This week, we have news on USPS, Tesla Investor Day, 500 Miles of Range, and The Ocean: Our Top EV News for the week of Mar 2, 2023.
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Contracts Awarded
As part of the vehicle electrification strategy announced in December 2022 with senior White House officials, the USPS has announced the award of new contracts to purchase 9,250 Ford E-Transit Battery Electric Vehicles and more than 14,000 EV charging stations. The acquisition plan is expected to conform with the nationwide delivery network modernization plan being finalized.
Although the specific locations for the deployment of vehicles and infrastructure have not yet been determined, the Postal Service plans to begin building out its charging infrastructure across a minimum of 75 locations within the next 12 months. Overall, USPS' total investment in vehicles is expected to reach $9.6 billion, including $3 billion from Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funds.
Investor Day
During Tesla's Investor Day, the company's manufacturing leader, Tom Zhu, announced that Tesla had produced 4 million cars in total. The time taken to produce every million cars showed a remarkable increase in efficiency, with the first million taking 12 years, the second million taking 18 months, the third million taking less than 11 months, and the fourth million taking less than 7 months.
Zhu attributes this efficiency to well-planned manufacturing changes and Tesla's continued expansion of new car and battery cell factories. Tesla also revealed that the company provided 9 terawatt hours of charging in 2022, with over 40,000 Superchargers installed, and half of the Superchargers in the EU open to non-Tesla vehicles.
Going forward, Tesla is planning for a new type of drive unit compatible with any battery cell type, the development of a motor that does not require rare earth metals, and the upcoming construction of a factory in Monterrey, Mexico.
500 Miles of Range
Stellantis announced its intention to invest a colossal $155 million in three plants located in Kokomo, Indiana, The goal is to manufacture advanced electric drive modules (EDM) that will contribute to powering future electric vehicles and promoting the sale of 50% battery electric vehicles in the United States by 2030.
The Kokomo-built EDM, which will be integrated into STLA Large and STLA Frame platforms, comprises three principal constituents: the electric motor, transmission, and power electronics which are all condensed into a solitary module that will yield better performance and a competitive cost. As a result of the optimized efficiency of the fresh EDM, each platform will have a driving range of up to 500 miles
Big Ocean
Electric vehicle startup Fisker has announced that it spent less money in 2022 than originally planned. It remains on track to start deliveries of its Ocean SUV this spring and to produce more than 40,000 vehicles in 2023. Shares of Fisker rose over 30% on Monday, following the announcement.
Fisker disclosed that 56 Oceans had been manufactured at manufacturing partner Magna International's contract-manufacturing facility in Austria, with 15 completed before year-end and used for testing purposes. Fisker reiterated that the Ocean will have the longest range of any SUV/Crossover priced below $70,000, according to its CEO. The company expects to complete regulatory testing of the Ocean next month and to ramp up production in the second quarter, while also expecting to complete the testing of the Pear EV model next year.
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