Tag: Electric vehicles

UFODrive Opens New Brussels Location

UFODrive, an all-digital, all-electric car rental solution, offers transparent pricing and a consistentlcustomer experience. Photo via UFODrive.  After successful launches at several European airports, UFOdrive is now expanding its electric car rental at Interparking 2 Portes, a prime carpark in Brussels city. UFODrive, an all-digital, all-electric car rental solution, offers transparent pricing and a consistentlcustomer experience. The new “UFObay”… Continue reading UFODrive Opens New Brussels Location

Electric scooters popular with ride-sharing services can be hacked to suddenly accelerate or brake

An electric scooter popular with dockless, ride-sharing services can be made to suddenly accelerate or brake mid-ride thanks to a flaw in the device’s Bluetooth module, security research firm Zimperium reported Tuesday. In a video published today, Zimperium researchers were able to demonstrate their “proof of concept” involving Xiaomi’s popular M365 scooter. The scooter was… Continue reading Electric scooters popular with ride-sharing services can be hacked to suddenly accelerate or brake

Tesla’s charging stations are a massive ‘competitive moat,’ Morgan Stanley says

CNBC visits the only Telsa Supercharger station with a lounge
8:59 AM ET Sat, 27 Jan 2018 | 02:20

Tesla has built up a global network of charging stations, which Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas pointed to as a possible “competitive moat” for the company compared to other electric vehicle makers.

“We estimate Tesla's chargers may account for 30 percent to 40 percent of total US charging outlets counted by the US Dept. of Energy,” Jonas said in a note to investors on Tuesday. Jonas is widely followed on Wall Street for his thoughts on Tesla and electric vehicles.

Tesla upped its network of global “supercharger” stations to nearly 13,000 by the end of last year, while also increasing its total “destination chargers” to more than 21,000. Superchargers refuel most Tesla batteries in about an hour, whereas destination charging stations provide longer charging times more suited for long stays at malls or overnights at hotels.

VCG/VCG | Getty Images
A Tesla supercharging station in Tianjin, China.

“Part of the strategic attraction to Tesla is its physical infrastructure footprint, which we believe, over time, can improve the customer experience, reduce friction points, and support the fleet management of many millions of Tesla vehicles on the road and in both captive and 3rd party commercial fleets,” Jonas said.

Morgan Stanley estimates Tesla will expand the supercharger network to 15,000 stations “by 2030 to support a Tesla on-the-road fleet size approaching 13 million units,” Jonas said.

Growth in Tesla's charging network “is far slower than the growth in Tesla's car population,” Jonas said he estimates. The network grew by about 40 percent year-over-year, he said, whereas the number of Tesla's on the road increased by 83 percent. Additionally, the Tesla fleet “has grown far faster than its physical store and service location network, raising investor concerns about strain on the system,” Jonas said.

“While Tesla has made efforts to address issues with service quality (such as increasing its Mobile Service fleet to 411 vehicles), the customer service experience appears to have significant room to improve,” Jonas added.

Tesla shares rose 1.3 percent in premarket trading from Monday's close of $312.84 a share. Morgan Stanley has an equal-weight rating on Tesla and a price target of $283 a share.

Watch: How taxpayers have boosted Elon Musk and Tesla

How taxpayers have boosted Elon Musk and Tesla
10:06 AM ET Mon, 22 Oct 2018 | 07:43

Lyft plans to give riders and drivers an electric lift

Lyft car picking up a rider
Lyft is the latest car-sharing company to sign onto an effort to make ride sharing cars more efficient.

The post-millennial taxi service announced that it plans to introduce “thousands” of electric cars onto its platform and make it easy for riders to choose them using a new “Green Mode” in the Lyft app.

“These efforts will provide cleaner transportation options for Lyft riders, and increase net earnings for our driver community. Once adopted widely, EVs hold the promise of making cities more livable by dramatically reducing air pollution,” the company said in a blog post Wednesday.

READ MORE: Uber starts paying drivers to buy electric

The company, which already bills itself as the only ride-sharing service to become carbon neutral after purchasing carbon credits to offset the emissions from its drivers' vehicles, says all the electric cars will be charged using renewable energy.

The Green Mode launched in Seattle on Wednesday and is expected to roll out in other parts of the country later. Riders just select Green Mode in their Lyft app, and only electric Lyfts will show up.

Lyft says that 80 percent of its drivers favor eco-friendly vehicle options, and consistently tell the service they want to increase their profits by lowering fuel costs.

Green Mode on Lyft app

Drivers will be able to rent electric ride-sharing cars through Lyft's Express Drive service. For drivers who choose electric cars, unlimited charging will be included in the weekly rental charge.

Electric cars will be available to drivers through Express Drive immediately in Seattle and Atlanta, and the service plans to roll out electric Lyfts more widely throughout 2019.

CHECK OUT: Uber to bank London surcharge toward electric vehicles for its drivers

Some taxi and ride-sharing drivers have struggled with electric cars when they've found inadequate places to charge or had to spend too long off the road waiting for a charge.

From the standpoint of cities, though, converting taxis and ride-sharing cars to electric power could offer clean-air benefits that are too good to ignore.

Scoop: GM Reportedly Working On Electric Pickup Truck With Tesla Powertrain

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Clean Transport Published on February 12th, 2019 | by Zachary Shahan
Scoop: GM Reportedly Working On Electric Pickup Truck With Tesla PowertrainTwitterLinkedInFacebookFebruary 12th, 2019 by Zachary Shahan

Not an electric pickup truck. But could it be infused with a Tesla powertrain soon?
For years, electric vehicle enthusiasts in the US have been begging for a solid electric pickup truck for consumers. I’ve long reported on monthly electric car sales and I put them in the context of broader US car sales, but looking at the number of gas-thirsty pickup trucks sold each month is a whole other level and is quite disturbing.
Elon Musk announced a while back that Tesla was working on a wicked electric pickup like nothing else we’ve seen. Just last month, Ford finally announced plans for an electric version of the F-150, which is the king of the US auto market — by far — with nearly a million sales a year. But what about GM, which currently has the #2 vehicle on the US auto market, the Chevy Silverado?
Remember, Chevrolet raced the Bolt to market in order to be the first US automaker offering a long-range, semi-affordable electric car. It cares about going electric, maybe.
A source somewhat close to the heart of a big new development at GM has informed CleanTechnica that GM is indeed working on an electric pickup truck, and it is based around a Tesla powertrain. As in, the majority of the guts of the truck will be made by Tesla.
I know, I know — it seems unlike GM to swallow its pride and tap Tesla for this job. However, I’d briefly note a few things.
LG reportedly designed and built much of the Chevy Bolt’s powertrain.GM doesn’t have to announce or acknowledge a Tesla partnership if it doesn’t want to look less than capable.If GM does announce or acknowledge a Tesla partnership, it is likely to get big props from consumers for being brave and using the world’s electric vehicle leader to make an awesome electric pickup. Tesla is cool. Being friends with Tesla is cool.If GM wants to make sure to compete well with an electric F-150, there’s a good chance this is its best avenue, and the company knows that.Batteries — batteries, batteries, batteries. Aside from Tesla’s skill at designing and producing high-performance electric motors, it has a giant source of batteries. If other automakers want to offer mass-market EVs in the coming years, they need a good source of batteries, and Tesla may be as good as it gets for the time being.GM is good at building trucks, at putting them together. It has massive, awesome truck brands. Even if Tesla develops an amazing electric pickup truck of its own, many buyers will want to stick with the brands they know and love, and a truck design they’re familiar with. They may not want a giant Tesla touchscreen, minimalist interior, and smooth, futuristic exterior. A Tesla–GM partnership is a win–win that would bring a lot more people into the electric fold.Yes, I get it, you’d like to see proof of this partnership before getting too excited. So don’t get too excited. Take it as a rumor and stay tuned for more info in the coming months. I don’t currently have hard proof of this truck (no definitive picture or document), but I received enough information to feel confident the tip is correct and to thus run this article. The core source of this information wants/needs to remain anonymous and doesn’t even want any hints of identity tossed around, so I’m not going to say more about that. But let yourself dream a little bit tonight and accept that GM might be making a brilliant move in its approach to electric trucking.
If this plan rolls as smoothly as an electric powertrain, we may well have a Tesla semi, Tesla pickup, and Tesla-powered pickup from GM (Sierra Electric?) getting close to the starting line before the end of 2019. It could be another exciting year for the electric revolution. (Well, how could it not be?)
Note: No, the source is not Elon Musk.

About the AuthorZachary Shahan Zach is tryin' to help society help itself (and other species). He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director and chief editor. He's also the president of Important Media and the director/founder of EV Obsession and Solar Love. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, and Canada. Zach has long-term investments in TSLA, FSLR, SPWR, SEDG, & ABB — after years of covering solar and EVs, he simply has a lot of faith in these particular companies and feels like they are good cleantech companies to invest in. But he offers no professional investment advice and would rather not be responsible for you losing money, so don't jump to conclusions.

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Tesla Owners Unimpressed With Car’s Winter Performance

The door handles are proving problematic, as are the batteries.

Electric car owners learned the hard way during the recent polar vortex that their batteries cannot hang onto a charge when temperatures dip that low. Tesla owners, in particular, discovered that they cannot open their doors very well after a winter storm either.

Tesla’s Model 3 owners are filling social media and online forums with complaints about their vehicles not performing well during the extreme cold the polar vortex brought with it. While cold temperatures will more quickly drain a battery in general, Tesla vehicles aren’t doing well.

“My biggest concern is the cold weather drained my battery 20 to 25 miles overnight and an extra five to ten miles on my drive to work. I paid $60,000 to not drain my battery so quickly,” New Jersey resident Ronak Patel told Bloomberg.

Patel owns a Model 3 and wasn’t happy with its performance. Salim Morsy explained that it’s Panasonic’s batteries manufactured for Tesla and not Tesla, said the Bloomberg new energy finance analyst.

“It happens to Chevy with the Bolt and Nissan with the Leaf,” he said.

The door design for Tesla’s Model 3 is futuristic and cool – when it isn’t wintertime. The handles are flush with the exterior of the car. In order to open the door, the driver or passenger pushes on one side of the handle, then pulls on the other side to open it.

But wintertime’s abundance of ice, particular what came during the polar vortex, has made it incredibly difficult to open those types of doors. Software engineer Andrea Falcone tweeted a photo of her frozen door handle and was less than impressed.

“I can’t wait all day for this silly car,” she tweeted.

Others argued that it’s winter and things freeze, deal with it. Bloomberg shared that Canadians are suggesting car owners place dental adhesive film over their door handles to help prevent them from freezing.

In response to the weather-induced issues, Tesla owner Elon Musk tweeted that the company would release software updates to improve the car’s winter weather performance after it had learned of motorists’ concerns.

But according to Top Speed, the “fix” that was released to solve freezing windows, door handles, and charge ports actually caused further problems.

Even after warming up their vehicles for 10 to 15 minutes, car owners still couldn’t open their doors or lower the windows. Fred Lambert, editor-in-chief for Electrek, tested the new fixes issued by the company and learned that the patch just wasn’t working.

It was 12 degrees Fahrenheit and he warmed up his Model 3 for 20 minutes.

“My driver’s window did go down when pulling on the door handle, but it didn’t go up after closing the door. It looks like Tesla is not allowing the window to go completely up anymore in order to enable people to safely open the doors in cold weather,” he told Top Speed.

Winter isn’t done yet, so hopefully Tesla fixes these issues very soon.

Mahle expands powertrain expertise with acquisition of transmission specialist – Powder Metallurgy Review magazine

ZG specialises in gear development and production of innovative gears (Courtesy ZG GmbH) Mahle Group, Stuttgart, Germany, one of the world’s largest automotive suppliers, has announced its acquisition of transmission specialist ZG-Zahnräder und Getriebe GmbH, Eching, Germany. Through this acquisition, the group stated that it hopes to expand its powertrain expertise to include the transmission,… Continue reading Mahle expands powertrain expertise with acquisition of transmission specialist – Powder Metallurgy Review magazine