Telematics is a system that sends information from a car to computers so people can see how the car is being used, like how much fuel it uses or where it goes.
A plug-in hybrid car uses both gas and electricity. You can charge its battery by plugging it in, so it can drive some distance using only electricity before using gas.
The Tesla Model Y is a small electric SUV that can drive a long way without needing gas. It's known for its cool technology and lots of space inside, making it a favorite for people wanting an electric car that can carry family or stuff.
The Tesla Model 3 is a small electric car that can go far on a single charge and is cheaper than other Tesla cars. Many people like it because it’s easy to drive and has lots of tech features.
The Tesla Cybertruck is a new electric truck that looks very different from normal trucks. It’s built tough and can carry heavy stuff, but it’s not out yet, so people are excited to see how it drives.
The BMW iX3 is an electric SUV that looks like a regular BMW but runs on electricity. It’s good for people who want a bigger car that’s clean and quiet.
The BMW i4 is an electric car that’s fast and fun to drive, but it doesn’t use any gas. It’s a fancy car that’s good for people who want a sporty ride without pollution.
The Kia EV9 is a new electric SUV that will have lots of room for people and stuff. It’s designed to be a family car that runs on electricity instead of gas.
The Polestar 2 is an electric car that looks simple and stylish inside and out. It’s made to be easy to use and goes a good distance on a single charge.
The Volkswagen ID.3 is a small electric car that’s easy to drive and doesn’t use gas. It’s made for everyday trips and is good for people who want a simple electric car.
The Nissan Leaf is an electric car that’s been around for a while and is easy to drive. It doesn’t need gas and has a good amount of space for bags and groceries.
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Later in the show, I'll tell you why used EV batteries are holding up better than ever.
Over on EV News China today, our spin-off podcast, last one of the week.
We do it weekdays.
It should come out about 2 a.m. U.K. time.
Certainly, if you are listening to us in Europe, that'll be there for when you wake up
because China's ahead of us.
And you are welcome to listen to that to make sense of what's happening in the East
and how it affects the global EV market.
Today, we're talking about BMW CEO urging engagement with Chinese companies.
Geely, eyeing possible U.K. production.
And Great Wall Motors, chairman, saying they still have more to learn from overseas companies.
Okay, let's get into it.
Germany's Institute, the Fraunhofer Institute, has completed the most comprehensive real-world study
in history into plug-in hybrids.
It analyzed telematics from 1 million plug-in hybrids that were built from 2021 to 2023.
Fraunhofer used wirelessly transmitted vehicle data
and it measured on-road fuel consumption, not the European Union's certification numbers
and official testing procedures.
Those official figures often claim 1 to 2 litres per 100 kilometres driven.
That is, if you speak my language, between 140 and 280 MPG.
Fraunhofer found a real-world average, once they worked out how people use plug-in hybrids,
of 6 litres per 100 kilometres.
That's 47 MPG, not horrific, by, you know, V8 standards.
But three times the stated figures.
There's a huge disparity in what the official testing procedures do
thanks to lobbying from the car industry and those that want to make
any form of combustion seem more palatable.
And the real world, Fraunhofer traced the gap to how plug-in hybrids are actually used.
The combustion engine operates way more than the official testing procedures assume,
including when the car nominally runs on electric power.
The data set split the brands out as well.
German-built plug-in hybrids were amongst the worst performers.
Porsche ranked highest at 7 litres of fuel per 100 kilometres driven.
That's 40 MPG.
That figure, the report said, looks way worse than rival plug-in hybrids that
sometimes drive in electric mode, and frankly worse than a conventional
efficient petrol car, except you're carrying around more complications
with software, more complications with hybrid powertrains,
and more complications with a small battery.
Kia, Toyota, Ford and Renault posted the lowest real-world figures,
often under 1 litre per 100 kilometres driven.
Fraunhofer described that as roughly 85% less fuel than a comparable Porsche.
Porsche said, different usage patterns explain the gap,
and that its figures comply with the legally-measuremented procedures.
Sure, if you design the rules a certain way,
and then you don't break the rules, you can put out a statement saying
we never broke the rules.
But when it came to dieselgate, we didn't have many rules to break
because no one thought the car companies would do something so awful.
Now, America did have enough rules to be broken that,
actually people went to prison very quickly after due process
and it cost Volkswagen billions and billions,
whereas many countries over here, this side of the Atlantic,
actually have specific rules, laws written,
that presume these companies would do anything so bad.
So they're able to say, hey, we didn't do anything wrong.
We didn't actually break this set of specific rules or laws,
and that would be correct.
Legally, it's correct that they did nothing wrong.
Only when you involve moral arguments and you start to get digging deeper,
there's still class action equivalent lawsuits going through the courts
over here in Europe,
VW called back into Paris,
courts for a criminal trial next year.
This is still rumbling on.
So for car companies to still be lurking at plug-in hybrid technology,
e-rev technologies,
and see this as some sort of future,
I'll leave that up to you to have your final conclusion on that.
You can probably guess my opinions.
But Germany's automotive industry and the association there
said existing measures for determining fuel consumption
are reliable.
The EU Commission declined to comment.
Fraunhofer researcher Patrick Plotz
urged the EU regulations to tie fleet CO2 limits
to how plug-in hybrids are actually driven.
People get them through company schemes
because the tax advantages are there,
and then they never plug them in.
This means they would penalize makers whose cars break those limits
on the road if they're tied to real-world data,
which can be gathered from telematics these days.
Until then, the headline numbers will keep doing what they do best.
Flattering the lab,
not reflecting the road.
Let's move on. Big story.
Big story. Actually, huge.
OK, let's move on.
The European Commission has introduced a new vehicle class
for small battery electric cars.
The move has pushed Volkswagen Group
to dust off some old plans.
Audi and Scotta reportedly want their own models
based on the new electric urban family car.
Scotta's car would sit alongside
the already-confirmed Epic.
Audi wants to use its model to enter a new market segment.
These projects didn't start yesterday.
Audi and Scotta considered them back in 2021,
but put them on a shelf.
Recent legislative changes now revive those ideas.
The new EU class aims to make electric cars
more affordable for low-income consumers.
The Commission's automotive package includes
a slight relaxation of things like CO2 targets
and promoting small electric vehicles
and super credits for each one you sell.
It can be technically 1.3 credits worth.
So you can still sell some more combustion stuff.
That's the carrot that the carmakers need
to make these cars.
The focus of the proposal is on vehicles
4.2 metres long or shorter.
That's still that pretty decent urban vehicle, by the way.
Only battery electric small cars built within
the European Union would be included
as part of the European First Industrial Policy,
Renault and Stellantis are behind the idea.
Volkswagen Group has confirmed models
in the small family car segment.
Cupra, Reval, VWID Polo,
VWID Cross, Scotta Epic.
Reval orders should open soon, actually, I think.
If the revised plans stick,
add an Audi A1 Neutron.
I don't know how many are guessing.
Maybe a Scotta E-Fabia?
Possibly.
By the turn of the decade.
You never know.
We'll have to wait and see.
Now, spy pictures today of the Ioniq 5 seem to have surfaced.
This isn't official, by the way.
This is via a website that's usually very, very reliable
for things like this called TheKoreanCarBlog.com.
And so, I'm tempted to believe what they say,
which is that this is a camouflaged Ioniq 5 refresh.
And the inside is very different
from the existing Ioniq 5.
In fact, from the way that Hyundai and Kia
have traditionally gone around their business,
which is to have driver display
and infotainment display
across the vehicle,
from behind the steering wheel to the middle,
often the same height,
often two similar size screens
or one continuous screen.
This moves the theory towards,
well, maybe like a Tesla style,
but it does have a small screen
behind the steering wheel for the driver display,
but then a much bigger floating tablet style.
That would be 17 to 18 inches,
by the look of it, it's enormous.
And so, that layout follows a similar script,
things like Teslas and Fords
have done that with the small screen,
Tesla Model S and X, of course.
Hyundai seemed to drop the traditional instrument cluster,
shifting the vehicle data to the central display,
maybe an advanced head-up display,
not in these pictures.
And so, Hyundai also removes the physical HVAC controls,
which is odd,
because there's now new safety testing,
things like Euro NCAP coming in,
which will reward vehicles for having
physical controls for those common functions,
heating and vent controls and things like that.
And so, it's odd that they would move
to a complete Tesla system,
which would lose them star ratings,
like the idea of a new Hyundai coming out,
to me seems very safe, but it would be,
I don't know, I'm guessing, a three-star,
like a four-star car,
like not to have a five-star Euro NCAP,
I think would be an extremely bloody nose.
And that's the risk when you get rid of all the buttons.
Okay.
Otherwise, ultra-minimalist,
the sliding center console disappears,
looks like a fixed center island,
door handles give way to electronic push buttons.
So, I think Genesis G90,
talking about the steering wheel,
pairs, controls back to a central rotary scroller,
and one button on each side.
Again, need to zoom in and have a look at these.
This doesn't seem like it's an early,
possibly test vehicle to see what it would be like.
This looks really finished.
Fit and finish looks good.
Material quality looks production intent.
This looks almost ready,
but very much matching,
you would think Hyundai's new operating system
called PlayOS Connect OS,
rolling out some of the updated Kia and Arnick vehicles.
What comes next is, you know, unknown.
One possibility points to a
tech-focused premium facelift.
So, think right up against a Tesla,
or a Model 3, Model Y,
when it would come maybe next year.
Either way, the Arnick 5 has drifted from its
pixelated retro future charm
towards something a bit more homogenous
like every other Chinese car that's got a big screen.
And I think that's a bit of a shame, if you ask me.
We'll take a break. We'll come back.
We're going to talk Cybertruck
and also Stagecoach. Stick around back in a moment.
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Welcome back to the podcast.
Tesla has launched a new base model
of the all-wheel drive Cybertruck at $60,000.
And it's cut the top-end cyber beast by $15,000,
reversing a recent increase by that.
It's down to $100,000 now.
The chief executive, Elon Musk,
said that this new $60,000 price
for the all-wheel drive trim
is available for 10 days only.
The move lands as Cybertruck sales
have fallen flat.
We think around 5,000 units per quarter.
Tesla have built a facility
to make 250,000 of them a year.
Tesla's opened Cybertruck sales in the Middle East
and managing to root tens of millions
of dollars of Cybertruck stock
which is sitting going nowhere
into SpaceX, even floating the idea
of using them as autonomous delivery vehicles.
So they introduced a rear-wheel drive variant
last year for $70,000
and then removed it straight away
because nobody bought it.
This new version is all-wheel drive
and it costs less.
They've also put some kit back in that they stripped out
so it retains power share,
vehicle 2x capability.
It includes the bed outlets.
It includes the powered tonneau cover.
The earlier rear-wheel drive version removed
outlets and covers and things.
The cheaper all-wheel drive trim
trades down on hardware and range.
No adaptive air suspension but adaptive damping.
All-wheel drive model uses two motors
and 325 miles of range
or 523 kilometers
which is down 25 miles from the single motor.
At the top end, CyberBeast reverses
the 15k price increase from last August
and now it's down to 100 again.
But Tesla's wider context
stops people buying the vehicle.
So the chief executive immediately retweeted
the head of the project at Tesla
who posted, hey, 60k trim
and we've re-engineered the vehicle.
Go get it.
And I think many people would look at that
and if they aren't put off by the look of the vehicle
it becomes affordable.
And immediately the chief executive retweeted that
and said, yeah, but only for 10 days.
Now there was no other clarification
on what that means.
Does it mean that Cybertruck
will go up in price in 10 days
which is a really
kind of grubby feeling
of, hey, if you want it, you've got 10 days
sun on the dotted line.
This is a massive purchase for a lot of people.
I give them time to get their finances in order
or does it mean that something else changes
in 10 days? There's no clarification
and I'll report on that when we do get more news.
Okay, EVs scoring
fewer serious faults
are next in the news.
Click Mechanic has done an analysis
of 240,000 vehicle inspections
including 7,400 EVs.
And their data shows EVs are well ahead
on any kind of serious conditions.
1.5% of EVs
inspected
had the poor rating.
7.5% of combustion cars, petrol and diesel
had the poor rating.
7 EVs got the perfect rating.
BMW i4, iX, iX3
the existing one, not the new Neuer-class one
IKEA's EV9, MG's 5
Polestar's 2
and Volkswagen's ID3.
Not every EV was spotless though.
When you drill down to individual model level
the Tesla Model 3 logged a 7% poor rating.
The worst poor rates
were reserved for
combustion cars.
Click Mechanics CEO Andrew Gervis
linked the split to age and complexity.
Neuer EV models performed more strongly
older, sometimes complex combustion vehicles
have high rates of fault
and that matters more as the used market shifts.
SMMT is the lobby organisation
of the car industry here.
Their data shows second-hand EV sales
searching 45% in 2025
while total used car transactions
were now 7.8 million
here at least.
Stagecoach will spend 30 million pounds
or 40 million dollars to put more than
100 battery electric buses
on the road in the south west
in the county of Devon.
The UK government's zero-emission
bus regional areas scheme.
Zebra.
Yeah, ZDBR8. Construction of the charging hubs
is already underway.
I love stories like that. Electric buses.
I know it's just a single part of Great Britain
but I love stuff like that
and I love stuff like this.
The UK government's first plug-in
electric fast ferry
has cleared sea trials and enter services
on the Auckland to Devonport commuter route.
I know it's no great shakes.
I know that only a select few people
will ever get to use stuff like this
but man, I love all these little edge cases
and public transport going
electric or even plug-in hybrid
during the trials, the 34.6 metre
aluminium catamaran
hit 36 knots,
that's 41 miles an hour
on all electric power
and the propulsion system
they say are exceeded
and surpassed expectations.
In-Cat
Crauver designed the vessel
with Q-West boat builders
building it and Hamilton jet
integrating it. It's the first of two
vessels operating on behalf of Auckland
Transport. 300 people
and 20 bicycles will fit on the thing.
That is really impressive to see.
So much more marine
activity in terms
of electrification
even if this one
using its water jets
with its 2,000 kilowatt hour
2 megawatt hour
battery pack
ultimately powered sometimes by
range extended
generators.
Now finally, generational
is a London based EV battery
diagnostics firm.
They've analysed more than 8,000
battery tests in 36 auto brands.
The data set
spans passenger cars and light commercial vehicles
from brand new
to up to 12 years old
and up to 160,000 miles on the clock.
Across the whole data set, the average battery
state of health, this is all 8,000 tests
and those 15 year old EVs
those ones that are done
in a quarter of a million kilometres
are obviously going to pull those results down.
The average
state of health of the fleet
was 95.15%
of original capacity.
4 to 5 year old EVs
had a median
state of health of 93.5
and 8 to 9 year old
EVs were still 85%
state of health.
I love you to find me
a 9 year old combustion car
that still has 85%
of its oomph
from when it rolled off the factory floor
simply not the way that
engines age.
85% state of health, that's fantastic!
High mileage
didn't automatically
result in a tired battery pack.
Vehicles beyond 100,000 miles
or 160,000
k's showed
88 to 95% state of health
even the worst performers
didn't get anywhere near 70% capacity
and that's just for individual
outliers if you like.
The spread matters
much as the midpoint I think.
Among 4 to 5 year old EVs
the bottom quartile
was 91.6% state of health
and the top quartile
96.5%
Going older, up to 12 years old
the lowest quartile
was 82% state of health
and I've mentioned before on this show
we're looking for another
small run around
for the family
something we can take to the beach
maybe we'll get a van
we haven't decided.
One of those cars I'm looking at
is an old Nissan Leaf
huge boot
we haven't found one we liked yet
but really a few thousand pounds
for a vehicle that's maybe lost
one or two bars of its battery
that's never gonna do more than 30 miles
on a good day for us
we just need that kind of vehicle
not to trash our nicer cars
and you know
on a really old Nissan Leaf
that's considered a big win
I have seen some with some pretty awful battery
degradation as well
so Generational says a 3 year old
EV coming off a fleet
with 90,000 miles
outperforms a 6 year old
combustion car
that had 30,000 miles on
Generational urges degradation itself
does less damage to used EVs
than the buyers inability
to even verify how good the battery is
the chair of the Vehicle Remarketing Association
Phillip Nothard
says transparency is going to be crucial
in terms of building consumer confidence
and addressing misconceptions
about battery longevity
automakers can use it to support
residual claims as well
insurers and warranty providers can use battery performance data
to price in risk
and fleet operators can use battery health data
to refine rotation strategies
and total cost of ownership
and as you may know
this podcast is Test EV
they are Avalu's trusted partner
for independent EV battery health testing
in Australia and New Zealand
so I've been talking about battery health testing
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and now the stories, the news cycle
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thanks to them as our premium partner
also national car charging on the US mainland
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About this episode
A groundbreaking study by Germany's Fraunhofer Institute reveals that real-world fuel consumption of plug-in hybrids is significantly higher than official figures, highlighting discrepancies in testing methods and usage patterns. The European Commission's new vehicle class for small electric cars has prompted Volkswagen and Audi to revive plans for affordable urban EVs. Spy shots of a refreshed Hyundai Ioniq 5 suggest a major interior redesign with a large central touchscreen and removal of physical controls, raising questions about safety ratings. The episode also touches on ongoing developments in the Chinese EV market and the durability of used EV batteries.
