Hi, yes. I can venmo you $20 tomorrow and would like you to turn that into a quarter million. K? TIA.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/28/cars/citroen-ami-cheap-electric-car/index.html French automaker Citroën has unveiled the Ami, a tiny electric car that's designed from the outset to be as cheap as possible. The car isn't very fast and it looks a bit like a washing machine, but it only costs €6,000, or the equivalent of about $6,600. It would be hard to get a good used car at that price, but the two-seat Ami is barely a car. In fact, Citroën refers to it as a "non-conformist mobility object." It has a top speed of just 45 kilometers an hour, roughly equal to 28 miles per hour. It's powered by a 6 kilowatt, or 8 horsepower, electric motor. For that reason, though, the Ami can be driven by kids as young as 14 in France, or 16 in many other European countries, without a license. Under the laws of these countries, the Ami qualifies as a voiture sans permis (literally "car without license"), or quadricycle, a category of small and slow vehicle that, for purposes of regulation, is treated like a four-wheeled scooter. In some ways, the Ami is reminiscent of Citroën's iconic 2CV. Like the earlier Ford Model T, the 2CV, produced from the late 1940s through the '80s, was an example of innovation in pursuit of accessibility. It was a cheap car designed to be driven over rough -- or nonexistent -- roads in European countrysides and to be repaired quickly and easily when needed. The Ami is built using as few unique parts as possible. For instance, the body parts used for the front end are exactly like those used in the back. Also, the right door is exactly like the left door. That means the driver's side door hinge is at the front while the passenger side door hinge is at the back. There's only a minimal gauge cluster. An app in the driver's smart phone, placed in a holder high in the center of the dashboard acts like the central display screen in other cars showing things like driving range and navigation. There's also a cupholder behind the steering wheel. Since it's a lightweight car with a small battery intended mostly for use in cities, the Ami has a range of only about 70 kilometers, or 43 miles, per charge. On the plus side, though, it can be fully charged in only three hours using a household electrical outlet. The car will be available for sale at Citroën dealers or buyers can order it directly on their smartphones. Citroën has made arrangements with the French electronics and appliance store chains Fnac and Darty to show the Ami in some of their stores. Besides buying the car, shoppers will also have the option to lease it for €20, the equivalent of $22, per month. It will also be available through Free2Move, a car sharing company operated by Citroën's parent company, PSA, at a cost of €0.26 per minute with a €9.90 monthly subscription, roughly the equivalent of $11. Last year, Citroën celebrated its 100th anniversary at the Geneva Motor Show with the unveiling of the Ami One concept car, which was the precursor for this new production version. Citroën executives explained at the time that the brand's strategy for tackling the electric vehicle market was not to start with expensive cars and work their way down in price, as Tesla has done, but to do the opposite: starting with cheap electric cars and moving up from there. Along with PSA's other brands, Citroën plans to make future car models available in electric, plug-in hybrid and pure internal combustion versions. Citroën will begin accepting order for the Ami on March 30 in France and, a few months later, in Spain, Italy, Portugal, Belgium and Germany.
haha I was thinking the same thing. Pretty cool to get around a golf cart community though. Or even a beach community.
Wait what. I'd pay $22 a month to have one sit around the garage for occasional use for I don't know what. Besides buying the car, shoppers will also have the option to lease it for €20, the equivalent of $22, per month.
So, I made the drastic mistake of driving my Model 3 to the airport when the charge was at 40 miles (my father in law was admitted to the hospital so I had to rush out of town). The weather in Dallas is cold and it’s been sitting for a few days. Charge is down to 11 miles and I won’t be back for a few more days. I assume it’s going to be completely dead. What the fuck do I do?
Sounds like you should just sign it over to me and I'll deal with it for you. Or, you know, call AAA and have them tow you either home or to the closest charging station. How accurate are those DTE predictors on the tesla?
So I’ve been reading about dead battery issues with Tesla’s. I’m seeing that you can even open the door with a dead battery?
So for anyone interested, I talked to Tesla service. They have to tow you to the nearest supercharger at $85 per hour. So I land at 4, go to my house and get my daughter to her school party and Uber it back to the airport to meet the tow truck at 6:30. Fun fun. but daughter is sleeping out and wife is out of town so I can get blackout drunk once I’m all done.
But really. Why can't u just call AAA and have them tow you home to plug into your regular charger. Is there something I'm missing here?
Home and the supercharger were the same distance,so it didn’t matter. I live half a mile from the supercharger. it actually ended up working out. I checked my app earlt morning and it said 0 mile range but the battery color was blue showing it was cold outside. By the time I landed in Dallas at 4pm, it had warmed up. Apparently, outside temperature has a big effect on battery. I checked again, and it said 5 miles range. I found an Aloft which had a charger one mile away, so I drove it there and plugged it in and left it. Talked to the front desk guy, and he said all good, pick it up in the morning. So I left it, will get a free charge, and will head there in the morning.
I thought in the article early on in the thread Tesla produced documents showing the reporter drove the vehicle around in circles for minutes with the dash warning him he was out of power. The reporter was trying to get the Tesla to die on him but kept going a while longer. So I believe they are a bit conservative on their estimates to avoid letting drivers get stranded.
GM's new electric car battery tops Tesla's In a major challenge to electric car leader Tesla, General Motors announced it has created a new electric vehicle battery that offers up to 400 miles of range and will be cheaper to produce than today's batteries. The new battery cells will hold enough energy to potentially power a car for 400 miles or more on a single charge, the company announced Wednesday. That's slightly more driving range than any car Tesla offers. Tesla claims a range of 390 miles for the latest version of its Model S Long Range sedan. GM's new battery cells will be used in several of its new fully electric models, including a recently unveiled self-driving electric car, the Cruise Origin, and a future Cadillac luxury SUV. GM also hopes to license its battery technology to other companies. The announcement was part of a broader presentation on the company's aggressive plans for electric vehicles. "GM is building toward an all-electric future because we believe climate change is real," GM CEO Mary Barra said during a presentation for media and investors. She said the company would be investing more than $3 billion annually in electric vehicle research and development between 2020 and 2025. "We want to put everyone in an EV, and we have what it takes to do it," Barra said. Cheaper and more flexible batteries The new battery cells, which GM named Ultium, are soft, flat pouches. (Electric vehicle batteries can have different forms. Tesla battery cells, for instance, are hard cylinders.) Usually, these sorts of pouch cells have to be lined up in horizontal rows with the pouches standing on edge like books in a bookshelf. The Ultium cells can be used that way or they can be stacked up vertically with the pouches laying on their sides. This gives car designers more flexibility because it allows the battery pack, which is made up of lots of these cells, to have a greater variety of shapes. The Ultium battery cell uses a minimal amount of cobalt, an expensive ingredient for electric vehicle batteries, and that factor, combined with continuing manufacturing improvements, will drive prices down, the company said. GM promised the new battery cells will quickly come down in price to below $100 per kilowatt hour. Batteries make up a very large part of an electric vehicle's cost and $100 per kilowatt hour is often cited by industry analysts as the threshold that will enable electric cars to become truly cost competitive with traditional gasoline-powered vehicles. GM's next generation of electric cars will have new batteries that can hold more power. GM also boasted of its ability to adapt its existing facilities to manufacture electric cars. The company has already said that its Detroit Hamtramck assembly plant, which not long ago produced a variety of gasoline-powered vehicles, will now begin to manufacture only fully electric models. With just batteries, cables and electric motors, electric vehicles have far fewer moving parts than gasoline engines, with pistons, valves and rods, and transmissions with multitudes of complex gears. GM executives believe that the company's new generation of electric vehicles will be profitable from the outset thanks to these reduced costs. GM admits that today's Chevrolet Bolt EV -- currently the only electric car GM sells in the United States -- is not profitable. Battery costs are a major factor in that. Taking on Tesla While GM did not specifically name any competitors, the comparisons to Tesla are clear. Tesla is the leading electric vehicle maker in the world. It built an enormous new battery factory in Nevada, a new car factory in China and is building another new factory in Germany. Tesla also currently builds its cars at its factory in Fremont, California, where GM and Toyota cars were once made. For its part, Tesla is planning a Battery and Powertrain Investor Day for some time next month at which the company could announce significant advancements of its own. Less than 250,000 electric vehicles were sold in the US last year and 90% of those were Teslas, according to data from Cox Automotive. GM cited "third party forecasters" as saying electric vehicle sales in the United States could rise to about 3 million units by 2030. GM's own analysis predicts the figure could be "materially higher" as more electric vehicles are launched in popular markets and public charging networks grow, the company said. In addition, GM engineers are already working on next-generation battery cells that could enable driving ranges of up to 600 miles, GM engineer Andy Oury said in a recorded presentation. GM also previewed a number of new fully electric car models the company plans to produce over the next few years. The Cruise Origin, a completely driverless vehicle was already unveiled in San Francisco last month. GM's Cruise autonomous driving subsidiary hopes to use it in a driverless ride-hailing service in San Francisco. No date has been set for that. A new version of the Bolt EV will be launched later this year, the company said, followed by a crossover SUV version, called the Bolt EUV, in the summer of 2021. The Cadillac Lyriq, a luxury electric crossover, will be unveiled next month. After that, the GMC Hummer EV electric truck will be unveiled on May 20, GM said.
Well thats nice but still nothing of a major breakthrough unless the pack size is significantly smaller. Teslas battery chemistry is clearly nothing special and most mileage gains they have made have been improvements in motors (see Raven S).
Some rapid battery development and improvements will be pretty awesome. Crazy that Tesla sells 90% of electric vehicles in the US. Would be nice if these legacy car manufacturers can get their shit together and spit out some cheaper versions that don't look like complete dick. Or Hey Lexus, give me a dope EV.
I mean I was more commenting on the headline of the article which was discussing batteries. They’ve all said the same stuff for a while now in regards to getting into EV’s.
That’s the key to EV’s going forward and I think so far it’s been a slog. This is also probably why you are seeing Tesla slowly and quietly push its “battery investor day” our further and further.
Is there any progress with hydrogen powered cars? Seems like that could be potentially better tech no?
I was convinced this was the future when I did a report on hydrogen powered cars my sophomore year of high school (that was almost 15 years ago)
The economics of it just don’t work at the moment, maybe it will in the future. Economies of scale or some such. The cars themselves are costly (60k) and the fuel is pricey ($6+) But Honda and Toyota seem to keep pushing it.
Decent Comparison between the new Mustang Mach E and the Y. Pretty similar looking, think the Mach E looks a little better being a tad longer. Seems the range/power/etc are about the same on the base then plus models. The biggest thing I'm surprised about, where Tesla just seems so far ahead is basic/standard shit that you get in a premium car that Ford doesn't offer. Pretty surprised by this, but it is standard to have shit features on base models from legacy USA car makers. Tesla is a premium car, Ford built a premium EV then put it in a stock 20k car body. That's kind of disappointing. https://cleantechnica.com/2020/03/01/ford-mustang-mach-e-vs-tesla-model-y-infographic/
it's going to keep going down too. imagine if they have to close their plant in fremont. san fran isn't playing around