+++ BMW is planning a 1-year production run of the M4 CS. It will roll off the assemblylines from July 2024 to June 2025. It is virtually the same car as the current M3 CS but with 2 fewer doors and some headlight changes (no laserlights). This would have the M4 Competition Sport enter production just as the M3 Competition Sport exits because the M3 CS a limited edition only for the 2024 model year. BMW M boss Frank van Meel hinted at the development toward the end of last year, saying there was room for a product between the M4 Competition and the M4 CSL. This would be the 2-door version of the M3 in all but the headlights, meaning a 3.0-liter twin-turbo inline-6 engine resting on redesigned engine mounts and massaged to the same output as the M3 CSL, 550 hp and 650 Nm; 40 hp over the M4 Competition. The CS only comes as an xDrive, pushing power to both axles, but the M3 offers a 2WD-only mode with stability control off. Chassis mods include retuned steering and dampers, unique wheel camber settings, and Michelin Pilot Sport Cup2 tires as a no-cost option. Forged wheels on the M3 CS come 19 inches in front and 20 inches in rear, finished in Gold Bronze or matte black. Tough luck to anybody wishing for a manual transmission, though. The exclusive grille and badging tell the world what’s up, as well as daytime running lights that glow yellow instead of the usual white as a nod to motorsports, just like on the M4 CSL. Exposed carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) is used for the hood (two strips visible), roof, front splitter, front air intakes, mirror caps, rear apron and rear spoiler. As to why the Icon adaptive led headlights with Laserlight won’t show: the M4 CS will come after the M4’s mid-cycle refresh. Such refreshes usually mean tweaked head- and taillight designs. BMW is currently testing an M3 Touring CS as well; the wagon burning up tires to prove itself while waiting to get the green light for production. +++
+++ During a Capital Markets day for investors, FORD boss Jim Farley opened up on one of the EV initiatives for the company’s Ford+ corporate strategy. At the same time, the boss filled in some of the blanks about the coming electric pickup truck we’ve heard snippets about under the rubric “Project T3”. The main event will be a new battery-electric 3-row SUV due in 2025 as the people-hauler sibling of the successor truck to the F-150 Lightning, both built on a brand new EV platform called TE1. Farley called the SUV “a personal bullet train” because of its ability to go at least 480 km at 110 km/h on the highway. In combined driving, Ford EV and software honcho Doug Field (the ex-Tesla and ex-Apple engineer poached in 2021) said the SUV is expected to go 560 km on a charge in combined driving and refill 240 km of range in 10 minutes at a DC fast charger. Let’s start with context. Field said the automaker’s been working on this for a couple of years, which would be right around the time Field landed at Ford. The automaker realized EV commoditization, on top of price wars during this heinously expensive phase of the transition out of gas vehicles, fierce competition in the 2-row SUV segment, and imminent arrivals from China would be a problem. Farley said, “We saw it coming like a freight train”, with little way for an automaker like Ford to keep from being crushed. “If your EV strategy depends on a 2-row crossover right now, you better have the costs of a BYD to compete”. Knowing that wouldn’t work, he turned efforts to segments that suit Ford’s strengths and where price won’t be an issue: Trucks and large SUVs aimed at buyers who don’t mind paying more for tailored products, software, services and experiences. Field said the mission is to develop a vehicle so good “it wouldn’t even need wheels to be a great product”. Alongside the “bullet train” SUV, the coming pickup has been called “the Millennium Falcon with a back porch”; the duo forming the one-two punch of Ford’s second-generation electric vehicles unconstrained by ICE compromises. Farley repeatedly referred to the current Expedition as the traditional comparison for the coming 3-row EV. That might have been only about interior room, the Expedition being Ford’s full-sized 3-row offering and the electric SUV providing similar accommodations. It’s possible the future SUV is sized more like an Explorer with the interior room of an Expedition, thanks to the dictates of aerodynamics and the benefits of a dedicated electric architecture. Both execs said the SUV won’t look like the Expedition, nor like anything else in the segment, being “longer, sleeker, quieter” with a lower ride height. We have no idea what it will look like, a slide presented to investors showing nothing more than 6 occupants in 3 rows atop a slim pack. The gas-engined Expedition will continue for buyers who need to haul and tow lots of gear over long distances. Field said, “We could’ve converted an Expedition into an EV, but it wouldn’t have made for a very good EV and it wouldn’t have made for a very good Expedition”. Instead of the 140 kWh pack the company believes a converted Expedition would need to go 480 km on the highway, the range figures for the future electric family getabout are predicted to come from a 100 kWh battery. That will be a triumph if it comes to pass. The 100 kWh battery in the Tesla Model X is EPA-rated for 555 km, the Model X not only 30 centimeter shorter than an Expedition, but wholly unable to swallow the 6-seat interior shown in Ford’s slide. A future battery 1/3 smaller than an equivalent modern battery capable of the same range will weigh less and cost less. On top of that, Field said, “With the same amount of scarce battery raw materials we can bring our product to 3 customers instead of 2”. +++
+++ The LUVLY O is the Swedish startup’s first electric car. It will be launched later in 2023. The Luvly O, its first car, is a tiny electric car for urban environments, will cost around €10.000 and offer 100 km of range. Luvly plans to flat-pack car parts and ship them to “microfactories” near where customers live. If Ikea made an electric vehicle, it might look a little something like the Luvly O. The Swedish startup is looking to sell customers on tiny urban EVs that are kinder to the planet and contribute less to congestion than buzzy models like, say, a BMW iX or a Tesla Model Y. What makes the Luvly O different from other little EVs? The idea is to flat-pack each car’s parts (much like an Ikea Malm, Kallax or Billy) and then assemble them at “microfactories” close to customers, cutting down on shipping emissions and costs. Luvly was founded in 2015. The adorable little O aims to solve some big problems by being more affordable, more efficient, and safer than other electric offerings. “Luvly was founded on the belief that the negative aspects of cars (environmental harm, cost, danger to pedestrians and other road-users, space inefficiency) can be mitigated by combining modern technological solutions with futuristic design”, Håkan Lutz, CEO and founder of Luvly, said. The O will have a top speed of roughly 90 km/h, so it’ll work for highway stints. Better make them short, though, because the Luvly O will only offer around 100 km of range. Its batteries are removable, meaning owners can swap in fully charged ones rather than waiting at a charging station. At roughly the size of a Smart Fortwo, parking should be a breeze. Luvly says more urban models are coming down the line. +++
+++ Like many of its peers and rivals, PAGANI has spent the past couple of years experimenting with electric technology. While the project is ongoing, the Italian company explained that it likely won’t launch an EV in the near future because battery technology remains far too heavy. “Our goal is to create something that has to be lightweight. Looking at Pagani, what you see that is common with all the vehicles that we produce, they have to be lightweight”, said Christopher Pagani, the son of company founder Horacio Pagani, in an interview. He added that the brand’s EV project started in 2018, and “there is no need for us to stop that”, but weight remains the biggest hurdle. “So, probably, nowadays with the existing technology we cannot create the Pagani the way that we would like to do”, he clarified. His comments echo those made by his father in 2022. At the time, Horacio Pagani also noted that his team has “never found interest in the supercar market for an EV” and added that forcing small carmakers to go electric doesn’t make sense when “90% of energy is produced in a bad way”. Electric technology has improved in the past decade, but Pagani explained that delivering the level of performance its customers want would require building a car with a 700 kilo-plus battery pack. For context, the V12-powered Utopia (photo) has a dry weight of about 1.600 kilos while the electric Lotus Evija weighs around 1.950 kilos. The EV is quicker, but there’s more to a supercar than flat-out speed. Pagani plans to continue using a Mercedes-Benz-sourced V12 engine modified in-house for the foreseeable future. Interestingly, the brand revealed that Mercedes-AMG floated the idea of using a V8-electric hybrid drivetrain during the Utopia’s development process. Pagani held its ground and launched the car with a big V12. “We, let’s say, ‘challenged them’ to keep the V12 and they accepted”, the company said. What’s next depends largely on regulations in various markets. “We know that for small manufacturers can have a V12 at least until 2035. But, we’re not afraid of approaching another powertrain in the future. We just have to know what the rules are”, Pagani told. +++
+++ Perhaps electric car drivers would rather just admire their PORSCHE Taycan in the driveway instead of drive it. That’s among the findings of a new study about which EVs have accumulated the most kilometers driven over a 3-year period. Heading the list is the 2020 Tesla Model X, closely followed by three of its siblings Models Y, 3 and S. Finishing in 12th position in the study, which looked at data from more than 860.000 EVs wich are 3-year-old, was the hot-shot Taycan. Also among the more intriguing conclusions was that the average EV was on the road for 15.000 km per year, significantly less than the average gasoline-powered automobile, that was driven 20.000 km annually. The Model X, a midsize family SUV with 3 rows of seating, was an anomaly among EVs, racking up an average of 18.000 km a year. Alternately, the Porsche accumulated 8.000 km. Tesla notwithstanding, the elephant in this cockpit may be range anxiety. That factor continues to impact how consumers utilize their EVs. Looking at 3-year-old electric cars, we see EV owners willing to drive an additional 77 km per year for every additional kilometer of range their vehicle offers. That means EVs, on average, need an additional 260 km of range to get them to the 20.000 km annual driving distance we see from traditional, gasoline-powered vehicles. Range anxiety is less about being stranded in the middle of nowhere and more about the ‘refueling’ process for electric vehicles. It’s essentially the comfort factor: in a gasoline car, regardless of how far you’re going, there are always plenty of refueling options and the process takes 5 to 10 minutes. Until EVs can offer that level of convenience at a comparable cost, they will be at a distinct disadvantage in terms of use and market demand. The price of aq vehicle is certainly an issue (but one that might be mitigated eventually as EV and ICE prices meet). 3-year-old electric vehicles have an average price which is almost 50 percent higher than 3-year-old internal combustion cars cost an average. This means electric cars cost 47 percent more than conventional vehicles, but are driven 29 percent less”. +++
+++ It’s not much to go on, but I’ve had my first taste of what the RIVIAN R2S will look like. CEO R.J. Scaringe calls it the R2; we automedia call it R2S because of its SUV shape and the company’s nomenclature established with the R1. The R2 is obviously smaller than the R1. The 2 things that stood out to me were the way the greenhouse tapers from the shoulder to the roof and, as a consequence of that, the way the line around the taillight stands out from the rear fender and the greenhouse. The narrow-seeming cabin sounds like a result of the R2 and R3 “moving in different form factors and obviously different sizes”, according to Scaringe. I’ve read that the R2 is supposedly around the size of a Jeep Grand Cherokee. That clay model doesn’t look GC-sized, although who knows if it’s to scale. There’s also a long way to go until we get a production-ready debut. Scaringe talks about the production ramp-up in the video not long after the R2 segment, growing pains having pushed the R2’s arrival from 2025 to 2026. Unless everything goes great guns, we’re probably at least 18 months away from knowing what the R1’s follow-up will look like. I’m told Rivian’s throwing a lot of brainpower at it. Scaringe spoke in April about the effort across the development teams to maintain Rivian DNA in the first vehicle the company’s building to a strict price point lower than that of the R1. The CEO said: “For the R2 product lineup, we have less dollars to spend, and so things that we didn’t have to debate as much on a flagship R1 product we really are debating heavily about how to take the essence of what we’ve done with the R1 in terms of how you can fit your gear and your pets and do it in a refined and fun way in different packages and in smaller form factors”. What we know won’t be coming for the R2 are quad-motor powertrains and a feature list as long as that for the R1. And Scaringe said the Tank Turn that caused a big stir a few years ago isn’t coming for any Rivian. The vid’s got a chapter devoted to the turn-in-place feature, Scaringe saying, “Over the last year and a half we’ve arrived at the view that it’s a feature that, while we can do it, it’s so easily abused and so hard to make sure we don’t tear up trails and really do things that are in contrast to what we stand for as a company”, so it’s been sent to the graveyard. Some have inferred this is Rivian saying it doesn’t exactly trust its customers without saying it doesn’t trust its customers. That might be true. We’d believe there are other valid reasons, including the one Scaringe mentioned. Rotating in place puts a ton of torque through the drivetrain, and there are already enough ways to break a truck off-road. Ford Bronco owners are taking to forums to complain that Trail Assist, which brakes the Bronco’s inside rear wheel during a turn, is breaking drivelines. And let a Rivian customer misjudge the clearance in a tight spot and end up blocking the trail like the Evergiven container ship in the Suez last year. Or worse. +++
+++ TESLA plans to open some of its exclusive Supercharger network to Ford owners; a move that could diminish a significant Tesla advantage in the EV race. The partnership will allow Ford EV owners to access about 12.000 Tesla Superchargers across North America starting in the spring of 2024. Wedbush tech analyst Dan Ives told that it’s a “no-brainer move” for Ford, adding that “Tesla holds most of the cards with its Supercharger network”. Tesla has spent over a decade building out more than 20.000 Superchargers in North America, earning it the region’s largest network of roadside fast chargers. Moreover, Superchargers are widely regarded as more reliable and easy to use than other networks’ chargers. Non-Tesla EV owners rely on a shakier patchwork of public chargers, which can be difficult to find and are plagued by reliability issues. While most EV owners charge at home, a lack of public chargers has historically posed a hurdle to wider EV adoption as drivers struggle with range anxiety. Over the years, non-Tesla owners have shared their horror stories, from a road trip where a Kia EV owner had to stop 12 times to charge at slow public chargers to a Mustang Mach-E driver who had to stop at 4 different charging stations, frantically searching for a working one. What’s more, if you ask a Tesla owner why they chose the automaker, it often comes down to the company’s charging network. Several Tesla owners told they would only consider buying another automaker’s EV if they either had access to Tesla’s network or an equally reliable network. “I couldn’t even imagine being with another car company and relying on third-party chargers”, Jonathan Baalke, a Model 3 owner in Kentucky who says he drives over 240 km a day for work, told. “It’s hard to have range anxiety when you have access to Tesla’s network, but if I was with any other brand’s cars, I would definitely have some concerns”. The move may leave some Tesla owners peeved at having to share their beloved chargers with outsiders. Garrett Nelson, vice president and senior equity analyst at the research firm CFRA, expects “dissatisfaction” from “some Tesla owners at the increased traffic at Tesla charging stations”. Musk isn’t against evening the playing field. The Tesla CEO said the move will ensure that Ford is on “equal footing” with Tesla. “We don’t want the Tesla Supercharger network to be like a walled garden”, Musk said. “We want it to be something that is supportive of electrification and sustainable transport in general”. Before the announcement, Tesla had already opened some of its chargers to non-Tesla owners in Europe and in some parts of the US. Current Ford electric cars will need a special adapter to connect to Tesla’s charging plugs, but Ford’s next-generation EVs will come equipped with a Tesla-style port (most electric models use one style of port called the Combined Charging Standard; Tesla uses another, which it calls the North American Charging Standard). So what’s in it for Tesla? While there’s a bit of risk involved (making the Supercharger network less exclusive could steer potential customers toward non-Tesla options, like the Ford Mustang Mach-E), the charging deal also gives Tesla a valuable source of recurring revenue, Mike Austin, a senior research analyst at Guidehouse Insights specializing in EVs, told. “It’s a much simpler business model than building cars”, he said. “It generates regular revenue, and you don’t have to deal with recalls or tooling or putting up factories”. Musk has indicated in the past that he’s not concerned about Tesla’s market share. Last month, the billionaire said during Tesla’s annual meeting that the carmaker could sell its product for “zero profit” and still dominate the market due to its autonomous technology. +++
+++ For the first time, an electric car was the topselling vehicle around the world in the first quarter, and there’s no surprise it was a Tesla. The EV market leader’s Model Y outsold all other vehicles in the first quarter of the year, according to estimates from Jato Dynamics. This company compiled data for 53 markets across the globe and estimates for others. The milestone could be big for a few reasons. Tesla CEO Elon Musk predicted his midsize cross-over would outpace all other vehicles this year back in August 2022. “You definitely don’t want to count chickens until they’re hatched. But I think we’re tracking to have Model Y be the highest selling vehicle by revenue this year and the highest by unit volume next year”, Musk said last year, per a Sentieo transcript of the company’s annual shareholders meeting. Tesla has been caught in consumer crossfires as the company has cut prices of its vehicles, including the Model Y. While the moves have upset existing Tesla owners who are concerned about their resale values also dropping, they have also sparked demand for the vehicles and served as a competitive advantage over rival EV-makers. Tracing exact sales totals by nameplate is challenging for a variety of reasons, but Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions, said: “taking production into consideration, the TESLA MODEL Y easily passed the Toyota Corolla and Toyota Hilux as the highest production nameplate in the world in the first quarter”. The Tesla Model Y had 267.200 sales, the Toyota Corolla / Levin / Allion / Lingshang
+++ TOYOTA posted a teaser image of a car that could preview its next GR-tuned offering. The image is part of a press release about Toyota Gazoo Racing’s plans at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, a venue at which the motorsports division has previewed exciting concepts before. The car in the dark teaser shows an unfamiliar light pattern, but has one clue that indicates it’s a close-to-production concept. Enhance! If I lighten the image, we see what appears to be a flat bracket for hanging a front license plate. If this were a race car, there’d be no need for such a thing. Further zooming in on the image reveals 5-sided sensor covers in the front bumper that look identical to the ones on the all-new Prius. This wouldn’t be the first time Toyota has GR-ified the Prius. The previous generation enjoyed a more menacing body kit with GR badging but not much in the way of performance. It was a pig both on the drag strip and visually, and there was only so much lipstick a GR makeover could apply. The new Prius, on the other hand, is actually quick and stylish. A GR version actually makes sense. We don’t want to cast our hopes too high thinking Toyota might give actual performance gains to the GR Prius this time around. However, it should be interesting to see how the Gazoo’d Prius wears its enhanced threads. Those 4 auxiliary lights sure are aggressive. The car will be revealed around the 24 Hours of Le Mans weekend, June 10-11. Toyota will be fielding GR010 hybrid race cars at the race as well, and expect to continue their 5-year winning streak. +++
