+++ The plug-in hybrid BMW i8 retired in 2020 without a direct successor, but the intent wasn’t always to leave its spot in the range empty. The numerous reports churned out by the rumor mill were at least partially true: BMW almost replaced the i8 with a coupe inspired by the M1. BMW design boss Domagoj Dukec published renderings of a low-slung coupe called i16 that’s both familiar and futuristic on his Instagram account. He explained that the model was developed to replace the i8, that it shared its composite structure with its intended predecessor, and that it was created in less than a year. The cool thing about his post is that this is a project that hasn’t been shown to the public before. While the doors are reminiscent of the ones fitted to the i8, the i16 looks like a toned-down version of the Vision M concept unveiled in 2019 with a 600-horsepower plug-in hybrid powertrain. BMW has a long track record of previewing its upcoming models with close-to-production concepts, so the i16 is the missing part of the puzzle here. Dukec’s team made numerous changes to the original design study, such as a more realistic-looking front end with bigger headlights and a new-look rear end with horizontal iX-like lights, but the M1 influence remains. The overall proportions are close to the M1’s, which was also powered by a mid-mounted engine, and styling cues such as the rear louvers and the twin BMW logos on the back end also draw a parallel between the 2010s and the 1970s. The i16 doesn’t venture as far into retro territory as the M1 Hommage, which made its debut at the 2008 Villa d’Este Concours d’Elegance and wasn’t a candidate for production. Rumors detailing a modern-day, M1-inspired supercar have been floating around our little corner of the world for over a decade. In 2012, the reports claimed it be called M8. It wasn’t, though then nameplate later appeared on the range-topping version of the 8 Series. Things went mostly quiet until the Vision M arrived. In April 2020, the rumors sketched the outline of a Vision M-inspired, i8-related coupe with a plug-in hybrid drivetrain capable of delivering 600 horsepower and approximately 60 miles of electric-only range, figures that eclipsed the i8’s. Then, in May 2020 I posted a follow-up report claiming the project had been canned. “The board decided not to build it. The project makes no sense in the post-corona world”, an insider allegedly said. In this case, the rumors were spot on. “While we pushed, the world changed in 2020. And so, work on the project unfortunately had to be stopped”, explained Dukec without providing more specific details. +++
+++ On a typically sunny day in Los Angeles last June, Henrik FISKER choked up as he handed over his company’s first all-electric SUVs in the United States. “I’m really kind of emotional about it, because we’ve been waiting 2,5 years for this, and everyone here has done a tremendous job”, the founder and CEO said. The day had started on a celebratory note. Fisker, donning a graphic tee depicting the electric Ocean, hugged and posed for photos with the company’s first customers; at one point even signing one of the vehicles. What happened next was a harbinger for Fisker and what his eponymous company continues to grapple with: Shortly after Fisker board member Wendy Greuel took delivery, her Ocean SUV lost power on a public road, according to 2 employees familiar with the matter. The company has confirmed the incident occurred, and said the issue with her vehicle was fixed. 2 months later, Geeta Gupta Fisker (the company’s chief financial officer, chief operating officer and Henrik’s wife) took an Ocean out for a drive, only to have it suffer a similar fate. Fisker also confirmed her vehicle lost power, blaming it on a compatibility issue with a special engineering data logger that is not in customer cars. In the months since, Fisker Ocean customers have reported more than 100 separate loss-of-power incidents, the internal documents show. The company told it believes these problems are rare, and that it has resolved “almost all the issues” with software updates. Problems with the Ocean SUV, however, are not limited to the vehicle suddenly losing power, a review of nearly 200 documents shows. Customers have also reported sudden loss of braking power, problematic key fobs causing them to get locked inside or outside of the vehicle, seat sensors that don’t detect the driver’s presence and the SUV’s front hood suddenly flying up at high speeds. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is currently investigating the braking problems, which Fisker claims it resolved. The company told that fixes for the other problems have either been implemented, or are coming in a “Version 2.0” software update scheduled to be released next week. Fisker launched the Ocean later than expected due in part to challenges with the SUV’s software; the company spent much of last year making up for lost ground. As incidents, complaints and even customer lawsuits about quality issues stacked up, Fisker pressed forward and ended up delivering around 4.900 Oceans in 2023. The result is a company burning through an average of around $100 million a quarter as it strives to sell more Ocean SUVs to customers (and, now, to dealerships) while shouldering the costly exercise of addressing myriad problems that could make sales more difficult. This isn’t Henrik Fisker’s first attempt at an automotive startup. After designing the BMW Z8 and Aston Martin DB9, he founded Fisker Automotive in 2007 during the first clean tech boom. But Fisker’s push to produce and sell a plug-in hybrid sports car called the Karma ended in bankruptcy in 2013, just 2 years after those cars (which were plagued with problems) began shipping. After the failure of its battery supplier and a pair of recalls, Henrik Fisker admitted in congressional testimony that it can be “particularly difficult for a young company with limited resources”. Even the most established automakers have problems with hardware and software when it comes to new vehicles; General Motors recently paused sales of the new Chevrolet Blazer EV over software problems that rendered the infotainment system inoperable for some customers. Tesla is perhaps the best-known example of a company that almost went out of business multiple times as it struggled with quality issues. These early problems are particularly risky for Fisker. The company, which went public in 2020, is wholly reliant on the Ocean while it prepares other more affordable models. But the Ocean is already underperforming internal sales goals, causing the company to pivot away from its direct sales strategy and turn to dealerships to help sell its EVs. Last month, Fisker said it hopes to sell its unsold inventory of some 5.000 cars to dealers in the first quarter to pad its cash balance. Some owners are fighting back against the quality problems. A review of court records in Los Angeles County, where Fisker is headquartered, show that at least 6 customers have filed lawsuits under the state’s Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act. 2 others have filed similar suits in Sacramento and San Mateo counties, both in California. They claim that Fisker violated its warranty by refusing to repair the owners’ vehicles in a timely manner, and spell out a laundry list of problems they allegedly encountered in the early going. Jason LaMarca, one of the plaintiffs, said in an interview that he’s been a fan of Henrik Fisker over the years. But the issues he said he’s had with his Ocean (including problems with the brakes, being locked out and the key fob battery repeatedly dying) pushed him to take legal action. “Bottom line is I regret the whole experience, because it’s been nothing but anxiety”, he told. Fisker declined to comment on pending litigation. Suddenly losing power in the middle of a drive is one of the most perplexing (and potentially dangerous) problems Ocean drivers have experienced. The documents spell out multiple apparent causes. Some owners’ 12 volt batteries are dying, which causes the vehicle to shut down suddenly. This problem could appear as the car’s vehicle control units drain the 12 volt battery too quickly; similar to what some other new EVs like the Mustang Mach-E encountered in their early going. Other Ocean SUVs have experienced power loss due to an issue with the cabin water pump, the documents show. Some have stopped because of faults in the advanced driver assistance system, or in the automatic emergency braking systems, or the software that manages the high-voltage battery. In certain cases, Oceans shut down mid-drive because of high-voltage connectors that weren’t fully plugged in. The power loss problems were apparent to employees early in the Ocean’s life as a commercial product, the documents show. In Greuel’s case, Fisker noted that all of its board members “were early adopters of their vehicles”. “Wendy Greuel’s vehicle entered a static safe state when it was not moving”, the company said. In late July, 2 Fisker workers were driving one of the company’s marketing cars when it “stalled” on them twice, according to the documents. 1 of the employees reported back to the company that the car was “lurching and stalling” and making a “weird noise”. In August 2023, an employee reported that a different marketing car “shut down on me twice while driving” and included a picture of the driver display showing an “ADAS Fault” error, according to internal chat logs. Also that month, in the aforementioned incident, Geeta Gupta-Fisker was driving an Ocean in Los Angeles when she encountered a power-loss event, the documents show. The company’s preliminary analysis was that the SUV’s battery management software encountered an “abnormal” fault, and they set out to find a solution with the relevant suppliers. The company told the Ocean Gupta-Fisker was driving was “fitted with a special engineering data logger for general data gathering” and that an “incompatibility with the logger installation caused an issue that could never occur in a customer car”. As Fisker increased shipments of the Ocean, reports from owners came in. On September 1, a customer alerted the company that they experienced a “battery system malfunction” that shut the car off while stopped at a red light. After they were able to restart the car and get it into drive, the owner got the same error again and the car “started shaking forward and back and then shut off in the middle of the street”, according to an employee’s description of the incident. “Customer is scared,” a Fisker worker wrote to colleagues. A few weeks later, a customer’s Ocean encountered a similar battery error while driving on the 405 freeway in Los Angeles. Their car came to a stop in the passing lane, partially blocking traffic, according to the documents. The customer eventually got the car moving again, but told the company they were “literally shivering” driving home. “I could have easily lost my life”, they wrote, according to the customer service logs. Another told the company that their car died in the desert on the way to Las Vegas. Most of the customer complaints originated from the United States. But the cache of documents also included reports from Fisker’s own internal ticketing system, which tracks issues in both the U.S. and Europe. According to those documents, Fisker has received reports of more than 100 power-loss incidents since the Ocean began shipping. Similar reports appear in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s database of customer complaints, where 6 owners have alerted the agency about cases where their Ocean SUVs lost power at high speeds (It is not clear how many of these might overlap with the ones reported directly to Fisker). Fisker told that “extremely rare occurrences of loss of power mid-drive have been reported”. The company explained that some “are due to over-sensitive functional safety systems, and in these cases over-the-air software updates have resolved almost all the issues”. “A small number of cases have been due to hardware faults that correctly trigger a ‘safe state,’ and these have been investigated and resolved on a case-by-case basis”, the company wrote in an email. Fisker said “further improvements” are coming in the over-the-air update slated to release to vehicles next week. Problems with the Ocean’s brakes are already on the radar of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The federal safety regulator revealed in January that it opened an investigation into multiple reports of sudden loss of braking power. Fisker has said it is fully cooperating with NHTSA’s investigation, and that it is “resolving” the regenerative braking problem with an over-the-air software update released January 19. At least one complaint filed with NHTSA since then, though, details the experience of an owner who says they are still having trouble with the braking despite their car having received the update. Fisker said in an email that it is “not aware of any validated case of this issue” persisting after the update went out. Customers began telling Fisker about problems with the Ocean’s brakes as early as July 2023, the documents show. Workers also experienced these problems. In August, an employee giving a test drive experienced a brake malfunction and got stuck in a fire lane. In some cars, internal documents show employees as early as August referring to a bug in the electronic stability control software that made the regenerative braking stop working. However, the company told in an email that it is “not aware of any such bug”. The company also noted that the Ocean’s mechanical brakes still work even if regenerative braking does not. When LaMarca, the owner who filed suit, reported his own braking problems to the company, he says he was told to dial the regenerative braking down to the minimum possible. This neutralized one of the main benefits of driving an electric vehicle, which is re-capturing energy back into the battery. “What the hell would I want to do that for?”, he said. Beyond the brake issues, some owners have had trouble just getting into their car in the first place. This has been traced to an unpredictable key fob. “Locking and unlocking is like flipping a coin”, the same owner whose car died on the 405 reported to Fisker. LaMarca said he found himself tapping the unlock button a dozen times before he could open his vehicle, and says he had to keep spare coin cell batteries on hand because of how often the key fob drains them. At times, the unpredictable key fob has meant owners were essentially locked out of their car. One in Florida told Fisker in late November that he, his pregnant wife and their young child were locked out of their car “in the hot Florida sun” for so long that they arranged for another ride home “without a car seat”, according to the documents. The key fob can be a problem inside the Ocean, too. “It can take 10 minutes or more of moving the key fob around, getting in and out of the car” just to shift into drive, one owner reported to Fisker’s customer service team, according to the documents. Some owners have run into situations where they believed they were trapped inside their Oceans. In one instance, an employee alerted others that they had a customer “locked inside his hot car and unable to open the doors”. The employee went back and forth with co-workers on possible solutions, including sending an “unlock” signal to the car through its cellular radio, before finally finding a way to get one of the rear passenger doors open. Another owner reported to NHTSA that on January 2 they had been repeatedly locked inside their Ocean, and says they “put numerous service tickets in with no response from Fisker”. “We’ve been locked in the car numerous times and are afraid to drive anywhere not knowing if we can get out in a timely manner”, the owner wrote. Fisker said that the upcoming software update “will improve key fob functionality and ensure that the first press consistently unlocks the vehicle” and that it will “also improve the battery life of the key fob”. Fisker has also had an issue since it started shipping the Ocean with a seat sensor that registers a driver’s presence. When it doesn’t, the car won’t shift into drive. On multiple occasions in the documents, Fisker employees have had to tell owners to shift their weight in different directions in order to get the gear shifter to work. The company told that this was an issue on “early vehicles” and claims it has been resolved. “The seat mat sensor installation has been revised and affected cars have been reworked”, the company said in an email. In rare cases (around 8 according to the documents and the complaints filed with NHTSA) the vehicle’s hood has flown open at high speeds. In one instance from December, the hood cracked the owner’s windshield. Another owner claimed the hood left “an etching of the Fisker logo on the glass”. The company declined to answer questions about the cause of the hoods flying open and instead told that the “service instructions for securing the hood are simple, clearly defined and if followed correctly, the hood will remain closed”. In late 2022, just a few days after the first Fisker Ocean came off of contract manufacturer Magna’s production lines in Austria, Henrik Fisker said in an interview with Bloomberg that his company had a deal with Bridgestone that would give customers access to “more than 2.000 facilities all over the U.S”. That deal meant the company would offer customers access to more service facilities than “some of the largest automakers”, the CEO said. Combined with the company’s fledgling mobile service team, “we are well set up” to provide service, Fisker said. While the partnership was presented as a done deal, 1 year later, Gupta-Fisker admitted on Fisker’s third-quarter earnings call that the company’s delivery and service infrastructure were holding the company back, and that they were undergoing a major overhaul. In an email, the company said the Bridgestone partnership “has been in rollout mode” (meaning the company hasn’t yet referred customers to Bridgestone “because that level of service hasn’t yet been required for any Ocean) and that the “arrangement is under review” now that Fisker has shifted to a dealer model. The result is some owners have had to bother the company repeatedly to get help, or even just answers, according to the documents. One customer whose car died on the freeway (another apparent battery malfunction issue, according to the documents) had so much trouble reaching the customer service team that they instead complained in the comments of a post on the company’s Instagram, the documents show. Another customer whose vehicle was delivered with visible scratches and a rattling solar roof showed up at the company’s showroom in San Diego to complain. “Can someone call him”, 1 of the employees wrote internally. “Would like him out of our sales space ASAP please”. After initial struggles trying to reach the company, LaMarca said he later had an easier time getting in touch with Fisker. “In the beginning I was lucky if I got a response within 3 weeks”, he said. But ultimately the company’s mobile service teams would get to him in a matter of days, with some reps giving him their personal cell phone numbers in order to make sure he could get through. One, he said, even answered a call while at a funeral. In California, Fisker initially performed some service and repairs at the same facility in La Palma where it had handed over those initial cars last June. But in October, California’s Bureau of Automotive Repairs hit the company with a citation for performing those repairs without a license, public records show. Fisker told that it performed “limited repairs” at the facility in 2023, but confirmed that it has discontinued those services after appealing the Bureau of Automotive Repair’s decision. On or around December 15, Fisker switched service facilities, according to the documents. “La Palma location will no longer be taking in cars for service”, 1 employee wrote internally. A few days after that, Henrik Fisker admitted in a press release that his company still “needs to make improvements” to its customer service operation. +++
+++ JLR (Jaguar Land Rover) is to spend “several hundreds of thousands of pounds” helping to beef up policing at British container ports, in a bid to thwart criminal gangs currently given free-rein by the lack of police resources. The firm’s managing director Patrick McGillycuddy and global financial services director Chris Kent shed light on its plan to pay for extra policing at the Felixstowe, Tilbury and Southampton container facilities, during an event in Solihull showcasing the firm’s responses to soaring crime rates and insurance premiums. Thefts of Range Rover and Land Rover products have been the focus of plenty of headlines in recent months, but Kent says JLR’s unprecedented investment in ports policing addresses a broader problem affecting many in the car industry. “It feels at this point in time that from a security perspective, the United Kingdom could do more”, he says. “This feels like there’s a policing issue around serious and organized crime, and the port security is a real problem for us. The ability to get parts out of the ports, effectively unchecked, is certainly not helping”. The evidence suggests that most of the luxury cars stolen in the United Kingdom, including JLR products, are shipped out of the country in containers, either as complete cars, with up to 4 vehicles per container, or broken down into parts. “The issue is really centred in the United Kingdom and the fact we’ve got a porous border”, says Kent, who explains that JLR already tracks activity in the Middle East where raids on bodyshops allow them to see parts arriving and being applied to vehicles. He also pointed to container freeports in the United Arab Emirates as a distribution point for cars and parts making their way to West African states or other markets such as Russia. JLR has for the last 2 years operated a Vehicle Theft Reduction Group, which works closely with British police to monitor and respond to specific threats or vulnerabilities in JLR vehicles. According to 1 group member, an indication of the ease with which criminals can export stolen cars and parts is that the United Kingdom can muster a total of 3 vehicle crime police officers working for the National Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service at ports; that’s just 1 each at Felixstowe, Southampton and Tilbury. McGillycuddy says it’s essential that the Home Office and police departments direct more resources to targeting the gangs, and reject the premise that insurance payouts mean it’s effectively a victimless crime. “Everyone’s insurance has gone up by 40 to 50 percent. Everyone pays, so this is why we are determined to tackle this at the root”, he says, adding that JLR’s cash injection will go directly towards increasing police resources on the ground. “How do we stop the theft of cars, not just our cars, everyone’s cars? How do we make policing the ports more robust, so it’s a lot more difficult to get parts and stolen vehicles out of the country, reducing the desire to steal our products or anyone else’s? We need to make it a higher priority, because people are suffering the trauma and inconvenience of their cars being stolen. Moreover we’re all now paying more for insurance, as a result of it being viewed as a ‘no harm’ crime”, he says. JLR’s solution is to invest its own money into ports policing, says McGillycuddy, with the cash being targeted at police resources “looking at organized crime, more boots on the ground, and understanding how the criminals operate”. Asked how he felt about having to pay for the police to carry out tasks many think they should be doing anyway, he told: “It is what it is. We’ve got a problem and we can help solve it, so we will”. +++
+++ MASERATI has laid bare its future electrification plans with the announcement of a new E-segment SUV that’s due to arrive in 2027. The big, all-electric luxury SUV was confirmed during the announcement that the Quattroporte Folgore EV will be delayed until 2028. The new flagship SUV will arrive to top what is already a rapidly expanding Maserati electric car line up. There’s currently the Grecale Folgore and GranTurismo Folgore, plus the all-electric version of the MC20 is coming in 2025. Branding the SUV as “E-segment” suggests it’ll sit at the very top of the Maserati range, rivalling the likes of the Mercedes EQS SUV and the upcoming Range Rover Electric. While I’ve not yet spotted the new SUV testing or even seen sketches of the design, I expect that it’ll follow the traits of current Maserati cars, with the traditional wide grille and large trident badge. It’ll also take the ‘Folgore’ name (which means ‘lightning’ in Italian) like the rest of Maserati’s all-electric line up. Given the size of the new car, I’m certain it’ll sit on the new STLA Large platform from Maserati’s parent company Stellantis. STLA Large will be used on a whole host of Stellantis EVs and it’s claimed that up to 800 km of range is potentially available from the underlying battery tech. This figure is likely to shrink due to the inherent aerodynamic inefficiency and weight of the Maserati SUV, although thanks to a battery of up to 118 kW, there should still be a competitive range on offer. Maserati is positioning itself as the only luxury brand within the Stellantis group and its new electric cars will take “the brand to a higher luxury positioning”. That could mean that the new Maserati SUV will look and feel further removed from its Stellantis siblings, potentially incorporating bespoke technology, too. +++
+++ MERCEDES has big changes in store for its range of electric cars. Looking ahead, the battery-powered cars in its lineup will feature a less streamlined design in order to appeal to a wider group of customers, and some will ditch the naming system that uses EQ as a prefix. Christoph Starzynski, the company’s vice president of engineering, told that design is one of the reasons models like the EQE and the EQS haven’t sold as well as executives hoped. “We have had that comment and we are taking this feedback seriously”, he replied after he was asked whether the polarizing look (which helps unlock a low drag coefficient) is a little too much for the target audience. Starzynski added that the feedback will help shape future EVs. He pointed to the Concept CLA unveiled in 2023. “Looking at the design language in the Concept CLA, and maybe looking a little bit more in the future, I think we can definitely see there’s going to be adoptions to that”, he explained. The Concept CLA (photo) features more conventional-looking proportions than the current EQ-branded models. While the Concept CLA is clearly a preview of the upcoming third-generation CLA, the production model may not end up called something along the lines of EQ CLA. Starzynski noted that the EQ name will stick around in the foreseeable future but that not every car will get it. “How do you name the cars? At the end of the day, our ultimate goal is to go fully electric. So at the end of the day, the zipper will close and the nomenclature will happen naturally”, he told. Interestingly, he “hinted” that the electric version of the G-Class due out in the coming years may be the first battery-powered Mercedes-Benz model of the 2020s not assigned the EQ label. That’s a little surprising, since the off-roader was previewed by a concept called EQG unveiled at the 2021 Munich auto show. I don’t know what it will be called yet. As for the Concept CLA, its influence on the Mercedes-Benz range won’t be limited to design. It will ride on a new modular platform called MMA, and its electric drivetrain will benefit from the lessons that the brand learned while developing and testing the Vision EQXX concept. +++
+++ A crowd vandalized and set fire to a Waymo SELF-DRIVING CAR using a firework in San Francisco on Saturday, the Alphabet-owned company and authorities said, marking the most destructive attack so far on driverless vehicles in the U.S. On Saturday night, a crowd surrounded a white Jaguar I-Pace that was moving along a street in the city’s Chinatown district, a company spokesperson said. Michael Vandi, a witness who posted videos of the incident, told Reuters that people were celebrating China’s Lunar New Year by setting off fireworks. A person jumped onto the hood of the Waymo vehicle and broke its windshield. Another person also jumped on the hood 30 seconds later as some in the crowd clapped in approval. “That was when it went wild”, he wrote, describing people with skateboards breaking the glass and others graffitiing the car. “There were 2 groups of people. Folks who encourage it and others who were just shocked & started filming. No one stood up, i mean there wasn’t anything you could do to stand up to dozens of people”. His video showed the vehicle engulfed in flames with a huge plume of black smoke. Waymo said someone threw a firework inside, which set the vehicle on fire. The fire department posted pictures on social media of the charred remains of the car and said a firework started the blaze. “The vehicle was not transporting any riders and no injuries have been reported. We are working closely with local safety officials to respond to the situation”, the company said. It did not say what caused the attack. The San Francisco Police Department said it was investigating the cause of the fire and did not say whether arrests have been made. The Jaguar I-Pace, was equipped with 29 cameras and other sensors. The latest incident came a day before the Super Bowl NFL championship involving the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs. “This was a one-off event”, the Waymo spokesperson told, adding it will “continue serving riders during today’s festivities”. The incident was not the first time people have harassed self-driving cars, but its severity may illustrate growing public hostility following a pedestrian-dragging accident last year involving a vehicle operated by General Motors’ Cruise unit. On previous occasions in San Francisco and Phoenix, Arizona, groups have disrupted the operations of self-driving vehicles, blocking their path, trying to enter the vehicles and jumping on their hoods. Videos that went viral showed people putting orange traffic cones on top of the vehicles to obstruct their sensors and force them to stop abruptly. Last week, a driverless Waymo car collided with a cyclist in San Francisco, causing minor injuries. The incident is being reviewed by the state’s auto regulator. Waymo offers driverless ride-hailing service in Phoenix and is working to expand the service to Los Angeles and Austin, Texas. On October 2, 2023, a pedestrian hit by another vehicle was thrown into the path of a self-driving Cruise vehicle and dragged 6 meters. California subsequently suspended the company’s driverless testing license, and Cruise pulled all its U.S. self-driving vehicles from testing. Completely driverless test vehicles, mostly from Cruise and Waymo fleets, traveled nearly 5.3 million km in California last year. +++
+++ SKODA is working on a cheap electric model that will undercut its own ‘baby electric SUV’. The concept of a 20.000 euro electric car is a major and longstanding challenge for Skoda and other brands in the Volkswagen group, with the focus on new battery technology and the possibility of production in India to help drive down costs. The Czech brand is already joining Volkswagen and Cupra in developing an all-electric small car, under the umbrella of ‘MEB Entry’. This VW Group project, originally revealed back in 2019, has been hit by fierce internal debates on everything from the body style to the choice of battery chemistry. Engineers were struggling to deliver on the original promise of a 20.000 euro starting price, and the estimated arrival date has slipped back from the original target of 2023 to 2026. Volkswagen has already previewed that car with the ID. 2all concept, while Cupra has done the same with its Raval; both cars are expected to start at around 27.500 euro in the Netherlands. Skoda is expected to have its own version of that car, but now Skoda CEO, Klaus Zellmer has indicated that an even cheaper small car is being planned to hit the important 20.000 euro price point. Zellmer said, “We’re leading a potential project that potentially makes it to be that entry model, but VW is leading one, and of course Seat has also got plans for entry mobility. But for the time being, we’re all working on it because this is obviously a missing piece in a bigger picture”. Zellmer, meanwhile, has revealed that the focus of his team as they try to produce an EV even more cheaply, is the battery: “40 percent of the cost of the electric car is battery. So if you cut that by half, which some companies say is doable, this is where the biggest lever is in order to cut costs for battery electric vehicles. It’s the chemistry, too. So far we are very much focused on NMC (Nickel Manganese Cobalt) because the NMC battery chemistry is in terms of energy density, the best you can have for relatively low cost. But now LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate) comes in, which is more cost effective, but there’s less energy density”. To get around the problem of these cheaper batteries offering less energy density and needing to be larger, Skoda engineers are looking at the option of stacking cells on top of each other. This could potentially facilitate the smaller footprint of a cheaper car. Asked if Skoda really needs a small, affordable car in its range, Zellmer was in no doubt. “Absolutely. We need that. If you now look at the transformation to electric in Europe, and we’re still hovering at about 20 percent in average in Europe, even though our tipping point will be 2028. The Fabia will play the role of the entry model for the Skoda brand for the next couple of years”. Beyond those lifecycle limits of the Fabia, the affordable electric car will be needed and Zellmer says there’s a chance it could be made in India to further curtail costs. “We’re already building cars in India. We are now looking at the battery electric vehicle segment for India. In order to be competitive in India with a battery electric vehicle, you have to have a very price attractive and low cost option. Now that could be something that we could also see in Europe, part of that or the car itself, we don’t know yet. This brings us back to the 20.000 euro car, when I said it’s all about the battery. It’s also about other factors, so let’s see. This is a core project for us this year to see how we will manage the transformation from ICE to electric in India. And I would say India plays a part; it’s the most price competitive market for us”. Asked whether European buyers would care if their Skoda was built in India, Zellmer said: “I don’t think so. If it’s our quality and even if they do know, you would always be able to learn about it. I think it’s okay as long as the car fulfils our safety standards”. There’s said to be little appetite within the Volkswagen Group for a Citroen Ami-style quadricycle, so the vehicle could use a slightly shorted version of the MEB Entry architecture, with an overall length of less than 4 meters to help cut down on material costs. A natural rival for the likes of the Dacia Spring, the new EV would have a more limited battery capacity than Skoda’s other EVs and potentially less than 240 km of range between charges. Despite its shortened length, it would still feature a pseudo-SUV body style and a slightly elevated driving position to help accommodate the battery in the floor. Skoda will be investigating how to make best use of shared components, to help drive down cost, and this could lead to the vehicle featuring sensors and safety systems from further up the range, including the ‘tech deck’ grille introduced by the Vision 7S concept. Zellmer even suggested that his team is considering whether a simplified, pared-back manufacturing process could result in a single spec of car, with the potential for Skoda to recoup revenue over the vehicle’s life through subscriptions to features. “It’s going to be difficult with the technologies involved”, he said. “They are expensive: the assistance systems, and so forth. Or perhaps function on demand, where those cars will have features built in, which increases the material costs, but we’re going to have the possibility to use profit pools after you’ve sold the car. That’s something we have to put into the equation”. Zellmer refused to be drawn on a timeframe but the existing 4th generation Fabia was introduced in 2021. Impending tougher emissions rules notwithstanding, that could give Skoda until 2027 or even 2028 to make its numbers stack up. +++
+++ TESLA raked in $1.79 billion in regulatory credit sales last year, according to a recent SEC filing, as it cashed in on rivals failing to sell enough EVs to meet emission regulations. Tesla earns regulatory credits by making and selling electric vehicles. It can then sell them to other automakers who have not produced enough EVs to meet emission rules imposed by regulators in the United States, Europe and China. It’s proven to be an important business for Tesla, which does not disclose who it sells the credits to. Bloomberg, which initially reported on the filing, calculated that the company has made almost $9 billion from selling regulatory credits since 2009. That might be as much a surprise to Tesla as it is to anyone. The company has expected revenue from regulatory credits to dry up as other automakers ramp up EV production, with then-CFO Zachary Kirkhorn warning as much in a 2020 earnings call. “We don’t manage the business with the assumption that regulatory credits will contribute in a significant way to the future”, Kirkhorn told investors. “It will continue for some period of time, but eventually this stream of regulatory credits will reduce”, he added. However, that scenario has largely failed to materialize, with Tesla’s earnings from selling regulatory credits slightly increasing from last year, when it made $1.776 billion. The Elon Musk-run automaker continues to dominate the US electric vehicle market, though it’s starting to lose ground to other competitors. Still, many of its biggest rivals are scaling back their ambitious EV plans, with Ford postponing $12 billion in investment and General Motors reintroducing hybrids into their all-electric lineup. Right now, the biggest threat to Tesla’s dominance comes from China, with BYD overtaking the automaker as the world’s top seller of EVs at the start of the year. +++
