Exhibit A: The EU Is Trying To Counter US Electrification Rules As Fast As Possible
It’s not a secret that the Europeans have been upset with the United States for passing the Inflation Reduction Act, which makes building electric cars and their batteries in North America basically a requirement to be competitive. Fail to do that, the law says, and your cars probably won’t qualify for EV tax credits in America, and could thus become uncompetitive. Quelle tristesse. For all the talk of how dysfunctional the American system of government currently is it can move fast if it so desires. The European Union, on the other hand, is run by a highly deliberative body that sits atop numerous bureaucracies that range in manner from France’s laxly organized civil service to Germany’s technocracy. Change can be slow. After watching numerous automakers announce battery plants in the United States, the EU is moving to speed things up lest they lose out on a generational change. A lot of this is detailed in this Associated Press piece (“EU leaders discuss subsidies to counter Biden’s green, EV plans”) and I’d like to highlight the reactions from European leaders especially: This is key. Even if the EU poured a ton of money into subsidies, as they seem willing to do, accessing these subsidies is much harder than in the United States. Clearing this barrier would be a huge boon to industry and research. And when French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire strode into EU headquarters in Brussels soon after, he let it be known. “We need a shock,” he said, to simplify the EU’s subsidy approval rules. They force companies to struggle through arcane state aid regulations for too long to obtain the investments needed for cutting-edge breakthroughs, he said.
Exhibit B: Ford Is Backing Off VW EV Partnership
When two automakers share a platform it typically means that the profits and volume they expect for this vehicle do not justify complete ownership. Ford, for instance, is unlikely to ever share the F-150 with another automaker. Toyota and BMW, though, are fine to save costs by developing the relatively low-volume Supra and Z4 together. It can also mean that one automaker partner doesn’t have the requisite capabilities needed to produce a vehicle. And sometimes it’s both. A few years ago, Volkswagen and Ford agreed that they’d make two new small EVs using Volkswagen’s MEB platform (the same one that underpins the VW ID.Buzz and ID.4). That car isn’t even out yet and Ford’s already reportedly jumping from the deal, at least according to German trade pub Automobilwoche (story via Automotive News) : When automakers take their ball and go home, you know the ball has value. VW’s MEB platform was a transitional technology for Ford and using it saved the company at least two years of development time, Martin Sanders, Ford’s e-car development manager in Europe, told Automotive News sister publication Automobilwoche. Ford is spending $2 billion to convert its factory in Cologne, Germany, to build two MEB-based cars, while ending production of the long-running Fiesta hatchback there.
Exhibit C: Hertz Wants To Rent 25,000 Electric Cars To Uber Drivers
Increasingly, if I’m getting picked up by an Uber or a Lyft it’s a Tesla that’s coming to get me. In Europe, that’s about to be the case as Hertz and Uber announced they’d extend their U.S. program of renting EVs to drivers across the Atlantic Ocean. From their press release: Despite talking about Teslas, their press shots show a Polestar 2. The partnership in North America has already benefited tens of thousands of drivers on the Uber platform. To date, nearly 50,000 drivers have rented a Tesla through this program, completing more than 24 million fully-electric trips and over 260 million electric miles. The European expansion of the partnership will begin in Hertz Europe’s London base in January 2023 and aims to expand to other European capitals, such as Paris and Amsterdam, throughout the year and beyond. Further details will be announced in due course.
Exhibit D: EV Charging Disproportionately In Wealthy, White Neighborhoods
To the surprise of absolutely no one, a report from Axios found that charging for electric cars was easier to find in whiter and wealthier neighborhoods: The study looked at U.S. Census tracts and found that majority-white tracts in Philly, for instance, were 3.9 times as likely to have charging stations as non-white tracts. This isn’t universal. Dallas and San Francisco had a relatively equal distribution of chargers. While the content of the study is entirely unsurprising, the existence of the study itself is noteworthy. EVs have long been the easy playthings of the wealthy, but the concern over the democratization of charger access shows there’s at least a desire to see this change.
The Flush
What was your last Uber or Lyft? What was your last rental car?
Nearly 70% Of CarMax’s Tesla Inventory Disappeared In Three Days
Tesla Owners Are Incredibly Unhappy About Recently-Announced Discounts
GM Admits The Cadillac Lyriq EV Isn’t Where It Needs To Be Yet
How Much Of Your Car Data Are You Willing To Give To Google?
Even CarMax’s CEO Thinks Used Car Prices Are Too High The Political Reason Why Gas Prices May Rise This Summer The Mazda CX-30 Plug-In Rotary Hybrid Is Coming And The Logo Is Amazing Nearly 70% Of CarMax’s Tesla Inventory Disappeared In Three Days Here’s What You Need To Know About Tom Zhu, Tesla’s New ‘Number 2’
Got a hot tip? Send it to us here. Or check out the stories on our homepage. Photos: VW, EU, Newspress, Hertz last rental was a Toyota Starlet in South Africa, 5sp manual. It appears to be a rebranded Suzuki Baleno, built in India. The engine compartment looks like a throwback to the 80s or earlier, tiny 4-cylinder engine occupying about half the available space. It would be lovely to work on.. Excellent automotive appliance, carried 3 of us and bags over 2100km getting about 16.9 km/l which is roughly 39 mpg. That included quite a bit of city driving. Sufficient power, made all the corners I pointed it at on some wonderful mountain roads. I’m actually shocked the wealth disparity isn’t greater than that. Are you sure the decimal place is in the right spot? 😉 Last Uber was a Lime scooter, which I won’t be in a huge hurry to do again. I’m too old to be riding tiny wheels on potholed streets. My injuries don’t heal as fast as they used to. Last rental was a Camry. Other than the rental office at a nearly abandoned regional airport being a shitshow, it was a great road trip car. The interior felt at least current, in contrast to the last Camry rental we had, and it got terrific mileage even at interstate speeds. We had to stop more often due to our bladder capacity than our fuel capacity. It was okay. Definitely more powerful than my Honda Fit. But the handling didn’t feel as ‘confident’ as my Fit. The car wasn’t fancy, but it was comfortable and had more space than we needed. And it used about 30L of fuel to go between 470-500km of driving… mostly on the autobahn and holding it to 120-130km/h. And that translates to 6-6.3L/100km… which is about the same fuel economy as my manual Fit. And that level of fuel economy is impressive given the combo of automatic, the additional 18hp and the fact that it sits a bit higher than my Fit. The total cost for renting the car over the 5 days I was using it was about CAD$400… including the cost of fuel, highway tolls and tax. My last rental was a 2020 Audi A7 that I got as an (included) rental while my car was at the shop for bodywork. It drove nice, had good passing power, and the liftback was convenient as well. I never got used to the lack of keyless entry on a car that cost nearly $70k though; it’s such an expensive car that it always felt weird to me that they made it an optional feature. Heck, my grandfather’s 2015 prius has keyless entry, and its a lower trim model with cloth seats. My last rental was a Chevy Impala for work. Honestly wasn’t that bad of a ride as it was comfy, quiet, had good passing power and CarPlay worked flawlessly. It’s a good time to be in rideshare or rentals. Rent a vehicle two to four times a month. I exclusively use Enterprise as their people tend to very customer oriented and they have an office in my town. Vehicles tend to be mid-size with the last being a Toyota Camary (might of been an upgrade). Enterprise keeps their vehicles into the 30k miles and I use the rentals as an opportunity to see how the vehicles age when driven by users that don’t care about how they treat the vehicles. Interesting how many times the start stop function no longer works. During COVID the whole rental fleet really took a beating and had a couple vehicles with 40k plus miles. One was a Pacifica and impressed with how few rattles there were and the general state of the interior. Not applicable. Both would require me to have a cell phone.
