EV Universe #146: If EV on fire, use a blanket — Jaguar's flop — Ioniq 9 launches

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Yes, you. 

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I’ll tour the London EV Show next week

Really happy to let you know EV Universe partnered with London EV Show. I had the event visit planned for a while since I haven’t been able to check out nearly enough EVs in real life as I wanted to.

This is the perfect spot for exactly that — 300 exhibitors from the EV realm represented, all free to access, along with some of the conference. On the conference side, there are 180+ speakers, and full access is available with a Delegate pass.

So this was a no-brainer partnership for me — I get to visit and report on it, which I’d do anyway, and you get a coupon: use “EVUN25” to get 25% off on delegate passes, which grants you full access to both the conference and exhibition for all three days. (link)

So, the London EV Show exhibition floor & test drives are free to access, Free Visitor Passes are available here: (link). The delegate pass just has extra perks, listed there.

If you’re attending, let me know and let’s meet up!

AUTOMAKER NEWS

Jaguar.

Jaguar rebrands ahead of its move towards becoming a fully EV maker.

First off, the logo. Here are the historical ones, with newest on the bottom:

The logo combines upper and lower case letters to spell JaGUar, there aren’t any big cats jumping and… I shall not comment further.

Jaguaren’t?

Here’s the video Jaguar released to show its new brand direction. The only description was “Copy Nothing”: (video). I’ll save you 30 seconds, here’s all you need to see:

Yes, it is as bad as it looks. No, there was no car in the video, only this.

The launch was a huge flop. That is my own opinion, of course. But boy did their rebrand announcement get the Internets going — and not in a good way. Read the comments for some amusement.

Now I think you could say I was right there when it happened, posting my comment when their X video was at 60,000 views that a ratio of 366 comments, 186 reposts, and 88 likes (!) isn’t looking great, especially when nested comments calling them out get twice the love.

That same video on the X post just crossed 150 million views. And the hate/love ratio did not get any better, nor did the comments.

Now, of course, Jaguar hasn’t been talked about this much in ages. I do hope the executives who hear of a 150M-viewer (and way more) campaign don’t start clapping at the result without checking what people really think of it all first.

I mean, consider the actual demographic for the brand. Does this match?

Even Elon made a dig at it on X with a comment: “Do you sell cars?”

Anyway, luckily we got more than a video that looks like it’s advertising a clothing brand. We got a teaser picture and a launch date: December 2nd.

We can’t see much here. Weird vent-like rear end, and no rear window, but expecting more soon. Now, if they would reveal something stunning it’d be the perfect 180°.

If you believe JLR (which used to be Jaguar Land Rover) CEO, Adrian Mardell, that might be true:

“The setup for this brand as we relaunch it in 2026 is going to be spot-on. We’re confident that, as we roll out and when we come back, this is going to be something very, very special, and appeal to lots of existing and new clients.”

For a fun read, here’s an article on the whole event from Jaguar for journalists where they were taken through the new brand story (link). While I don’t know the journalist personally, for him it was “all incredibly bizarre.”

Fully electric from 2026, winds ICE down until then

Jaguar, which if you didn’t know is owned by Tata Group from India since 2008, recently reported they are discontinuing the F-Pace SUV and the I-Pace EV too.

This leads to essentially no new car sales for at least a year in most markets (including UK) until it starts selling the new EVs, now as a fully electric brand, from 2026. We’ve reported this in our Pro Reports a while back. Weird concept but we’ll take it.

Jaguar has so far teased the incoming EV is a 400+ mile range all-electric GT, with 575hp and a six-figure starting price.

The XJ-E that never was

Ideally timed, a pic of the EV that Jaguar was planning launch 2021 as an electric successor for the XJ and then was scrapped by Bolloré who was named CEO in 2020. The write-off for the development was reported at around £500M.

“It was one of the toughest decisions I have ever made, especially since it was in my first month, but XJ was a completely different kind of car from the ones we were proposing – different in technology, battery chemistry, electronics, size, performance and market position, It would never have suited our plans.” Bolloré has later said.

Here’s the leaked pic from the project codenamed X391:

Now, we know this image is likely to be real because we saw none other than Ian Callum, the legendary car designer that held the Director of Design position for Jaguar Cars (later Jaguar Land Rover) until mid-2019 comment:

“That looks familiar. Long time ago.. shame. We would have done the facelift by now.”

While we’re at it, check out one of Ian’s next projects, the Callum SKYE electric multi-terrain vehicle.

Curious to hear your thoughts on the Jaguar rebrand. Let me know in the newsletter comments or as a reply to this email.

Quick takes:

• Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe says there’s plenty of room for Scout and Rivian to coexist (actual concern of ours) after partnership. RJ also said “we’re going to be supporting their full portfolio of brands – Porsche, Audi, Volkswagen, Scout.” (link)
  Just last week, the official “Rivian Volkswagen Group Technologies” Joint Venture launched and the deal size went up to $5.8B. The JV is co-led by Wassym Bensaid (Rivian) and Carsten Helbing (Volkswagen Group) and now has an official website rivianvw.tech.

• Tesla Europe will give you 1 year of free Supercharging if you take delivery of a Model Y by the end of this year.

• Bentley delays its 100% EV plans from 2030 to 2035, will reveal its first EV, a luxury urban SUV, in 2026.

• Ceer, Saudi Arabia’s first EV brand, partnered with Rimac Technology to supply high-performance electric drive systems for its upcoming EV range. So are both Ceer and Lucid jointly betting on Saudi Arabia’s high-end EV side? Who will tackle the rest?

• Watch tip: a documentary “MotorTrend Investigates: America’s EV Problems” (26min video)

THE RARE TIMES WHEN EVS BURN

Australia has over 180,000 EVs and there have been 8 total EV fires in 2021-2024 (pdf): 1 arson, 3 spread from the house itself burning, 3 in high-speed collision, and 1 of unknown cause.

The EV FireSafe team does the best research on the topic of battery fires globally, exactly what we need to overcome the FUD in the industry and represent real facts instead.

Here’s a longer deep dive I made a few months ago on their findings over 511 different EV fires they’ve investigated to date: (link).

Extinguish the EV fire with a fire blanket?!

This will change how we perceive EV dangers a lot.

If you’re one of our Pro Members, you might remember me sharing the fire blanket spotted in a Warsaw underground charging lot next to the site. Well, now we’ve got one used in action (link):

While of course, it’s terrible that the EV caught on fire in the first place (Peugeot which looks like e-208 to me, in Vilnius, Lithuania), this seems like a great case study on the right ways to operate during a fire. Here’s what the responders did:

1. Deploy a fire blanket (reusable Bridgehill PRO X Car Fire Blanket) to contain the fire, preventing most of the spread of smoke and toxic gases (and building structure damage); use powder extinguisher;

2. Unplug the car from charging and pull the vehicle out;

3. Flip the car to the side, disconnect and extinguish the battery fire

4. Done. The EV caught on fire at 4:42 pm, and it was all done by 6:56 pm.

Now, of course, we’re not sure what would happen in case of a violent thermal runaway on the battery before pulling out (basically not extinguishable, just controlled wait needed anyway), which I assume — if it happened — did so when the car was already pulled outside.

If you want to know more about how the fire blanket, Bridgehill has a great video on it showing the exact temperature curves and everything: (link)

EV SPOTLIGHT: Hyundai IONIQ 9

Hyundai launched the IONIQ 9 electric SUV (link) (livestream). Specs:

• Price: no info yet, but based on EV9 I’d expect it’ll start at $60k’ish.

• Range: 300+ miles (480+ km) depending on trim, up to 385mi (620km).

• Battery: 110.3kWh, built on the E-GMP platform.

• Performance: 0-60mph 4.9s; 160kW rear motor, in AWD in front also 70 or 160 kW motor depending on trim.

• Efficiency (targeted): EPA-estimated energy consumption 97 MPGe, WLTP energy consumption 19.4 kWh / 100km.

• Charging: up to 350kW, in the US has native NACS port.

• Interior: Seats 6 or 7 people. Relaxation Seats in the first and second rows can fully recline and offer a leg rest, plus massage seats in front.
  Second-row Swiveling Seats (so you can turn around to face each other).
  12’’ instrument cluster and a panoramic curved 12’’ infotainment display

• Exterior: Parametric Pixels like on other Ioniqs, integrated into the LED light units and lower fascia. The back end is surprisingly similar to what we saw on the concepts. Aerodynamics: 0.259 Cd drag coefficient.

• Towing: 5,000 lbs.

• Wheelbase 3130mm (123’’), longest of any Hyundai so far, 3cm longer than Kia EV9. Ioniq 6 was surprisingly spacious as you saw in my reviews here. This is likely that on steroids.

• Trunk size: 338 litres, or 908 litres with 3rd row seats folded down. 52- or 88-litre frunk depending on trim.

• Available: from Spring 2025 in US & South Korea, rollout in other markets later that year.

So, a lot of similarities with Kia EV9, with the exterior being the largest difference. This is the “Seven” concept car we saw three years ago, with again surprisingly similar design elements.

Here are some walkaround videos of the IONIQ 9 from: Autotrader, and Doug DeMuro.

CHARGING INFRASTRUCTURE

Tesla V4 cabinet

This latest piece of the Tesla Supercharging puzzle we knew was coming and have been waiting for — the V4 cabinet upgrade. (video) Here’s the TL;DR:

✔ 500kW now max per charging post, 1.2MW for the Tesla Semi.
✔ One Cabinet can be used for 8 stalls
✔ Supports 400V-1000V vehicle architectures.

If you’re a bit confused since you know the V4 Superchargers are out there since last year already, let me brief you:

In 2023, Tesla launched its V4 Supercharging Post — which is the charging dispenser — and which was an upgrade on the previous already. However, the cabinet, the one powering these dispensers close to the site, has been sitting in V3 until now, greatly limiting the V4 Supercharger capabilities.

With the V4 cabinet launch, these limitations are now gone.

Now, the other thing limiting EVs charging is their own architecture, and this is why the current “upgrade” is mostly for capable EVs from other makers + the Tesla Cybertruck.
The latter now charges 30% faster, while the rest of the S3XY don’t really gain anything and stay at their 250kW charge rates.

Tesla, however, wins of this upgrade the most — it can now install 2x the stalls per cabinet, now eight, and lowers the footprint and complexity of site developments.

The first sites with V4 Cabinets are going into permitting now. First openings in 2025.

I also found an insightful comment from a key Tesla Supercharging team member, Max de Zegher Director — Charging North America, EMEA at Tesla

“Posts can peak up to 500kW for cars, but we need less than 1MW across 8 posts to deliver maximum power to cars 99% of the time. No more DC busbar between cabinets. Power comes from a single V4 cabinet to 8 stalls.
Easier to install, cheaper, more reliable.
Even some of the small incremental improvements matter. V4 Cabinet has a 2% efficiency improvement. Superchargers already deliver over 5 TWh/year, 100 GWh/year in waste heat that can be saved.”

Also, I somehow managed to break another news piece before other EV outlets:

Monta integrates Tesla Wall Connector into its system, with a quick in-app setup now possible. This enables automatic charging cost reimbursements for corporate fleets. (link)

Charger uptime, or real charging success?

Kempower recently published a 10-page white paper with their data from over 13 million charging sessions from December 2018 to July 2024. (link, accessible after giving your info, sorry I don’t want to bypass that for you out of respect for their business). While the Kempower EV chargers have had an uptime of more than 99%, the overall success rate is at 87%, due to two factors:

• 94.3% average technical success rate, with top operators hitting 97.2%. Common issues? Plug locking (44.1%) and EV-charger communication (47.4%) issues.

• 76.3% ( 🤯 ) average usability success rate, with top operators hitting 91.2%. Most problems (76%) are caused by authentication struggles, then 14% due to cable not being connected.

PS — share this one through my LinkedIn post.

In another view, Usability failures made up 81% of all charging attempt failures, and Technical failures made up 19%. Yet these depend heavily on the operators, some of which have a 50-50% ratio. The best charging operators using Kempower EV chargers have been able to reach 84.6% of total success rate.

The takeaway? Only relying on uptime on the CPO uptime is not a good enough metric to understand how well the charging network performs for the end customer, the EV driver.

More on uptime from the industry

Meanwhile, I’ve also seen SWTCH Energy just release their data on the “no exception” uptime of 97.8%. (link) That refers to the true charger availability between January and September this year over their 17,000 charging ports in North America, and includes everything like disruptions from vandalism, grid blackouts, accidents, etc. I liked this explainer:

“To maintain this uptime, SWTCH communicates with each every five seconds to ensure it’s online and ready to be used. When any charger is offline for any reason, an alert is generated and sent to SWTCH’s customer service team to debug and troubleshoot. Often, disruptions are resolved before an EV driver or property manager realizes a charger was ever offline.”

There is another EV charging startup I’ve been reporting on since 2021 that I see providing us much needed transparency, and which “builds their business in public” well: Electric Era. Here’s their blog full of case studies and data; and here’s the profile of Quincy Edmund Lee, the founder & CEO, sharing even more constantly.

I am a huge geek for this topic as you might know, so if you know more of such transparent data out there, send it my way!

More charging industry news in our Pro Report tomorrow & on Monday.