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German Taxi Operator Plans To Add 50 Tesla Model 3s To Its Fleet

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Published on January 4th, 2020 |

by Johnna Crider

German Taxi Operator Plans To Add 50 Tesla Model 3s To Its Fleet

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January 4th, 2020 by Johnna Crider

One of the perks of owning an electric vehicle is that you don’t have to buy gas. Taxi Norman, out of Dusseldorf in Germany, knows this and has already put into service a couple of Tesla Model S vehicles. The company is now planning to add 50 Tesla Model 3s to its fleet.

Many people who use Uber or Lyft never really consider taxis, but every major city in the world has a n extensive taxi network — often numerous independent operators. German cities have many small operators.

Taxi Norman believes that switching from diesel vehicles to electric vehicles will not only be environmentally friendly, but also profitable. One of their older vehicles costs around 6,000 euros per year in gas and maintenance. A Tesla would only cost around 35 euros per vehicle per month (420 euros per year).

Taxi Norman currently has approximately 150 vehicles, only 2 of them being Tesla Model Ss. The 50 Tesla Model 3s planned for purchase should each cost around 45,000 euros.

“The car has only been driving this morning, and the driver has already received a tip of 15 euros because the customer simply thought it was great to drive in an electronic car.” — Erol Norman, Managing Director, Taxi Norman

The fact that Taxi Norman, in German auto country, is integrating electric vehicles into its fleet from an American car company is a strong message to legacy automakers. It is essentially a demand that they need to wake up before they no longer have a spot in this new auto world — an all-electric one.

As of 2012, there were around 233,900 taxi drivers in the United States. This number is no doubt much higher if you include Uber and Lyft drivers as well. Imagine if every taxi company in the United States added 4 Teslas or other electric vehicles to its fleet. Imagine them replacing their entire fleet and going completely electric. I believe that by the time 2029 rolls around, this will either have happened or be happening.

Tens of thousands of Teslas could be sold each year in the US just for use in taxi services. However, the more important thing is that taxis drive a lot of miles and spend a lot of time idling. So, a Tesla taxi cuts a lot more pollution than a Tesla used as a normal consumer car.
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About the Author

Johnna Crider Johnna Crider is a Baton Rouge artist, gem and mineral collector, and Tesla shareholder who believes in Elon Musk and Tesla. Elon Musk advised her in 2018 to “Believe in Good.”

Tesla is one of many good things to believe in. You can find Johnna on Twitter

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Interview: VW’s hip, all-electric ID Buzz van is a platform for its self-driving efforts – Electrek

It’s been three years since Volkswagen first announced plans to produce an all-electric, long-range retro microbus. The ID Buzz still seems almost too cool (and far away) to be true. But at CES 2020, the new chief of VW self-driving told Electrek that the Buzz is also the basis of VW’s first self-driving vehicles for… Continue reading Interview: VW’s hip, all-electric ID Buzz van is a platform for its self-driving efforts – Electrek

No, A Tesla Did NOT Start The Fire That Destroyed 300 Cars In Norway, And Other Nordic News

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Published on January 10th, 2020 |

by Steve Hanley

No, A Tesla Did NOT Start The Fire That Destroyed 300 Cars In Norway, And Other Nordic News

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January 10th, 2020 by Steve Hanley

The internet has been buzzing with news of a gigantic car fire in a parking garage at Stavanger airport in southwestern Norway. The car park (“parking lot” for Americans) holds 3000 cars. Sometime around 3:30 pm on January 8, a fire broke out, and by the time it was contained 6 hours later, 200 to 300 cars had been destroyed and a portion of the garage had collapsed.

Then a funny thing happened: A representative of Gjensidige, a Norwegian insurance company, let it be known that an electric car fire caused the conflagration and referred to electric cars as “fire bombs.” Not long after those intemperate remarks, a rumor started that a Tesla was at fault. Those of us at CleanTechnica were curious about the truth of that claim, so we reached out to regular reader Are Hansen who lives in Norway to see what he could find out.

Diesel, You Say?
Within a few hours, Are got back to us with an article published by Elbil, the Norwegian Electric Car Association, that set the record straight. It says the local police have determined the fire began in a 2005 Opel Zafira diesel-powered car. The owner had just returned from vacation and noticed smoke coming from under the hood when he tried to start it. A second attempt to start the car resulted in flames that completely engulfed the Opel before spreading to other automobiles parked nearby.

Christina Bu, Secretary General of the Norwegian Electric Car Association, had harsh words for the Gjensidige representative. “Of course one should fear a fire in the parking garage, with the serious consequences of major car fires. But that fear should apply to all cars — since all cars burn. Therefore, it is very unfortunate when the communication manager at Gjensidige creates the impression that electric cars are unsafe fire bombs.

“On the contrary, it is very difficult to start a fire in an electric car battery with external heat sources, and any fires in the electric car develop slowly. One should also not create the impression that the fire department can do nothing if an electric car catches fire,” she said.

And yet the myth that electric cars are prone to burst into flames at any moment persists. Clueless people spreading misinformation don’t help the situation.

Another report from Elbil adds that diesel- and gasoline-powered cars are four times more likely to catch fire than electric cars. We’ve presented similar findings in the past. The principle advice Elbil gives electric car owners is to make sure the wiring used to recharge their cars at home is properly sized for the task and installed by a qualified electrician.

Dramatic Increase In DC Fast Chargers

Credit: Elbil

Last year at this time, there were 25 charging stations rated at 150 kW available in Norway. Today, that number has increased 8 fold to 226. The number of 50 kW chargers has grown 29% to 1,366 and the number of Tesla Superchargers has gone up 37% to 770. In total, there are 13,786 public EV chargers in Norway to service about 270,000 electric cars.

Thanks to generous government policies that favor electric cars, Norway has more EVs per capita than any other country, and the size of its public charging infrastructure is increasing fast enough to keep pace with the number of electric cars on its roads.

Related: More Than 150 Gas Car Fires Per Day — Can We Please Get Serious About Electric Car Battery Fires?
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Steve Hanley Steve writes about the interface between technology and sustainability from his homes in Florida and Connecticut or anywhere else the Singularity may lead him. You can follow him on Twitter but not on any social media platforms run by evil overlords like Facebook.

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Confirmed: GM will revive Hummer for EVs, with Lebron James as celebrity spokesperson

General Motors is not talking about it, but multiple news agencies are reporting that a Superbowl ad featuring LeBron James will tout the return of the Hummer name. This time, Hummers will be a family of electric pickup trucks and SUVs. Automotive News, Reuters, and the Wall Street Journal are all tracking down the details… Continue reading Confirmed: GM will revive Hummer for EVs, with Lebron James as celebrity spokesperson

Connected car tech is closer to reality that you might think

Traditionally, CES was never really a car show. But as technology and cars become more integrated, it has turned into one of the most important events in the automotive industry’s calendar. There’s a revolution happening right now in the world of cars. Our cars are becoming cleaner, safer and more integrated into our lives –… Continue reading Connected car tech is closer to reality that you might think

A Facebook Bug Exposed Anonymous Admins of Pages

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Boeing employees called designers of flawed Max 737 jets ‘clowns’

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Fiat Chrysler Will Basically Fund Tesla’s Gigafactory 4

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Published on January 10th, 2020 |

by Johnna Crider

Fiat Chrysler Will Basically Fund Tesla’s Gigafactory 4

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January 10th, 2020 by Johnna Crider

In a sense, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) will be funding Tesla’s Gigafactory 4 (GF4). This insight comes from Automotive News Europe. FCA could spend around $2 billion all the way through 2023 riding Tesla’s zero-emissions coattails.

FCA made a deal, which we reported back in April 2019, to pool its fleet with Tesla’s in order to comply with Europe’s stricter emissions rules. According to a U.S. investment bank, this is funding Tesla’s upcoming German factory. That $2 billion can be split into about $150–200 million per quarter and will give Tesla’s profit margins a nice cushion for 2020.

In 2019, FCA’s CEO, Mike Manly, said that FCA will not have to pay fines for not complying with the tougher European CO2 regulations in 2019 and 2020. The reason is because of the credit deal with Tesla, along with FCA’s forthcoming plug-in hybrid versions of the Jeep Compass, Renegade, and Wrangler. There is also a new fully electric Fiat 500 coming. (The Fiat 500e has been sold in California for years. We reviewed it in 2016 and 2017.)

Some may think that more EVs and hybrids out there are bad for Tesla, but in reality, this is Tesla’s overall goal — to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles and clean energy. Elon Musk once noted that Tesla’s true competition isn’t the EVs coming onto the market, but the gas vehicles that are still being produced.

I believe that 2020 will be the decade of the EV, and this is all thanks to the push from Tesla and Elon Musk (and perhaps partly the mainstream media, which keeps putting Tesla in the news — whether good or bad). The more people focus on something, the larger that something becomes. With more people talking about Tesla, the more people buy a Tesla, and the more the costs come down (as we’ve seen with the Cybertruck).

It’s good to see FCA contributing to the cause, as Kim Paquette said in her tweet. They will end up contributing one way or another, and thus help Tesla achieve its mission, a great way to help lower the amount of CO2 in the air.
Follow CleanTechnica on Google News.
It will make you happy & help you live in peace for the rest of your life.

About the Author

Johnna Crider Johnna Crider is a Baton Rouge artist, gem and mineral collector, and Tesla shareholder who believes in Elon Musk and Tesla. Elon Musk advised her in 2018 to “Believe in Good.”

Tesla is one of many good things to believe in. You can find Johnna on Twitter

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Biotech Roundup: Drug Pricing Promises, Bone Disease Data, IPO Plans & More

January 10th, 2020 Xconomy National — A letter signed by 215 people involved in the biopharma industry, including CEOs and investors, published Wednesday promised to put the “interests of patients first.” Six CEOs, including five who run public companies, co-authored the letter. Signatories agreed to what they dubbed a New Commitment to Patients, a list… Continue reading Biotech Roundup: Drug Pricing Promises, Bone Disease Data, IPO Plans & More

Tesla is challenging hackers to crack its car, and it is putting ~$1 million on the line

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