Happy Thursday. This week we have news on Canoo, Rivian R1S Deliveries, Lucid, Cruise Crash, May Mobility, and much more.
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EV News
The race is on for battery technology. QuantumScape, SES AI, and Solid Power are building factories to produce advanced EV batteries with longer ranges and lower costs. Sila, OneD, and Group14 have taken a different route, improving current batteries to deliver a longer range. Who will produce a battery that improves efficiency and removes all the potential anxiety regarding range?
In other EV News
- Rivian is set to start customer deliveries in August or September for the R1S SUV.
- Hyundai has officially unveiled the IONIQ 6. Still no word on pricing.
- Lucid is giving us even more options with an SUV dubbed the Gravity. We have about two years to wait for the car though as Lucid still has a focus on the Air. Lucid’s Chief Engineer, Eric Bach, told reporters that the Gravity, an expected high-volume SUV, will compete with Tesla’s Model Y.
- To reduce delivery times, Volkswagen is producing five new assembly plants to ramp up production. VW CEO expects delivery times to shorten as we near the end of 2022.
- The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) has developed technology that enables EV chargers to accept direct current (DC) power from EVs, convert it to AC power, and deliver it to the grid.
- Lordstown Motor has recently named former president, Edward Hightower, as the company’s new CEO. Hightower will lead Lordstown in its partnership with Foxconn.
- Aptera has launched a petition to appeal to Congress to make Tesla Superchargers the standard for all-electric vehicles.
- In a poll conducted by Consumer Reports, 36% of Americans said they would consider buying an electric vehicle out of a pool of 8,027 respondents. This is the highest recorded positive response rate out of all CR's EV polls.
EV of the Week
I was excited to see that Walmart signed an agreement with Canoo this week to purchase up to 10,000 vehicles. Before this agreement, it was a big unknown if we would ever see a Canoo vehicle on the road. After seeing one in person at the LA Auto Show last year, it is an amazing-looking vehicle, and I would buy one in a heartbeat. With this awesome news, we made the Canoo Lifestyle Vehicle the EV of the week.
- 250-mile range
- Up to 350 Horsepower
- 188 cubic feet of interior volume
- Tow Hitch with 2,000lb capacity (on the Adventure model)
- Light Bar and Roof Rack
-John @ Mobility EVO
AV Corner
GM’s Cruise autonomous vehicle was involved in an accident with a Toyota Prius in early June in San Francisco, one day after California gave the company a critical permit for its AV testing. What does not seem to make the headlines is that according to Cruise officials, the Prius was at fault for the accident, but the police failed to file a traffic report.
In other AV News
- Companies Mercedes-Benz and Tencent are partnering to produce enhanced autonomous technology. Mercedes-Benz and Tencent are expected to build a lab for joint testing.
- In the Netherlands, you may see Mercedes-Benz’s autonomous public bus testing on the country’s public roads. This week, the bus successfully completed a 20km journey while navigating tunnels, traffic lights, and junctions.
- Waymo has opened a new transportation hub for its self-driving trucks in Lancaster, Texas.
- A Google-Waymo autonomous vehicle was vandalized by skateboarders in San Francisco. The car was manually operated at the time, and the driver was able to retreat to safety without any harm. The crowd spray painted the car and jumped on the hood and roof. Not cool.
- West Virginia, mountain momma, take me home, country roads, in my autonomous vehicle. West Virginia has allowed the use of fully autonomous vehicles on public roads.
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Mobility EVo is brought to you by EPG. EPG is an electric vehicle and autonomous vehicle recruiting and staffing company. We created Mobility EVo to bring you the latest news on the Electric Vehicle and Autonomous Vehicle industry through our newsletter. Whether it’s Tesla, Ford, Mobileye, Cruise, Waymo, GM, Rivian, we bring it to you. We also have some electric vehicle merch too. Check out our EV hats, EV Shirts, EV Hoodies, etc… We have something for everyone.