Author: Green Car Online News

Audi E-tron range, Rivian kitchen, more Piëchs, Chevron charging: Today’s Car News

Rivian R1T electric pickup concept
Rivian built an outdoor kitchen into its electric pickup. We took a road trip to assess the Audi E-tron's range in the real world. And EVgo is bringing fast chargers to gas stations. All this and more on Green Car Reports.

Electric-truck hopeful Rivian is building all kinds of accessories for its upcoming pickup before the model even goes on sale. The latest is an integrated kitchen that slides out of the bed and runs on the truck's batteries.

Swiss electric-car startup Piëch moved beyond plans to build an electric sports car with specs and drawings for two follow-up models, a four-seat GT and a five-passenger SUV.

Audi's 204-mile EPA rated range for the E-tron was downright underwhelming. But based on a new road trip with the electric SUV, we more faith in its real-world numbers and speedy charging.

So far, gas stations have been among the least likely places to “refuel” an electric car. That's about to change with EVgo's plan to build fast chargers at Chevron stations in California.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles got approval to build the first new factories in Detroit in decades. There it plans to build new plug-in hybrid and electric Jeeps, among other models.

Finally, the Center for Automotive safety, founded by Ralph Nader, has petitioned the NHTSA to reject GM's request to test vehicles without steering wheels or pedals on public roads.

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GM builds new electric architecture for EVs, self-driving cars

General Motors next-generation electrical platform
As future cars go electric, self-driving, and more connected with the outside world, they're going to faster connectivity inside the vehicle.

To that end, General Motors just introduced a new electronic platform for its vehicles that it says can carry 4.5 terabytes of processing power per hour, five times what the current system can carry.

General Motors next-generation electrical platform

It will also bring GM vehicles the ability to receive updates over the air, similar to Teslas.

In a statement announcing the new architecture, GM President Mark Reuss said, “Our new digital vehicle platform and its eventual successors will underpin all our future innovations across a wide range of technological advancements, including EVs and expanded automated driving.”

The company says the system will be necessary to meet its goal of building cars that can support a world with “zero accidents, zero emissions, and zero congestion.”

DON'T MISS: Long-range Cadillac SUV to lead GM's next electric-car push, in 3 years

Reuss announced that the new electronic architecture will arrive in the 2020 Cadillac CT5 sedan, which debuted at the New York auto show in April, and is expected to go on sale later this year. Reuss said the system will roll out across most of GM's lineup by 2023. GM has said that Cadillac will become its lead electric-car brand starting with a new generation of electric models in 2022.

Future Cadillac long-range electric large luxury utility vehicle (rendering), 2019 Detroit auto sho

The new system will offer three levels of ethernet connectivity: 100 megabaud, 1 gigabaud, and 10 gigabaud. Those will also allow the system to be expanded over the life of the vehicle.

GM says the new system rides on top of an updated CAN bus architecture, which the company says will give it even higher speeds, along with the ethernet capability.

General Motors next-generation electrical platform

Perhaps more importantly, the system will bring new cybersecurity protocols to GM's cars. Until now, most cars relied on being removed—or “air-gapped”—from the Internet to resist hacking attempts. But several hackers have demonstrated the ability to break in and take control of cars and raised doubt about the security of those systems as more cars receive software updates at dealers, use electronic keys, and connect their infotainment systems to drivers' cell phone network connections.

READ MORE: Barra blogs again: GM plans to double EV, self-driving investments

GM chairs the Automotive Information Sharing & Analysis Center, a community of private and public-sector partners that shares and analyzes intelligence about emerging cybersecurity risks for the automotive industry.

“The critical role of software and its importance to our vehicles, both now and for years to come, cannot be overstated,” Reuss said.

Seawater could bring breakthrough for hydrogen cars

2015 Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell, 2016 Toyota Mirai at hydrogen fueling station, Fountain Valley, CA
The biggest problem for hydrogen fuel-cell cars has been where to get a plentiful, affordable supply of hydrogen that doesn't contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.

Now scientists may have come up with what some have called the holy grail of clean transportation: a way to create hydrogen affordably from seawater.

READ THIS: 2019 Hyundai Nexo hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle pricing: Puzzling economics

The salt in seawater has been problematic for electrolyzers that separate hydrogen and oxygen atoms from water molecules, because it quickly corrodes the electrolyzer's anode. Desalinating seawater before putting it through an electrolyzer is too costly,. Most hydrogen is made by splitting methane, which results in large amounts of leftover carbon dioxide, the primary gas scientists have associated with global warming.

As in lithium batteries, the solution is in a new type of catalyst coating the anode.

MUST READ: This one 11-year-old chart explains the problem with hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles

According to a March report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists at Stanford developed a new catalyst that incorporates carbonate and sulfate molecules into the iron-nickel coating on the nickel anode. The carbonate and sulfate molecules have a high negative charge that prevents the salt from penetrating the coating and corroding the anode.

In lab tests, the electrolyzer with the coating was able to run for more than 40 days, even with three times the salt concentration of seawater.

CHECK OUT: Electric cars win on energy efficiency vs hydrogen, gasoline, diesel: analysis

Electrolyzing seawater to create hydrogen for fuel-cells solves an obvious problem with today's electrolysis: the supply of fresh water, which is already constrained in many parts of the world, often including Southern California, the home to most fuel-cell cars in the U.S.

The breakthrough doesn't solve all the challenges of hydrogen cars, such as developing a sustainable and affordable distribution network for hydrogen. But if it makes electrolysis viable using renewable energy, it could make the rest of the challenges worth solving.

The Stanford scientists used solar power to run the electrolyzer in their tests.

2018 BMW i3 recalled for circuit-board issue causing sudden shutdowns

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2018 BMW i3
Some BMW i3 models from the 2018 model year are being recalled for an issue that could cause sudden power loss and shutdown.

At root of the issue is a printed circuit board, part of the Electric Motor Electronics (EME) module, that may not have been made to specifications. The issue could cause the lack of electrical contact, causing the EME module to shut down high-voltage electrical power after detecting the condition.

The issue affects 134 BMW i3 REx vehicles and just 25 i3 BEV vehicles. That covers a specific range of build dates in January for the REx and in January and February 2018 for the BEV.

CHECK OUT: 2019 BMW i3 to get bigger battery with 153-mile range

According to paperwork filed by BMW, the circuit board “may not have undergone a sufficient cleaning process during Tier-2 supplier production.”

2018 BMW i3

BMW cites “several field incidents” as leading to the discovery of the issue but is not aware of any accidents or injuries stemming from the issue.

The i3, and especially the i3 REx, have been affected by several significant recalls over the past couple of years:

Last October BMW issued a recall for the charge cords of nearly all 2018 and 2019 plug-in vehicles it built for sale in the U.S.—including the i3.
In 2017 it recalled 19,130 i3 REx models from the 2014 through 2017 model years for an issue with the fuel vent.
BMW also in late 2017 recalled more than 30,000 i3 it had then sold in the U.S. from the 2014 through 2018 model years to reprogram the airbag to accommodate drivers not wearing their seatbelt [yes, still a U.S. requirement].
Under this new recall, dealers will replace the EME module on affected cars. The effort will start around June 7, 2019, and owners will be notified. Those with questions or concerns can call BMW at 800-525-7417.

Series hybrids were the next big thing 100 years ago: Are they any more likely today?

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1916 Owen Magnetic Tourer – Bonhams Tupelo Automobile Museum Auction (2019)
The 1916 Owen Magnetic Tourer that crossed the Bonhams auction block last month was more than a beautiful snapshot from an obscure moment in American automotive history.

As one of the technological wonders of its time, the Magnetic Tourer didn’t have any mechanical connection between its big 374-cubic-inch (6.1-liter) inline-6 engine and the drive wheels. And it could store energy through regenerative braking, or use its battery power to drive the vehicle for short distances.

It was by today’s definition a series hybrid. The engine has no physical link to the wheels; it drives a generator, supplying electricity that powers a motor system, with a battery acting as a buffer.

DON'T MISS: Nissan e-Power series hybrid builds on electric-car expertise

Series hybrids have a long history, but outside of non-automotive applications like locomotives and submarines it’s mostly a history rooted in concept cars and research-and-development projects. No automaker has gone big with series hybrids in the way that Toyota has with its series-parallel systems in the Prius and many other vehicles, which can mechanically drive the wheels with both the engine and electric motor simultaneously.

Nissan Note e-Power hybrid

Nissan continues to say it has a lineup of series hybrids on the way—badged e-Power in upcoming vehicles—although that system hasn’t arrived yet in more robust form for the U.S. Although a few other vehicles like the Karma Revero (originally Fisker Karma) use a true series-hybrid system, the ones that have seen wider production, like the Chevrolet Volt (Voltec) and the Honda Accord Hybrid (i-MMD) have used a combination of series and parallel modes.

As pointed out by Hemmings, the Magnetic Tourer used a version of the so-called “electric transmission” that had been developed by Justus B. Entz as early as 1902, with a neatly packaged drive unit employing two identical motor-generators, plus a 24-volt electrical system.

CHECK OUT: Why two-motor hybrids are better than those with just one

The car had no clutch, but with a system of controllers providing five forward speed settings for the propulsion system via and a steering-column speed selector (and we suspect, with the throttle), the driver could choose the speed—and even use regenerative braking, which spared the mechanical rear brakes. There’s no clutch, and as with many vehicles from its time it may have taken some patience to drive it smoothly (and safely).

Some who have experienced the Owen have described it as locomotive-like—which isn’t all that surprising given how the technology is popularly used.

1916 Owen Magnetic Tourer – Bonhams Tupelo Automobile Museum Auction (2019)

This particular Owen Magnetic Tourer was part of the collection of the late Frank Spain and the former Tupelo Automobile Museum. At the Bonhams April 27 auction, selling the contents of the museum for charity, the Magnetic Tourer sold for $128,800, including the sale premium.

The car up for sale, one of about 800 examples built in 1916, had just 2,500 miles and was described as “in nice older restoration condition…with a high degree of originality.”

READ MORE: Will electric cars eliminate conventional hybrids from the market?

“Although they were popular with celebrities, they were ultimately a market failure and the company failed in 1921,” summed Bonhams.

Hybrids like the Magnetic Tourer could have become a larger part of the market during that time as they merged two technologies consumers were already familiar with. By 1916 gasoline had become widely accepted as the solution for getting the quantum leap in mobility—the personal automobile—to the masses, but that was a relatively recent development. In 1900, 38 percent were battery-electric.

Two things doomed the system then. It was abandoned at the time for being too heavy and expensive, at a cost of more than $3,000 in 1916 money—the equivalent of $70,000+ today.

2018 Toyota Prius

Today, the thing that has driven most automakers to series-parallel hybrids rather than pure series hybrids is a common scenario in U.S. driving: high-speed freeway driving. In such environments, multiple engineering teams over multiple decades have concluded that a mechanical connection to the engine offers better efficiency.

Nevertheless, this car and its technology can be cause for taking stock of what happened then and why certain technology is favored today. And today the current may be changing, with many automakers accepting electric cars as the future and, perhaps (like Nissan), seeing series hybrids as a cost-effective incremental technology.

Would electric cars have caught on earlier had this Owen been more popular and affordable? Would hybrids have taken a different preferred form in modern vehicles? Or would transmissions have existed in the same way? Some obscure models from the past, like this one, may yet help frame the future.

Hyundai system purifies cabin air, raises awareness about pollution levels

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Hyundai Smart Air Purification system
As virtuous as one might be in choosing a vehicle that doesn’t produce tailpipe emissions, there’s a hazy reality to traveling by car: That you’re stuck breathing emissions from other gasoline or diesel vehicles—especially fine particulate emissions, which are some of the most concerning for health and tend to linger within a few hundred feet of major roadways.

Hyundai Motor Group appears to have the right idea for those who don’t want to sniff others’ exhaust quite as much. Last week it revealed an intelligent Smart Air Purification system that monitors air quality in the cabin and operates a filtration system accordingly.

DON'T MISS: What are the 10 most polluted U.S. cities?

The system will even precondition your vehicle to clean up the cabin air before you enter, or automatically close the windows to speed up the purification process. “Combined with advanced filtering innovations, the technology can remove fine particulates before passengers enter the car, and purification of cabin air throughout a journey,” said the company, in a press release.

Hyundai Smart Air Purification system

It grades the air quality inside, from Poor, Fair, and Good to Excellent, and a display accessible through the infotainment screen shows a real-time 16-bar digital display. Quality is detected using a laser-based sensor that works independent of the fan or outside temperature, collecting 94 to 99 percent of fine particulates.

CHECK OUT: EPA panel questions health effects of air pollution

According to the EPA, exposure to fine particulates—those smaller than 2.5 micrometers (1/30th the width of a human hair)—are the main cause of visible air-pollution-related haze in the US, and they acidify lakes and streams, taint soil and groundwater, and contribute to acid rain. And according to the CDC, they can be inhaled deep into the lungs, where they can affect the hearts, lungs, and blood vessels, leading to higher rates of heart disease and heart attacks.

Larger particulate matter of less than 10 micrometers still might not be completely filtered out via a vehicle’s climate system and can aggravate asthma or cause other respiratory symptoms.

READ MORE: Why the future of electric cars depends on China's war on pollution

For example, four counties in California’s Los Angeles–South Coast Air Basin, with a combined population of 15.7 million, fall into the EPA’s Moderate risk category.

“Enabling our customers to breathe the cleanest air, even in highly-polluted areas, is a demonstration of how Hyundai Motor Group strives to care for its customers,” said YongSuk Shin, the lead of the Hyundai Motor Group engineering design team behind the feature.

Tesla Model X tested for fine particulates

The system, which hasn’t yet been announced for any of Hyundai’s vehicles—globally including the Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis brands—could be well received in China, where there’s growing concern over the health effects of pollution. Tesla has also offered a HEPA filtration system in the Model S and Model X [above], with the claimed capability to reduce pollution levels in the vehicle to “undetectable” levels and even to scrub the air immediately around the vehicle of fine particulates.

Mercedes-Benz lays out plan for carbon-neutral future

2020 Mercedes-Benz EQC Edition 1886
Mercedes-Benz's CEO-apparent Ola Källenius laid out a plan Monday, just after the Norway launch of its EQC electric SUV, that outlines the development of an entire “carbon-neutral” passenger-car fleet.

Källenius, currently the head of product development at Mercedes, has been named future Chairman of the Board of management of Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz starting later this year.

Part of the plan, called Vision 2039, calls to make half the company's models plug in by 2030—either plug-in hybrids or all-electric vehicles.

READ THIS: First Mercedes-Benz EQC rolls off assembly line in Germany

According to a transcript of his speech, Källenius said, “Let’s be clear what this means for us: a fundamental transformation of our company within less than three product cycles. That’s not much time when you consider that fossil fuels have dominated our business since the invention of the car by Carl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler some 130 years ago. But as a company founded by engineers, we believe technology can also help to engineer a better future.”

He laid out plans to electrify the company's vans, trucks, and buses as well as its cars, and said the Mercedes is focusing first on building better electric cars, by bringing “EV performance up and costs down,” he said.

Källenius also doubled-down on Daimler's commitment to developing hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles. “There’s also room and need to continue to work on other solutions,” he said, “for example, the fuel cell or eFuels…. Today, no one knows for sure which drivetrain mix will best serve our customers’ needs 20 years from now. That’s why we encourage policy makers to pave the way for tech neutrality: Let’s fix the target, but not the means to achieve it.”

He noted that in addition to electric buses, the company will also build city buses with fuel cells.

READ MORE: Mercedes joins forces with BMW to build an electric ecosystem

Källenius pointed to the company's car-sharing efforts such as Car2Go as a means to help customers reduce their carbon footprint, and said the company will be making new efforts to encourage its customers who buy EVs to charge them using renewable energy. The company launched an effort in March, in conjunction with BMW's Reach Now, to provide clean power to chargers, and smart home chargers, similar programs at Tesla and Volkswagen.

Of course, electric cars are only as carbon-neutral as the factories that build them. The company plans to convert all of its European factories to renewable energy by 2022, starting with an extension of its main plant in Sindelfingen, Germany, and including the factory in Bremen that builds the EQC and the Kamenz factory in Saxony where the EQC's battery is built.

By 2039, the year that gives the plan its name, the company intends to propagate the changes throughout its worldwide factories as well as its suppliers, using incentives as motivation.

Volkswagen says EV batteries to last “the life of the car”

Volkswagen ID Buzz Concept
In an announcement last month, Volkswagen joined Nissan and Tesla as the only automakers to explicitly warranty not just the batteries in its cars but specifically how much life it expects them to retain.

Frank Blome, the head of VW's Center of Excellence in Battery Cells, said in an outward facing internal marketing interview that the company expects the battery packs in its upcoming line of ID cars to last “the life of the cars,” he said.

READ THIS: Here's the battery pack behind VW's global electric-vehicle push

Of course, for a key component of the car that costs five figures to replace it's an open question whether a dead battery becomes a self-fulfilling condition of a dead car.
Volkswagen has previously said—at several points—that its batteries will retain 70 percent of their original capacity for 8 years or 100,000 miles. That's the standard time frame for an EV battery warranty, though not all companies go so far as to provide a definition of how much capacity the battery needs to retain at that point.

CHECK OUT: Volkswagen details the foundation for 10 million electric vehicles

Batteries for the Audi E-tron quattro, the first all-electric car from the Volkswagen Group's luxury division come from Korean supplier LG Chem. LG's South Korean rival, SK Innovation, which was just sued by LG Chem at the International Trade Commission, will supply batteries for VW's new products in Europe as well as the U.S.

SKI is building new battery factories in Hungary and the U.S. state of Georgia to supply the batteries. In China, VW will rely on local batteries from CATL.

DON'T MISS: VW Group has nailed down $25 billion of batteries for electric cars, it said today

Blome confirmed that Volkswagen continues to work with Silicon Valley startup QuantumScape to develop solid-state batteries for its next generation of batteries for electric cars sometime between 2025 and 2030.

He also affirmed that he expects VW's European Battery Union partnership with Swedish battery maker Northvolt to produce more and better batteries, and to promote more battery production in Europe. The EBU is expected to begin research in 2020. “This new consortium will cover the entire battery value chain,” he said. “The primary aim is to gain broader expertise in battery cell production.”

Volvo announces battery suppliers for upcoming EV lineup, including Polestar

Polestar 2
Volvo, one of the first automakers to announce it would add electric power to its whole lineup, on Wednesday took the unusual step of formally announcing who will supply the batteries for all those electric cars.

The company stated that it will source $1 billion worth of lithium-ion batteries from two suppliers, LG Chem and Contemporary Amex Technology (CATL).

READ MORE: Polestar will qualify for $7,500 electric-car credit separately from Volvo

While the supply contract with Chinese CATL may have been predictable (Volvo is owned by Chinese automaker Geely, and CATL is one of the biggest players on the global stage). As competition for battery supplies heats up among automakers, it's also logical to name two suppliers. LG Chem supplies batteries for Volvo's current plug-in hybrids.

“With today’s agreement we effectively secured our battery supply for the upcoming decade,” said Martina Buchhauser, senior vice president for procurement at Volvo Cars in a statement. “By having two suppliers available in each region we also ensure that we have flexibility in our supply chain going forward.”

DON'T MISS: Volvo’s US Polestar electric-car plans are in flux over China tariffs

The batteries will go into Volvos based on two of the company's platforms: The Compact Modular Architecture that underpins the Polestar 2 and the Volvo XC40, will be the first. Those are the first two electric models from the company, with online preorders for the Polestar 2 already open and deliveries expected to begin next year. The XC40 electric is expected to debut late this year with deliveries following the Polestar 2.

Beyond that, Volvo's Scalable Product Architecture 2 that underpins the XC90 and XC60 SUVs will get the new batteries sometime after 2020.

CHECK OUT: Volvo taking on Tesla with Chinese-built Polestar 2 electric car: details and photos

The company is building its first battery assembly line at its existing auto factory in Ghent, Belgium. Volvo has said fully-electric cars will account for 50 percent of its sales by 2025. Volvo also announced that it is opening a new electric-car engineering center for Polestar in Coventry, England, to take advantage of engineering expertise there, the company said.

“The future of Volvo Cars is electric, and we are firmly committed to moving beyond the internal combustion engine,” said Volvo Cars CEO Håkan Samuelsson in a statement. “Today’s agreements with CATL and LG Chem demonstrate how we will reach our ambitious electrification targets.”