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VW fires jailed Audi CEO Rupert Stadler

VW AG has ended its contract with Rupert Stadler, removing the embattled executive as CEO and from the Audi and Volkswagen boards several months after he was arrested for his involvement in the cover-up of diesel emissions cheating at the company. Stadler, who began working at Audi in 1990, is the latest executive at parent company… Continue reading VW fires jailed Audi CEO Rupert Stadler

Porsche Reports September 2018 U.S. Sales

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BMW says the German government’s diesel fix ‘doesn’t make sense for us’

Thomas Lohnes | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Harald Krueger, CEO of German carmaker BMW shows the German Chancellor Angela Merkel an 'i Vision Dynamic' all-electric concept car at the 2017 Frankfurt Auto Show.

Auto giant BMW has said a proposal by the German government to make car companies retrofit polluting diesel cars “doesn't make sense for us.”

Millions of diesel drivers in Germany woke up Tuesday to find that their coalition government had agreed on a package of measures designed to prevent diesel driving bans starting up around the country.

The “Concept for Clean Air and Ensuring Individual Mobility in our Cities” proposal was subsequently presented during the mid-morning by Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) and Minister of the Environment Svenja Schulze (SPD).

Drivers were told they should be able to trade their cars in at a favorable discount for emissions-compliant models, or that their cars could be return to be retrofitted with hardware that could curb the emissions.

However, Germany's powerful motor manufacturers have offered a lukewarm response to that policy.

BMW Group said in an emailed statement to CNBC that it would reject the hardware retrofit option as it “does not make sense for us in this case.” The car company said hardware measures would only be available to customers from 2021 and would have a “negative impact on quality, weight, consumption/CO2 emissions and performance in the vehicles.”

BMW said it did welcome, however, the government's “concept plan” as a good way to ensure the continued use of diesel.

The firm added that from October anyone leasing or buying new BMW cars in Germany would get an environmental bonus of 6,000 euros ($6,925). For nearly new vehicles, or demonstration vehicles, the figure drops to 4,500 euros.

China Daily | Reuters
Employees assemble vehicles at a plant of SAIC Volkswagen in Urumqi, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, China September 4, 2018.

Volkswagen Group, whose “dieselgate scandal” in 2015 triggered much of the awareness about pollution, has said it will offer diesel trade-ins in 14 German cities where pollution is considered high.

VW said 'Euro 5' class cars will get a trade-in boost of about 5,000 euros, while older vehicles will get up to 4,000 euros as an incentive.

In 1992 the 'Euro 1' was introduced as a standard class to denote the fitting of catalytic converters to gasoline cars to reduce carbon monoxide emissions. The latest standard is the 'Euro 6', which applies to all new cars from September 2015 and reduces some pollutants by 96 percent compared to the 1992 limits.

Volkswagen also shied away from the retrofit proposal, telling Reuters: “For retrofits, we assume that the federal government will ensure that all manufacturers take part in such measures.”

Daimler, the company that makes Mercedes-branded cars, has said it too would prefer to offer incentives rather than recalling cars to retrofit hardware.

In a statement provided to CNBC on Tuesday, Daimler said it would now look at the government's proposal in detail before issuing any further comment.

BMW CEO: The global auto market is at different speeds
22 Hours Ago | 00:42

A court in Germany ruled earlier this year that cities could ban 'Euro 4' and 'Euro 5' class diesel cars from streets in order to tackle air pollution. That ruling had given German lawmakers a headache over how to deal with the nearly 9 million cars on German roads that fall into those categories.

Hamburg has already banned such cars from two of its streets where pollution was found to be extremely high and it is thought other cities could soon follow.

Harry Hoster, an energy and pollution expert at Lancaster University, said in an email Tuesday that given the extreme level of the pollution problem and the long-term planning horizons of the auto industry, it was now time for the public to get behind a compromise solution.

“I find it appropriate for the public to support them in the transition instead of just yelling 'you should have known better.'”

European car registrations slowed dramatically in September after a new EU-wide emission-testing regime was put in to practice from the beginning of the month. Year-on-year, German and French registrations were down 31 percent and 13 percent respectively.

August sales were strong as car companies and showrooms slashed prices to offload stock that would not have complied with the new rules.

Volkswagen not prepared to cover full costs of diesel retrofits: source

HAMBURG (Reuters) – Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) is not prepared to cover the full cost of hardware retrofits for older diesel vehicles in Germany, a source at Volkswagen said, contradicting a deal announced by the German coalition parties on Tuesday. FILE PHOTO: A car with the Volkswagen VW logo badge is seen on display at the North… Continue reading Volkswagen not prepared to cover full costs of diesel retrofits: source

Lucid Motors partners with Electrify America for ‘ultra-fast’ charging

Fresh off its new $1 billion round of funding from Saudi Arabia, Lucid Motors is announcing today a new partnership with Electrify America “to provide Lucid customers a nationwide charging plan.” As we previously reported, Electrify America was created as part of Volkswagen’s $2 billion settlements with California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the U.S. Environmental… Continue reading Lucid Motors partners with Electrify America for ‘ultra-fast’ charging

New Bugatti Chiron-based Divo hypercar revealed in Paris

Ford to stop building Focus cars in Argentina in 2019

DETROIT (Reuters) – Ford Motor Co (F.N) said on Monday it plans to stop building its Focus compact cars in Argentina in May 2019 as it seeks to stem losses from its operations in South America. FILE PHOTO: The Ford logo is seen at the New York Auto Show in the Manhattan borough of New… Continue reading Ford to stop building Focus cars in Argentina in 2019

Lucid Motors will give owners access to VW’s charging network

Engadget, Roberto Baldwin Lucid Motors’ first electric car won’t roll out of the factory until 2020, but you’ll at least know where to charge it when it does arrive. The company has signed a preliminary deal that will give Lucid Air drivers access to VW’s Electrify America charging network through a cross-country charging plan. You… Continue reading Lucid Motors will give owners access to VW’s charging network

The new Volkswagen

Wednesday, 08/22/2018 04:21 clock For the first time since time immemorial Opel has again hit the black , Although the positive result with a plus of half a billion euros once only for the first half, but Opel CEO Michael Lohscheller is optimistic: “We have a clear vision of how we want to successfully shape… Continue reading The new Volkswagen

Economies Of Scale — From The Tesla Gigafactory To A Chain Of Terrafactories

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Published on September 30th, 2018 |

by Chanan Bos

Economies Of Scale — From The Tesla Gigafactory To A Chain Of Terrafactories

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September 30th, 2018 by Chanan Bos

Economies of scale: a proportionate saving in costs gained by an increased volume of production.

The reason Tesla names its Nevada battery production factory the Gigafactory was to help people understand that only when operating at a larger economy of scale does EV battery production truly become profitable.

Tesla’s mission is “to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.” Now, I don’t want to predict whether Tesla will have to do all of the heavy lifting to completely transition the earth to sustainable energy or if it only needs to get the ball rolling and make the blueprints. My goal is simply to help people understand where we are now and what it is going to take to move the world to sustainable clean energy through battery power. The real world is much more complex, but this simplified math should give a good general image of the situation.

Battery Uses
First off, let me start by explaining that there are 4 main uses for batteries.

Up until recently, the most common uses for batteries were all kinds of consumer electronics. A single AA battery has an energy capacity of approximately 3.75 watt-hours. But for the sake of round numbers, let’s say that a single AA battery has 4 Wh or 0.004 kWh of capacity.

The second most common use for batteries is electric vehicles. EV batteries come in all shapes and sizes, ranging from 16 kWh all the way to 100 kWh. As a couple of examples, a Volkswagen e-up! has about 18.7 kWh of battery capacity and a Tesla P100D has 100 kWh.

The size of a home battery storage unit ranges from 2 kWh to 17.1 kWh per unit. According to Tesla, most households need or will need about 27 kWh, which is why its 13.5 kWh Powerwalls are sold starting with 2 units.

The last and newest battery usage that recently became popular is industrial/utility-scale battery storage. The Tesla Powerpack has a capacity of 210 kWh per Powerpack. The current largest battery installation in the world is in South Australia. It has 129,000 kWh, which is about 614 Powerpacks.

Some Fun with Statistics
According to one statistic, in 2017, there were almost 71 million passenger cars sold worldwide. Now, let’s assume all of the following to be true:

All 71 million cars are electric.
Every car has a 70 kWh battery pack (this is average for cars with what is now considered an adequate range).

The Tesla Gigafactory 1 is the largest battery factory in the world. As of the end of July 2018, the Gigafactory had a production rate equivalent to ~20 GWh/yr. By the end of 2018, Tesla planned to be at a production run rate of 35 GWh per year. Once the construction of the Gigafactory is complete, it is supposed to have a total capacity of 105 GWh of battery cells and 150 GWh of total battery pack output per year (which includes EV batteries, Powerwalls, and Powerpacks).

Now, obviously, this has been oversimplified. Passenger cars are not the only vehicles on the roads. Nonetheless, if you wanted to meet the world’s 2018 demand for cars purely with EVs, with every Gigafactory not producing any Powerwalls or any other products, you would need 34 factories that are almost 8 times larger than the largest battery factory in existence today. In other words, if you build the factories the size that the current Gigafactory is today, you would need 249 of them.

A lot of people currently believe that the worldwide battery shortage will be met within the next 2 years. That is beyond ludicrous. To meet the worldwide battery demand for EVs alone, we need a chain of Terrafactories, not Gigafactories.

Powerwalls & EVs in the United States
Unfortunately, there is very little information on housing and electricity usage per household per country across the world. Thus, it’s extremely difficult to calculate how many Gigafactories we would need to supply the entire world with Powerwalls. (There are also numerous other factors that must be considered to determine how many home storage batteries are needed.) So, instead, let’s try to calculate how many Gigafactories we would need to provide the entire United States with Powerwalls so that, in combination with solar or wind, all households could become self-sufficient. (There are reasons why this is not the logical solution — not every home needs to be equipped with an energy storage unit, and handling storage on the utility scale is largely more efficient. But it seems useful to include in this thought + math experiment.)

There are 126 million households in the US. On average, most households need at least 2 Powerwalls. One Powerwall has a usable capacity of 13.5 kWh. However, in reality, the battery probably has at least 15 kWh. This is to make sure that you can’t charge it to the maximum and always have a minimum reserve. This way the battery will have a longer lifespan. So, in total, we need two 15 kWh Powerwalls (30 kWh per household). That is a total of 3,780 GWh for the entire United States. Let’s assume that a Powerwall needs to be replaced every 10 to 30 years depending on how you use it. Let’s calculate how many Gigafactories we need in order to manufacture 3,780 GWh of energy storage every 10, 20, or 30 years.

We know that Gigafactory 1 will devote 45 GWh to Powerwalls and Powerpacks and 105 GWh to battery packs for cars, so let’s make 2 separate calculations for the potential 10, 20, or 30 year product lifespan.

Now, let’s redo the previous calculation about cars but only for the United States. In 2017, there were 71 million cars sold worldwide, and there were 11.3 million sold in the United States. That means we need 791 GWh.

Now, if energy and car demands don’t rise from 2017 levels and if Powerwalls last at least a little over 10 years, then 8 Gigafactories should be enough to cover all passenger car and residential Powerwalls needed in the United States.

In Conclusion
At this point, I feel inclined to point out that I don’t care how quickly the Chinese, the Germans, Tesla, or anyone else can build large factories — they are not in competition as much as they are in cooperation on the macro scale. There is a shortage of lithium-ion batteries and there is absolutely no way that we can build enough batteries for our needs quickly, not in the next 2 years, not in the next 20 years.

We are going to need much larger and more favorable economies of scale and a cost per kWh that is a lot lower than the $100 per kWh world record that Tesla has just achieved. In addition to that, factories need to become even more space efficient. Tesla’s improvement from 35 GWh to 150 GWh is a notable achievement in that direction, but even they can and will do better eventually. I just hope that other brands will learn from them.

We are not going to need Gigafactories, we are going to need Terrafactories or even Petafactories that are built everywhere around the world and not just by Tesla — by everyone. This is the only way that we will be able to meet the constantly increasing global demand for batteries. Companies should be on their knees begging Tesla for its technology and Gigafactory blueprints if they want to stay relevant in the industry.

Stay tuned for part 2, where we will look at past, current, and planned battery factories — what products they produce and for whom.

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About the Author

Chanan Bos Chanan grew up in a multicultural, multi-lingual environment that often gives him a unique perspective on a variety of topics. He is always in thought about big picture topics like AI, quantum physics, philosophy, Universal Basic Income, climate change, sci-fi concepts like the singularity, misinformation, and the list goes on. Currently, he is studying creative media & technology but already has diplomas in environmental sciences as well as business & management. His goal is to discourage linear thinking, bias, and confirmation bias whilst encouraging out-of-the-box thinking and helping people understand exponential progress. Chanan is very worried about his future and the future of humanity. That is why he has a tremendous admiration for Elon Musk and his companies, foremost because of their missions, philosophy, and intent to help humanity and its future. He sees Tesla as one of the few companies that can help us save ourselves from climate change.

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