DAILY: Lucid Improves Sales, Diesel Slides Again and Volvo Recalls EX30 | 25 Feb 2026

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Welcome back to EV News Daily.

Today, Lucid grows sales, Diesel slides again, and Volvo recalls an EX30.

Well, 40,000 of them actually.

Plus, stay tuned.

Later in the show, I'll tell you why Honda's new Icon electric scooter

undercuts their combustion ones.

And on EV News China today has been off podcast.

We're talking about BYD's new charges currently going in the ground.

Social media shows, they're being installed.

They're rated at, you're sitting down, 1500 kilowatts.

That's 1.5 megawatt charging for passenger cars.

Solid-state batteries are going into Chang'an cars,

and Volkswagen buys X-Pung's brain.

And join me later for a bonus show.

Not done one of these in a while,

because I've been so busy what with half-term and the kids being off school.

It'll be live tonight for patrons.

We're looking at how the quickest way to go EV and reduce emissions

could be by leaning hard into fleets.

But why is that important?

Why does it matter?

Fleet buyers, company car buyers, those operate massive fleets of vehicles.

Why should Europe lean hard on those?

Well, transport and environment, the NGO that's an advocacy group

for things like clean transport, says they have the answer.

That'll go live tonight for patrons.

It goes into the free feed after seven days.

If you want the content, first check out the Patreon,

page at patreon.com slash EV News Daily.

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Now, Lucid's Q4 and full year 2025 results show faster growth,

heavier losses, and a major cost-cutting round.

Rivian, sorry, revenue.

That's not the word I was looking at on my page.

Revenue beat expectations and deliveries hit new highs.

That's good.

But the business remains cash intensive and loss making as it scales.

And oh, so familiar story in the world of electric vehicles.

So what do they make?

Well, Lucid generated revenue last quarter of just over US$520 million.

More than double 2024's Q4 and a full year revenue of US$1.35 billion.

That's up almost 70% on 2024.

It still posted a net loss with management,

pointing to ongoing spend on vehicle development,

factory expansion and future tech programs.

The company ended last year with $4.6 billion in liquidity,

which it believes is enough to fund it into 2027 and profitability.

Operationally, they delivered just under 16,000 new Lucid's last year.

Hopefully lots of happy customers.

That's up 55% on the previous year.

And Q4 was really good actually.

Almost 5,500 deliveries in Q4 alone thanks to the new SUV.

That's called the Gravity.

Looking ahead, deliveries this year,

well production actually specifically they mentioned,

up to 27,000 vehicles in 2026.

That's up to 50% over the 2025 number.

Now that plant leans of course on the Gravity SUV

and the launch of a midsize SUV.

More on that in a moment.

The financial strategy relies on discipline as well.

Days before this report last night,

or at least in last night my time,

Lucid announced the third major layoff in three years,

cutting 12% of its US salary workforce

to streamline operations and support its margins.

The company confirmed plans to launch

the upcoming midsize platform vehicle as well.

Price from $50,000, roughly half the starting price of a Lucid Air,

designed to compete at the heart of the mass market segment.

They will not go any more downmarket from 50K.

They said that's not the kind of company

that Lucid is aiming to be.

The vehicle is expected to launch this year

and sits alongside the Gravity SUV

as the second pillar of Lucid's expansion.

Lucid's current lineup targets premium buyers,

but that limits the addressable market.

A 50K entry point opens the company

to a significantly larger pool of EV buyers in North America

and potentially internationally.

Let's move on.

European Union, EU, car data out yesterday.

This is huge.

So overall, the car market in the European Union

fell 3.9% last month in January,

compared to January the previous year.

Not a big deal.

Car market shrank, not great.

But the real story is when you dig into it.

And I have done.

And Petrol and Diesel together took a 30% share of car sales.

But then dig into the trends.

January 2024, Petrol and Diesel were 50% of the market.

Okay, half, that's all right.

January last year, it was 40%.

January this year, it was 30%.

That amounts to a Petrol and Diesel collapse

over just 24 months.

A story that many aren't even picking up on yet.

They will do.

The ACEA, that's the trade body,

data for the full year,

shows the same drift the combined share

fell from 45% over the year to 35% over 2025

as a whole year.

Petrol sliding to 26% and Diesel to 9% over the entire year.

They publish data for electrified powertrains.

Again, this is the trade body.

And this is because the car makers want to include

all of their shabby hybrids in what they call EVs.

And they're not because an EV has a plug socket

on the side of it.

You can argue that an EV is a full Bev.

Or you can argue that an EV has a plug,

that you could be able to add energy to it

with cheap green renewable electricity.

And for many, that's our industry definitions as well.

But many are happy with that being called an electric vehicle.

But they say EVs are 68% of January.

And of course, I've seen headlines in the last 24 hours,

which say, wow, Europe is at 68% EV.

It's absolutely not because the ACEA adds hybrids,

mild hybrids, and even anything with a 48 volt system.

You know, maybe that turns a starter motor

or some ancillary systems under that label.

That's not an electric vehicle.

It's a category that hides and obfuscates

as much as it reveals.

Pure Bev's, I've got the data, don't worry.

Pure Bev's last month in January were 19.3.

That's up from 14.9, same month 12, 12 months ago.

Plug-in hybrids were 9.8, share up from 7.4.

So again, Bev's about twice as much as plug-in hybrids.

And combustion fell fast.

And so the market may have shrunk,

but petrol and diesel shrank faster.

The trend doesn't need a genius to see

that burning oil for personal transport

is going to be a thing of the past.

I can't tell you the timeline, but we know it's coming.

Now, this is really interesting.

So one of the ways that over here,

some of the politicians and regulators

have an idea about accessing subsidies,

money off cars, things like that,

little financial perks,

is to make sure that the cars are built

in European Union or in Europe.

And so America's done the same, China's done the same.

The European Commission are going to publish

what they call the Industrial Accelerator Act,

which sounds dry, I know, but they've postponed it.

It's backed really by France, driven by France,

to reindustrialize home soil

and add a European preference to EVs

and the bits that go into them.

The presentation date was going to be December.

Now it's pushed back to the 4th of March.

The Commissioner, Stefanie Sejeunet,

and her team says the extra week

reflects the work that's needed on internal talks.

An EU diplomat says playing down the shift of date,

blaming the complexity of defining what a country

counts as homegrown, if you like,

and bringing everyone together.

The draft threshold puts EV origin parts at 70%,

but not the battery.

They say it can't be done with Chinese influence,

but the rest of the car, 70% from EU suppliers built

on EU soil kind of thing.

UK has warned, though, that too much protectionism

harms supply chains and the EU-UK,

now that we're out thanks to Brexit,

the EU is our biggest export market.

And if the EU goes down this route of protectionism,

that harms the UK, oh, deep joy.

And so we'll wait and see where that goes.

Ah, free trade, ah, we miss it.

Anyway, let's move on.

That's not a topic for this podcast.

Let's move on.

Volvo cars will recall almost a quarter of the

all of the EX-30s ever made.

And that's 40,000 EX-30s over a potential battery risk.

The recall covers single and dual motor variants,

and the affected vehicles use high-voltage cells

from one of their suppliers.

The supplier is called Shandong Geely Sunwoda Power Battery Company,

catchy, a joint venture partly backed by Geely,

which is Volvo's parent company,

but ultimately Volvo's been let down by their supplier.

Now, that deal's been sorted out of court.

I've been reporting on that on our spin-off show,

EV News China, because, you know,

it's a little bit deep for the main podcast here.

But they've now settled that.

It was going through the courts,

and that deal's now been done.

And so Volvo has been trying to manage the risk

and their public image, really.

But this is a real bit of damage, a real bloody nose.

They've told EX-30 owners in more than a dozen countries

not to park the car near your building.

Great.

And not to charge it more than 70%.

I mean, not the end of the world.

But Volvo say they'll replace battery modules free of charge,

the same battery supplier provides the new cells,

but they have identified the fault and corrected it.

Reuters estimated replacements costs about 200 million US dollars,

excluding logistics and labor, though.

Volvo dismissed that as a speculative amount.

I think a much bigger cost is, you know,

what happened to the Bolt as well in America,

which is just that reputational damage and the brand damage

and the headlines of, you know, Volvo batteries aren't safe.

And they would argue, no, of course they are.

We're just being an abundance of caution here.

But, you know, when you start telling owners

of your expensive cars that you've bought,

don't keep it near your house.

That is damaging.

And I say that as a huge Volvo fan.

I love what they do.

I love that they're moving into EVs quicker than most.

I love their ethos and style and brand.

And but still, I mean, you can't sugarcoat that, can you?

Now, transport and environment is an NGO advocating

for zero emission transport.

And I mentioned them at the beginning of the podcast.

There's a special in your feed later on tonight

for patrons seven days time for the free feed.

And they want the European Union to raise corporate fleet quotas.

They say the EU should be targeting 70% zero emission vehicles by 2030

and not 45% under the new proposals.

They argue for excluding plug-in hybrids

and low emission vehicles entirely.

Company car plug-in hybrids underperform in the real world

because of fuel cards.

And therefore, why would you spend your own money at home

plugging it in when you've got a fuel card?

So these plug-in hybrids are never filled with electricity.

And that pushes real world emissions three, four, five times

above the lab values.

And the commission's plan would more than double

the allowed corporate plug-in hybrid registrations

over the next four years.

T&E also wants fossil fuel company Cartax subsidies,

which are over 42 billion a year.

42 billion euros per year for company Cartax subsidies

for the fossil fuel industry.

Just one of the fossil fuel subsidies that's out there.

Replace.

Of course they want it replaced because that's what they do.

But they want it replaced with incentives ring fenced

for EVs built in Europe supporting domestic manufacturing

against imports and giving car makers clearer signals.

We dig into this story.

It's really interesting.

And that's going to be a special in your feed for patrons later

in the free feed in seven days time.

Look out for that.

I enjoyed writing this one.

Right, we'll take a break.

We'll come back.

We'll talk hot hatches and high voltage fans.

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All right, welcome back to the podcast.

Now, it feels like the 90s hot hatch era is kind of returning

when I got into cars, add magazines like Max Power

and stuff around and slightly bonkers cars

that you could aspire to as being everyday cars,

not Lamborghinis and Ferraris.

And I guess my early supercar era

was things like Ferrari Testarossa's.

And you know, you knew that they were out of reach,

but hot hatches, well, you knew that if you worked hard

and maybe one day, even one of your mates might get one.

Vauxhall will launch a high performance fully electric Corsa GSE

and it's coming this year.

And it's their first hot hatch since the Corsa VXR

disappeared eight years ago.

It wears the GSE badge, which they relaunched last year

as a sub brand for performance EVs.

It's not a trim level.

It's re-engineering like Hyundai do with their N cars.

So we think this would be just shy of 300 horsepower

in a front mounted motor, of course, hot hatch.

Come on, gotta be front wheel drive.

And taking it from the Mocha.

So the Mocha GSE is already in the Stellantis family.

That motor is in the Abarth 600E, the Alfa Romeo Jr. Veloce

and the Peugeot E208 GTI.

Mocha GSE pairs that motor with a 54 kilowatt hour battery,

a limited slip diff, anti roll bars, stiffer bushings,

upgraded brakes, running on different tires as well.

Those changes, if they carry across to a smaller Corsa platform

a much smaller urban kind of not super mini

because there's no super minis anymore

because, you know, cars got fat,

but still a much smaller segment.

Whoa, well, the Mocha is less than six seconds nor to 60,

which it doesn't destroy records,

but remember in a small hot hatch,

it's meant to be about fun and smiles.

A bit like driving the Alpine A290

or even the Renault 5, but the Alpine version

just makes you smile.

And then you realize you're not actually going that fast.

Little Mini Cooper Electric JCW,

the Alpine A290.

GTS cars like that, just meant to be fun

without being bonkers.

That's come in this year.

Renault will take full ownership of Flexis.

That's a van venture they were doing with Volvo.

The buyout lands under the new Renault CEO François Provoist

who took the role in mid-2025

and follows more retrenchment.

Volvo will shut down their Ampere EV division

and software unit.

It's closing down.

It's car sharing operation.

Fear not though, Ampere,

the flagship spin-off of the former Renault CEO Luca D'Ameo.

There's going to be an IPO, but that fizzled.

It's going to fold back into Renault this July.

Ampere has about 11,000 employees

and fear not they're going to retain their roles,

but they'll just be working within Renault,

not within a separate company

that was eventually going to be its own thing.

Flexis, though, is the van bit

and it's all going to be owned by Renault now.

That's an 800-volt platform.

The first one's the Renault traffic van E-Tech

being made in France at the Sainte-Ville plant.

Now, Cherry-owned Leepass, or Leppers,

but I think I say Leepass,

has confirmed their first five-seat family SUV

for the United Kingdom.

It's called the L8 and it's coming this summer.

Full UK specs will come in the coming weeks.

Leppass sits alongside the other Cherry brands

like Omoda and JQ,

which are being built with European ambitions,

as with many Chinese brands these days,

and they're trying to do their explaining their names

to Western buyers by claiming that Leppass

is coming from a blend of the word leopard,

leap and passion.

Well, I find that rather tenuous and it's not needed,

but maybe I'm just a cynical old Grinch in my old age.

But either way, I'm not sure Leppard's leaps and passion

is exactly where a pretty boring five-seat family SUV sits,

but there we go.

And I'm all about boring five-seat family cars

because, well, it would suit my rather boring family

that needs things like reliable transport,

powertrain, details, unconfirmed.

In Indonesia, by the way,

the L8 has a plug-in hybrid system

that we find in the UK spec JQ7.

Now, that's probably a good starting point

if I'm making guesses.

1.5-litre engine, just short of a 20 kilowatt-hour pack,

56 miles or 90 kilometers of all-electric range.

They say a pure electric version will follow as well.

And finally, Honda has launched the Icon E.

The Icon E is a compact electric scooter

for urban commuters and first-time riders.

In Japan, it's priced at 220,000 yen.

That works out at 1,400 US or about 1,350 euros.

And that stick of price matters

because it actually undercuts Honda's petrol models.

And Honda are very famous, of course,

for making two-wheeled vehicles.

That's about $120, $130 or so more than the electric version.

And who says price parity doesn't exist?

Honda say they've done it with parts rationalization

and economies of scale, with manufacturing and sales

anchored in places like Indonesia.

Honda claims 50 miles per charge or 81 kilometers.

And that looks less dramatic once set

against how small mopeds get used.

The average daily moped use in a city

and some cities you go to, you can't cross the road for mopeds.

You just got to go and they'll avoid you.

And there are some cities around the world,

some big urban environments, where it's just mopeds everywhere.

And these kind of vehicles are exactly when Honda's making this.

But the average moped journey in one of those big cities is six miles.

I always talk about use case on this podcast,

anyone that'll listen, frankly.

Use case is what defines how we spend our money on electric transport.

Why would you buy a Harley-Davidson

if you want to get to work six miles away?

And you can do it by charging on cheap, possibly free, renewable energy.

If you live in a sunny country, got some solar panels on the top of your roof.

Well, then the icon E is absolutely perfect.

Well done, Honda.

No bragging rights here.

Just a step through layout with a flat foot rest and power

coming from its mobile power pack battery,

which riders can charge indoors or even swap at dedicated swap stations

you just pull the battery out of the scooter.

They've got their swappable battery network in Asian markets and have had for several years.

In Japan, the icon E sits in the moped license class.

You can ride them from 16.

Same over here, actually, as well as you put L plates on and you can ride a scooter.

If Honda pursues European certification,

you'd be targeting youth and urban commuter segments

at a price cheaper than some e-bikes.

And okay, some e-bikes are ridiculously expensive.

The icon E also fits Honda's portfolio of small electric two-wheeled vehicles,

builds around real-world use case usability

than grabbing the headlines with European cities tightening low emission zones

and grappling with rising fuel prices worldwide.

A scooter below 1400 euros arrives at a very well-timed moment.

And that's your podcast for today.

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DAILY: Lucid Improves Sales, Diesel Slides Again and Volvo Recalls EX30 | 25 Feb 2026

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