Check out the full newsletter for the week, which includes more Electric Vehicle News, and also news about Autonomous Vehicles. This week, we include a video of a BMW M3 vs. the I4M50. Which comes out on top? Check it out here.
Bio: John Rooney is the COO at EPG, a company focused on helping electric and autonomous vehicle companies hire the best talent. In addition to these services, EPG puts out an informative weekly newsletter that is now named Mobility EVo. You can sign up for the newsletter here.
Source: BloombergNEF (VisualCapitalist.com)
The Cost of Batteries
My 3-year-old son is obsessed with batteries, but I bet he doesn’t know the cost of the AAAs he plays with, let alone the cost of an EV battery. The great news is that the cost of an EV battery is dropping, which is awesome since the demand for them is picking up.
In the past 11 years, the cost of a lithium-ion EV battery has dropped from $1,200/kWh to now only $132/kWh. Do you know what makes up the majority of the cost of a lithium-ion battery? I’ll give you a hint, the cost of a battery includes manufacturing and depreciation, the anode, separator, cathode, electrolyte, and housing. Leave a comment below. No cheating.
Exterior Airbags
I’ve never been hit by a car, and it's certainly not something I ever want to experience. Don’t worry, Autoliv has a solution, well, at least for autonomous vehicles. Airbags inside autonomous vehicles don’t make any sense, right? That’s why Autoliv, an autonomous safety systems developer, has teamed up with Nuro on its electric AV and created an exterior airbag. The goal is to protect road users like pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists, which account for more than half of the world’s traffic fatalities. I like something as simple as seeing a problem and then finding a solution. I hope it never has to be used with the improvement of technology in self-driving vehicles.
Get Green…er
When I think of Ireland, I think of Guinness, castles, Jamison, hearty meals, and very green grass. Well, they’re trying to be greener! Ireland plans to put one million EVs on the road by 2030. However, this may be a huge challenge for manufacturers unless the government provides incentives and makes a deliberate effort to remove gas-powered cars in Ireland.
In Ireland, used vehicles are being sold three times more than new vehicles, with hardly any second-hand EVs on the market. Another problem: Not enough chargers – currently, Ireland has 1,900 chargers installed across 800 sites, but realistically, it needs 4,700 chargers to serve the 47,000 EVs currently on the road. Do you think the government needs to provide incentives for EVs to be successful in Ireland? I know what Elon would say.
Electric Pickup Trucks
Do you like trucks? If so, maybe you’re weighing your options for an electric pickup truck. Two of the biggest players right now are the Ford F-150 Lightning and the Rivian R1T.
The Lightning is a full-sized truck with prices ranging from $40-$90k. The R1T is a midsize pickup truck with a price range of $70-90k. Rivian’s R1T has a slightly better range of 314 miles (compared to 280 miles) and can haul a larger load than the Lightning, with a maximum tow rating of 11,000 pounds (compared to 10,000 pounds for the Lightning).
My pick? I’d choose the Rivian R1T for the slightly better range and the off-roading capabilities, including a 43.5” wading depth for those big puddles. Which truck would you choose? Maybe it’s not one of these two. Let us know below.
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