It's been a tough month. I cannot imagine what the families are going through in Uvalde, TX and Buffalo, NY. It's impossible to comprehend such disregard for innocent lives. I hope the families find peace.
On a more personal level, we had to put our best friend Dallas down yesterday (pictured above). He was the most loyal friend we've ever had, and we are sad to see him go. We hope he is swimming in a lake somewhere.
Hug your family and dogs today.
-John
EV News
Mobile EV Charging is one of the newest solutions to charging deserts. Through an app, SparkCharge will offer a mobile charging service anywhere you want and has recently raised $23 million in investments for additional expansion. Around 60% of SparkCharge’s users have range delivered to their home, while 40% have range delivered to their place of work.SparkCharge has plans to expand to 20 cities in the next couple of months. Say goodbye to range anxiety.
In other EV News
- Louisiana is looking to pass a bill to “promote rapid development of a statewide electric vehicle charging network.” By encouraging the Louisiana Public Service Commission to take action, the hope is to install more public charging infrastructure to keep up with the growing trend of EVs within the U.S.
- Mahindra signed an agreement with Volkswagen to utilize MEB electric components for Mahindra’s Born Electric Platform.
- BMW CEO, Oliver Zipse, has claimed their future electric vehicles will match their ICE car profits in the near future.
- Stellantis, in a partnership with Samsung SDI, has chosen Kokomo, Indiana as the company’s next site for its electric vehicle battery factory. The factory will create 1,400 new jobs, cost approximately $2.5 billion to build, and have an initial capacity of 23 GWh, with a target of up to 33 GWh in the next few years.
- Bank of America has teamed up with Electrify America to install more chargers at banking locations nationwide. 172 chargers have already been installed, with plans to grow to 350 chargers in 90 locations.
- In other Stellantis news, CEO Carlos Tavares expects battery and raw material shortages by 2024-2028. We have heard similar concerns from other manufacturers, such as Rivian. Tavares believes that the significance of shortages will reduce availability and adoption.
- Blackouts and overloading grids have engineers looking into alternative solutions to charge EVs and create electricity: gravity. Because electric motors generate electricity, EVs can use their own motors to recharge their batteries. Under ideal conditions and at the proper angle with a heavy load, EVs can generate more than enough power to make a return trip and in some cases, there is excess electricity that can be used elsewhere.
EV of the Week
Nissan Motor Co. and Mitsubishi Motor Corp. have introduced two $14,000 EVs in Japan. The companies hope that a push like this will encourage wider EV adoption in the country. The vehicles will go on sale in Japan this summer. These “kei” cars are a popular source of transportation in Japan. Since we could only pick one, we decided the Nissan Sakura is the EV of the Week. John @ Mobility EVo
- Fits four people
- Battery capacity of 21 kWh
- 63 horsepower
- 144 lb.-feet of torque
- Top Speed of 81 mph
- Range of 112 miles
AV Corner
Amazon’s autonomous vehicle Zoox, is a 4-passenger vehicle with bench seats that face each other like in a train car and large automatic doors. The vehicle is completely symmetrical from front to back allowing it to go in forward or reverse without ever turning around. This also means it is built using fewer unique parts. Before launching on public roads, Zoox believes they will receive a 5-star crash rating, made possible by a custom horseshoe-shaped airbag that will deploy in an accident and wrap up each bench seat.
In other AV News
- Elon Musk is confident - Tesla will not need human drivers in its self-driving cars around this time next year.
- South Korea’s defense technology development agency has invented an artificial intelligence-based autonomous driving technology for off-road and rough terrain. This new innovation will be used within South Korea’s military to enhance weaponry systems.
- Locomation’s new autonomous hardware was on display for two public events this week. The company’s owners expect the hardware to be commercially launched on trucks by 2023.
- With a goal to bring autonomous vehicles to India, start-up company Minus Zero has raised $1.7 million for its next round of development.
- Gatik’s next target: Walmart in Kansas. The self-driving startup has signed a deal with Walmart to deploy its autonomous technology within Walmart’s delivery trucks.
- FedEx is employing more testing for its Aurora self-driving delivery vehicles by adding a commercial lane for its test routes in Texas.
- Oklahoma passed a new law allowing fully autonomous vehicles on public roads.
- Autonomous company Oxobotica has completed Europe’s first public autonomous vehicle journey with no human beings in the car. The program began in April 2021.
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