DAILY: Pump Prices Rise, Cupra Born Refreshed and Ford EV Sales Crater | 05 Mar 2026

Welcome back to EV news daily today pump prices rise the Coupre born is refreshed and Ford

EV sales crater plus stay tuned because later in the show I'll tell you why you'll get more

money off an EV in the future by buying locally over on EV news China today we're talking about

BYD's great Tang the SAIC Huawei shooting break and Lee also troll VW on social media and join me

later for a bonus show called BYD's megawatt moment the new cars the new batteries and most

importantly the new charging hardware that just destroyed the argument that EVs can't fuel faster

than a gas gobbler it'll be live tonight for patrons and if you're on the free feed you've

only got to wait seven days it's one of the benefits of being one of the patreon supporters

you don't have to this podcast will always be free we reach far more people on the free feed

and spread the word about EVs but lots of people want to do the patreon thing it's how I earn

living and you can get little bonuses as well like being ad-free and also getting the shows first

let's kick off conflict in the Middle East has pushed oil prices higher with experts warning

UK drivers face steeper costs at the pumps Brent crude surged past $84 per barrel on Wednesday

its highest point since the US struck Iranian nuclear facilities last June

four court prices will briefly lag the RAC said the full impact on UK four court prices will only

be delayed by a week it urged fuel retailers not to pass on the price rises for fuel that they already

have however petrol and diesel prices famously as the saying goes rise like a rocket and fall like

a feather describing how petrol producers will raise prices when conflicts break out

but claim they can't reduce them when their costs fall because the petrol in the system

was made at a higher cost during the peak of Russia's invasion of Ukraine Brent crude was

$119 per barrel and UK petrol prices were £1.91 per litre UK drivers paying about 31 pounds or

$39 more per tank on average than before the conflict now I've seen a lot of websites a lot

of EV blogs a lot of EV social media people and a lot of general media talking about this topic

all week long as the prices have crept up may I perhaps offer my own editorial on this and then

I'll go away again maybe now's not the time to do a lap of honor if you're an EV driver

there is a human cost to conflict which I think we all know all too well plus if you really want

to bring people into the the big tent that is driving an EV I always tell people I bought I

bought an EV because it's better I mean it's better for the environment yes and it's a lot cheaper

overnight but I just wanted to buy one because it was so much better than the alternatives well

I don't know if poking and pointing fingers and laughing as you drive past the pumps at those

people who have to go about their business and do their jobs and their errands and go about their

life but through no fault of their owner paying more at the pump is that really the best way to

endear them to EVs hey I mean you do you but I I saw a lot of that kind of narrative this week

from generally very good EV media places that you know I learned from all the time so maybe I'm

outlier here but not how I saw taking advantage of a human conflict anyway let's move on now

electrifying corporate fleets in Europe could yield up to 246 billion euros in savings by 2030

according to a new report from e y and your electric full fleet electrification would cut

by a billion tons also by the end of the decade the report named fleet forward powering the

transition to electric mobility argues that cheaper running costs alone will not deliver mass EV

uptake it lists familiar breaks higher upfront costs uncertain residual values inconsistence

incentives and delays in charging infrastructure where it's needed the author's call for action

across fleet operators manufacturers policymakers the grid energy companies and finance as well

to match vehicles to the duty cycles they do oh my gosh this is something that I've been saying

for the last eight years of this podcast use case use case use case if you have an EV that's

12 000 pounds that's got a range of 150 miles and someone says oh but my diesel car goes more than

150 miles congratulations I mean you're absolutely right but that's not why that vehicle exists

like you know I don't know going to the shop to get a pint of milk in a bin lorry right

I mean you could do but it would be a sledgehammer to crack a nut right so this is what this says

you know educate fleets on what are the vehicles that you need going EV is very doable you just

need to engage some of the brain cells in the old noggin which some people are more capable of doing

than others kupra has unveiled a facelift for the borne it's MEB based compact built in zvickau

the update sits inside a wide around of changes inside the groups line up at volkswagen the styling

shifts probably most of the work kupra adds the new shark nose front end new bumpers new lights

continuous light strip at the back and new fabrics inside the under the skin the range is either a

58 kilowatt hour base variant and then two variants which is 79 kilowatt hours there's the range topping

vz which is 240 kilowatts of power they say 373 miles or 600 kilometers which is a nice bump

slightly it's up a little bit by a few miles that might just be the the more aero front end

doing the work there there's also a new trim the borne plus is a 58 kilowatt hour pack 140 kilowatt

motor which is down a little bit on the previous smallest motor but also and i'm not sure the

dc charging specs on that borne plus that small battery but will come in at a much lower price

so that's going to match you would think the capri now ford's capri has an lfp battery pack which is

that size and so you think that would probably be translated over the app 350 motor from volkswagen

used in the capri you would think is in the uh kupra careful how i say those two things not

confirmed but you would think so there is also a mention in the press material of a 5050 kilowatt

hour base variant but uh that's in the early press material that wasn't in today's announcement so

hey no no no also what's really i think interesting is the inside is so much better than the first

generation of those vehicles like the first volkswagen id3 good as they were room for improvement

and so the steering wheel has buttons the door panels are nicer fabrics less hard plasticky

scratchy stuff a bigger screen now inside and it's running android as well so really big quality of

improvements uh on that borne um pre facelift german pricing was around 45 000 euros so

wait and see what they come in at ford's us ev sales fell 71 percent last month in february

the steepest drop in its ev history it sold only 2122 evs in all of the us and that was down 71

percent on february from the previous year year to date ev sales are down 70 percent it's the

fifth straight month of year over year declines since uh coincidentally the federal tax credit

ended and they got rid of the ford f150 lightning program so you know as good as the mustang mac e

is ford have nothing new to sell you uh they're talking about hybrids and things like that but

until the new platform arrives there's not much action at ford for at least a year or two is there

really so we're looking forward to what's coming but that's a shame obviously over here we've got

things like the little ford puma gen e it's a cracking little car at mid 20s and then the capri

and the explorer which are cracking cars but i think a little too expensive anyway let's move on

lucid has pushed a software update to the gravity suv following its big january update that they say

fixed 95 percent of the problems this new one focuses on ac charging being boosted under specific

conditions and improving the availability and function of drive assist the pace of updates

hints at why lucid keeps shipping patches since launch gravity has averaged 24 days between

software updates uh but it has gone 134 days between major feature updates and so gravity

software problems drew the attention online on social media uh from very well-known youtube

creators uh things like the key fob recognition the navigation system uh forcing the ceo interim ceo

to admit that they fell short of customer expectations i also spoke with lucid's ima

dalala uh who is now in charge of the software engineering and the vehicle engineering uh

interviewed him for the batteries included podcast a couple of fridays ago and it really

was a kind of a mea culpa of yep we knew we of the things we got wrong we knew the things we

had to fix and largely they have done so i mean stuff like that i think should be celebrated

because how many companies can never admit they did anything wrong either head in the sand or just

refusal to admit it whereas lucid was okay we're not where we should have been they say a lot of

those problems are largely fixed mitzvishy will debut its first all new model since the eclipse

cross in canadian dealerships at least this year the new ev will come from the risa risan reno

nissan mitzvishy alliance which is still holding together nissan will supply the leaf and the

cmf ev platform and on that will be the new leaf based mitzvishy spy shots so it in showing

camouflage the silhouette the roof line very much nissan leaf like the prototype does have its

unique bumpers but you would think this would be otherwise a leaf under the skin and for fans of

mitzvishy they might want to know this is going to be made in japan next to the leaf so you could

buy a leaf or you could just buy one of these mitzvishy leafa likes if you likes all right

a break we'll come back in a minute we'll talk charging and geely and more stick around

all right welcome back to the podcast alpitronic makes some of the best charges in the business

and i always am relieved if i turn up to charge my car and i see some alpitronic hardware generally

very reliable and their series two of their hyc four hundreds is now in production maximum power

doesn't get a bump it's still 400 kilowatts it's splitting 50 kilowatt increments across two charging

cables it's got a new big 22 inch screen up from 15.6 inches and it's on the front of the unit as

well with a redesigned interface it looks really really good and a new payment terminal below the

screen hardware layout depends on the site charging connectors can sit on both sides or just one

side depending on how the site owners want to configure it they've added some floor lighting

which must have been i've never really felt like you know charge my car and thought

can't see my feet but they must have needed had some feedback either way it looks cool in

the pictures so it now lights up the whole area around it as well which will adjust the brightness

automatically and they also hit some new standards for barrier free access which is very important

for accessibility we never talk about that enough we i have done but the general conversation

doesn't talk about accessibility enough under the skin the new series two uses silicon carbide

power stacks they don't spell out all the gains but they do say the continuous output goes from

500 to 600 amps which is very good news can't wait to see those somewhere in the ground can't

wait to see an aptera one day as well aptera published photos of its first vehicle off the

validation assembly line the hyper efficient solar powered three-wheel two-seater just got a little

bit closer again i've interviewed the aptera guys two times i think over the years and they say

400 miles of range 44 kilowatt hour battery very very highly efficient they've got a lot of people

who are big fans and a lot of people who say the vehicles are never going to arrive well you know

somewhere in between that may be the truth i don't know but the company says its validation

assembly line has 14 dedicated stations and it's moving from hand building these vehicles to a

structured assembly process they want to make 100 cars daily they have 50 000 pre-orders they

always talk a good game at aptera we just want to see them make a vehicle one with a real customer

and then to expand upon that if only for the customer's sake now geely will unveil their off

roader a new four by four pitched at the land rover defender or a total land cruiser they'll

give it an amazing name at least in the uk it'll be called the galaxy battleship i mean it's just

a cool name isn't it if you're going to go buy a total land cruiser but then you go hold on maybe

i'll go test drive the battleship it comes in 2028 it's a little way off which is why the story

is further down the running order of the podcast so at the minute still vaporware but otherwise

this car follows the galaxy cruiser concept shown last year at the shanghai motor show

they say that the battleship will be 95 true to the show car and the shape is well it's a

you know land rover defender total land cruiser blocky build all-wheel drive classic off-roader

kind of shape but from geely so chinese comfort and luxury and lots of high-tech things as well

i mean all the technical specifications are undisclosed at the moment we do know it's going

to be on the gea evo platform so steer by wire capable it's break by wire capable it's got a

plug-in hybrid powertrain where that is used elsewhere or range extender as well so maybe

almost 850 horsepower perhaps would put it in a very high-end uh kind of off-road market but we'll

wait and see when it arrives finally the next ev you buy could get cheaper depending on where it's

made the european commission unveiled their new industrial accelerator act this is not going

into law by the way i'll get on to that in a minute but it's a sweeping set of local rules

content rules pitched as a shield protectionism call it that for the european union and interestingly

they're going to pull in uk made and japanese made vehicles as well because when this was

first announced uh i think the uk car making industry went whoa hang on a minute uh and so uh

there is uh a lot of uh trade between the uk and the european union obviously since brexit

it's had to be spelled out in contracts and things like that and and that would somewhat scupper the

brexit deal if all of a sudden european cars had these massive uh subsidies i'm i suppose they

could do it if they wanted to but uh there'd be ways around it but either way i think the

uk will be pulled into this as well so targeting the bits that go into electric vehicles and how

they're made as well so procurement and things like low carbon steel and the batteries eventually

decoupling from the chinese supply chain they want to stem a projected loss of jobs in the

automotive sector and actually create more uh good high tech jobs as well and so if you want to

access public money subsidies incentives things like that a certain percentage of your next dv

would have to be made here now china obviously is the reason why they're doing that and the european

commission plans to look at the list of parts which we have to become from you know the local area

to access any kind of money off and those kind of things politics inside the block are really messy

france wants the made in e u zone limited to the european countries plus norway iceland

lechtenstein not the world's biggest car market whereas germany for instance would say well no

germany i think wants to include britain as well because we have great ties with the german car

industry we have a lot of car production here as well so a lot still to work out and then some of

car companies will oppose it because they say it hurts cheaper cars and smaller city cars which

might need to be made with a certain set of parts sourced from outside of europe to keep the price

down lots to work out but still critics warn that trade partners may retaliate by closing

their own doors i think that's uh that horse is already bolted but either way um it now comes

with a move to the european parliament and the european governments to negotiate it and

put the final text in place but made in e u could be a thing others want made somewhere else

to keep the price down we'll wait and see how it works out that's a podcast for today thanks to

our premium partners national car charging on the us mainland and the loha charge in hawaii

and test tv have a lose trusted partner for independent ev battery health testing in australia

in new zealand have a good and cinema and remember there's no such thing as a self-charging hybrid

DAILY: Pump Prices Rise, Cupra Born Refreshed and Ford EV Sales Crater | 05 Mar 2026

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