illinois,

introduced the bill to require any vehicle

with electrically powered door handles

to include clearly labeled accessible mechanical backup

latches, the work during a power loss,

the legislation takes aim at door designs

that Tesla made popular.

Bloomberg News linked at least 15 deaths

across a dozen incidents in which occupants

couldn't escape crashed and burning Teslas,

finding that the findings drove them out

to straight to Capitol Hill.

The NHTSA since launched separate probes,

and they are ongoing into Tesla's door handle system.

And the Chinese have already made their minds up on this

and those systems are banned.

I expect the US to follow.

Hypervolts, a UK startup, which is five years old now,

built its name on EV charges at home,

now wants credit for what sits behind the box on the wall.

They're showing off their software

that links up Homes, Vehicles and the National Grid.

The CEO and co-founder frames EV charging

as a data challenge.

EV charging is an intelligence challenge.

Hypervolts platform includes what they say

is some proprietary digital infrastructure.

A smart meter times a million is how they describe it.

Hypervolts as each installed unit

generates 100,000 data events in a day.

Then it uses live data to coordinate charging

and routing power when electricity is cheapest and greenest,

positioning that as the groundwork for V2G.

A lot of work been going on in that area.

Kenya is our final topic today.

Electricity used to charge electric vehicles in Kenya

tripled last year, turning EV charging

into a new topic of conversation for Kenya power.

They put EV charging across things like motorcycles,

passenger cars and buses at what is

a relatively modest by many countries,

8.4 million kilowatt hours a year.

But that was up from 3 million kilowatt hours in 2024.

Money has been following the electrons.

Kenya powers, e-mobility, revenues rose.

Okay, by one and a half million US dollars equivalent.

Like I say, the numbers are small.

But this policy changing the path,

energy and petroleum regulatory authority

gazetted a dedicated e-mobility e-tariff three years ago now,

setting charging rates at around 12 cents per kilowatt hour

during peak hours and half of that off peak.

By the end of last year, customers were enrolling,

including charging station operators, fleet owners

and corporate users.

Kenya power also wants a closer look

at how charging affects the grid.

It's rolling out charges at its own premises

to electrify their internal fleets

using the sites to collect data.

And Kenya closed last year

with more than 35,000 registered electric vehicles.

The majority, two wheelers.

That'll be electric motorcycles

used for urban transport and last mile delivery.

Isn't it interesting how all around the world

countries are going electric.

They're going EV, some are different pace

and some are different speeds

and some are doing their own thing

and their own journey.

But everyone's story is different

with one common thread running through them.

We do know that in time, everyone will be driving electric.

And that's your podcast for today.

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DAILY: Ford Turns To Renault, BYD Wants Small EVs in Europe and BMW Launch V2G | 13 Feb 2026

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