EV Universe #147: Around the globe in an electric Ford Explorer — Tesla Cyberroadster hits the roads — Northvolt bankruptcy

I’ll be test-driving as many EVs as I can, finding the best of the 180+ conference speakers, and will find you the most interesting of the 300+ exhibitors — and I’ll report back right here for you. The only thing that can top that would be being there in person.

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AUTOMAKERS & GLOBAL NEWS

Let’s start out with something that has been on my mind for a while now. My opinion:

When the legacy automakers are finally dragged into the fully EV future (or, you know, they die), one unexpected shift will happen:

The media will stop producing anti-EV FUD.

Because automakers won't pay them to favor their combustion counterparts anymore. No more hit pieces with hidden agendas, playing on people’s fears.

How many years do you think until this switch is flipped? Curious what you think so let’s have a poll:

Quick round of EV news:

• XPeng confirms the plans to move away from being a pure EV player: At its XPeng AI Day, it presented a hybrid drivetrain with a range extender that has 430 km (267 mi) electric range and, well, more when playing with combustion. (link)

  XPeng will also launch in the UK in early 2025, distribution agreement signed with International Motors (IML).

• Family car from Tesla? Elon has responded to two X accounts calling Tesla on making a vehicle big enough for large families, with “Ok” and “Tesla Robovan is in development. Some other things too.” (link).
  I’m expecting a minivan-type (MPV?) vehicle among the new products that will be introduced in the first half of 2025.

• VW Group is still holding talks with the union groups that have proposed salary cutsto avoid threatened plant closures and mass lay-offs in Germany amid a major cost-cutting programme proposed by management. (link)
  Meanwhile, Audi didn’t find a buyer for its Brussels plant and is likely to shut the factory down — and will end the Q8 e-Tron production with it from Feb 2025. (link)

• Watch tip: Lexie Alford’s 18,640-mile trip around the globe with the electric Ford Explorer is now viewable as a Charge Around The Globe three-part documentary on Prime Video, and on this Youtube playlist.

• Alpha Motors is crowdfunding $1.5M to bring its ACE Coupe to life. (link) ~$489k is currently raised in this round, at a $350M valuation. This is NOT financial advice, I’m not smart enough to give you any. I do like the futuretro looks of the coupe though:

  

  Alpha ACE Coupe rendering

Every time I see designs like this, something specific comes to my mind:

HEY HONDA WHERE IS MY SPORTS EV COUPE?

This was unveiled in 2017.

Next to the sports EV on the top image is the Honda e, which already went into production as a cool quirky little EV (a little off-concept but similar) and managed to sell some at a way too high of a price. It is now, of course, discontinued.

But I do need my futuretro coupe, Honda.

Do I really have to wait until a Chinese EV maker launches it first?

You led, Mary. And it matters.

I made this as a joke on X, thought I’d share it with you too.
If it’s too niche or of bad taste… well, oops.

Before we continue, just letting you know I wrote in Saturday’s Pro Report on how CATL CEO is roasting Elon Musk, how BYD is about to surpass Ford, Xiaomi’s incredible production ramp, three new EV platforms launched, 28 charging industry news and so much more…

Oh, and on the header pic, we’ve got Jiyue new Robo X supercar. Click on this image to get the report (members only):

EV POLICY

In case you missed it, here’s who won the US Presidential elections:

No, we don’t cover the politics here, unless it is very directly Elon EV-related.

As expected, Trump’s transition team reportedly aims to end the EV tax credit. cWill it actually happen? Hard to say.

By the way, here’s what the incoming Hyundai CEO, José Muñoz, just said on Elon’s proximity to Trump (link): "The fact that Elon Musk is so close to Trump is probably good for electric vehicles, not bad. We are not planning our business based on incentives. We want to produce really great vehicles with great features."

AV Policy: Trump's transition team has reportedly told advisers they plan to make a federal framework for fully self-driving vehicles one of the Transportation Department's top priorities, easing US rules for self-driving cars.

Reading tip: Mexico importing cars from China and exporting to US & Canada what’s next considering EVs and tariffs (link). Written by a friend of the EV Universe, Michael Dunne.
I was not aware that one of every three new cars sold in Mexico this year will be built in China already, up from just 4% in 2020. Import tariff on Chinese EVs seem likely if Mexico plans on staying as the M in the USMCA.

🇺🇸 California Air Resources Board (CARB) approved an update to the state’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS), that will tilt the scale of regulatory credit generation from biofuels towards EV charging. The program may provide ~$500M to $1.4B to the charging sector per year (link).

🇨🇳 → 🇪🇺 , China reportedly instructed the Chinese car manufacturers to stop major investments in Europe, especially in countries that voted in favor of the tariffs.

And this week, we got a rare direct quote from China President Xi Jinping on the matter (link):

🇳🇴 “What is quiet, has zero emissions and white light on the roof? 
Yes, ALL the taxis in Oslo.” From the 1st of November - as planned ahead four years ago - no combustion engines are allowed in the city's taxis. (link)

🇬🇧 The UK government announced it will be in most cases doubling the first-year Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) rates for new fossil-fueled vehicles (from £220-£2,745 to now £440-£5,490), while EVs only pay £10. (link)

Resource tip: 🇨🇦 Here are the updates on all Canadian EV rebates in 2025 per province. (link) And also, a handy Canadian EV rebate tracker from Electric Autonomy in table format.

EV SPOTLIGHT

Overheard on the streets: “Hey look it’s the Tesla Model… umm… the… wait what the frunk is that again?”

Meet the Cyberroadster.

Fully custom-built, our of a salvaged Tesla. Actually road-legal. Even runs FSD.

Oh boy, I’ve been waiting for David Andreyev — or the Cyber Hooligan — to finish this project to share it with you. “Over 80” wide and a roof height of only 46.5” this thing is a neck breaker on the road and the 12-layer candy red paint,” says David.

See more on his 6-minute video here (video) and I suggest going through his whole journey with his past videos on the channel building it all live.

The fun part is that David already acquired a wrecked 2022 Model S Plaid and is building a Cyber-Plaid next, including using an actual CyberTruck front end yet a roof as low as a Lamborghini Aventador.

Truly unique. 👏 

Quick finds:

• Stellantis delays electric Ram debut to the first half of 2025. (link)

• VinFast VF9 starts deliveries in the US and Canada and the price is dropped by $12k, now starting from $69,800. (link) VinFast is also getting another cash injection from its founder and parent company, worth $3.4 billion by 2026. Its $2B plant in North Carolina is currently pushed back to 2028.

• Lucid opens orders for the 5 to 7-seater Gravity van SUV, from $94,900, the $79,900 version coming late next year. (link to configuration).
  Related: here’s the 42-page Q3 shareholder deck from Lucid: (pdf)

• Renault 5 is still not quite at the €25,000 level promised - coming next year - but the new 40kWh trim for the Renault 5 E-Tech Electric Urban Range is now starting at €27,900 ($29.3k) (link)

• Watch tip: Tesla Model S Plaid acceleration is so powerful that it keeps a banana stuck to the seat for a full 1/4 mile (video).

• Watch tip: A look at TELO Trucks operations, the team creating the world’s most efficient pickup (electric, of course), with a 5 foot bed, 5 seats, and midgate that unlocks an 8 foot bed. 350 miles of range.
  Great geeky details straight from the engineers! (video) TELO is one of my new favorite EV projects out there for a while now.

Northvolt files for bankruptcy protection

Northvolt files for bankruptcy protection in the US (link). Peter Carlsson, the CEO, resigned late last week.

Northvolt was previously hailed as the European response to Asian battery dominance, and perhaps to the growing US side too.

We’ve kept track of the downward spiral of Northvolt for a while in our Pro Reports (upgrade if you haven’t). If I had to choose just one reason it all went down I’m pretty sure it’s just “too much too fast” in this very high expenditure industry.

Peter Carlsson said to the reporters something that would confirm this:

“I should have pulled the brakes earlier on the expansion path to make sure the core engine was moving according to the plan.”

Financial Times reports that the current and former employees added a litany of issues, “from mismanagement and overspending to poor safety standards and over-reliance on Chinese machinery.”

This has now led Northvolt into $5.6B in debt and ~$30M cash in hand. The Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection will enable it to continue operations at a reduced scale and pay employees.

It also secured a $245M financing support, including a $100M loan from Scania, although the latter is already in talks with other suppliers as well (link). Northvolt needed about $1B-$1.2B to be able to continue as a going concern after Chapter 11, Carlsson said to reporters.

The largest shareholder for Northvolt is currently VW Group with a ~21% stake, having invested ~$1B into the company. Since VW is in a crisis of its own, I’d expect no more help coming that way. BMW Group recently parted ways with the company on their €2B contract (ouch) after not receiving the batteries it needed on time. In total, Northvolt had gathered more than $50B in orders from different auto groups.

Carlsson himself remains one of Northvolt’s largest shareholders and will remain on the company’s board and as a senior adviser.

The restructuring process is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2025.

Currently, Northvolt has one factory that produces cells — ~60 GWh Northvolt Ett in Sweden (although its current filing says ~300k batteries/year which would be more like 15-20 GWh), and one in Poland. The company had plans for 150 GWh of manufacturing capacity by 2030. Northvolt has just this week appointed restructuring expert Paul O’Donnell as head of the Northvolt Ett factory.

For now, Northvolt’s plans for factories in Germany and Canada remain unaffected by Chapter 11, as they have received significant subsidies from the respective governments.

Northvolt also sold the US assets of Cuberg earlier this month, the lithium-metal battery startup it acquired in 2021, and the team which it mostly laid off in August, to the lithium-sulfur battery maker Lyten in the US. (link)

Will the restructuring save the European battery dream?

We’ll be watching.

CHARGING INFRASTRUCTURE

The newest Tesla App update (4.39.0) gives the ability to report on charging site issues also when not charging. 

While Tesla automatically detects charging performance issues (slow charging or not working), this can help reporting things like the snow not being properly plowed, cracked post skins, vandalism, trash overflowing etc.

Max de Zegher also said “heard” on the request for adding a “desired State of Charge” option to the app and in-car trip planners. (link)

• You know we're getting somewhere in this EV adoption when gas* stations display the kWh prices first, and then their fossil stuff. (link)

• Hubject produced a deep (sortable) overview of all players and upcoming deals in the Plug&Charge ecosystem. (link) It also just partnered with ChargePoint for Plug&Charge (huge deal).

• Here’s a map with all current and planned Milence heavy-duty charging sites across Europe (link).

• China is expected to have 3.6 million public charging points by the end of 2024, accounting for ~70% of the global total, per TrendForce. (link)

• Reading tip: “Does electric mobility display racial or income disparities? Quantifying inequality in the distribution of EV adoption and charging infrastructure in the United States” (link) via Reilly’s Future of Transport.

• Webinar tip: Live on Dec 2nd, “Lessons from Zapp, a Turnkey Provider: 4 years, 7000 chargers in a competitive market” including the CEOs of Monta and Zapp. (link)

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