DAILY: Lucid Bets On Small SUV, Trump Defeated Over Charging and Jaguar Confusion | 26 Jan 2026

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Welcome back to EV News Daily.

Today, Lucid bets on a small SUV,

Trump is defeated over charging,

and Jaguar's confusion, plus stay tuned

because later in the show,

I'll tell you where Tesla just lit up

their second true V4 Supercharger.

On EV News, China.

Earlier today, I was talking about the BMW iX1 arriving,

the Yang Wang EV that'll do over 1,000 kilometers

on battery power, and China denying Tesla FSD.

Let's get into it.

Lucid Motors has just built its first prototype

of a new mid-size SUV.

They did it at their Arizona plant,

and this vehicle's aimed squarely

at the $50,000 bracket.

That puts the crossover 20,000 less

than the current entry-level air.

Production is due by the end of the year.

The car matters more than its simple price.

Lucid casts the SUV as the very future of the company.

It's moved into high-volume segments.

It has to halt losses.

It lost $978 million in Q3,

but shares rose after the Saudi Arabian

Public Investment Fund confirmed ongoing support.

The new model will follow the principles

of existing Lucids.

So, space, efficiency, dynamics, big range.

That's all good.

Yet the firm now stresses manufacturability,

cost efficiency, a shift from its earlier,

more rare-refied, perhaps a little more hand-built offerings.

Production is confirmed for Lucid's Saudi plant as well,

and a new mid-size platform underpinning the crossover

will then spawn three future SUVs,

including one with an off-road tilt.

All will use NVIDIA's Drive AGX Thor computing system,

which Lucid targets at level four autonomy

and robotaxi use down the road.

The teaser image shows a low-slung shape

like a gravity SUV in its shape.

Lucid plans to unveil its third EV model

sometime around middle of this year.

Perhaps there's an investor day in March.

They might talk more about their strategy then.

Okay, a federal judge just ruled

that the Trump administration broke the law

when it halted funding for America's EV charging network.

The decision restores the money

under the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure,

NEVY program, a $5 billion pillar

of infrastructure investment.

This was signed in 2021.

US district judge, Tanya Lin,

sided with 20 states and the District of Columbia,

which sued after the DOT suspended the money in February.

She held that the DOT

and the Federal Highway Administration

had flouted law when they froze the program

and tried to treat the funding pause as a temporary measure.

The statute, she said,

does not allow stops and starts.

The ruling matters for two reasons.

It locks in federal backing and it constrains

a trigger-happy White House

that makes no secret of its preference

for petrol over EVs.

Judge Lin's order permanently bars the DOT

from ever withdrawing funds

or cancelling previously approved plans.

That gives new certainty to the states

which sued in May last year.

We had a preliminary ruling anyway,

which was along the same lines as this.

Environmental groups hailed the judgment as vital

to keep infrastructure projects on track.

The fight continues.

Legislation pending in the Senate

would divert $880 million

from NEVY's EV charging budget to other work.

The court has blocked the administration

from shutting down the program by stealth.

The Congress has the ability to shrink it in plain sight.

Now Jaguar is all in on battery power,

according to their words.

Yet the firm is reportedly exploring

an E-rev, a petrol-electric hybrid.

Now this is a claim made by the Sunday Times yesterday,

which is incredibly confusing.

They say in the setup,

a small petrol engine works as a generator

to charge a battery.

You and I know that.

They also call them Reeves,

our EEV when they're called E-revs.

So already the reporting, the writing, the editing

is showing a little bit of naivety around the topic.

So that's why I'm confused

why the Sunday Times have written this.

Electric motors drive the wheels, they point out.

Backers say this stretch is the real-world range of EVs

without relying on public chargers.

Yes, but you do have to go to the petrol pump

and spend lots of money on fossil fuels.

The interest in E-revs, or Reeves,

as they insist on calling them, are EEVs,

that follows a rough spell.

Jaguar's push for an EV-only future drew public backlash.

There was a cyber-attack,

attack management churn has not helped things.

The first test will come in the summer.

Jaguar will unveil their new electric model,

a Grand Tourer priced up to £140,000,

fresh from cold weather trials

and they want to target 400 miles of range.

Now, this is designed in a way with a huge bonnet

that a range extender could easily be packaged

in there somewhere

and that would easily beat 400 miles of real-world range

if you were still burning fossils.

But it would be a curious U-turn for a brand

that's been so insistent on going electric.

And Jaguar has certainly had a series of missteps

over recent years and now he's under new leadership.

This would be a very, very odd thing for them to do.

But other car makers are doing it.

We see it with the Ram Charger

and General Motors Ford,

all talking about how they want to reintroduce engines

to their electric vehicles.

E-Revs have gained ground in China, as you know,

where some models claim more than 600 miles of range,

says the Sunday Times.

Yeah, a lot more, actually.

Some E-Revs are claiming 1,400, 1,500, 1,800 kilometers

when you put both power sources together.

So it's a curiously written piece,

oddly sourced because they don't name the source

and it's a very confusing claim to make.

If it's true, that's a big U-turn by Jaguar,

but I'm not sure I believe this one.

I've been wrong in the past, let's face it,

so I could be completely wrong on this.

It just doesn't sound believable anyway.

Let's move on.

Ford is lining up an electric semi-truck for Europe.

We just call them trucks

because we don't have truck culture over here.

So we don't have pickups, we have vans.

And so when we say truck, we mean truck,

which is what you might call an 18-wheeler,

but of course, smaller ones are good

for regional distribution, urban logistics

and municipal work.

And Ford are gonna unveil their battery-powered semi

this summer.

Roots are often predictable,

often have frequent stops,

and it'll come into layouts,

both rated at 26 tons, towing up to 10 tons as well.

The F-Line E uses modular batteries.

Each one is 98 kilowatt hours,

NMC, and up to four of them in a pack

for 392 kilowatt hours.

Charging, either 285 kilowatts or 200 kilowatts,

depending on version, which seems a little slow

for a pack that's 400 kilowatt hours big.

Ford says they'll do 80% in 45 minutes of charging.

And that's perfect.

45 minutes fits into the standard rest breaks

that you have to build in to truck driving over here,

and not quite the wild west to some other countries.

Europe and in here as well,

we have pretty strict limits on the amount of time

you can drive for and drive a fatigue

and things like that to ensure road safety.

Ford has turned the F-Line E into bodybuilder use as well.

An electric power takeoff

allows zero emission operation of auxiliary equipment.

Now, Cherry, the Chinese maker,

could build cars with its own badge in Britain.

According to three sources,

this is cited by the Financial Times

and talks are due to move forward.

So our Prime Minister, Sir Kiyostama,

is visiting Beijing

and the first visit by a British Prime Minister in eight years,

the government wants Cherry

to actually make the vehicles in Great Britain.

Business Secretary Peter Kale,

Kyle said that according to the partnerships

that would be in place, it makes sense

if a plant has spare capacity

so they could use Jaguar Land Rover,

for instance, with spare capacity.

We have higher energy costs,

a lot of renewables on our grid,

but the higher energy costs

and higher labor costs, obviously,

that's the big blocks to making vehicles over here.

Though, Omoda, the executives there have not ruled out

even building their own plant,

manufacturing partnerships between global automakers

and Chinese rivals are rare outside of China.

Maybe Chang'an Mazda is an exception.

Yet, European tie-ups are likely to grow

as local firms wrestle with weaker demand

and rising costs and having capacity in factories.

Cherry comes with momentum.

It's Omoda and Jaku brands

were the fastest growing Chinese brands in Britain last year,

prompting the launch of the Cherry brand

sometime in the summer.

Starmer's trip signals a wider thaw between the countries

as we navigate, well, everyone that's around us.

We are but a small island

somewhere between the Atlantic and the North Sea

and Great Britain has to navigate

a very volatile relationship with the United States,

with the European Union who we left

but are looking to forge closer economic ties

with NATO allies as well, but also with Beijing

and Canada, obviously a huge part of that.

We have a very close relationship trading

but also I think just generally

the sort of the national psyche, if you like,

very similar to Canada.

And so Canada has a more pragmatic approach

to Chinese EVs.

They just cut their duties from 100% to 6%

for 49,000 vehicles a year.

So we'll wait and see what happens there.

We'll take a break, we'll come back.

We'll talk about Michigan and Rivian and,

we'll talk about Tesla,

having some problems in Sweden still, back in a bit.

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All right, welcome back to the podcast.

Michigan has turned its EV growing pains

into a legal assault on big oil.

Last Friday, the state's attorney general,

Daniel Nestle, filed a 126 page

federal antitrust lawsuit against BP,

Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell,

and the American Petroleum Institute.

Michigan claims that those firms

ran a decades-long conspiracy

to keep fossil fuels dominant in transport and energy

while blocking EVs from reaching scale.

The complaint alleges unlawful collusion

to cut innovation and output

and to inflate prices in Michigan's markets.

Michigan says oil companies

over the years have deliberately slowed things

like charger deployment.

They could have put them at their own fueling stations

on their own land, and they've been dragging their feet

on new technology.

It also accuses the industry of bank-rolling misinformation,

but we know the industry as a whole does that.

There are some very, very dark forces

with very deep pockets.

Not necessarily those individual companies,

but the fossil fuel industry as a whole

is an incredibly evil thing

that'll do whatever it can.

It will fight tooth and nail

to keep the money in their own pockets.

They hate electric vehicles, of course,

any innovation that moves electric.

And so they fund everything from think tanks,

political lobbying, bloggers even,

YouTube content creators,

and sympathetic legacy media.

They spread false stories around electric vehicles

and clean power technology.

We've all seen these odd stories

that pop up in the newspapers.

You might be able to think of examples

that I've mentioned recently on the podcast

where weird legacy media articles

that aren't even that well written

pop up that throw doubt and confusion

around car makers that have got very clear plans to go electric.

Isn't money a funny thing?

Without this alleged plot,

Michigan argues electric vehicle adoption

would have scaled years earlier,

saving residents and government billions of dollars in energy

and may I add,

may editorialize a little bit on this part,

in healthcare costs as well.

The Trump administration rolled back

strict fuel economy rules,

handing a big advantage to companies

that want to make less efficient cars

that burn more fuel and cost Americans more at the pump

because the cars are not gonna be as efficient anymore.

They canceled federal electric vehicle charging funding

and then the courts made them put it back

because that was what was agreed.

And they scrapped EV tax credits.

Well, they could get away with that.

And they filled the cabinet with officials

that are funded by the fossil fuel industry.

All right, let's move on.

Rivian has secured a patent for virtual off-roading guides

that tell its vehicles how to tackle trails

before the drivers even hit the turn of the trail.

Now, this was filed back in September, 2022,

but it was published a couple of days ago

by the US Patent and Trademark Office.

What a brilliant idea.

Helping novice off-road drivers

or even drivers that haven't done

that particular trail before avoid trouble.

It lets veterans and those that are great at,

you know, driving up trails,

spend less time tweaking the settings.

Rivian notes that every trail has a quirk.

Its guide draws on crowdsourced data

from vehicles that have already completed a given path.

It will adjust the driving parameters

and the vehicle settings providing on-screen guidance

and even tailored coaching

for someone who might be driving up a trail

but is still learning a bit more inexperienced.

After the trail run, vehicles upload its tracing

to the online portal,

which keeps metadata like vehicle type condition,

modifications, terrain details, and driver experience.

A vehicle that arrives that wants to learn

from other people that have driven up that trail

can request the data if it wants.

The portal filters and selects the most suitable traces.

Drivers can pick modes if they're a beginner,

if they're intermediate, if they're an expert off-road

and dashboard messages will serve up specific tips,

including how to deal with something

that they might be about to come across.

That's a brilliant idea.

And if nothing else, they can market this,

which further entrenched Rivian

into this kind of electric adventure brand.

I think it could actually be very useful in the real life though.

Now, Donald Trump threatens a 100% tariff

on Canadian goods over the weekend

if Ottawa does a trade deal with China

over electric vehicles after eight days of backing the deal.

This wild swing from one position to another

is nothing new for an administration

that sometimes keeps people on their toes on purpose.

Over 75% of Canadian exports go to the US.

A blanket 100% duty on all Canadian goods entering America

would hit every Canadian sector,

unsettle cross-border supply chains,

and really impact pretty much every Canadian

that relies on the economy.

And so Trump says that Canada

is gonna become a Chinese drop-off port for its EVs.

The Rao Stems from Canada's move

to allow 49,000 EVs into the country from China

made in China, so Teslas made in China,

Polestar's made in China,

Lotuses made in China.

These aren't random Chinese brands

that we're talking about,

but still critics say that the drop in tariffs

from 100% to 6.1% are a bad idea.

The stark reversal in Washington is amusing

because Trump had until then been praising Canada

for that exact deal.

He said that if he could have done the deal,

then he would have done a paraphrasing here,

but saying if you can get the deal, you should do.

After eight days of praise,

then came the complete opposite

and said we'll put 100% tariffs on all Canadian goods

unless you stop the Chinese cars coming in.

Anybody would think that perhaps the policy

is not being properly thought through.

Shocking claim, sorry about that.

At the World Economic Forum,

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney,

who is widely regarded by many journalists who have had

pretty much the most impactful speech on stage,

cast this spat as a symptom of the decline

of the post-war international order.

Interesting.

Now, a couple of Teslas stories to finish off.

Teslas' newest supercharger outside Stockholm

is drawing more than motorists to it.

This time it's legal attention.

Swedish labor unions say that the science power

could breach the energy market rules.

And are now pressing regulators

and maybe even the police to act on Tesla.

You see the station in Arlenstadt opened just before Christmas

and there's a mega-pack battery on site.

And I love it when battery packs power EV charging.

They can effectively be a bucket

and you can connect them to a small grid connection.

They charge the battery when no one's at the EV charger

and then maybe five cars turn up at once,

you can dump a load of power into those cars.

It's a brilliant idea

and I think Tesla do it better than most.

The design offers resilience.

And also in Sweden,

where there is still a union dispute going on,

they can't connect up traditional charging stations

because the electrical unions are also supporting

the other unions in their fight against Tesla

who is fiercely anti-union in Sweden

that's been going on for two years.

But this is a sharper question.

Who's allowed to sell and supply electricity?

Now, IF Metall is at the centre

of the broader dispute with Tesla,

has now filed this report

with the energy market inspectorate

because they want to look into

where's the electricity coming from

to feed the Tesla battery?

The local provider has not been disclosed

and you have to be licensed to sell electricity to Tesla.

Now, the ombudsman at IF Metall

said that if you don't have a permit

it's called illegal trading

which is when they have to involve the police.

The Swedish Electricians Association

have noticed some electrical cables

being routed from a property that's 500 metres away

a police report could now be filed.

And finally, this is great news.

Tesla has switched on its second true V4 supercharger.

It's 500 kilowatts,

which is very fast outside of China.

It's in Utah, in Taylorsville,

marking another step towards next-gen charging.

Earlier V4 sites, version four in North America

actually used the existing V3 power cabinets.

So when you go to a charger,

if you're new to VVs,

you have the charger that you plug into

and sometimes a lot of the heavy lifting

is done inside the charger.

Sometimes they're simple pedestals

and then further away you'll see some

often white or cream-coloured,

big metal kind of boxes,

chipping containers sometimes,

often hidden behind a fence

or some foliage to disguise them.

They're called the power cabinets

and they do the real heavy lifting.

So this new one has 16 posts,

only eight are working for now.

They think that it's actually a software issue at Tesla

that'll be resolved,

same as the existing V4 sites.

That's only got some of the posts up and running.

And so that's seen Redwood City in California.

That's open since September

and it's still not fully open.

The Taylorsville hub uses obviously the NACS connector.

So Tesla cars and approved Naxx partners.

And so new V4 locations like this one

add a central payments kiosk.

If you need to do billing that way,

pricing is always competitive with Tesla.

The owners in Taylorsville pay, it changes

from 27 cents to 37 cents a kilowatt hour.

If you're a non-Tesla, 38 to 52 cents per kilowatt hour,

according to time of day,

but I still think that's incredibly cheap

compared to what we pay for electricity.

The hardware can deliver 500 kilowatts of power.

In Redwood City,

Tesla previously showed a Cybertruck drawing the full power.

Though only for a short, very short period

before it ramped down,

almost negating any benefit.

The Cybertruck just slowed down so quickly.

My friend Tom from State of Charge,

Tom Malogany from State of Charge YouTube channel

and EVchargingstations.com website

just flew out to California

and took a lucid gravity,

which can obviously pull a lot of power,

to Redwood City did that last week.

The video came out over the weekend or Friday

and it's, I won't spoil the number, but it's really big.

The lucid pulled well over 400 kilowatts.

Very, very impressive.

Go check out Tom's channel.

It's a great video.

And that's your podcast for today.

Thanks to our premium partners,

National Car Charging on the US mainland

and the Low Heart Charge in Hawaii

and Test EV, Avalu's trusted partner

for independent EV battery health testing

in Australia and New Zealand.

Have a good incident.

And remember, there's no such thing

as a self-charging hybrid.

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DAILY: Lucid Bets On Small SUV, Trump Defeated Over Charging and Jaguar Confusion | 26 Jan 2026

About this episode

BMW iX1

Lucid Motors

level four autonomy

robotaxi

Lucid Gravity

Jaguar

E-rev

Grand Tourer

400 miles of range

range extender

electric vehicles

Dodge Charger

General Motors

Ford

electric semi-truck

18-wheeler

Ford F-Line E

kilowatt hour

rest breaks

electric power takeoff

Chery

Rivian

virtual off-roading guides

V4 supercharger

kilowatts

NACS connector

Tesla Cybertruck

Test EV

Request an Explanation

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