EV Universe #137: It's happening! — Ford Capri EV specifications — First electric NASCAR car

AUTOMAKERS & GLOBAL NEWS

Come quick, it’s really happening!!

China is the world’s largest auto market.

In that largest auto market, in the first quarter of this year,

almost two-thirds of EVs available are already cheaper than their internal combustion engine equivalents. Even if you exclude mini cars, like in the graph above.

Oh how great it is to watch this happen in real time.

The battery pack-level prices for the most sold battery chemistries have been below the $100/kWh level — which is often quoted as “the” benchmark for widespread EV adoption — in China since October 2023.

The increasingly dominating LFP pack prices are now at $75/kWh on average, and high-nickel NMC packs are just about to drop below $100 per kWh.

Per this great report by Colin McKerracher with Bloomberg (link), the “prices for batteries in China are plummeting, and the implications are just starting to ripple outward for the global automotive market.”

Now if you see China and Chinese companies’ investments into transitioning to EVs pay off on a grand scale like this — how do the legacy automakers in the US that keep saying “We delayed this and that EV investment because the EV demand slowed down” look like to us?

They look like the ones about to lose the race.

If we jump back to the United States, however, and look at a five-year ownership of the car, a recent J.D. Power maps out the 48 states where (and by how much) the EVs have a cost advantage over their gasoline counterparts (link).

Per their calculations, the largest savings come in New Jersey, with $10,345 over five years. On the other side, West Virginia sees ICE winning being $1,800 cheaper to own over five years.

There are always caveats to this kind of analysis, but it’s great to see the attention shift toward vehicle total cost of ownership (TCO), at least until we reach actual sticker price parity on a China-like scale.

Here are two self-explanatory graphs you need to see from Bloomberg’s latest by Danny Lee:

Elon Musk says that this rumor of ours — of the founder of Uber, Travis Kalanick, being hired by Tesla to run the robotaxi network — is false. I’ll still keep a close watch, as I would expect something, either a different position or a collaboration with Travis’ ghost kitchen business might is in the cards.

Also, fresh off the next rumor mill: Tesla is said to be postponing its Robotaxi event for two months to build more prototypes, per Bloomberg. The delay has now been confirmed, just not that it’ll take two months, as he left a note on X yesterday:

“Requested what I think is an important design change to the front, and extra time allows us to show off a few other things.”

I learned a lot reading Walter Isaacson’s latest book on Elon Musk, and I can only imagine what kind of a ‘surge’ is going on at Tesla right now to get the robotaxi stuff ready to show the world.

The US Department of Energy has now selected the recipients of the $1.7B in grant funding to convert 11 fossil car production and assembly plants to build EVs or EV-related parts. Here’s the full list with who and what: (link).

Recipients include American Autoparts, Blue Bird, Cummins, Fiat-Chrysler (x2), General Motors, Harley Davidson, Volvo Technology, and ZF. GM got the largest sum, a cool $500M, to convert its Lansing plant.

Quick takes:

• Singapore will ban the sale of diesel cars and taxis from the 1st of January 2025, with an exception for classic/vintage vehicles. (link) The country will also up the road taxes for renewals of existing diesel vehicle registrations.

• 120 scientists, engineers, and academics write an open letter to Toyota saying it should withdraw the hydrogen Toyota Mirai as the official car of the Paris Olympics and replace it with an all-electric vehicle. (link)

• General Motors has to pay a $145.8M penalty and forfeit credits worth hundreds of millions of $, after a US government investigation found excess emissions from approximately 5.9 million GM vehicles. (link)

• The Labor Party won the UK’s July 4th election… and it has previously pledged to restore the 2030 ICE Ban. We’re watching.

• VinFast said it will delay the opening of its EV factory in North Carolina by three years, to 2028. (link)

• Carvana now integrates the Clean Vehicle Tax Credit of $4,000 into the buying process, so it will be taken off the price already at checkout. (link) The system also asks you some questions to make sure you’re eligible for the tax credit.

• The possibility of BYD planning a Turkey factory we talked about last week is now confirmed — $1B plant with a capacity of 150,000 vehicles/year for both battery-electric and plug-in hybrids will start operations at the end of 2026.

EV SPOTLIGHT: Polestar Ford Capri EV

…oops, my bad with the headline here. To my defense, it’s not like it looks like a Capri either, is it.

Ford launched its newest EV model, the Capri EV. Full spec sheet is here: (pdf). Here’s what we know of the first two “extended range” versions:

• Price starting at €49,400 ($53.9k)

• Deliveries should start by the end of the year

• Range: 592km on RWD / 627km on AWD version
  (368mi/390mi) per WLTP

• Battery: 77kW / 79 kWh usable, both NMC chemistry, running on VW’s MEB 400V platform

• Charging: peak 135 kW / 185 kW, AC 11kW on both

• Performance: 6.4s / 5.3s 0-100km/h, output 210kW / 250kW

• Top speed: 180 km/h (112 mph)

• Efficiency: 13.3kWh/100km / 15.0 kWh/100km (huge if true, but I have doubts you could achieve that)

• ADAS: 12 ultrasonic sensors, 5 cameras, 3 radars

• Interior: 14.6’’ adjustable center screen (which means it tilts up for quick storage underneath); 5’’ digital instrument cluster; 7/10-speaker sound system; 17-liter “MegaConsole center storage”; wireless Apple Carplay & Android Auto; Massage driver seat;

• Assembled in Cologne, Germany, and until Ford builds out its battery assembly plant there, battery packs will come from Škoda in Mladá Boleslav, Czechia.

• Apple CarPlay and Android Auto can also be used wirelessly. The trunk is between 570 and 1,510 litres.

Running on VW’s MEB battery platform just like the electric Ford Explorer and basically being a sister to VW ID.4, you might also notice this Capri giving out the ID.5 there.

On the Polestar thing, I just had to put the Polestar 2 side-by-side with the new Capri. Is it just me or…?

CAPRI, apparently, now stands for Cool, Athletic, Past meets future, Rebellious to its core, and Intelligent technologies.

Here’s a brief ‘walkaround’ video on design by Ford (3-minute video).

But you’re better off going with Tom Ford, showing you the car in this 8-min walkaround video from Top Gear.

Looking at the comment sections on all the different Capri videos on Youtube and elsewhere… oof the sentiment is really, really bad. Like really. Bad.

I should keep my opinions to myself, but overall it does seem this will fall into a compliance-car’ish category, which seems to try and fill a void until Ford comes out with actual great EVs (really hope it does).

Capri itself back in the day was Europe’s equivalent to the Ford Mustang, more than 1.8 million were produced across three generations between 1969 and 1986.

Of course car in 2024 does not have to look like it did 50 years ago… but I’ll leave you with the original beaut, which I’d like to be resurrected as an electric one day. Perhaps we’ll do with the conversions. Let’s see how the modern version above does.

Moving on…

Remember when, two years ago, I shared the leaked slides of a NASCAR presentation that pondered the potential of making NASCAR go EV?

They’re a bit behind on the timeline, but… surprise!

The first demonstration vehicle was just unveiled (link):

NASCAR partnered with Chevrolet, Ford, Toyota, and ABB to demonstrate a high-performance electric vehicle and to “gauge fan interest in electric racing.” The $1.5M prototype. “It accelerates almost twice as fast as top gas-powered racecars and can stop almost immediately.”

It’s a crossover utility vehicle (CUV) with a body made of sustainable flax-based composite. There’s a 78-kWh liquid-cooled battery, and the tunable powertrain can produce ~1,000hp at peak power.

ABB is now NASCAR’s official electrification partner. ABB will also install chargers at NASCAR’s 15 track locations around the US, usable also for everyday drivers.

Let’s see if that prototype drums up enough interest and we’ll actually see a demonstrator series launched. 🤞 

Watch these (or don’t):

• Watch tip: Kyle from Out of Spec does a 70-mph highway range test with the Mercedes eSprinter. (video).

• Do not Watch tip: The $2.3M Lotus Evija hyper EV crashes instantly after launching on Goodwood Festival of Speed last week (video).

Tesla Giga Berlin fire brigade has electric fire trucks. They use a Rosenbauer RT 4x4 Advanced, which has two 66 kWh batteries. Tesla brought these out to an event for a neighboring fire station’s 135th anniversary.

A likely Model Y refresh spotted testing. It was about 6 months before the Model 3 refresh launched that we started seeing these, so early 2025 launch seems to be realistic.

By the way, Musk said in a closed subscriber-only chat on X that I had the privilege to have seen: “There is no new Model Y this year. Please stop hinting that there is, as it damages our sales of the current version.”

EV SALES 📊 
2^nd quarter and first half of 2024

🇺🇸 We’ve now got the preliminary EV sales of the US for Q1 and Q2, from Kelley Blue Book (a subsidiary of Cox Automotive). (link) Let’s see what we can learn.

For the first time in the US, Tesla fell under 50% market share of all EVs sold in Q2 49.7% with 164,264 sold (304,451 first half of the year). I still can’t believe it has taken so long, and the competition is still not there really if you check the next ones in line:

#2 was Ford with 23,957 EVs in Q2 (44,180 first half)
#3 was GM with 21,930 EVs sold (38,355 first half)

Speaking of GM, Mary Barra finally admits on video they won’t hit their guidance of 1M EV in North America capacity target in 2025. Of course, it is the market’s fault: “We won’t get to a million just because the market is not developing. But we’ll get there.”

Sorry, but this guidance has been wildly off for a long while for anyone who has seen GM’s EV execution so far (see also: 38,355 EVs sold in the first half of 2024).

Anyway, if we talk only of brands not groups like GM, spot #3 was actually taken by Kia with 17,980 EV sales, and closely followed by Hyundai with 16,815. The first GM brand Chevrolet would be 6th, with 11,217 sales.

Here’s a look at the EV share automakers had in Q2, with pure-play EV makers excluded:

Interestingly, Cadillac EV sales jumped to 7,294 EV sales in Q2 2024, from just 1,348 in Q2 2023. That would be doing of Cadillac Lyriq.

Thanks to the KBB data we also get a look at Rivian’s sales breakdown per model — it sold 8,137 R1S SUVs, 3,309 R1T pickup trucks, and 2,344 EDV delivery vans in Q2.

Per NADA, all-electric vehicles made up 6.9% of overall sales in the US in the first half of 2024.

CYBERTRUCK HAS WON

In Q2, Cybertruck became the best-selling electric pickup in the US, with 8,755 Cybertrucks sold against 7,902 F-150 Lightnings, 3,309 Rivian R1Ts, 2,929 Hummers and 2,196 Chevy Silverados. I would expect this position will not be taken from Tesla for the next few years now.

Volkswagen Group sold 180,800 EVs globally in Q2 2024 (+0.1% from Q2 2023), and 317,200 in the first half of this year (-1.4% from H1 2023). 8.1% of all cars it sold were fully electric in Q2 (7.7% in Q2 2023), and 7.3% in H1 2024.

In the first half of this year, the VW Group compared to the same time last year:

• Grew +45.2% in China with 90,600 EVs

• Down -15.2% in Europe with 184,100 EVs

• Down -15.4% in US with 25,200 EVs

• Grew +40.9% in the Rest of World with 17,300 EVs

From the group brands, in the first half of the year:

• VW passenger cars sold 168,500 EVs growing 2.2%

• Audi sold 76,700 EVs (+1.3%)

• Škoda sold 29,400 EVs (-5.9%)

• SEAT/CUPRA sold 18,300 EVs (-3.1%)

• VW Commercial vehicles sold 14,700 (+19.1%)

• Porsche sold 9,000 EVs (-49.9%)

• Bentley and Lambo sold 0

• MAN, VW, Scania and Navistar sold a total of 600 electric trucks (-9%)

The most popular EV models were VW ID.4/ID.5 with 86,800, ID.3 with 66,200, and Audi e-tron with 52,100 sales.

China's BEV sales in June (!) were 549,000 units, and it exported another 63,000 BEVs. The exports are down 5.3% compared to June last year, and down 17.5% from May.

Is this the impact of the EU-imposed tariffs? PHEV exports which aren’t subject to the subsidy, at 22k vehicles exported, are up 110% compared to last year.

At a larger scale, as of the end of this June, the overall all-electric vehicle ownership in China stood at 18,134,000 vehicles, which means 4.12% of overall 440M cars on the roads in China are now fully electric.

*Jaan flies off and will bring you EV geeks more EV sales numbers next week. We should be getting trustworthy European numbers by then too.

BATTERY, MINING & ♻️ 

There are 17 insights I want to give you

on the battery industry, from new solid-state battery developments to silicon battery material partnerships, from CATL raising money, to Ampere — Renault’s EV unit — building out its supply chain.

But I can’t do it here. Join the EV Universe Pro and get it in our Pro Reports.

The Pro Report also features, right this week: 20 insights on auto & policy; 9 notes on different EV models; 11 news on EV production; and a whopping 29 news from the charging industry.

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CHARGING & INFRASTRUCTURE

Toyota becomes an investor and founding member of IONNA, the North American DC charging network. (link) BMW, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, and Stellantis are the other 7 members. IONNA plans 30k chargers in North America by 2030.

For context, Toyota sold 9,468 bZ4X EVs in North America in the first half of 2024 (+158.8% YoY). This made up 0.93% of the Toyota North America division sales.

Electrify America launched a Congestion Reduction Pilot in 10 stations in Southern California where charging is limited to 85% to reduce wait times. (link) At 85% the charging process ends and if the driver is not moving the vehicle in 10 minutes, idle fees will start to occur. Caution, Jaan’s rant incoming in 3… 2… 1...

I truly hope the drivers riot against this.

One should NOT force the stop the charge at 85%. This will lead to stranded EVs. If they’ve calculated they need to use more of their battery range to reach the next destination. Mark my words, if they roll out this to all stations, it will happen. The already poor user experience will have yet another edge case to be worse. 

It is, however, totally fine to charge extra for charging after 85%. This is the absolute sure way to go, and nobody would mind, and you’d still increase station utilization.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING, ELECTRIFY AMERICA?

Quick ⚡️ takes:

• Gireve has launched a great study on the State of Heavy-Duty vehicle charging infrastructure and its market landscape in Europe (link)

• bp pulse partners with Simon Property Group to install and operate ultra-fast EV charging Gigahubs at 75 Simon locations across the US, deploying 900 chargers. The first locations open in early 2026.

• ChargeHub's roaming hub in US & Canada, the Passport Hub, reaches 100 connections, integrating over 100,000 charging points. (link)

• The German government started a tender for a 350-location eTruck charging network to be created along the main routes. (link)

• Instavolt becomes the first CPO in the UK to contract 2,000 rapid and ultra-rapid chargers. 1,600 are already in operation. (link) I love writing rapid when we talk about fast charging in the UK hehe. The company plans to install 11,000 ultra-rapid chargers in the UK and Ireland; 5,000 across Spain and Portugal; and over 300 in Iceland by 2030.

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