00:00
Capital One's tech team isn't just talking about multi-agentic AI.
00:05
They are already deployed one.
00:06
It's called Chat Concierge and it's simplifying car shopping.
00:10
Using self-reflection and layered reasoning with live API checks, it doesn't just help
00:15
buyers find a car they love.
00:17
It helps schedule a test drive, get pre-approved for financing, and estimate trading value.
00:23
Advanced, intuitive, and deployed.
00:25
That's how they stack.
00:26
That's technology at Capital One.
00:30
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.
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Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates.
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01:01
Capital One's tech team isn't just talking about multi-agentic AI.
01:05
They are already deployed one.
01:07
It's called Chat Concierge and it's simplifying car shopping.
01:11
Using self-reflection and layered reasoning with live API checks, it doesn't just help
01:16
buyers find a car they love.
01:17
It helps schedule a test drive, get pre-approved for financing, and estimate trading value.
01:23
Advanced, intuitive, and deployed.
01:25
That's how they stack.
01:26
That's technology at Capital One.
01:30
Welcome back to EV News Daily.
01:32
Today, Mercedes updates the EQS, Nissan reveal the Duke EV, and Europe EV sales hit a march
01:40
Plus they tuned later in the show while telling you why Volvo is taking the lead in electric
01:44
heavy-duty trucking.
01:45
Over on EV News China today, we're talking about VW's China EV slump, X-Pung's GX interior.
01:53
That's the one that looks a lot like a Range Rover.
01:56
It's a full announcement tomorrow, by the way, in China.
01:59
There's like a third of the sticker price of a Range Rover, though.
02:03
Jim Farley, Ford's boss, warning on China EVs on Fox and Friends, a TV show in America.
02:11
That could also be a story here, by the way, on EV News Daily.
02:14
One of those stories that I have to put somewhere, so I put it on EV News China because this
02:18
show was already half an hour long today, but it's basically the boss of Ford warning
02:23
a lot about how Chinese EVs, if they're allowed into America, could destroy domestic manufacturing,
02:28
how there's issues around security and cameras and data logging and all those kind of things.
02:33
Over on our spin-off podcast, EV News China, in the same feed as this.
02:37
All the advice I'm kind of given by the podcast experts is one podcast feed, multiple shows
02:42
Some people say, oh, I can't EV News China and briefly be separate podcasts, apparently
02:47
not the best way to do it, or the big kind of publishers do it.
02:51
They have one feed, as it were, to subscribe to, and then you sort of just pick and choose
02:55
the podcast within it to listen to.
02:57
So either way, that'll be waiting for you if you want to have a listen to what's happening
03:02
More than a quarter of the Mercedes-Benz EQS has now been newly developed, reworked
03:09
Mercedes officially calls it an update, but the evidence suggests something a lot more
03:14
This is the biggest change to the car since its launch in 2021.
03:18
The most immediate gain is the range.
03:21
Let's talk about that.
03:23
On the rear wheel drive, EQS 450 Plus, big battery.
03:29
It's 475 miles of WLTP range.
03:33
That's bladder busting, if ever I heard it.
03:36
It's almost a thousand kilometers.
03:38
It's a 13% improvement over the outgoing model, and yeah, that's up there with Lucid Air Grand
03:43
Touring, which is Europe's longest range EV at the moment.
03:46
EPA equivalent, I don't know.
03:49
It would be more than 400 miles, definitely 650 kilometers maybe.
03:54
The dual motor variant does 544 miles.
03:59
Both figures, traced back to new battery chemistry, usable capacity actually rises from 118 to
04:05
122 kilowatt hours.
04:07
Same pack, physical pack, no change in weight.
04:10
Mercedes achieved that by switching to silicon oxide graphite composite anodes, they say.
04:16
Lifting both gravimetric and volumetric, energy density.
04:20
There's also less cobalt.
04:22
The electrical architecture is the other big headline.
04:25
They've moved it from a 400 to an 800 volts architecture.
04:28
That means the EQS goes from 200 to 350 kilowatts of its peak charging.
04:34
That doesn't tell the whole story, though.
04:36
It comes with weight savings, of course, 800 volt, 350 is pretty much the ceiling of most
04:42
Obviously, you can get faster.
04:45
But compatibility with 400 volt chargers remains by splitting the pack virtually in two halves,
04:51
each accepting 175 kilowatts simultaneously.
04:55
What the higher voltage setup does, and bigger isn't always better, but it often is, it means
05:00
you can hold the charge curve higher for longer.
05:02
And a more consistent charge rate, at least 10 to 60, I would say.
05:08
In practical terms, the EQS is going to add 200 miles in 10 minutes.
05:13
And frankly, that's brilliant.
05:15
The drivetrain is also reworked.
05:16
New electric motors, they're smaller, more efficient, more durable.
05:20
On the all-wheel drive models, the front motor is a dedicated boost unit with a disconnect
05:26
So if you don't need the front motor, it won't turn on.
05:30
The rear axle has a two-speed gearbox now, think Tycon, if you like.
05:34
A short first gear is all about that launch performance, a long second gear for efficiency.
05:41
Regen braking is up by 33%.
05:43
It'll pull in almost 400 kilowatts of regen power.
05:47
Mercedes says the system virtually handles all braking events or deceleration events,
05:54
as they call it, without the friction brakes.
05:56
And that's a good thing.
05:58
The EQS is also the first production car from a German manufacturer with full steer-by-wire.
06:05
The system removes any kind of mechanical steering column and replaces it with virtual
06:09
linkage, cutting weight, frees up space.
06:13
Of course, there's safety concerns as well, and also practical concerns.
06:17
Now, if you opt for the steer-by-wire, you can also get a yoke, like Tesla, obviously,
06:23
in place of a conventional steering wheel.
06:27
The lock-to-lock rotation is 270 degrees, and the flatter design also improves sight
06:36
I've never used one in a modern EV, so I can't comment.
06:40
I've never driven a Cybertruck, because I don't know how well it works, but my friends
06:44
that have driven owned a Cybertruck said, yeah, it's fine, you get used to it.
06:47
You retrain your muscle memory.
06:50
It means you can see the driver's display, you can enter and leave the car easier.
06:55
Some people are very anti-yoke.
06:57
I'm very much on the fence until I've lived with one for several months.
07:01
The system operates with a 10-degree rear axle steering and uses redundant signal
07:07
paths, they say, in the event of total failure of the electrical system.
07:10
Rear axle steering and individual braking for each wheel is maintained.
07:16
Steer-by-wire not available today at launch, coming in a few months, they say.
07:22
The chassis gains new software.
07:24
There's the new suspension system called Airmatic from Mercedes-Benz.
07:27
You'll get that on the new electric GLC, the new plug-in hybrid S-class as well.
07:33
Using cloud data, talk about EVs being connected, so it uses all of the cloud data to pool
07:42
other miles driven by Mercedes drivers so it can prime its dampers before a road surface
07:50
changes, even before a pothole arrives or a speed bump.
07:54
It draws on what's so-called car 2x, so car 2 something else.
08:00
Mercedes vehicles will pool the data and alert each other about road hazards ahead as well.
08:06
A new automatic reversing function will help go into tight spaces, bi-directional charging
08:11
is now included vehicle to grid and vehicle to home, but again, that comes later over
08:18
The in-house operating system, MBOS, is all part of that.
08:21
EQS retains its flagship status as a test bed really as well.
08:24
Mercedes confirming that, steer-by-wire, cloud suspension, vehicle sharing between Mercedes-Benz
08:31
cars as you're driving down the road, all coming to future electric C-classes, E-classes,
08:38
All right, that's a big update to that car.
08:41
Also, another new car released today, reveal at least today, Nissan has unveiled the third
08:47
generation Duke and it's fully electric.
08:50
It's going to be on sale exclusively in Europe next year.
08:54
It'll be built in Sunderland in the northeast of the UK.
08:58
The new car turns the concept, the so-called hyperpunk concept from 2024 into a production
09:06
Angular, polygon design, Nissan positions the Duke as a bold guy.
09:12
It does look actually pretty spiky, pretty funky.
09:15
I think it used to it.
09:16
A more sportier option than the new Nissan, leave for the Aria, aimed at buyers who want
09:22
Nissan's planned to replace the combustion engine Duke entirely, but they're going to
09:26
keep the petrol version or hybrid version around a little bit longer.
09:29
Under the skin, Duke EV uses the same platform from Renault Nissan, which is CMF EV platform.
09:34
The leaf, for instance, obviously the same platform, also made in the same place in Sunderland,
09:41
will share the same underpinnings as the Duke.
09:43
But the Duke will be a much more, I'd say, kind of sporty looking, lifestyly choice than
09:49
Both are good new cars.
09:50
Leaf does come with two batteries, so 52 or 75 kilowatt hours if, and they haven't announced
09:56
it by the way, if the larger battery pack comes with a smaller Duke form factor, well,
10:01
that could be almost 400 miles of range.
10:03
CMF platform supports dual motor, but Duke could be dual single motor.
10:09
I would think front wheel drive, like the leaf, matching the leaf powertrain.
10:13
So over 200 horsepower, very usable, 7, 8 seconds, 0 to 60.
10:18
That's not what this car is all about.
10:19
100 miles an hour top speed.
10:21
The Duke is enormously important for Nissan's sales figures.
10:26
Some would say, perhaps hyperbolic, you decide to Nissan's very survival as a company.
10:34
All right, let's talk about Europe's EV sales, a huge bit of news today.
10:39
Purebev and plug-in hybrid, and I guess we talk about EREV in there as well.
10:43
Now, registrations in Europe reached a monthly all-time high of 540,000 units last month
10:51
That is up 37% on the same month last year.
10:54
That's according to benchmark mineral intelligence.
10:58
Global EV registrations up 3% to 1.7 million last month.
11:03
The timing matters.
11:05
The US-Israeli war on Iran began on 28th of February and immediately and continues to
11:12
disrupt key shipping routes, carrying around 20% of global oil supplies.
11:19
Fuel costs have risen sharply in many markets, not only in Europe,
11:24
but in many parts of Asia.
11:26
We've talked about Australian fuel shortages.
11:29
We see Irish fuel protests over recent days.
11:34
Don't need to go into that on this podcast.
11:36
We see petrol, an average of about $4.20, maybe a little bit under diesel,
11:43
heading towards $6 per gallon in the US.
11:47
And obviously, many states on the coasts are much higher,
11:50
particularly the Western states are very high.
11:53
But the US average is up.
11:56
It was going to be up anyway because of spring break and more travel.
11:58
But if you look at the year-on-year prices in America, it's stark.
12:04
So yeah, the US has its own oil supply, but it plays global prices, doesn't it?
12:09
So these are really interesting times to look through that lens.
12:14
Now, many articles I've read over the last few weeks directly link higher fuel prices to
12:20
more EV sales, more interest, more data points like searches and lease inquiries.
12:27
I'm a little less convinced of that argument, only because EV purchases,
12:32
whether that is a purchase, a loan agreement, which can take time to get your finances in order,
12:37
a leasing agreement.
12:38
I don't think it's the work of a moment.
12:40
I think if you were ready to go to, as many say, pull the trigger,
12:45
not keep on that phrase, but ready to go, then maybe it got you over the line.
12:51
I think we need to wait longer to see.
12:53
But lots of articles say, well, higher petrol prices.
12:55
Everyone's buying EVs now.
12:58
Let's temper it a little bit.
13:00
Hey, look, I'm here to sing the praises of EVs,
13:03
but it'll also be a little bit sensible about it as well.
13:07
Europe had a big advantage because the charging supply has been keeping pace.
13:12
Utilities like Iberdrola in Spain, EDF also reporting record installations of DC charging
13:20
Governments in Europe are fast-tracking funding this year to meet rising demand in the UK.
13:24
4,000 new high-powered charges added in the first quarter of this year.
13:28
It's another 4,000 high-powered places to charge,
13:32
double the same time last year.
13:34
That eases a big barrier.
13:36
Tabin, it does two things.
13:38
It means you can charge your car and anecdotally,
13:41
as I don't do many miles anymore as I work from home doing this for you.
13:45
But when I do get out and about, I don't even worry about where to charge anymore.
13:50
Just jump in the car and head off on the travels,
13:53
which we've done over the Easter break and my holidays with the kids.
13:58
Now, I know that I'm a little more EV-fluent than some,
14:02
but I'm not looking at where we're charging in advance
14:05
because I kind of know where we're going.
14:07
But also, the second thing I think it does
14:10
is when combustion car drivers,
14:13
I'm not talking about the never-bevers,
14:15
people who, for whatever fanatical reason, hate us EV drivers,
14:18
but just the average driver who will be driving an EV one day,
14:22
because everybody will, as we know,
14:24
then they see lots of charges all being used.
14:28
Then I think it does a really important job.
14:31
So this is interesting times.
14:33
GFK reporting that online EV searches about 90%
14:37
since the conflict began for EVs.
14:39
We'll take a break.
14:40
We'll talk Kier and France and more.
15:37
Advanced, intuitive, and deployed.
15:40
That's how they stack.
15:41
That's technology at Capital One.
15:45
Well, welcome back to the podcast.
15:47
Kier has confirmed a 2027 launch for its cheapest EV.
15:52
They've been calling it the codename the BHATCH.
15:54
This is effectively the EV-1.
15:56
EV-1 will sit below EV-2.
15:59
Sounds like an obvious thing to say.
16:01
Targeting the same part of the market as a BYD Dolphin,
16:05
the MG4 Urban, the Great Wall Motors Aura,
16:10
and probably below the Renault 5, I would say.
16:17
Think Kier Picanto.
16:18
That is in Europe pricing expected to be 25,000, 20,000 euros.
16:24
That's around $40,000 or below 20,000 pounds.
16:27
Kier builds the EV-1 as the first software defined vehicle
16:32
Under the skin, 400-volt version of each EMP.
16:34
You won't be surprised to hear developing the underpinnings
16:38
with the smaller Hyundai sibling.
16:41
Two battery options could come if they can fit the big pack in,
16:44
either the 42 or the 61 kilowatt hour pack.
16:48
If they can squeeze in the big pack,
16:50
well, that would be 500 kilometers plus of range
16:53
in a small segment vehicle.
16:56
Possibly even replacing a petrol-powered Picanto.
16:59
We'll wait and see.
17:00
Good news in France.
17:01
They're going to launch the third phase
17:03
of their social leasing program in June.
17:05
A quota is 50,000 leases,
17:07
aiming to help low-income households switch to EV
17:10
at a very low cost.
17:12
Rising fuel costs has sped up the discussion around the agenda.
17:17
Prime Minister Sebastian Leconu,
17:19
announcing it as part of a wider set of energy measures,
17:23
setting out the cost case in plain terms.
17:25
He said the average EV can run at two euros per 100 kilometers
17:31
That's 11 euros per 100 kilometers.
17:35
Clearly, you know that.
17:36
Depends on where you charge.
17:38
If you're always DC fast charging in Europe,
17:40
but I don't know, a euro or a pound per kilowatt hour
17:43
in some of the DC charges on the motorways,
17:46
then yeah, that's not going to be any cheaper to drive
17:49
than finding a cheap petrol station.
17:52
If you can charge at home, off-peak,
17:55
even off-peak DC charging and get a good rate,
17:57
then you make big savings.
17:58
France has paired that demand push
18:00
with other industrial goals,
18:02
avoiding reliance on imported vehicles.
18:05
The government said they want Renault and Stellantis
18:07
to produce 400,000 electric cars a year by 2027.
18:12
That should be a million by 2030.
18:13
The wider plan doubles annual state support
18:16
from 5.5 billion euros in France
18:19
to 10 billion euros through 2030
18:21
and targeting fossil dependence on heating as well.
18:24
The package treats electrification as energy security.
18:30
Replace imported fossil fuels with domestically made electricity.
18:34
Obviously France is pretty much mostly nuclear generation anyway.
18:37
Heating is at the center of the plan too.
18:39
Are they going to ban gas heating in new buildings this year?
18:43
Also planning to phase out gas heating
18:45
in two million social housing units.
18:47
By 2030, France wants to add a million
18:49
domestically made heat pumps.
18:52
That matters because heat pumps cut demand and fuel use,
18:55
delivering between two and maybe up to four units of heat
18:59
per unit of electricity.
19:01
I'm sitting here in my office at the bottom of the garden
19:04
with my heat pump air conditioner working
19:07
and it's kept me toasty all winter.
19:10
In fact, it is working.
19:11
It's a bit chilly outside today,
19:12
but when it gets warmer here,
19:13
maybe for the day in the UK that it heats up,
19:17
it'll turn into an air conditioner and cool me down.
19:19
And it costs nothing at all to run.
19:23
The shift from gas heating to heat pump
19:24
marks a structural reduction in energy demand in France.
19:29
And we'll do the same when the gas boiler finally gives up
19:31
and I can't afford, now that I just do this as a living
19:34
and I gave up my full-time job to bring up the kids,
19:39
we certainly can't afford to replace the gas boiler that works.
19:43
But when it gives up the ghost,
19:45
then yeah, of course we'll get a heat pump from Octopus
19:46
and it'll go straight in the same place.
19:49
Except outside the kitchen wall,
19:51
whereas the gas boiler is inside the kitchen.
19:53
How it works with our solar thermal and our solar PV.
19:59
Yeah, that's all TBC.
20:02
Maybe it won't be Octopus that we use
20:04
because they've got a bit of a one-size-fits-all.
20:07
But either way, either way, we'll do that, same as France.
20:11
Let's talk about, so energy security
20:12
is a really big part of the conversation.
20:15
But what about just low cost?
20:17
This is a bit about renewables that I never understand.
20:21
When it gets politicized,
20:24
because oil, gas, fracking, coal, all that kind of stuff.
20:30
Different political parties make a really big meal of it.
20:34
But those are the political parties that I thought would say,
20:38
we can save you money by doing this.
20:41
But how the ideologies have worked out,
20:45
my life is too short to try and figure it out.
20:49
I don't quite understand it, but either way,
20:51
the United States is a great example of that.
20:53
For instance, solar power is now taking over the grid.
20:57
In fact, the US Energy Information Administration
21:01
put out their forecast to say that solar will be 17% higher
21:05
on the grid this summer than last summer.
21:08
Linking that to growing capacity additions.
21:11
Developers are planning record solar additions
21:13
in the United States, and wider build-out points the same way
21:16
with wind generation also growing.
21:19
But solar will grow from 293 billion kilowatt hours last year
21:23
to 415 billion kilowatt hours by 2027.
21:29
Coal is going the other way.
21:31
Coal generation in the first half of this year
21:33
will fall 10% in the USA.
21:35
In the second half of the year, it'll fall 6% again.
21:38
The shift in new building is really stark.
21:41
Independent analysis of the data suggests over 90%,
21:44
up to 99% in some data points,
21:47
of new US generation will be solar wind and battery storage.
21:54
And it's because of solar's cost advantage.
21:58
Nothing else is cheaper to install.
22:00
If you want to put something in that makes you energy independent,
22:03
but also to charge your EV in the cheapest possible way,
22:07
and also to power your country,
22:08
then solar is the cheapest way to do it.
22:11
And yet, I come back to how I started this story.
22:16
Ideologically, there is a lot of political gain from,
22:20
you know, dig baby dig and coal and oil and embracing
22:25
like the old fashioned ways of generating energy.
22:29
It certainly gets certain bases.
22:31
I would say the MAGA base quite stirred up and passionate about that,
22:36
which is above my pay grade.
22:38
Because surely you just want to have the cheapest energy for your country.
22:43
It's why, and we've seen a big election in Hungary over the weekend,
22:49
and a big shift of politics there.
22:51
And until now, Hungary's part of the EU really embraced cheap Russian energy.
22:59
And whilst I understand the politics around that of people being frustrated in the EU,
23:04
that Hungary stymies EU plans and is very much a backdoor into Russia,
23:09
they've done what's right for their people,
23:11
which is cheap Russian energy.
23:12
Now, I'd rather it's full of renewables,
23:16
but Hungarians pay very little for their energy because of that.
23:20
So, I don't know, like if the cheapest thing to do is to put solar everywhere.
23:24
If you're a politician, why wouldn't you do it?
23:27
Like I say, above my pay grade.
23:29
Finally, Volvo Trucks will finish us off today,
23:31
widening its battery electric truck range with two launches.
23:35
A long hauler, the FH Aero, and new generations of the FH FM and FMX Electric.
23:40
The headline model is the one I started with the FH Aero, 700 kilometers of electric range.
23:47
This is for long haul work.
23:49
The new E-axle from Volvo with dual electric motors and a six speed gearbox.
23:54
460 kilowatts of power, 48 tons payload.
23:57
Sorry, 48 tons combined weight and 28 tons payload.
24:03
So answering the complaint about electric trucks, which is too little range and too little payload.
24:09
Well, this is solved.
24:11
Charging is on the megawatt charging system or standard MCS.
24:16
So this is 700 kilowatts of charging power.
24:19
It's a 50 minute stop to charge the battery 20 to 80,
24:22
but that does fit in line with the mandatory European driver rest periods.
24:27
Anyway, CCS, it'll charge a 350.
24:31
Also, they've added power takeoff for things like refrigerants
24:34
and trailers that need to be kept cool and auxiliary equipment,
24:38
which removes the need for diesel driven units.
24:41
Alongside that, they've got new regional distribution, urban construction, refuse, utility,
24:49
specialist options as well with more range and more power takeoff too.
24:54
As Volvo pushes electric heavy hauling even further.
25:00
And that's your podcast for today.
25:01
Thanks for listening.
25:02
Thanks to our premium partners as always, National Car Charging on the US mainland
25:05
and the Low Heart Charge in Hawaii.
25:07
And Test EV, Avalu's trusted partner for independent EV battery health testing
25:12
in Australia and New Zealand.
25:13
Have a good and see you tomorrow.
25:14
And remember, there's no such thing as a self charging hybrid.
