Electric Car Sales Rise In Norway, Tesla Sales Soar

Norway may have the most aggressive collection of electric car incentives of any country. Not only are electric cars and plug-in hybrids exempt from most taxes at the time of purchase, they qualify for reduced tolls on the nation’s highways, lower fares on its many ferries, and free parking in most cities. Charging infrastructure is also well quite robust. Although there is always room for improvement, there are more public chargers available for EV drivers than in most other European nations.

The combination works. Last month, 13,484 new passenger cars were registered in Norway. 29% of them were EVs. The numbers by manufacturer break down like this:

1. Volkswagen: 2.083 (- 0.0 percent)
2. Tesla: 2.003 (+ 136.2 percent)
3. Toyota: 1,355 (- 25.7 percent)
4. Volvo: 960 (+ 25.8 percent)
5. BMW: 872 (- 26.9 percent)

The numbers for Tesla are astounding. Almost 900 were registered in the last week of September alone! Sales of the Model S (1,007) were up more than 300 percent from the same month last year. Model X deliveries totaled 996, a 66 percent increase. The next largest manufacturer to score big in the electric car sales race was Volkswagen with 1.367 E-Golf sales, up 37 percent from last year.

“This is a development we have expected. Norwegians want big cars that are suitable for cabins and accommodate the whole family. Half of the car sales in Norway are large and medium-sized cars, and only Tesla offers electric car models of this size today. For many, this will still be the only electric car on the market that meets your needs for a while,” says Christina Bu, General Secretary of the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association.

The increase in EV sales is matched by a nearly 25 percent decline in sales of diesel powered cars. That’s good news for Norway’s air quality. “The decline contributes to historically low emissions,” Bu says. “This is the right way. We know that Tesla has delivered an extra lot of cars this month, but at the same time there are also several who see that time is now ripe for switching to electric cars. We see the start of a mass market, but are still a little behind the necessary development to reach the goal of just selling zero-emission cars by 2025. ”

When Bu says the country is a little bit behind, she is talking about charging infrastructure. In Oslo, a new plan will add 600 public chargers and target more chargers for people who live in apartment or condominium buildings. Today there are about 22,500 electric cars in Oslo. That number is expected to grow to 40,000 by 2020.

The European Union suggests there should be one charger for every 10 EVs on the road. “The most important thing now is that the development of available chargers keeps pace with the sharp increase in the number of electric cars,” says Christina Bu. The city of Oslo plans to have 1,500 Level 2 chargers and another 520 higher power (22 kW) chargers in operation by next year.

“It’s a good start, but it’s not enough in the long run for what’s going to be a historic shift for road transport in the city,” Bu says. “It is also vital that the municipality collaborates with commercial actors to build more quick chargers. The public can not finance all charging infrastructure alone, and we rely on growing a commercial market that provides for the volume and spread of charging services throughout the country.”

Drivers in Oslo and other cities are beginning to experience lines of other cars waiting to access the available chargers, a situation that is further driving the push to expand the EV charging infrastructure in Norway.

Hat Tip to Are Hansen and Lief Hansen, who are not brothers, so far as we know! 

Photo credit: Norsk Elbilforening

Meet The Tesla Model S That Drove From Ireland To Africa And Back

Grattan Healy and his partner, Simona, live in Ireland but like to get away to warmer climes in the winter. “We have been doing these kind of trips for years in other cars, but this is the first time we made a serious trip in an electric car.” In this case, the electric car was a Tesla Model S, which they drove from Galway to Ouarzazate in Morocco and back. Grattan is an energy specialist who is deeply involved in the the renewable energy world. He was an adviser to the Green Party in the European Parliament for six years through the end of 2001.

He says the “ease of living” with the Model S is what inspired him. He and Simona had previously driven as far as Marrakech in a gasoline powered Audi Allroad. “After that trip, we were keen to go further and get across the High Atlas to the next large town of Ouarzazate, 200 kilometers further on, to explore the ‘other Morocco,'” he says.

Range Anxiety? What Range Anxiety?

“Considering you can charge at almost any power source, and there are probably more electrical sockets in Morocco than petrol stations, we just needed to make sure we had the right equipment to be able to charge,” Grattan explains. “I only require a Type2 cable to charge my car in Ireland, though we also carry a Tesla adaptor for the faster CHAdeMO chargers. After some research, we got the necessary adaptors and cables from Tesla to use along the way.”

Their route took them first to Belfast and then onto Edinburgh to visit family. From there, the drove through the UK, took the Chunnel to France and then motored down the east coast of Spain, thanks to the ever expanding Tesla Supercharger network. They also took advantage of Tesla Destination Chargers at hotels along the way. From there, they went through Tangier and on to Casablanca. When they arrived at Marrakech the Model S battery still had almost a 50% state of charge.

After a few days in Marrakech, they set out to traverse the High Atlas mountains. “That first half of the journey used 40% of our battery, so we were at least confident of reaching Ouarzazate,” Grattan said. “We had anticipated the descent would use very little battery, and indeed it only took a further 8% to reach the Berbere Palace Hotel in Ouarzazate.” The staff was quite surprised to find an electric car in their midst. “The reception manager claimed ours was the first electric vehicle in Ouarzazate,” Grattan explains.

In less than an hour, the hotel technicians had installed a temporary electrical hook up to recharge the Tesla. “That enabled us to explore the wonderful Dades and Draa valleys over the following two days,” Grattan says. After celebrating the New Year at the hotel, they headed back through the mountains and back to Marrackech. From their, they retraced their route back to Galway, covering a total of 9,500 kilometers along he way.

Planning The Next Electric Car Adventure

Now he and Simona are thinking about driving the Tesla to eastern Iran for their next major trip.”We’d love to go to Tabriz, eastern Iran, but it would be a bit of a job. Turkey is in a bit of a mess. We’d have to take a ferry across the Black Sea. But it is on my bucket list.” Tesla is just now beginning to expand its Supercharger network to locations in the Middle East.

Source: The Independent  Photo credit: Grattan Healy

First Volvo Electric Car Will Run $35,000–40,000, Says Volvo Exec

Volvo’s head of operations in the US, Lex Kerssemakers, has revealed that the firm’s first all-electric model will be priced between $35,000 and $40,000. He also stated that the model will possess at least 250 miles of range — given that the comment is from the firm’s US head of operations, that figure presumably refers to the US EPA range rating.

Those numbers mean that the all-electric Volvo — which is reportedly slated to be released as a 2019 model year — will be priced competitively against the Tesla Model 3, Chevy Bolt, refreshed Nissan LEAF, and Hyundai Ioniq Electric (the model will reportedly possess a much greater range than the current offering in coming years).

As far as range goes, 250 miles is more or less enough for most people (in my opinion). Though, the potential lack of a superfast-charging network (like Tesla’s Supercharger network) would of course pose potential challenges for some people.

Will there be a public nationwide electric vehicle superfast-charging network in the US by the time of the release of the electric Volvo? Hard to say, but the situation at the time (as regards such a network) will no doubt play a part in the purchase decisions of many people. If not, it would stand to reason that sales would be much lower than those of the Tesla Model 3 — arguably, the best quality of the Model 3 is (er … will be) its access to the extensive Supercharger network.

Our Swedish friend Viktor Irle of consultancy and sales tracker EV Volumes notes that the model will likely be built on a collaborative platform with the company CEVT, with the platform known as “compact modular architecture” (CMA).

“CEVT is the bridge between Volvo, Geely, and Lync & Co,” Viktor summarizes. He speculates that all of these brands “will likely come with plug-ins on the new CMA platform, and a possible next platform called BMA, used for all brands.”

Viktor also highlights a big stat that few people know — today, “Volvo has the highest sales share of plug-in hybrids among European brands.” In other words, relative to a company’s total car sales, Volvo’s plug-ins perform better than any other European brand (in Europe). Check out EV Volumes for more fascinating European EV sales data.

“The company isn’t ready to talk about the finer details of the machine. However, the price and range suggest that this is most likely to be a sedan than either an SUV or a compact car like the old C30 Electric concept. And Kerssemakers stresses that range is important — he says that people won’t buy an EV unless it has ‘sufficient’ range, even if it’s overkill for the daily commute,”  Engadget notes.

“Volvo’s approach should be important for EVs as a whole by not only making them more accessible, but introducing them to a familiar brand associated with upscale cars. It may also be crucial to the company’s success in its home country. Tesla sales are exploding in Sweden, and it would be more than a little embarrassing if Volvo let a foreign rival go unchallenged for more than a few years.”

That’s a good point. Though, maybe Tesla will end up establishing a manufacturing presence in Sweden. If that happened, it seems unlikely than many people would feel “guilty” about buying a Tesla rather than a Volvo.

Pininfarina And Hybrid Kinetic Ink $80 Million Electric Car Pact

Internationally recognized automotive design firm Pininfarina and Hong Kong based Hybrid Kinetic have signed a contract worth $80 million to jointly develop an electric car. The collaboration is scheduled to last for 46 months. Pininfarina was founded in 1930 and penned many of Enzo Ferraris most beautiful cars before branching out to service other manufacturers. It designed the gorgeous but ill fated Cadillac Allante and recently brought a highly creative (and fabulously expensive) electric bicycle to the Italian motorcycle show in Milan.

The company has been hanging around at the edges of the electric car scene since 2010 and designed the BlueCar that is the centerpiece of the car sharing service operated by Bolloré Group in Paris. It was purchased in 2015 by Indian manufacturer Mahindra Group. Lest you think Mahindra only makes tractors, buses, and trucks, it also owns one of the ten teams that compete in the Formula E electric car racing series.

According to Reuters, “Hybrid Kinetic Group Limited is a Hong Kong-based company principally engaged in the electric motor vehicles business, including electric buses, engines, and related battery cells. The Company is also engaged in the promotion of new energy projects, including the development of key new energy automobile components and the production of single and few-layer graphene. The Company operates through two business segments: the development of advanced batteries materials segment and the development of high-tech electric motor vehicles segment.”

Pininfarina will support Hybrid Kinetic in the development of an electric car from the initial styling concepts through virtual and physical validation for series production. “This agreement confirms the primacy of our company in the world of automotive design, engineering and production of small series at a time of great change in the automotive world. Synergies with a larger group such as Tech Mahindra are strengthening our business opportunities,” Pininfarina Group CEO Silvio Pietro Angori said in a statement.

He added, “To our respective existing customer pools we can offer fully comprehensive design and engineering services. Further, we see synergies with Tech Mahindra enabling us to compete with more traditional players in the domain of electric and hybrid platforms, autonomous driving and connected cars.”

There is no indication that Mahindra has its eye on US sales, but with a Chinese market for automobiles that is now the largest in the world at more than 20 million vehicles, there is more than enough room for the parties to collaborate on electric vehicles designed for the that market and be quite successful selling them there and throughout Asia.

Source: LiveMint

Apple's Making An Electric Car: Tesla's Musk Calls It 'Open Secret'

Liviu Tudoran's "Apple iMove" design study

One of the biggest automotive rumors of the past year or so has been Apple's reputed program to build an electric car. Known as "Project Titan," the program is reported to involve hundreds of engineers, and some analysts say its goal is to produce a car as innovative as the iPod or iPhone. Of course, Apple hasn't confirmed any car plans--and there is little hard evidence of "Project Titan's" existence.

But Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk considers the Apple electric car to be an open secret.

It is "obvious" that Apple will try to make a car of its own, Musk said in a recent interview with the BBC at Tesla's California design studio. "It's pretty hard to hide something if you hire over a thousand engineers to do it," Musk said.

Apple store

Back in September, it was reported that Apple was moving ahead with plans to triple the size of its car-development team--already rumored to be 600 strong. Musk apparently doesn't view Apple as a threat, saying only that the Cupertino company will "expand the industry." He said Tesla will still aspire to make the "most compelling electric vehicles," while also working with other companies to help them build electric cars as well.

This "more the merrier" attitude seems typical of Musk and other executives pushing electric cars. At a conference in Detroit last week, Renault-Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn said he welcomed more electric-car competition, arguing that greater numbers will force governments to increase support and build more charging infrastructure. Whether an Apple product will be a part of an expanded electric-car contingent is still unclear.

Liviu Tudoran's

The company is reportedly aiming for a "ship date" of 2019, but that doesn't necessarily mean the car will go on sale at that point. In Apple parlance, "ship date" can merely refer to when engineers sign off on the main features of a product, not when it is ready for sale.

Over the past few months, Apple has reportedly ramped up hirings of people with automotive and battery experience.

Last summer, it also appeared to lay the groundwork for testing of an autonomous prototype. Apple representatives reportedly met with officials from California's Department of Motor Vehicles to discuss that topic, and examined a testing facility near San Francisco.

More recently, Apple moved to trademark certain automotive web domains, including "apple.car" and "apple.auto."

BMW i3 REx Electric Car: 'Coding' Unlocks Features Owners Want (And May Void Warranty)

2015 BMW i3 REx - Driven, Portland OR, April 2015

The BMW i3 REx model is an unusual beast, the sole example to date of a car built specifically to comply with California regulations that define it as a zero-emission electric car even though it has a range-extending engine. That's because its gasoline range (EPA-rated at 78 miles) is more or less equivalent to its battery range (EPA-rated at 72 miles). How does BMW manage that? By restricting drivers' ability to fill its tiny gas tank to a minimal 1.9 gallons (7.2 liters).

That restriction in turn frustrates eager i3 REx drivers who want to use their cars on trips without having to stop every hour or so to add $5 or less of gasoline on long road trips.

While some i3 REx drivers swear they can do a quick fillup in less than two minutes, meaning it has minimal impact on travel time, the European version of the i3 REx has a larger tank capacity: 9.0 liters, or 2.4 gallons--enough for about 20 extra miles. The European i3 REx also has a mode that allows users to conserve battery energy if they know high levels of power will be required in near-term future driving: on hills, for example.

2015 BMW i3 REx - Driven, Portland OR, April 2015

So what's a BMW i3 REx owner to do? At least some are choosing to follow instructions posted online and in BMW forums to "code" their cars--which is to say, modify the car's software to provide these functions. That, not surprisingly, is highly frowned upon by BMW, for a very rational reason. Software updates could go awry, creating safety hazards from modified electronic control systems that operate every aspect of the car.

Nonetheless, at least a few intrepid i3 REx owners have enthusiastically taken to coding their cars.

A partial list of functions that can be added or modified with those updates includes:

• Allowing fuel tank to accept full capacity of 2.4 gallons
• Adding suppressed European "hold battery charge" function
• Enabling suppressed AM radio
• Suppressing U.S.-mandated seat-belt warning tone
• Permitting video to be run from USB storage device
• Changing startup image (one owner found "a cool Alpina" emblem hidden in the car's software)

2014 BMW i3 REx range-extended electric car owned by Tom Moloughney -

As we understand it, the software that enables these functions is already present in U.S.-market BMW i3 vehicles. But it's suppressed in many cases, due to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) or California Air Resources Board (CARB) regulations--or BMW North America's perception of consumer preferences. Green Car Reports had asked the U.S. arm of BMW why it had no AM radio--especially useful for local traffic reports and news headlines.

"AM is not offered due to negative performance influences of the electromagnetic interference of the electric drivetrain," responded BMW product and technical communications spokesperson Rebecca K. Kiehne. "While it could be offered, BMW's performance standards are very high and we don't offer a product that meets less than those high standards."

2014 BMW i3 REx vs Chevrolet Volt comparison [photos: David Noland, Tom Moloughney]

Clearly at least a few owners aren't satisfied with that explanation. The main reason for a coding an i3 REx, though, based on numerous forum posts, is the reduced fuel capacity and the lack of a mode that lets owners conserve battery charge. Called "Hold Mode," that capability was added to the first-generation Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car in 2013. It remains in the second-generation 2016 Volt that will go on sale in California next month.

One caveat to i3 owners who are considering "coding" their cars: Any changes may be wiped out whenever an official software update is installed by a service technician at the BMW dealer Whether the service techs will notice the prior updates is debatable; most owners seem to feel they don't. But be aware that messing with a car's functional software provides a carmaker ample grounds to deny warranty coverage for any condition it deems related to those modifications.

Source: Green Car Reports

Chevy Spark EV Price Falls To Just $25,995, As Low As $14,995

If you’ve ever wanted to get into a low-cost, well-reviewed electric car, now may be your best chance. GM has just dropped the price of the Chevrolet Spark EV to $25,995, and after federal and state tax incentives, the Spark EV could be had for as little as $14,995. That’s a low price for a lot of EV.

Unfortunately for most of us, the Spark EV is only available in a handful of states, those being California, Oregon, and Maryland. In California, buyers can get an additional $2,500 off the cost of the Spark EV, and in Maryland buyers can take a $2,300 excise tax exemption, taking about $10,000 off the MSRP. Oregon is considering a similar tax break of about $3,000 but has yet to pass it into law.

For most of us though, the Chevy Spark EV remains something that we’d like to have, but probably can’t just yet. Besides being rated better than its gas-powered version by Consumer Reports, the Spark EV can also save a lot of money over its operating lifetime by plugging in rather than filling up. It’s no surprise that in the few places its available, the Spark EV has proven to be a surprise hit.

I can say with confidence that if the Spark EV were available in Connecticut today, I’d go buy one. Seriously. My wife’s commute to work is less than ten miles, and we’d save about $150 a month in gas costs. The Spark EV would practically pay for itself! Alas, I’ll probably have to wait for the Chevy Bolt. And I will, unless Tesla actually meets a deadline for once.

Maybe it’s a good thing I can’t buy the Spark EV…