đ Car Talk - Issue #42 (Please consider donating for COVID relief)
Hi friends
It has been tough to compose this issue given the humanitarian disaster unfolding in India and seeing my family + families of close friends being affected by the double-mutant strain.
CarTalk is, and will remain, free. However, if youâve enjoyed reading CarTalk over the past year and learnt new things from it, I urge you to make a monetary donation to Sewa India to help the COVID cause. If you donate, donât hesitate to shoot me a note!
For new mobility related fare, continue reading.
Mobility In The US
Battery startup Factorial Energy: There are five metrics on which a battery is judged:
How much energy it packs
How fast it charges
How many charge-discharge cycles it lasts
How safe it is
How much it costs.
Factorial Energy, with their solid state cells, seems to be promising a solve for all five variables. For this reason theyâre on my radar!
The companyâs aim is to reach 400 Wh/kg and 1,000 Wh/l.
With metrics like these, flying taxis will have a much shorter runway to become a reality. Link
Twitter thread on solid-state batteries, also instructive:
Last week @BloombergNEF published its first outlook for Solid-state adoption, featured in the @climate article https://t.co/oaXWfZ0tIT.
Here is a quick thread on some of the key points:
1/6 #battchat https://t.co/4lDCTcxUbf
While on solid-state batteries: Volkswagen has Quantumscape, Ford has SolidPower, now General Motors has⊠SES? Yes, a new player has entered the field! General Motors led a $139M round in SES. Link
Porsche Taycan ready to eclipse the iconic 911: Iâm not a Porsche fanatic but this development is worthy of CarTalk because it tells me that die-hard 911 fans can be convinced to try a more compelling offering. Bodes well for other luxury OEMs like Mercedes and Audi, i.e. their electric variants wonât play second-fiddle to iconic offerings like the S-class, etc. Link
US to cut 52% carbon emissions by 2030: This new target doubles the administrationâs previous promise. How will we get there? Cutting-edge batteries and EVs for export, re-lay the national electrical grid, capping abandoned oil & gas rigs, coal mines.
Other nations jumped into the fray too - Japan announced a 46% emissions reduction target, Canada 40%.
All of this is certainly headline grabbing. Iâll wait for the execution Link
Mobility Around The World
The worst EV policy in the world: In Victoria, Australia.
The [punitive mileage] tax would be assessed at 2.5 cents per kilometer and paid each time registration is renewed. Electric car drivers would have to maintain records for five years, with possible penalties if drivers fail to produce these records. No such mileage record requirement exists for gas car drivers, thus adding a burden to EV drivers of time along with a burden of cost.
A mileage tax that doesnât even apply to gas vehicles? A tax that only adds $1-2M per year? The juice isnât worth the squeeze, Victoria. Youâre on the wrong side of history here. Link
Honda will go full zero emissions by 2040: Too little, too late Honda. By 2030, you wonât be able to sell new gas cars in the state of Washington. By 2035, California will be shut out to you. In fact, your home country Japan itself plans to phase out gas car sales by 2035. Hasten these timelines, onegaishimasu. Link
Toyota, meanwhile, will launch 15 battery EVs by 2025: Theyâre finally coming around from the halcyon days of December 2020 when their chief said that electric vehicles are overhyped.
This trim of vehicles will be known as âbZâ (stands for Beyond Zer0), being designed in conjunction with Subaru. What is beyond zero, anyway? Negative emissions? Capture carbon as you go? Link
This read on 2-wheelers was perspective changing: I had a longer write-up planned for 2-wheelers but I got scooped! Electric two-wheels are interesting and very few in the west are talking about it! Why are they awesome? Two reasons!
Global two-wheeler sales held up better than passenger vehicle sales during the pandemic: around 74 million were sold in 2020, slightly more than the 70 million passenger cars.
Two-wheelers are going electric faster than any other segment of road transport. BNEFâs latest estimates put 2020 electric two-wheeler sales at over 25 million. Thatâs about 35% of sales globally, far ahead of passenger cars where EVs are still only around 5% of sales.
I know Iâm quoting the article but this was the *whoa* moment:
Unlike in the passenger vehicle segment, where product sub-categories seem to be holding up well, many of the distinctions between the sub-categories in the two-wheeler market like mopeds and scooters are set to blur or break in the next five years.
I had never internalized this, but an electric sedan like Model 3 will likely replace a gas-sedan like Honda Accord. However, what does an electric 2-wheeler replace?? Whatâs the difference between a scooter, a motorcycle, a moped, an e-bike anyways?
The difference between a moped and an e-bike, or for that matter a bicycle, could disappear very soon. All this spells trouble for the incumbents.
This is why Hero Corp (the worldâs biggest manufacturer of 2-wheelers) invested in Ather.
Since battery-swapping is a good use-case for micromobility, Hero also went ahead and just struck a deal with Gogoro, a Taiwanese supplier focusing on battery swapping technology. Hero is covering their bases, but this article renewed my fascination with the two-wheeler segment. Link
Good Reads
Moonshot for meatless meat: As a life-long meat eater and lover who gave up meat last year because of the impact of industrial meat production on the planet, I canât help *not* include this article which captures current facts adeptly. Emissions from commercial animal husbandry are higher than those from transportation, to put things in perspective. We just canât pretend to drive an EV and feel smug about ourselves while turning a blind eye to the cost being borne by the planet for our hamburgers and steaks. Link
Will the shift to electric vehicles change the car subscription market?: Itâs a good read - but the answer isâŠ. maybe? For subscriptions to work the unit economics have to work out! Certainly easier for EVs with far better depreciation relative to ICE vehicles. More so if there are no dealer networks to deal with. Hereâs hoping! Link
Some (public) Tesla news: Tesla recently hired Manuj Khuranawho is Teslaâs first employee in India and also a friend. In fact, Manuj was the guest author of one of CarTalkâs earliest issues covering new mobility in India. Enjoy this blast from the past!
Thatâs all from me folks, have a good week.
Once again, if youâve enjoyed reading CarTalk over the past year, please consider donating towards COVID relief in India.
By Sachin Seth
This weekly newsletter on new mobility is curated by me as a passion project. Yes, the name is an homage to the NPR show of the same name! If you like it, please forward it to whoever is interested in this space. Cheers!
I have worked for many years on automotive products and currently work @ Tesla. All opinions are my own.
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