Author: Green Car Online News

Toyota Prius AWD-e drive, Hyundai fuel cells, CO2 fines, Audi cameras: Today’s Car News

2019 Audi e-tron first drive – Abu Dhabi UAE, December 2018
We have a first chance to drive the new all-wheel-drive Prius AWD-e. Hyundai plans to build more fuel cells, but not necessarily for cars. Automakers face big fines for missing tight emissions targets for carbon dioxide in Europe. And our first experience driving with side-camera “mirrors” on real roads gives us pause. All this and more on Green Car Reports.

Our first chance to test the new 2019 Toyota Prius AWD-e came on appropriately snowy Wisconsin roads, where it climbed hills easily even without snow tires.

Automakers in Europe aren't rolling out electric cars quickly enough to avoid stiff fines for missing the European Union's strict limits on carbon-dioxide emissions.

Hyundai plans to expand production of fuel cells to start building the expected “hydrogen economy.” Many will be for large commercial vehicles and stationary applications, rather than personal cars, however.

Audi has been promoting its new side-view camera mirror system that will debut on the electric e-tron quattro SUV in Europe soon—but not in the U.S. version that's due in the spring. Our first chance to drive the car with the new system, however, left us just as happy that it isn't yet approved for U.S. sale.

Volkswagen has been caught in another scandal, this time involving selling uncertified pre-production cars as used cars in the U.S. and Europe between 2006 and 2018.

Finally, a new grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation will help BMW build more cars at the biggest automotive export factory in the U.S., its factory in Spartanburg, South Carolina. The factory builds the plug-in hybrid X5 xDrive 40e, among other SUVs.

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Automakers face big fines in Europe for missing CO2 targets

Smokestacks pollution air quality
As global leaders meet in Poland to hammer out details about how to meet Paris Climate Accord targets, a new study shows that European automakers aren't introducing electric cars nearly fast enough to meet European standards—and the delay could cost them.

The European Union has set the strictest limits on carbon-dioxide emissions from cars anywhere on the planet: 95 grams of CO2 per 100 kilometers, which would require cars there to average the equivalent to about 57 miles per U.S. gallon.

And most of Europe's automakers aren't meeting that standard.

READ THIS: Catastrophic climate effects could hit by 2040, UN report says

A new study published by PA Consulting, a global consulting firm based in London, shows that 8 out of Europe's 13 largest automakers have fallen behind and will face serious fines for missing the standard according to a report in the Times of London (subscription required.) The automakers include, Volkswagen, Ford, Fiat Chrysler, Mazda, Hyundai, BMW, Daimler, and the PSA Group.

The fines take effect in 2021 and will vary by how much each automaker has missed the targets. Volkswagen, Europe's largest automaker, faces the largest fines of almost $1.6 billion (1.4 billion euros), equal to about 10 percent of the company's annual earnings.

French automaker PSA, parent of Peugeot, Citroen, and GM's former European arm, Opel, faces a fine of $682 million, about 20 percent of its annual earnings.

DON'T MISS: At climate talks, Trump team plans to promote coal

Volkswagen has announced serious efforts to build and sell electric cars, investing $11 billion to build electric cars by 2023 and develop up to 10 new electric cars.

Even with such efforts, though, electric car sales remain slow in Europe, amounting to just 0.6 percent of the market in Britain in June, for example. Another study showed that emissions of CO2 from new cars in Europe rose for the first time last year, as automakers focused on reducing emissions of nitrogen oxides from diesels over reducing CO2 emissions.

Through a joint advocacy organization, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, automakers have said the standards are too rigid and called for more public charging stations to make electric cars easier for consumers to choose.

Tesla owners will commute “with no driver input” soon, Musk says

Tesla Model 3 dashboard in Autopilot testing with IIHS [CREDIT: IIHS]
Over the weekend, Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted that Tesla is testing new features on its Autopilot “self-driving” system, that will allow its cars to recognize stoplights and stop signs and negotiate traffic on roundabouts.

“Your Tesla will soon be able to go from your garage at home to parking at work with no driver input at all,” Musk tweeted.

That sounds like something a lot of drivers would like. Musk has 23.6 million followers on Twitter around the world; 1,400 had commented on the tweet and 5,100 had retweeted it to others, as of yesterday afternoon.

The tweet highlights how far along Tesla may be in developing its self-driving software and also how its drivers may become more reliant on its Autopilot system than Tesla itself says they should be.

Other companies testing self-driving software, such as Google's Waymo and GM's Cruise, already recognize stoplights and stop signs. They are testing only in limited areas, however, where their cars to try to encounter new obstacles one at a time to learn how to deal with each new variable.

Since cars aren't allowed on roads without a driver, each company has to apply for local permits to test cars driving themselves, especially when they begin testing with no-one in the car at all. Google recently announced that it would begin a commercial self-driving service where it is testing in Phoenix, but then didn't open the service up to the public, instead limiting it to a small group of pre-screened riders.

CHECK OUT: Tesla drivers log 1 billion miles on Autopilot

Tesla is taking a different approach. Since the company has owners driving its cars all over the world, and most of the cars have front and rear cameras, forward radar, and side proximity sensors—all of which can transmit driving data back to Tesla headquarters—the company is harvesting all this data from its drivers and running simulations using artificial intelligence software to improve its system's performance, updating the software and pushing improvements out to cars periodically, using other drivers' data to gradually improve Autopilot's driving.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk on

The company tweeted last month in time with the LA Auto Show, that drivers in its cars have covered 1 billion miles driving on Autopilot—giving the company a vast trove of data to improve the self-driving system.

Yet roads around the world aren't all alike, and it can be difficult for the company to integrate so many more driving scenarios so much more quickly, even with more real-world miles under their collective belts.

Tesla's cars have been involved in several high-profile crashes this year when driving on Autopilot, including one in which the car swerved into the damaged end of a highway divider and accelerated, killing its owner, and two in which cars under Autopilot control hit the back of stationary emergency vehicles and injured their drivers.

READ MORE: Investigators: Autopilot sped up before fatal Tesla Model X crash

Each time, Tesla has responded by releasing a statement saying: “When using Autopilot, it is the driver’s responsibility to remain attentive to their surroundings and in control of the vehicle at all times. Tesla has always been clear that Autopilot doesn’t make the car impervious to all accidents, and Tesla goes to great lengths to provide clear instructions about what Autopilot is and is not, including by offering driver instructions when owners test drive and take delivery of their car, before drivers enable Autopilot and every single time they use Autopilot, as well as through the Owner’s Manual and Release Notes for software updates.”

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Rivian off-road rally performance car could follow electric pickup, SUV

Rivian R1T electric pickup concept
Rivian announced a new electric pickup and SUV at the LA Auto Show—but apparently the startup electric automaker is so full of ideas it couldn't resist teasing yet another plan.

Rivian CEO R.J. Scaringe told British auto magazine Autocar that the company plans a third model that will take advantage of all the power and all-wheel drive that the company's pickup and SUV boast, but with a sporty twist: an off-road rally car.

The new model could share the R1T pickup and R1S SUV's four electric motors producing a total of 750 horsepower and 820 pound-feet of torque, as well as the smaller of its two battery packs, containing 105-kilowatt-hours, to save weight compared with the larger 180-kwh pack. (Not to rule out the larger pack, but even the smaller battery could give a smaller rally car a range in the neighborhood of 300 miles, driven conservatively.)

DON'T MISS: Rivian R1T all-electric pickup revealed: 400-mile range, 160-kw DC fast charging

Scaringe told Autocar that the company's third model will have a shorter wheelbase than the R1S SUV but have similar ground clearance for off-road capability.

Rivian has developed a “skateboard” chassis that includes the cars' structure, its battery pack, motors, and power electronics.

READ THIS: Rivian R1S electric SUV goes family style with 7 seats, 410-mile range

Scaringe says the company plans on selling the skateboard architecture to other automakers as long as their products don't compete directly with Rivian's. One rumored potential customer could be Pininfarina, which is launching its own line of cars, starting with a $3 million supercar. Its second model is slated to be a luxury SUV, which could use Rivian's skateboard chassis.

Rivian will buy battery cells, but will assemble its own packs at its factory in Illinois when its cars go into production, Scaringe told Green Car Reports. These battery packs would likely be part of the chassis architecture that Rivian could sell to other automakers.

CHECK OUT: Mitsubishi Evo rally sedan morphs into electric crossover concept

The Autocar report is the first indication that the company also plans to build a third model of its own off the architecture and that it has considerable flexibility in at least the wheelbase of the machine. The R1T pickup has a wheelbase almost 15 inches longer than that on the R1S SUV. Such a rally-cross car would likely have a significantly shorter wheelbase.

The Rivian rally car (the R1R?), would be similar in concept to the Mitsubishi e-Evolution concept, another electric off-road rally car shown at the LA show.

The R1T and R1S are scheduled to go on sale in 2020 and 2021, so the new rally car would appear sometime later.

Toyota Prius AWD-e: Going light on the rear motor helps it hit 50 mpg

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2019 Toyota Prius
The all-wheel drive version of the Toyota Prius introduced last week at the LA Auto Show earns an astoundingly good EPA fuel economy rating of 50 mpg combined—nearly as good as the 52 mpg earned by much of the Prius lineup (LE, XLE and Limited).

But the system isn’t nearly as capable as the one you might encounter in Toyota’s utility vehicles, such as the Toyota RAV4 Hybrid or Highlander Hybrid, because its all-wheel drive system was conceived for getting out of snowy driveways, not necessarily for hauling the family up the mountain for a ski weekend.

DON’T MISS: 2020 Toyota Corolla Hybrid aims for 50 mpg—Prius tech meets frugal mainstream

The layout of the system—which adds a tiny 7-hp (5.3-kw) electric motor that can deliver 41 pound-feet of torque to the rear wheels—and the rationale behind it is mostly carried over from the Prius E-four, a model that has been sold in Japan for many years.

As Prius chief engineer Shoichi Kaneko explained to us last week at the LA Auto Show, it snows a lot in Japan. For snowy roads, front-wheel-drive vehicles have the hardest time with launch on an incline. So the first priority was to support a confident launch in stop-and-go traffic, uphill, on slippery roads.

In the Prius AWD-e, as with the E-four, the motor powers the rear wheels at up to 6 mph to help with launch, and it pitches in when needed at up to 43 mph.

CHECK OUT: 2019 Toyota Prius AWD-e priced at $27,300

Maintaining that 50-mpg mileage was a priority. Kaneko underscored that if you make it more of a full-time system, the amount of energy consumption increases. After going through some thorough optimization tests, Toyota found that the Prius got the best all-around efficiency by going with a lightweight, magnet-less (wound) motor—claimed to be a Toyota first—and skipping regeneration from the back wheels entirely.

2019 Toyota Prius

The benefits of having a true “coast mode” for the rear motor when it wasn’t being used outweighed any brake-regeneration gains that might have potentially been made with a rear permanent-magnet motor, Kaneko said.

For its U.S. rollout, it’s been reassessed and revamped to include new controls and Toyota’s latest version of its hybrid system.

READ MORE: Toyota Prius AWD-e earns 50 mpg with all-weather treads

Toyota has no plans to offer the AWD-e system on the Prius Prime, said Kaneko. Although when asked about the Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid, which uses Toyota’s hybrid transmission, fitted to a fully capable, even off-road capable all-wheel-drive system, Kaneko said that it reflects Subaru’s development priorities—and some efficiency decisions Toyota wouldn’t have made.

But with Toyota continuing its work on electric vehicles, it’s likely that the automaker soon will find a way to show that full-time all-wheel drive and top efficiency aren’t mutually exclusive.

Electric cars could spell end of front-wheel drive, VW exec says

Volkswagen ID Crozz concept
First it was Tesla, now Volkswagen.

Ever since British designer and engineer Alec Issigonis developed the original Mini Cooper for 1959, front-wheel-drive vehicles have been consolidating their hegemony on the car market.

Volkswagen itself was one of the main champions of front-wheel drive when it switched from the rear-wheel-drive Beetle to the front-wheel-drive Golf as its mainstream car in the 1970s.

DON'T MISS: Volkswagen details the foundation for 10 million electric vehicles

As it begins its transition to electric cars, Volkswagen's head of e-mobility in North America, Matthew Renna, said at a round-table discussion with journalists at the LA auto show last month that electric cars will mark the end of FWD, according to a report in Motor Trend.

Not that a front-wheel-drive electric car is inherently bad. Most electric cars today are FWD, including the VW e-Golf and the Nissan Leaf.

The advantages of FWD for gas cars included better space efficiency, less weight, lower cost, and better foul-weather traction with the weight of the engine over the drive wheels.

READ THIS: VW’s new U.S. CEO: The tipping point on EVs is already here

The relatively small motor in an electric car doesn't bring such a space or cost penalty and is easy to mount in the front or back or both for all-wheel drive. With AWD, electric motors give automakers more direct control of power or brake torque at individual wheels, which can be even more effective for snow or ice traction than focusing weight on one end of the car or the other.

With no compelling reason to put the motor in the front of the car and drive the front wheels, Renna said, “With the improved dynamics of rear-wheel drive, that lends itself to being a bit better for a rear-drive platform. If it's the same efficiency and the same cost, dynamics would prevail.”

CHECK OUT: Track Mode released to make more of Tesla Model 3 Performance

Furthermore, in an electric car with relatively even weight distribution (because it doesn't have a heavy engine hanging off one end or the other), the rear is where you want power to go, because that's where the body weight transfers when the driver accelerates.

The other reality is that in an electric car, batteries are the most expensive component, not motors. Adding a second motor up front to deliver all-wheel drive is likely to make all-wheel-drive cars more affordable than ever before.

Electric upstart Rivian plans for dealers, but not to sell trucks

Rivian R1T electric pickup concept
Electric cars worry traditional car dealerships.

Tesla sells cars nationwide without dealers—even if buyers have to drive over state lines to get them in some cases. Electric cars eat into one of dealerships' main profit centers, service, because they don't need oil changes, spark plugs, or even air filters. And traditional dealerships have trouble selling electric cars; many have trouble even keeping them charged and ready for buyers to test drive.

That's why Rivian, the Michigan-based startup planning to sell a new electric pickup and SUVs, doesn't plan to have traditional dealers in most places.

DON'T MISS: Rivian R1T all-electric pickup revealed: 400-mile range, 160-kw DC fast charging

As with Tesla, buyers will order directly from the company. Unlike Tesla, though, Rivian does plan to enlist dealers, though most will only be for service and support.

Speaking with Green Car Reports and Motor Authority at the LA Auto Show, Rivian founder and CEO R.J. Scaringe said the company will open service dealerships to support its trucks, but plans to sell them directly to consumers.

READ MORE: Rivian R1S electric SUV goes family style with 7 seats, 410-mile range

When it comes to sales, the internet, he says, has brought consumers more knowledge than ever before about the vehicles they're buying and virtually put an end to haggling. With most cars selling at rock-bottom prices, it has cut into dealerships' bottom line in sales—which has never been one of their more profitable lines of business anyway.

“Existing dealers are all recognizing that there are changes happening to their business,” Scaringe told Motor Authority. “There are aspects of what the dealers do that don't get talked about enough,” he said, namely sales and service.

To that end, Scaringe says Rivian has received a lot of interest from dealers in becoming the company's service and support centers, which will allow them to focus on aspects of their business that are most successful. Those service dealerships could be at other brands' traditional car dealerships or at independent repair networks.

CHECK OUT: Why Tesla's court battle to sell cars in Michigan could set national template

The company will also set up its own stores or galleries similar to Tesla's to sell its 400-mile electric pickup starting in 2020. Its stores won't be in malls, but also won't look like traditional dealerships with a showroom surrounded by acres of parking lots to store lots of inventory, he said. Instead, they will be brand experience centers where customers can test drive and order cars. The company is already accepting $1,000 refundable deposits.

In states where such direct sales from automakers are forbidden, such as Michigan and Texas, however, Rivian may try to partner with existing dealerships to sell their trucks, he said.

Lithium-ion vs. nickel-metal hydride: Toyota still likes both for its hybrids

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2018 Toyota Prius
Toyota continues to stay the course with nickel-metal hydride battery cells for many of its hybrid vehicles, even though most other hybrid vehicles from other brands have moved on to using lithium-ion cells exclusively.

According to Prius chief engineer Shoichi Kaneko, in an interview this past week at the LA Auto Show, most of Toyota’s current hybrid lineup are capable of easily trading off between the two battery types for one chief reason: flexibility. In being compatible with either one, the company can more smoothly react at a factory or vehicle level to supply shortages or price pinches—for raw materials like lithium or nickel, for instance.

DON’T MISS: 2018 Toyota Camry Hybrid: two different battery packs

Toyota has sold more than 12 million hybrids worldwide and confirmed that they are a profitable part of the automaker’s business—certainly not a claim that can be made by all companies offering a hybrid. As of September, Toyota sold 34 different hybrid models.

Starting with the 2015 model year, the Prius has used lithium-ion batteries for some Prius models, while others use nickel metal hydride batteries. With the refreshed 2019 Prius lineup that will remain the case, Kaneko confirmed.

2018 Toyota Prius

Current NiMH batteries can handle sudden power demands just as quickly as lithium-ion batteries, but the strength of lithium-ion packs is their ability to perform long charge cycles. That’s why all plug-in hybrids, like the Prius Prime, have li-ion cells.

CHECK OUT: Nickel-metal hydride batteries for electric cars: Energy density can rise 10-fold?

On the other hand, Toyota’s all-wheel-drive hybrids, like the 2019 Toyota Prius AWD-e introduced last week at LA, will for the foreseeable future use NiMH—because it can withstand extreme cold far better, and perform better in the cold temps where you’d expect an AWD vehicle to be used.

Kaneko confirmed that today, a NiMH pack will weigh about 25 percent more (165 pounds, versus 132 pounds) and occupy about 20 percent more volume than a lithium-ion pack with a comparable output and usable capacity. It’s a small enough difference for Toyota to easily sub in either technology—whatever politics, trade tariffs, or simple supply and demand may dictate.

What will happen to GM’s Voltec system now that the Chevy Volt has been discontinued?

2019 Chevrolet Volt
GM's discontinuation of the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid—sorry, extended-range electric vehicle—technology last month came as a blow to many plug-in car fans.

The car could allow 90 percent of Americans, according to federal Bureau of Labor Statistics data, to drive to work and back every day without using a drop of gas.

For all intents and purposes it was an electric car that generated no range anxiety. If you went beyond its 53-mile electric range, you could just keep driving as far as you wanted on gas.

DON'T MISS: GM to kill Chevy Volt production in 2019 (Updated)

GM announced on Nov. 19 that it would discontinue building the car in a wave of layoffs and plant closings that saw both the Volt's factory and that of the Chevy Cruze that underpinned it cut off. As a fuel-efficient small hatchback, the Volt was no longer meeting sales targets.

That has left a lot of fans of its complex-but-ingenious Voltec gas-electric powertrain wondering whether they've missed the opportunity to own one (or another one), or whether GM or someone else might build another car along the same lines.

So our Twitter poll question for this week is: “What will happen to GM's Voltec system now that the Chevy Volt has been discontinued?”

Among the possibilities that occurred to us are that: It may just die. This is the scenario that most worries Volt fans.

GM will build an SUV with the Voltec battery-electric hybrid system, perhaps with a bigger battery, or slightly less range than the Volt with the same battery. (This seems the most likely scenario to us.)

CHECK OUT: Commentary: How the media may have punctured plug-in hybrids' balloon

GM could sell the Voltec technology to another automaker. In 2016, the company said it was looking for other companies to license the technology, but never found any takers.

Taken to the extreme (and to Volt fans' delight) our fourth answer considers that systems operating like Voltec could become the new normal, sort of a minimum barrier to entry for hybrid vehicles.

Whether you're an optimist or a pessimist about the Volt's technology, remember that our Twitter polls are unscientific because of a low response rate and because our respondents are self-selected. We can't wait to hear what you think!

Tesla (again) says buyers must order today for full tax credit

Tesla Model 3 all-wheel drive Performance rolls off a new assembly line in a temporary structure
If you want to buy a Tesla and get the full tax credit, today is your last day to order for Tesla to guarantee delivery by December 31.

With the tick-over of the new year, the federal tax credits on Teslas will be reduced from $7,500 to $3,750.

That could raise base price of a Tesla from $39,700 after the tax credit to $43,450 (including delivery fee).

DON'T MISS: Tesla sells 200,000th car, starting phaseout of federal tax credits

The order deadline to receive the full tax credit applies to any Tesla model, the Model S, Model X, or Model 3.

The federal tax credits were structured so that after any automaker sells 200,000 plug-in cars, the credits start a wind-down period. At that point, buyers can continue to claim the credit for the remainder of that quarter and for the full quarter following. After that, the credits are cut in half for six months, in half again for another six months, and get eliminated completely after that.

Tesla crossed the threshold last July, and the end of this year marks the last of its full credits.

CHECK OUT: Tesla sets Monday deadline for full tax credit

The company has joined forces with GM, Nissan, and other automakers, along with other electric-car advocates to lobby for the credits to be extended and restructured so they expire simultaneously for all automakers. That lobbying effort has just begun.

This is the second time Tesla has repeated the message that buyers have to order now to be guaranteed the full credit. On October 12, the company claimed they wouldn't guarantee that orders placed after October 15 would receive the credit.

Refuting that warning, the company sent out a notice just last week, setting today (Friday) as the new date, which the company confirmed today.

READ THIS: EV Drive coalition begins lobbying effort to save tax credit

The good news for Tesla and its fans is that this indicates the company has been able to produce cars more quickly than it anticipated in early October.

Many buyers have been able to buy Teslas directly from the company's inventory and take delivery in a matter of hours or days in the past several months. If you want the full tax credit, that option is likely to continue until near the end of the year. As long as buyers take delivery of their car by Dec. 31, the full tax credit applies. Pictures of lots overflowing with inventory around the country have become a fixture of Twitter and forums for weeks. Even so, based on deliveries, the Tesla Model 3 became the fifth bestselling sedan in the country in the third quarter.

Those who want to make custom selections from the options or color menu, however, need to do so today, the company says, or they could lose the full tax credit.

Truly, at some point, Tesla won't be able to fulfill a new order before Dec. 31. This might be that point, though it's hard to say for sure.