AD #2519 – Peugeot Shows Off Retro Cars, $5,000 Chinese EV Pickup Heading to U.S., Will Ford Electrify the Mustang?

On today’s show…would you buy a $5,000 electric Chinese pickup? It’s coming to the U.S. and Europe…how about an electrified Mustang? That’s coming too…and Peugeot shows off its first electric car…from 1941. All that and more coming right up on Autoline Daily.

This is Autoline Daily the voice of the automotive industry.

MACRON WEIGHS IN ON GHOSN SITUATION
The Renault-Nissan soap opera took an unexpected twist as French president Emmanuel Macron weighed in on the situation. He defended Renault’s outsized power in the Alliance saying he felt Ghosn had gone too far in, and I quote, “the Nipponization of the group.” He also told Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe that Ghosn’s detention had gone on too long and was too hard. Bloomberg reports that Macron now risks being seen as meddling in Japan’s legal system. As we guess, the Japanese are not going to take too kindly to that Nipponization remark.    

ELECTRIFY AMERICA SHUTS DOWN HIGH-POWERED CHARGERS
As part of its dieselgate settlement, Volkswagen set up the company Electrify America, which is tasked with promoting electric vehicles and setting up a nationwide charging network. One of the highlights of its stations, is high-powered chargers that are capable of pumping out up to 350kW. Due to the high throughput, the plugs have thick cables with an active, liquid cooling system. But apparently, there’s a potential safety issue with the cables, which has forced Electrify America to shut down most of its high-powered chargers. The good news is, there are few EVs capable of connecting to these chargers, the upcoming Porsche Taycan and Audi E-Tron will be able to, and all its CCS, CHAdeMO and Level 2 chargers are not impacted.

24 HOURS OF DAYTONA RESULTS
Race fans were treated to a thrilling and frustrating 24 Hours of Daytona. After getting off to a great start, the sports car race was delayed for hours due to torrential rains. In the end, Cadillac took the overall win and DPi class with F1 driver Fernando Alonso as part of the driver lineup. BMW took the GT LeMans category with an M8 and Lamborghini won the GT Daytona category with a Huracan. The LMP2 class was won by an Oreca because only four Orecas were in that category.

And we’ll be back with more right after this.

PEUGEOT SHOWS OFF RETRO EV
Did you know that Peugeot made its first electric car way back in 1941? It was called the VLV, and it featured 4, 12-volt batteries, had a range of 75 – 80 kilometers or close to 50 miles and a top speed of 36 kilometers per hour or a little over 20 MPH. It sure is an interesting looking car and Peugeot will have it, along with several other cars from its history on display at the 44th Retromobile show in Paris starting early next month. With cars like the 201 Torpedo, which is celebrating its 90th birthday this year, to the Pininfarina-designed 604, its first 6-cylinder car, the show will be a great display of Peugeot styling through the years.

$5,000 CHINESE ELECTRIC PICKUP HEADING TO U.S.
The truck market may be red hot in the U.S. but are truck buyers ready to own an electric pickup? One Chinese automaker thinks so. Kaiyun Motors plans to start exporting its electric Pickman truck to the U.S. this year. The pickup is ideal for farms or construction sites, since it only has 75 miles of range, a top speed of 28 MPH and the capacity to carry 1,100 pounds of cargo. While that’s not all that impressive, the Pickman will only cost $5,000. Kaiyun is targeting 10,000 sales this year in the U.S. and the company is also launching the model in Europe.

HYUNDAI KONA ELECTRIC PRICING REVEALED
And in other EV news, Hyundai revealed pricing of the Kona Electric. The base SEL trim starts just under $37,500. The Limited model costs a little over $42,000. And the top of the line Ultimate trim starts at about $45,600. The Kona Electric is available now in California and will be subsequently rolled out to the other ZEV states.

Last week FCA said the next-gen Dodge muscle cars will be getting some form of electric power. So what about the Ford Mustang. Will it need to do the same? We’ll have more about that right after this.

WILL FORD ELECTRIFY THE MUSTANG?
Mike Manley, the CEO of FCA, recently said that the next-generation of Dodge muscle cars will be getting a boost from electric power. So will its rivals follow suit? On last week’s Autoline After Hours, we were joined by Jim Owens, the Performance Marketing Manager at Ford. And here was his response to electrifying its performance vehicles.

(The AAH preview is only available in the video version of today’s show.)

It sure sounds like we could be seeing electric Mustang’s in the future. If you’d like to learn more about the new Shelby GT500, you can watch that entire episode right now on our website, Autoline.tv or you can find it on our YouTube channel.

But that’s it for today, thanks for watching and please join us again tomorrow.