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Bio: John Rooney John 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.
Wireless Charging
Imagine cruising down the road in your EV and charging your car at the same time. It’s happening in Michigan. Michigan plans to build the United States’ first electric vehicle charging road in Detroit.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced that the state has contracted with Electreon to build the road, expected to finish in 2023. Copper coils are installed under the road and the vehicles have a receiver underneath. As the vehicle drives over the coils, energy is transferred from the coils to the receiver and charges the vehicle. We thought wireless charging for phones was cool, but this is way cooler.
Ford’s Plan
Ford’s CEO Jim Farley promises to be more friendly to small businesses. What exactly does this mean? Ford wants to start providing financing, electric vehicles, telematics, and more to small businesses as a bundled service. In addition to reaching small businesses, Ford is also increasing its EV spending up to $20 billion over the next 5 to 10 years. $20 billion sounds like a lot. Is it enough? What do you think?
Road Trip
My wife and I were out driving around this weekend and noticed a nice, used Mercedes Sprinter van for sale. We thought that would be fun until we saw the price tag of $160,000. When did everything get so expensive?
Anyhoo, Winnebago introduced its all-electric eRV, powered by an 86-kWh battery that gives the recreational vehicle a range of 125 miles. Although the range is on the lower side, engineers have said they’re working to improve battery technology and chassis design to increase the range. No word on pricing. We hope it’s cheaper than the Mercedes, otherwise, we're probably not going on a road trip any time soon.
Inside Out
Kia has been putting out some intriguing cars lately. Full transparency, I’m a little biased. We have an electric Niro and it’s a fantastic vehicle. Reviewers got their hands on the new EV6 this week.
The Kia EV6 retails for between $42,115 - $59,715 depending on the package you get. There is the First Edition, the EV6 Light RWD and AWD, EV6 GT-Line RWD and AWD, and the EV6 Wind RWD and AWD. The GT-Line is the quickest with a 0-60 of around 5.1 seconds, and the RWD Wind and FT-Line have the longest range at around 310 miles. My favorite part about the EV6? I like the blind spot cameras in the dash. Pretty amazing feature. What’s your favorite feature?
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