Lead time is how long you have to wait after ordering a car before you get it. Sometimes it takes a long time because the factory is busy or parts are hard to get.
The iX3 is a BMW SUV that runs on electricity and is made in big numbers to sell to many people. It’s like a regular SUV but cleaner for the environment.
The Volvo EX90 is a big, fancy electric SUV that’s very safe and has lots of modern features. It’s made for families who want a comfortable and clean-driving car.
The Renault 5 E-Tech Electric is a small electric car that looks like an old model but uses new technology to run on electricity. It’s good for city driving and easy to park.
The Citroën C3 is a small car that’s easy to drive and comfortable, perfect for getting around town. It looks a bit different from other cars, which some people like.
The MG4 is a small electric car that doesn’t need gas and is cheaper than many other electric cars. It’s good for everyday driving and has modern technology inside.
The Peugeot 208 GTI is a small car that’s quicker and more fun to drive than regular versions. It’s good if you want a car that’s easy to use but also exciting.
The Porsche 944 is an older sporty car that’s fun to drive and looks cool. People like it because it handles well and is a good example of Porsche’s style from the past.
Sometimes the government makes it cheaper to sign up your car, especially if it's good for the environment. This helps people buy electric cars more easily.
The Nissan Leaf is an electric car that doesn’t use gas and is easy to drive every day. It helped many people start using electric cars because it’s simple and not too expensive.
The Lucid Gravity is a new fancy electric SUV that will be very roomy and use electricity instead of gas. It’s made by a company that builds powerful and high-tech electric cars.
The Chevrolet Corvette is a fast and sporty car from America. The newest version uses both gas and electric power to go even faster and be more powerful.
An electric moped is a small bike that runs on electricity instead of gas. It's good for short rides around town and doesn't pollute the air like gas bikes.
Dual CCS connectors are special plugs that let electric cars charge their batteries really fast. Having two means more cars can use the charger easily.
The Chevrolet C10 is an old pickup truck that was strong and useful for carrying things. Many people like it because it looks cool and is a part of American truck history.
When a car is damaged so much that fixing it costs more than the car is worth, the insurance company says it's a write off and pays you instead of fixing it.
The Renault Zoe is a small electric car that you can charge by plugging in a cable at the front of the car, right under the logo. This makes charging easy, but that spot can get damaged if another car bumps into you from behind.
LIVE
Welcome back to EV News Daily, today Volvo's EX60 sales above expectations,
Cooper Reval looks ready and Denmark hits 80% EV. Plus stay tuned, later in the show I'll tell
you about a new plan at stopping repairable electric cars from being written off after
minor crashes. Over on EV News China today, with a spin-off podcast we're talking about
trade-ins choose electric Neo ES9 launch and Xiaomi supercar concept.
Let's get into it Volvo make it its 99 year old Tushlander plant near Gothenburg open
for an extra week during the regular annual summer shutdown to meet demand for the all new EX60.
The cars European retail orders have beaten internal forecasts within weeks of its debut
back in January. Sweden alone has generated more than 3000 EX60 orders. Top volume markets beyond
Sweden are Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway and Finland. And bear in mind the US order books
have yet to open a launch penciled in for the spring. Lead times already hint at a supply
squeeze in Germany. The entry level EX60 which starts at 63,000 euros or 53,000 pounds shows
an eight month wait time. The range-topping EX60 all-wheel drive variant which is a 70,000 euro
vehicle costs sorry waits 14 to 17 months. Wow. The chief commercial officer Eric Siverinson said
customer car production has yet to begin in earnest. The company is in active negotiations with
things like labor unions over shortening the holidays. They need more production. Now the
vehicle will be made in Sweden and others have run into the same problem. BMW is having the same
happy issue. They've pulled forward a second shift into its 2 billion euro Debrecen plant in Hungary.
That shift started last month in February with a three shift structure planned because of the
IX3. Now Debrecen can build 150,000 vehicles per year at full tilt. German wait times for the IX3
that's a 70,000 euro vehicle have exceeded 12 months now. It's effectively sold out for this year.
BMW data shows one in three IX buyers are new to the brand. So there you have it the Volvo EX60,
BMW IX3, new Mercedes-Benz, GLC EV. All now loom over Europe's mid-size premium electric SUV segment
and proof like the Volvo CEO Hacken Samuelson predicted when the EX60 was launched that those
cars would pull in a lot of buyers to driving electric. All have massive range, very premium
vehicles, high prices of course and very very popular. Staying with Volvo they've begun an
over-the-air update of the 2.5 million cars to get the new operating system. That is now
rolling out. Android Automotive is the operating system and any Volvo from 2020 onwards with it.
So starting with an XC40 recharge now the rebadged EX40 gets what's called Volvo Car UX. So
basically if you walked into a Volvo showroom and very nice it would be too and bought a
top-of-the-range EX90 for a hundred grand your old six-year-old car would effectively
look the same. A cleaner UI, more consistent experience, updated cars will get the same
experience but with some minor differences because all the hardware can't always match the chipsets
and things like that. Then once it's loaded you'll be able to change from Google Assistant
which is pretty good I have it in the Polestar to Google Gemini which is very good because I used
to pay for Google Gemini but I stopped. I just sort of backed away a little bit from a lot of Google
products last year funnily enough but that's a whole different topic and so I used to pay
it's about 20, 30 quid a month because it came with all the storage that I needed it came with
well just everything and it is very very good but either way that in car will be a revelation
and so when you can dictate messages when you can have a natural human conversation
and it's a to and fro as well it's not having to start the same conversation it remembers
what you're talking about so that's going to be a fascinating experience in car. I still feel
like a bit of a Wally talking to the car when other people are in it by the way so when I'm on
my own I find voice in car even with the existing what's it called Google Assistant very good and
very useful when other people the kids are in the back or something I just feel like a bit of a tool
to be honest with you talking to the car and but there we go right moving on. Cooper's Reval has
surfaced winter testing in Scandinavia with no camouflage so that must mean it's well it's ready
but it's still months ahead of its official launch as far as I know it's a clean look at the Cooper
Reval it's the most affordable car they're going to sell to date sticking close to the concept
which is called Urban Rebel triangular headlights a sweeping roof line and that split sea pillar
treatment looks longer than the concept underneath the platform is the MEB plus described as Vaux
Fagin's next generation entry-level architecture so the other cars coming on this VW ID Polo
VW ID Cross Schodder Epic are all going to be those sub-25,000 cars the battery pack sits under
the floor between the axles single front loaded front mounted motor so that five times quickly
Cooper will launch the Reval with two battery sizes a smaller LFP pack entry level and a larger
NMC pack a Barcelona battery plant the Bolton to say at Smartarelle factory is now operational
and can make up to 300,000 battery packs annually they'll supply the packs for those small cars
which like I say will be sub 25,000 euro car maybe sub 20,000 pound car by the time you have some
UK government grants discounts monthly offers from dealers Renault 5 should be a bit worried
Peugeot E208 MG4 Urban perhaps BYD Dolphin surf Citroen EC3 we got a lot of choice under 25 grand
in this country now Denmark just hit 81.6 per cent Bev share last month hold up where did
Denmark come from we love it yes almost Norway numbers but it gets even better than that
Denmark registered almost 12,000 new passenger cars last month and Bev's were almost 10,000 of them
or 82 percent of the market among private buyers though when you strip out fleets the
numbers incredible amongst private car buyers in Denmark last month 94.4 percent were pure Bev
hang on a minute you're trying to take Norway's crown here Denmark hey you're gonna watch the
Danish Mobility Denmark CEO Mads Rubik said electric cars have moved from being niched now to the
mainstream in Denmark and the rise reflects stronger demand for environmentally friendly
vehicles at Denmark will maintain reduced registration taxes through the course of this
year that's amazing that's 94.4 percent of private buyers wow Denmark that is a number to
shout from the rooftops okay let's talk about the world car awards shortlist came out today
and you won't be surprised to hear electric cars dominate it'll be the 21st running of the world
car awards first of April at the New York Motor Show we get the winners 98 jurors from 33 countries
car secret ballots so it is broadly representative of what car journalists from around the world
think of these cars world car of the year is BMW ix3 one of the finalists also a finalist in that
category Nissan Leaf interesting Nissan Leafs a great car by the way is it one of the three
best cars in the world in the last year
well it's one of the three in the world car of the year awards who knows what happens behind the
scenes uh nothing dodgy of course i had no that sounded like coming out of my mouth but anyway
the world electric vehicle overlaps again BMW ix3 Nissan Leaf almost said he spends
CLA which is very very very very very good that was european car of the year by the way
luxury leans into world car world luxury car finalists Cadillac Vistic Lucid Gravity Volvo
ES90 the saloon world performance car includes the Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray which is hybrid
and the Hyundai Unix 6N which is bonkers world car design of the year includes the Kia PV5
their commercial platform the Volvo ES90 and Mazda's 6E or EZ6 depending on where you buy it
but more proof once again that when it comes to dishing out the gongs electric cars are top of
the charts now BMW's ix4 looks like it's ready it's been spotted winter testing in sweden the ix4
is an overhaul of the x4 keeping a very sleek coupe suv rear roof line very sloped that's
going to be for better for aero than the ix3 using that new ix3 design language all-wheel drive x
drive 40 and x drive 50 interior again you've seen the ix3 this is surely going to look the same
so the ix4 is expected to share the battery with ix3 again 108 kilowatt hour this should be the
same car with a different body style and so that's 621 miles the ix3 did on a single charge last year
and that wasn't highway rated range but it is rated WLTP at 500 miles 800 kilometers even EPA
that's going to be over 400 for the ix4 now let's take a little break we'll come back we'll talk
about electric mopeds and hypercharging in germany stick around back in a mow
all right welcome back to the podcast Barcelona will pay residents and businesses 600 euros 700
dollars to swap a petrol moped for an electric one from now the grant targets electric mopeds
with a top speed of 45 kph or 28 miles now Barcelona city hall setting aside 15 million euros
17.5 million dollars for the scheme through to 2030 and that would fund around 24 000 electric
mopeds the subsidy aims to cover up to 40 percent of the retail cost of a new electric moped riders
must buy a new l1 eb class moped and importantly scrap a dirty old lawn mower engine moped to
clean up the air in Barcelona let's go to germany enb vay has signed a multi-year deal with x
charge they'll be supplying the hardware and software for the hypernet fast charging network
in germany the two-year program they've just been through put 10 of the x charge ultra fast
charges at four enb vay sites enb vay use the trial to check out their performance now they've
signed a deal to roll out dual ccs connectors on 400 kilowatt dc fast charges these are liquid
cooled cables and x charge says the c7 can deliver 600 amps 400 kilowatts they're going
to be in high throughput highway locations stilantis is next in the news they've confirmed
they're going to build the leap motor b10 that's the halfway house at the moment or there's going
to be more leap motors coming so there's the little baby t03 there's the big suv the c10 and
then there's the b10 which sits in the middle of those the battery electric suv will be made in
spain at the stilantis plant in figurellas near Zaragoza the CEO of stilantis saying that they'll
make the b10 in europe alongside other cars coming interesting to see where they'll be made the b05
the a10 and the a5 all-star production next year the a10 in china will be known as the b03x here
don't know why who knows to do with naming and trademarks and things like that but i mean a10
seems okay but anyway over here the b03x the b10 back to the car we were talking about
four and a half meters long it's between the compact and the mid-size segments pricing is
below 30 grand early test drives are good and it's sold by leap motor international which is that
51 joint venture owned by stilantis they've got 800 sales and service points now across europe
and they're entering several new european markets too right finally fachem research has done an
amazing piece of work by the way this is really really important fachem research unveiling their
ev blueprint paper aimed at stopping highly repairable electric cars from being written off
after minor crashes the framework sets out eight design and repair requirements for car makers
for battery suppliers for insurers and for body shops the goal let workshops assess evs safely
repair them efficiently if they can be and keep them economically insurable over their full life
there is no doubt at the moment some evs are written off when they're very repairable i see a lot of
category n which is non-structural and category s which is a structural write-off for sale on
auto trader and there's loads of them and so if you're not in the uk or if you are let me explain
if you make an insurance claim on your ev and the cost to repair it is more than the car is worth in
the insurers eyes and that could be that they think it needs a whole new battery pack just to be
belt and braces sure well if you can't get a new battery pack then you write it off if the cost of
new battery pack is you go to the dealer and it's going to be ten grand you write the car off
and so it then has its title changed so it's either a cat and there's other category right
off so they they can't be resold or they can be scrapped for parts but there's um there's category
n category s so non-structural or structural and some insurers won't touch them so it could put your
insurance premium up that stays with the life of the car you always have to declare it when you
sell the car in the future but it does massively reduce the price of the car because you can if
you want then repair the vehicle or have it repaired safely yourself and then sell it on
maybe you get payout from your insurance company and then off the car goes and so
i've never bought one i know some people do um it's a whole bunch of considerations but
not the end of the world but you see a lot of them in the world of electric vehicles because
insurers keep writing off very repairable evs thatcham says the high voltage pack which is 40
percent of an evs value found 45 percent of insurers and 42 percent of repairers rank battery
issues as the primary concern even light collision damage just means a lot of the time the insurers
tip it into right off territory thatcham linked ev insurance costs to how well the market handles
crash repair one of the reasons why some people find ev insurance is higher for them depending
on the brand that they are going for the eight requirements focus on a resettable emergency
safety loop so any crash triggered isolation systems can be reset rather than forcing replacement
of the pyrotechnic components which sometimes have to be replaced even if they haven't gone off
it calls for safe simplified battery handling for removal and refit without gatekeeping behind
costly oem tools it also wants clear vehicle damage assessment guidelines for judging the
high voltage battery pack post impact available to independent repairers and insurers diagnostics
get a similar treatment the blueprint calls for a high voltage diagnostics the plug into the
tools mirroring obd standard rather than anything proprietary and that pushes tougher physical
protection for battery packs including underbody shields and side structures using like sacrificial
parts if you like when the the packs are being assembled thatcham want strategies that allow
fixing casings brackets and mounts in situ if the battery pack has had one of its mounts
bent or the outside of the case slightly damaged but inside the cells are absolutely fine again
the insurer is more likely not to risk it just ride the vehicle off right a check to the owner
and off it goes to the scrap yard it also argues for serviceable battery designs using modular
construction rather than structural glue or cell to pack technology good luck with that one by the
way because the car makers will not go for it and it wants high voltage components components like
charge ports placed in less exposed areas to avoid a big repair bill from a minor fender bender yeah
i mean depends on where you put the charge point as well but um i always thought about that with
when i had the Renault Zoe had two Renault Zoe's back in the day and it has a charge point right
on the front i find that a very very convenient location under the badge under the Renault badge
by the way um i love it you can just pull into a charge point and whenever the the cable is left
right wherever it would normally reach but i always thought if i do something silly like
going to someone from behind because they go to pull out a junction and they break and you know
these things happen rear enders um or even just something daft that is that that is a very vulnerable
part of a car that well that's what bumpers are for you just take off the broken bumper and you
put a new one on but then if you start messing around with the high voltage stuff anyway and a
lot of other car makers as well tend to put the charge point in an area that could well be damaged
more easily than others so but good work thatchum good work this needs discussing we shouldn't be
writing off evs as much as we are uh is my opinion is my opinion i may be wrong that's your podcast
for today thanks to our premium partners national car charging on the u.s mainland and the loha charge
in hawaii and test ev avalos trusted partner for independent ev battery health testing
in australia and new zealand have a good and see tomorrow and remember there's no such thing as a
self-charging hybrid
About this episode
Volvo's EX60 is exceeding sales expectations in Europe, causing production challenges and long wait times, similar to BMW's IX3. Volvo is also rolling out an Android Automotive OS update to 2.5 million cars. The affordable Cooper Reval has been spotted in testing, promising a sub-25,000 euro electric city car. Denmark has hit an impressive 81.6% BEV market share, with private buyers at 94.4%. The World Car Awards shortlist is dominated by electric vehicles. Other highlights include Barcelona's electric moped subsidy, Germany's hypercharging network expansion, and a new framework to reduce EV write-offs after minor crashes.
