The Rivian R2 is a new electric car that comes in different versions with different batteries and motors. Some versions have two motors and all-wheel drive, while others have one motor and rear-wheel drive. It has a battery that stores electricity to power the car.
The Lucid Cosmos is a new electric SUV by Lucid. It is smaller and less expensive than their other cars but still has lots of smart technology and can drive far on one charge.
Bidirectional charging means the electric car can give power back to your house or the power grid, not just take power to charge itself. It can help save energy or keep your home powered if the electricity goes out.
Zonal design means the car’s electronics are grouped into different areas to make the wiring simpler and lighter. This helps the car work better and be easier to fix.
Some electric cars use a special 800-volt system that helps them charge faster and work better. It’s like having a stronger electrical system inside the car.
An ultra wide display is one big screen that stretches across the car’s dashboard. It shows lots of information like maps, music, and car details all in one place.
An AI powered voice assistant is a smart helper in the car that listens to your voice and helps you do things like play music or get directions without using your hands.
A plug-in hybrid is a car that uses both gas and electricity. You can charge it like a phone, and sometimes it can drive just on electricity without using gas.
DC charging is a fast way to charge an electric car's battery, so you can get back on the road quicker.
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Welcome back to EV news daily today Rivian R2 pricing Ford Explorer upgraded and lucid
names Cosmos and Earth plus stay tuned later in the show I'll tell you where the world's
largest electric ferry is now sailing over an hour spin-off show EV news China today
last one of the week because of the weekdays we're talking about how EV exports are surging
Xiaomi's new Su7 is being brought forward and the Zika 8x plug-in hybrid well technically
an E-Ref actually but they bill it as a plug-in hybrid 70 kilowatt hour battery 70 on a plug-in
hybrid you'd never feel a fuel win the thing would you anyway that's the show that we do to
make sense of what's happening in the world's biggest EV market and decode that for the rest
of the global EV landscape have a listen if you want or not no worries also have a listen to the
bonus shows in your feed if you haven't seen it there's a dedicated episode all about the
Rivian R2 and it came out yesterday afternoon UK time so I won't repeat myself here but if you
haven't heard it and don't want to listen to it a quick summary I'll start the podcast with
just three paragraphs the R2 lineup has four trims most of them built on an 87.9 kilowatt
hour battery so first up is the performance trim with launch package so it's coming in the next
few weeks it's $58,000 and then about 1500 delivery so coming in under 60,000 that's 46,000
pounds dual motor all-wheel drive 656 horsepower EPA 330 miles 531 kilometers of range that launch
package gives you access to a different color the autonomy package for life which is otherwise
going to be two and a half grand or a subscription for $50 a month but check out the full show
premium trim follows later this year at $54,000 plus delivery that's 450 horsepower a standard
rear wheel drive long range comes early next year for 48 and a half thousand plus destination and
that's going to be the longest range because it's single motor but only 345 miles and then the dual
motor is 330 and I normally see a bigger offset between single and dual motor so maybe they're
doing some really efficient front motor disconnect stuff on the all-wheel drive and a base model
coming late next year which will be the $45,000 one but they say we will deliver a $45,000
Rivian R2 small battery single motor but they will they say now let's move on Ford has opened
the order books for the revised Explorer in Europe with entry level variants starting at 39,990
that's 43 and a half thousand US dollars that would be the pricing in Germany the most substantial
revision sits beneath the floor Ford has replaced the original battery chemistry which was NMC with
LFP cells and so on the small pack that goes from 52 to 58 kilowatt hours that's the size of the
original mid-range pack you know that Volkswagen had on their MEB cars and a reminder the Explorer
is Ford's version of the VW ID4 and it's built on Volkswagen's platform but it's built by Ford
they also get access to Volkswagen's new motor the APP 350 and so the output goes from 125 to
140 kilowatts the result is a WLTP range of 276 miles up from 235 miles 17 percent gain the 0-62
time goes down almost a second to eight seconds top speed remains 100 mile an hour now there is
a trade-off of going LFP because DC fast charging peaks at 110 kilowatts on the small pack and 10
to 80 is 28 minutes not 25 minutes pro power on board will be a big plus for many people and you
can use the traction battery to run 2.3 kilowatts of external devices there's a 230 volts socket in
the boot or you can use the charge ports externally with an adapter vehicle to load as genuine utility
I think all cars if they can should have it the new Android infotainment system gets a redesigned
interface new parking and nav views as well and the option to group apps into folders the driver
assistance suite has grown to with traffic lights recognition reversing assist trained park assist
and driver state assist all added to the package one pedal driving now comes as standard shouldn't
it on all EVs please the explorer didn't land in Europe with much success when it first came out
it's actually a nice car but Ford has now come back with a smaller cheaper well a bigger cheaper
battery a vehicle with more range a stronger motor vehicle to load new infotainment expanded
driver assistance and even a new special edition hopefully that might catch the eye now lucid had
an investor day yesterday which sounds all very dry but they invited to my friends to it so Tom
and Kyle who I do the friday podcast with called batteries included on over on youtube they were
invited to the financial event and you go okay there's a reason why and it's well we knew why
because lucid as well as doing all the investor stuff for the stiffs they also had product news
so new cars new midsize electric SUVs they weren't revealed they were under silk cloth or something
but you could see the shape and and the relative dimensions of them and the names they're going
to be called cosmos and earth so the first lucid was the air then it was the gravity
then we get the cosmos and the earth a third one on the same platform is unnamed a new range
will sit below the air saloon and the gravity suv lucid targets $50,000 for a midsize crossover
that is right at the heart of model y top end for instance well now it's not because top end
model y can head towards 60 and this starts at 50 so lucid plans to start production before the end
of the year the company now needs to prove it can move down market or use it perhaps say into the
mainstream mass market without losing what it's known for efficiency and technical edge that
defined lucid until now so cosmos and earth will both use 800 volt architectures zonal design so
vastly reducing the ecu's the brains which reduces wiring and bidirectional charging coming as standard
they'll use the new in-house drive unit which they've called atlas atlas is 23 lighter than
their best current motors and uses 30 fewer parts lucid also set out an early efficiency claim
the pack's going to be 69 kilowatt hours and it will do 300 miles of range in the cosmos now
obviously lucid's a u.s company they are obviously building in the middle east and selling there but
that would be ep8 i think 300 miles lucid's chief engineer said that the range figures
haven't been set it could be more than 300 miles inside lucid will look a little different for
the first time it's dropped the dual screen and the center touch screen used in the air and the
gravity in its place sits a single ultra wide display across the top of the dashboard split
into four zones energy data navigation entertainment and auxiliary information like the weather an ai
powered voice assistant will be part of the user experience less conspicuously lucid has fitted
conventional mechanical door handles lucid defines the cosmos as performance focus more of an urban
on-road vehicle it casts the earth as a versatile suburban crossover a third unnamed model will be
more off-road capable that's all we have for now they did also by the way say lucid started over
the air updates now to enable apple carplay and android auto on the gravity so if you have one
of those vehicles look out for lucid ux 3.5 in north america at least drivers in the middle east
and europe will get ux 3.5 later this month gravity suv is leaving the factory in casagrande
arizona already come with 3.5 pre-installed the update supports wireless apple and android
both display on the gravity 6k resolution dashboard and emad dalala the svp of engineering and
software said carplay and android auto rank among the most sought after features by lucid customers
many say it should have shipped with it already that makes the update lesser novelty
than a catch-up job all right let's talk about a big three row suv another chinese car this time
coming to the uk the jku 8 the jku 8 suv is going on sale in may prices start at 45 500
pounds it's the brand's move into a more premium three row segment after the smaller five and the
seven now we get the eight so uk buyers will get two trim levels both with the cherry groups
super hybrid system i do like how they call it the it's the super hybrid system
there's nothing super about it by the i mean it's probably very good i mean they can call it
super it's just a hybrid system i enjoy them talking about it because they say well this is
an amazing we call it the super hybrid system because it will it will hold the charge when you
go into a zero emission zone and if you want to drive on pure electric power you can it's amazing
have they never driven any other plug-in hybrid because they all do that but anyway
they go no no this is the super hybrid system the vehicle itself by the way apart from my
sarcasm here about their marketing speak the vehicle's really nice by the way the executive
trim costs 47 and a half thousand pounds that still comes under around new 50 000 pound luxury
car tax bracket they're moving it from 40 to 50 for evs only by the way the powertrain in case
you're wondering 1.5 litre engine a three speed gearbox and it has a battery which will do you
83 miles of all electric range on wltp they give a 700 mile figure for the total range well that's
that's pretty common with chinese manufacturers they go for the big number by the way but yeah
that does mean burning a lot of fossils to actually do that not a 62 5.8 seconds so this
will get on a bit dc charging is included inside the eight brings a new layout for the brand in
the uk the luxury trim has seven seats in three rows and the executive trim has six seats front
around second row are captains chairs trimmed with nappa leather and look like really really nice
second row seats as well we'll take a break we'll come back up to about the average price of an ev
and honda changing course again stick around back in a bit
all right welcome back to the podcast the average eu electric car price fell last year
by 1 800 euros that's almost two thousand dollars to 42 700 euros that's 46 and a half thousand
dollars in 2025 according to transport and environment it's the first drop of the average
price of an electric vehicle since 2020 it's because until then the car makers have been wanting
to sell you ever bigger more expensive cars with that's a profit margins but now 2025 was the year
of the b-segment it was the year of the reno fours and fives and citroen ec3s and the at grand
apandas and all the others and so the average price came down it fell 13 percent for b-segment
vehicles reversing a pattern of the past four years where average ev prices rose 5000 euros over
that four-year period as gorgeous EVs coming out like the audi q4 e-tron Mercedes eqs Porsche
taekwondo bmwyx i could go on all very expensive though weaker co2 targets between 2020 and 2024
gave manufacturers no incentive to sell vehicles that scale small affordable less profitable cars
then last year they had to bring in lower cost models we knew they were coming they even stalled
in 2024 and oh we're not ready to bring them to market or they all came on the 1st of january
with them and it meant that they could meet some co2 targets by selling loads of cheaper smaller
cars yeah the margins are lower but it allowed them to hit their co2 targets and therefore
avoid fines and so it worked out in their favor those targets by the way are constantly being
lobbied against the politicians did waiver they relaxed them to a three-year average covering
2025 26 and 27 over the average of those years even so there will be more downward pressure
on small cars because the chinese are coming in with small cars in 2026 the established
car makers volkswagen are bringing that um their urban cars vw id polo cross cupra reval schott epic
and more these are all 20 or 25 000 euro cars and so i'm absolutely here for it i love that segment
now honda has once again been scratching their head over what to do with evs false starts the
little hondery they made was amazing and then they did nothing else then in the us they made
the prologue with the help of gm and then had to discount it loads to sell it and
didn't seem to want to be doing that and now today honda has cancelled its ev program
planned for the united states production i'd never really talked about them because they
gave us nothing to talk about they were called the zero series suv the zero series saloon
and the acura rsx honda say it'll cost them 15.8 billion dollars that's two and a half trillion
yen as the customer as the car maker retreats from the ev plan they've made and obviously have to
pay customers and contracts and get out of commitments and that's what's going to cost them the chief
executive toshi hiromibe put it plainly and i quote our first priority is to stop the bleeding
the company's really struggling these write downs hit this year and next fiscal year as well
honda blamed the rollback of us fossil fuel regulations the reversal is sharp because they've
been investing billions in us jobs for production hubs of evs it was the only japanese car maker
that put a firm deadline on 2040 to go all ev the market had reason to expect more from the zero
series it was going to be the centerpiece of their software defined vehicle strategy to show
solidarity with the workers and all the people who are sadly affected by this mr mebe and the
executive vp uh noria keihara will take a 30 pay cut for three months the japanese culture of
engineering excellence around combustion they're very very good at that learning how to build good
evs is something that they haven't wanted to do and with the exception of toyota uh some very fragile
finances that don't really stand up to long periods of having to invest in things that don't pay you
back for a period of time without like all the chinese manufacturers a central government that
is part of their you know every five-year plan right here's how we're gonna fund the move to
evs for good or bad with the exception of toyota that does have the heft and the money to do what
they want really um it's a fascinating problem for the japanese car makers to have very sad
volkswagen will give the entry-level id polo uh some track chops or at least the traffic like
grand prix uh they're gonna do an r-line and a gti version because this has been spotted i saw this
in auto evolution some spy shots of the id polo r-line the id polo gti sitting lower more aggressive
design on the outside as well 211 horsepower upwards we think uh either 37 or 52 kilowatt hour
battery packs on that 280 miles of range or 450 kilometers of range but whether these ones come
at the launch because the world premiere is going to be next month then i mean they're they're out
there now with these uh with these the r-line and the gtis and so we'll wait and see nl italy's energy
company has completed three and a half thousand charging stations in the first tender of italy's
national recovery and resilience plan this is post lockdown pots of money in 21 provinces
and five regions uh each station has two charging points at 90 kilowatts and so not blow your socks
off speed but always good to have more charges electric on has completed the acquisition of
induct ev they're a us-based provider of fast high-powered wireless charging the deal joins the
inroads dynamic charging technology of electric on and the high power stationary wireless charging
system of induct ev it'll give wireless charging a dynamic uh or a charging portfolio that covers
dynamic charlie charging while vehicles move top-up charging during root stops and overnight
depot charging all wirelessly as well and finally scandy lines has bought the baltic whale into
service as of the 10th of march earlier this week 147 meter vessel the world's largest electric
ferry in operation today it runs an 18.5 kilometer route this where i uh offend all of the danish
and german listeners out of the podcast by getting these names wrong i think it's rudby and put garden
it covers the danish island of lulland and the german island of feyman i can only apologize
scandy lines designed it only for freight it covers 66 freight units in two decks it'll
run in all electric mode and taken out to do the crossing the 10 megawatt hour pack i could
do with that in my garage actually a bit of home storage the 10 megawatt hour pack
recharges in 12 minutes on a dedicated 50 kilovolt or 25 megawatt power cable the automated
charging power uh tower at rudby when it births and docks it'll start charging within 15 seconds
all automated and that's your podcast for today and the end of our working week i've got loads
more in the can actually so i'll do some weekend episodes got some bonus shows to roll out as well
thank you for listening uh this week i can't tell you when the weekend shows will be out depends
on mother's day celebration and things like that uh here in the uk whatever you're getting up to
have a good weekend and yeah have a have a good one uh thanks to our premium partners national
car charging on the u.s mainland and the loha charge in hawaii and test e v avaloos trusted
partner for independent e v battery health testing in australia and new zealand have a good
in cinema and remember there's no such thing as a self-charging hybrid
About this episode
Rivian reveals pricing and trims for the R2, starting at $45,000 with notable range and performance specs. Ford upgrades the Explorer for Europe with improved battery chemistry, range, and new tech features. Lucid unveils new midsize SUVs named Cosmos and Earth, targeting a $50,000 price point with advanced 800V architecture and a fresh interior design. The episode also covers the rise of affordable EVs in Europe, Honda's EV program cancellation in the US, VW's upcoming ID Polo GTI, Italy's charging infrastructure expansion, wireless charging tech advancements, and the launch of the world's largest electric ferry.
