AD #3294 – Ford Sold Most +$50,000 Vehicles; Charge An EV Battery In Only 9 Seconds; EV Sales Explode In China

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EV SALES EXPLODE IN CHINA
Yesterday we reported that China was going to hit Peak ICE sales this year. And today we’re putting an exclamation point on that. Sales of electric cars in China absolutely exploded last month compared to a year ago. All the major Chinese EV startups saw rocket growth. NIO was up 37%, Li Auto was up 125%, XPeng shot up 202%, and Hozon, which owns the EV brand NETA, saw sales grow a staggering 270%. No word yet on Tesla’s March sales in China. That will depend on how many cars it sold in China, versus how many were exported to Europe.

UPS TESTS E-BIKES FOR DELIVERY
Micro mobility could be the future of urban transportation. UPS testing electric four-wheel cargo bikes for last mile delivery in Europe. Called the eQuad, they have a range of 40 miles or 64 kilometers, can carry 440 pounds or 200 kilograms of cargo and have a top assisted speed of about 15 MPH or 25 KPH. UPS will test 100 eQuads in seven European countries and also plans to test it in the U.S. and Asia. It’s only 36 inches wide, so it can legally use bike lanes and pedestrian zones that a truck can’t access.

RAM READIES A FORD MAVERICK COMPETITOR
Ram says it can make a pickup like the Ford Maverick, too. At a local media event in Brazil, the president of Stellantis South America, Antonio Filosa, said Ram will introduce a small pickup in Brazil called the 1200. He supposedly also said the truck will also be sold in the American market. It will be built on the company’s Small Wide 4×4 platform that the Jeep Renegade uses and come with four-wheel drive and a nine-speed automatic. In Brazil, the model is expected to be available with two engine options, a gas and diesel.

FORD SOLD MOST +$50,000 VEHICLES
Here’s a fascinating factoid. Last year in the U.S. Toyota sold more vehicles priced under $50,000 than anyone else. So who do you think led the sales race for vehicles priced over $50,000? If you think it was Mercedes-Benz that’s a good guess. But it was Number Two. Bloomberg reports that last year, the automaker that sold the most vehicles priced over $50,000 in the US market was the Ford Motor Company.

TOYOTA COROLLA GR IS A MONSTER
Enthusiasts rejoice! Hot hatches are far from dead. Last night Toyota unveiled the 300 horsepower, all-wheel drive Corolla GR. And this isn’t some lame marketing job with blacked out bits and a blatty muffler. It’s got some serious engineering cred.

The 1.6L, 3-cylinder direct/port injected turbo engine delivers 300 hp and 273 pound-feet of torque. And this engine revs. Max horsepower is at 6500 rpm. All the power is fed through a 6-speed manual transmission.

Let’s dive inside the engine. Multi-oil jet piston cooling, large-diameter exhaust valves and a part-machined intake port show the attention to detail this car got. The turbocharger is integrated in the exhaust manifold for lower weight. The wastegate bypass gasses are even used to heat up the catalytic converter faster.

The all-wheel drive system is awesome. It offers customizable front-rear power settings. You can have a 60-40 split for mainly front wheel drive daily commuting, a 50-50 split for autocross or track days, or a 30-70 power split to kick the rear wheels out. And to make sure that max amount of power hits the pavement it’s got front and rear Torsen Limited-Slip Differentials.

The Corolla GR is assembled at Toyota’s Motomachi plant in Japan, but Gazoo Racing recruited highly skilled technicians from throughout the company to make it. Some of the other details that set it apart from run-of-the-mill Corollas include enhanced frame reinforcements, functional exterior air vents and aerodynamic tweaks, more weld points in the frame, and extensive use of structural adhesives.

Two trim lines are available: Core and Circuit, the latter adds a forged carbon fiber roof, vented bulge hood and a sporty rear spoiler, suede-trimmed sport seats and more. In fact, Toyota provided quite a bit of detail on this car and if you’d like to learn more check out the link in the transcript.

TOYOTA STRATEGY WITH SOLID STATE BATTERIES
Solid state batteries could be a game changer for electric cars. They’re smaller and can be charged faster. But there’s still a big learning curve ahead. So Toyota is going to start out using solid state batteries in a hybrid car to see what it can learn. Gill Pratt, the chief scientist at Toyota explained to me why they’re taking this approach.

“But we actually think that because the cost of the battery cells are still quite high–no one has really figured out how to manufacture them in high volume at low cost–that a hybrid vehicle is actually the right place to start. And the reason is that the battery pack in a hybrid vehicle is actually much smaller than in a battery electric vehicle. The power levels of charging and discharging, because that battery pack is smaller, when you press on the brakes and have regenerative braking, or you hit the accelerator, the actual power per cell is somewhat higher than it is in a BEV, and the number of cycles that it’s going to go through are quite a bit more. So actually it’s a tougher job to put a battery inside a hybrid electric vehicle than it is in a BEV. So we’re starting there so we can learn the most by doing it.”

That interview, by the way, has a ton more information about solid state batteries and Toyota’s EV strategy. You can find the entire show on our YouTube channel or in the Autoline This Week section of the Autoline website.

TESLA’S CHARGING NETWORK GETS EVEN BIGGER
One of Tesla’s key advantages in selling cars is that it’s the only car company in the world with its own charging network. And that network is only getting bigger. Bloomberg reports that last year alone Tesla added about 10,000 superchargers to its global network. That’s 2 and a half times more than the number in 2020. And it’s only going to grow more. Tesla plans to triple the size of its network over the next two years. Most of them are going in China, which accounts for about 43% of all installations. One advantage Tesla has over public chargers is reliability. Volkswagen says 30% of public chargers in China are usually not available because they don’t work or they’re blocked by gas-powered cars.

CHARGE AN EV BATTERY IN ONLY 9 SECONDS
There have been so many companies claiming that they’ve achieved a battery breakthrough that we’ve become a little bit leery of reporting about them. But this is so interesting, and potentially such a game changer that we couldn’t resist. Scientists at the Institute for Basic Science in South Korea claim they have a way to fully change an EV battery in 9 seconds. You hear that right. Nine seconds. That’s with a Level III fast charger. At home you could recharge in 3 minutes. Here’s how it works. Today, batteries charge in parallel independently of each other. With this new way, scientists are using quantum physics to recharge each cell at the same time. And they say that is 200 times faster. By the way we want to thank our viewer Tim Driver for bringing this story to our attention.

We get a lot of good suggestions from viewers. So if you’ve got an idea or see something you think we ought to take a look at, let us know. We can’t promise we’re going to use it all, but you can help us be the eyes and ears of the automotive industry.

That wraps up today’s show, hope you have a great weekend, and we’ll see you again on Monday.