EV Universe #138: Uber gets 100,000 BYD EVs — all-electric police fleets — Rivian Outpost

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AUTOMAKERS & GLOBAL NEWS

Last week I asked you all a question:

“If Trump becomes US President, how will it affect EV transition?”

I’m very happy 261 of you took the time to vote. Thank you.
Here are the results:

43 votes (16.5%) said Trump can be good for EVs in US
218 votes (83.5%) said Trump can be bad for EVs in US

Also, 62 of you gave additional context on why you thought so (love to see it 💚 ).

It isn’t easy creating a discussion out of a newsletter, but I’d say we’re doing pretty well here. Our readers are among the most knowledgeable about EVs in the Universe, and I learned quite a few new perspectives from you:

PS, since I didn’t ask for your permission to use your real name, I just put the initials under each quote.

Now, let’s take a look at the latest developments on Trump vs EVs (vs Tesla?):

“I will end the Electric Vehicle mandate on day one, thereby saving the U.S. auto industry from complete obliteration.” — Donald Trump

“Donald, there is no electric car mandate” — Joe Biden

“Obliteration is coming anyway. A surprising number of people think that Tesla survives on subsidies. That is true of our competitors, but not of Tesla.”
— Elon Musk

Now, on past Thursday, we got to see Trump back in action spewing nonsense about EVs yet again. This time it included using one of the silliest headlines that recently went around the more baity bunch of news sites:

“They built 8 chargers for nine billion dollars.
And two of them don’t work.”
— Donald Trump, in Charlotte, 25th July 2024.

He has repeated this in several of his speeches now. 🤦‍♂️

Should we do some quick myth-busting? NEVI-edition.

For those unaware, he would be here referencing the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Formula Program for charging infrastructure across the US, which is ongoing and the first charging stations are just now being deployed (I think ~15 sites are open now).

First of all, no, nine billion dollars are not spent. Neither is a billion “spent”. These funds are deployed in phases and different rounds per fiscal years, and we’ll go over roughly how it works below.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) initiated two programs: $5B via NEVI and $2.5B via “CFI”. These should get us around 10,000+ new fast-charging locations, along with costs to maintain them, etc. Not… “eight”.

I realized that I too didn’t know exactly how all this has worked out so far, so I did some digging.

Here are the steps I’ve gathered from the start of the NEVI program, showing which parts have taken the longest and why it takes even more time to please Trump:

1. The NEVI program is announced. Each state gets their ‘allocation’ of the funds, divided per year from 2022 to 2026. Full list of funds per state is here. It all totals ~$4.15 billion, and covers up to 80% of eligible project costs. 10% of the NEVI funds also went to a separate program to replace exising broken EV chargers.
   → IIJA signed into law and NEVI (and CFI) program established: Nov 15th, 2021.
   → The NEVI Program launched in February 2022. 
   ⏱️ time from IIJA law signed to NEVI program launched: ~3 months
   

2. Each state puts together their NEVI plans, with requirements and proposed locations (“has to be built within one mile of certain designated corridors") for the buildout, and while these take the base requirements of the NEVI program into account, each state is responsible for releasing its own solicitation and competitive scoring criteria (as in, bonus points for restroom access etc).
   → The states submitted their first NEVI plans for ‘22 and ‘23: in August 2022.

   ⏱️ time from NEVI announcement to state plans: ~6 months
   

3. Each state then opens its own NEVI application process, so takes in bids from vendors (through “Requests for Proposal”) to have them compete for a chance to build out these sites. Only a few states went for a direct contract with a sole vendor. Naturally, there’s a period of time to allow for bids to roll in.
   → First state to open the application process (RFP): Ohio, on October 31st, 2022. 
   ⏱️ time from state plans to first application process open: ~3 months
   

4. Then, the state selects winners of said bids, and announces them, allowing for the actual work to begin.
   → First state to award: Hawaii, on July 11th, 2023 (Ohio: 13th of July)

   ⏱️ time from applications open to sites awarded: ~8 months
   

5. Companies set to work, deploy the chargers (a lot of work we won’t dig into happens here), and voilà:
   → The first site to break ground was near Columbus, Ohio, on October 18th, 2023.

   ⏱️ time from site awarded to start of construction, ~3 months
   

6. Charging sites open — that Ohio site, as
   → the first NEVI-funded site in the US, opened on December 8th, 2023
   ⏱️ time from breaking ground to opening the site, ~1.5 months
   (or: 22 months since NEVI program launched)

Today is the 1st of August, 2024 (yes your summer is almost over). 30 months since the launch of NEVI, and 7 months since the opening of the first NEVI-funded charging site. I’m pretty sure we’re finally reaching a point where we’ll see a ‘sudden’ surge in those NEVI sites pop up across the nation.

Now, these NEVI funds are allocated through fiscal year 2026, with the plans for step #2 above taking place for each year. So we can expect the target of the full buildout to be well after 2026.

Current state across states: the 2024 Q1 NEVI progress update from Joint Office of Energy and Transportation says *“there are 33 states that have released solicitations for the NEVI program (step #3) with 16 of these states already awarding contracts (step #4) and installing charging stations. Three states, Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania, have opened their first NEVI-funded charging stations to the public.” (step #6)

So, while government spending does have its inefficiencies compared to the private sector, it is obvious that we’ll get a little bit more than 8 sites out of those billions.

The bureaucracy always has its problems. A good friend deep in the US charging industry summed the whole thing up for me yesterday with:
“Good morning. NEVI is a clusterf**k.”

If you are connected to any parts of the NEVI buildout, please send me your thoughts and I’ll publish them in our next newsletter — anonymity is also guaranteed if needed.

I’d say around the year 2028 is when Trump should actually open his mouth about the money spent & chargers deployed, not before.

Oh, and the funds come with a rule that requires 97% uptime and the infra has to be maintained for at least five years. Not “…and two of them don’t work”.

All this is why I think this could be one of the dumbest EV myths ever to be spreading. Now someone send this to Trump please.

Quick EV news:

• Uber 🤝 BYD to bring 100,000 new BYD EVs on the Uber platform, starting with Europe and Latin America, and later to the Middle East, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. They will offer Uber drivers pricing, financing, discounts on charging, vehicle maintenance, insurance, etc.
  

• 🍬 BREAKING NEWS: Tesla has filed four new trademark applications for four different pieces of candy. (link) Official names in the filings: Supercharged Gummies; Cyberberry; Mango Bolt; Dog Mode Chill. Elon has wanted to “take on the Big Candy” for like 6 years now. Sorry I just had to do the ‘breaking’ part.
  

• Tesla moves robotaxi event to 10/10. For that “thing they want to change at the front of the vehicle.” Tesla also held its Q2 earning call (deck pdf), and I created a full overview in this week’s Tesla Space newsletter: (link).
  

• 🇺🇸 Kentucky is reportedly finally changing the rules and allowing for direct car sales in the state. That’d reduce friction and trip time for new owners of Tesla, Rivian, and other (future) D2C automakers. (link)
  

• 🇺🇸 Vermont offers “Replace Your Ride Program” of up to $6,000 to the gas car drivers whose cars were totaled by the Hurricane Beryl floods earlier this month. This can be stacked with other state incentives, going up to $10k off used EVs or $11k off new EVs. (link) Then, you can add the $7.5k federal tax credit and I don’t know what I’m still doing here *honey, pack your things we’re moving to Vermont*.
  

• 🇦🇺 Western Australia state will invest AU$200M (US$ 131M) for EVs and charging infra (link).
  

• 🇨🇳 China doubled the incentive for scrapping old cars: eligible customers that scrap a China level 3 emissions and below car older than Apr 30th, 2018 get RMB 20,000 ($2,757) toward the purchase of a new NEV (New Energy Vehicle, so PHEV or BEV). (link)
  

• 🇱🇻 Latvia increases incentives for used EVs and EVs for large families, reaching up to €9,000 ($9.7k) for new EVs and another €3k available as scrappage and dealer bonus. (link) It is also one of the few schemes where I see 7-seater EVs get an additional subsidy. Shoutout to a friend of the EV Universe, Kārlis, for reporting on this.
  

• 📚️ Reading tip: Ayvens (formerly Leaseplan | ALD Automotive) released the Mobility Guide which evaluates 47 countries for EV maturity, taking into account the EV adoption, charging infra, taxation and regulation, available BEV models, total cost of ownership and sustainability of the grid (97-page pdf).
  

  

The legacy automakers losing out

This is fun. We get to have a front seat at this major transformation of the auto industry which has massive implications on how we all live — and we see how the winners will win and how the losers will lose.

👎️ GM postpones the Chevy Silverado EV and GMC Sierra EV again

…by delaying the opening of Orion Assembly factory, now until mid-2026. (link) That’s 1.5 years later than initially planned. We said it is going to happen (despite Barra the CEO saying otherwise back then) already in October, so if you’ve been following us this is no news. Buick EV is also delayed.

GM now says aims to produce 200,000 to 250,000 EVs this year, focusing on existing battery cell plants.

Context: General Motors, (Brightdrop, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC brands) have sold just 38,355 EVs in the first half of this year in the US. In no way would I predict them reach 200k sales in North America this year, but...

We see again what we saw 2 years ago — GM talks a big EV game, but doesn’t follow up in action. Now, finally, Mary had to eat some of those words too:

Mary Barra has now finally said out loud they won’t reach the 1 million EV capacity in North America by 2025. Something we sadly knew for… a few years now.

By the way, GM also scrapped plans for the Origin Cruise robotaxi, and will use next-gen Chevy Bolts instead.

I stumbled on a surprising (or perhaps not that surprising) note about this from Cruise’s co-founder and former CEO, Kyle Vogt, who commented on X:

“Disappointed to see GM kill the Origin. Would have been amazing for cities. GM repeatedly finds themselves with a 5-10 year head start, but then fumbles the ball, shuts things down, and loses the lead.
Anyone remember the EV1? It’s like someone keeps letting them look into a crystal ball and then they just go, “nah, we’re good”” 
— Kyle Vogt.

👎️ Ford returns to Fossils instead of EVs in the Ontario plant

Ford’s Oakville, Ontario plant was supposed to build three-row EVs, from 2027… but will build F-Series Super Duty ICE pickups instead. (link)

Ford also abandons its plans in Europe to be all-electric by 2030, says it was “too ambitious”. (link)

I guess we get it. It’s hard to make profitable, good EVs. If you come with legacy baggage. Ford’s EV unit reported $1.1B of revenue for Q2, and -$1.1B in loss. Its EV sales were -23% year over year, and EV revenue down -37%.

Meanwhile, Ford CEO Jim Farley still gives an optimistic note on the earnings call on EVs. Worth noting is this quote TechCrunch has surfaced: “We're focusing on very differentiated vehicles priced under $40,000 or even $30,000 and we're going to focus on two segments, work and adventure.”

👎️ Porsche abandons goals of 80% EVs by 2030

Porsche says its goals of having 80% of its sales EV by 2030 were too ambitious. If you read our report last week, you saw its EV sales in the first half of 2024 were down -49.9% selling only 9,000 Taycans. Will it see success with the e-Macan?

Related: Porsche shares the first camouflaged prototypes of the all-electric Porsche Cayenne:

They also write: “Up to and beyond 2030, the successful SUV will be offered with three powertrain variants worldwide.”

Here are a few more:

• Ola Electric scraps its electric car launch plans to focus on the e-scooters.

• Genesis says it will ‘focus on hybrids first’ and moves away from the only-all-electric model launches from 2025 goal. In another note, it is also building a standalone EV architecture, not relying on Hyundai’s e-GMP after the 2025 GV60 update.

• Luca de Meo, Renault CEO, says they’ll need a little more flexibility in terms of EU’s ICE ban of 2035, and says “We are not on course to achieve 100% fully electric vehicles by the middle of the next decade. That’s the truth.”

👍️ Fret not my friend. We knew this was coming.

Remember — we talked about this. 

Do not get drawn into the downward spiral of legacy-baggaged automakers.

They’ll just enjoy the “I told you EV’s don’t work” for a brief moment, and then circle back to EVs soon enough. Then, of course, they’ll scramble even more to catch up because of their decisions today.

The legacy automakers were obviously going to try to return to their gas-guzzling cash cows as soon as the first wave of EV “hype” cycle was over.

I always have this “Gartner hype cycle” in front of my eyes with this:

The Technology Trigger was ~2012, first proper EVs kicking off the modern EV era.
Peak of Inflated Expectations was definitely around the end of 2021, also when the market caps of most EV makers (& SPACs) peaked. We’ve since fallen to the very bottom, I believe, of this
Trough of Disillusionment, and I have a feeling we’re now somewhere in the beginning part of the
Slope of Enlightenment. With some regions, like China and plenty of countries, already way more up there.

By the way, if you think we’re on a different spot in this cycle, do let me know.

Now the automakers walking back their EV targets talk of “giving customers more flexibility”. It’s a scapegoat.
They talk of hybrids, like hybrids are suddenly again the “best technology until customers are ready to adopt". It’s a scapegoat.

In reality, any slowdown in EVs is now done just for the short-term gain, and the actually-competitive EV makers will keep taking the market share.

I might’ve sounded too preachy here. And I of course know that I know nothing. Still, I do expect every automaker not practicing the all-electric route right now (with mistakes and all) to lose a lot of their business by the time they wake up, near 2030 or so.

EV SPOTLIGHT: Police EV fleets

“Ride in a Cybertruck with this one weird trick,”

…is what the Tesla’s Cybertruck account on X captioned this pic with.

Tesla police vehicles, including Cybertrucks, are popping up, a lot of it thanks to the focus of Unplugged Performance’s UP FIT division.

For example, the Irvine Police Department teases a police Cybertruck coming soon.

Standard Fleet, which provides fleet management software for Teslas, is now collaborating with UP FIT to streamline EV management for the all-electric police fleets. Here’s a pretty cool video on the system.

The first partner will be South Pasadena Police, the first police department in the USA that just went all-electric with 10 Model Ys for patrol cars and 10 Model 3s for administrative and detective uses. Here’s the overview of the project on the electrifysouthpas.com website.

CHARGING & INFRASTRUCTURE

The Rivian Charging Outpost

Rivian keeps nailing it with its adventurous, rustic brand aesthetics. Ok, that’s just my opinion, but it is yet again fueled by their latest launch:

The ‘Outpost’, a charging site with five DC chargers just 24 miles from Yosemite National Park. (link).

The site of a blacksmith shop in 1870 and later a mining camp during the Gold Rush era, now features the amenities open from 7am-7pm daily, and 24h for charging & restrooms. I mean are you even building a great charging space if you don’t have:

• A lounge area with a library,

• Merch available to be bought,

• Make-your-own trail mix for purchase,

• Free coffee and water,

• Native plants, and educational games teaching sustainability?

Rivian has now installed 58 Waypoints chargers across 11 sites at popular destinations within the Yosemite valley. It also says this Outpost was “the first of several”. This is the current and in-development Rivian network:

I don’t know about you, but this turns the “I have to charge” into “I want to charge” for me.

Quick ⚡️ takes:

• General Motors 🤝 Tesla to build 1,000 charging points in Mexico (link).

• Mercedes 🤝 Starbucks to deploy 400kW chargers (from Alpitronic, likely) at 100 Starbucks locations across the US, starting with the ones along Interstate 5 (link).

• The “wet towel hack” we showed you that fools the Superchargers’ sensors and allows for faster charging? Tesla says it doesn’t work (it sure did though 🤷‍♂️) and you shouldn’t do it (this one I agree with). Now, it seems like Tesla has changed the software to make this ‘trick’ useless, per Kyle’s test.