#evs

Hoovie's Garage, aka Tyler Hoover, is a popular YouTube influencer, and he's claiming he's "done" with his Ford F-150 Lightning, which he owns with a friend, because the range in the winter isn't good enough.

With the United States having successfully passed the Inflation Reduction Act over the summer, the financial floodgates have been opened for battery suppliers. Despite often being framed as a massive infrastructure package that would also help tamp down U.S. inflation, the bill also included numerous items from the Biden administration’s climate agenda setting aside billions for industries vowing to go green. This includes the joint venture between General Motors and LG Energy Solution – which will receive $2.5 billion in loans to build three new lithium-ion battery factories.

Hyundai is the latest major automaker to announce a major electric vehicle battery production facility in the United States. Ford, General Motors, and others have already broken ground on new facilities, and Hyundai is joining them with an up to $5 billion investment in Bartow County, Georgia.

Volkswagen Auto Group has plans to extend the range of its Modular Electric Drive System (MEB) platforms for electric vehicles.

The plan is not only to increase the range but also cut charging times -- and the platform will be renamed to MEB+.

The biggest EV news of the last week has to be the official start of Tesla Semi deliveries, which were perfectly timed (intentionally or not) to drown out the news that the electric car brand had been forced to slash prices in both China and the US in the face of reduced site traffic and waning approval for the brand as-a-whole.

Connecticut legislators from both sides of the political fence appear to be less than thrilled with Ford about the deadline it’s imposing on dealerships vying to sell all-electric vehicles. Blue Oval wants retailers to make sizable investments to install on-site charging stations and retrain their staff on how to service EVs. For some stores, this means doling out over one-million dollars just to have the privilege of selling the latest models coming from the Ford Motor Company.

A new study shows that a lot of Tesla buyers are coming to the brand from Honda and Toyota.

The latest episode of the TTAC podcast is here!

Depending upon where you live, battery electric vehicles are either gradually becoming commonplace or rarer than a two-dollar gallon of gasoline. A new study from S&P Global has helped illustrate the current regional phenomenon, with an accompanying report that suggests it won’t be lasting forever due to the industry pivoting to build more mainstream EVs while the United States expands its charging network.

Today is one of those days in which I pose a QOTD based on an earlier news story -- as if you all aren't already arguing in the comments.

Ford CEO Jim Farley warned last week of "storm clouds" for auto workers as the eventual transition to electric vehicles will require fewer workers -- 40 percent fewer, according to Farley.

Mercedes-Benz has made some changes to its commercial EQ website and now appears to be offering an “Acceleration Increase” subscription that boosts performance in exchange for an additional $1,200 per year. However it doesn’t do this by installing new hardware, Mercedes is just remotely goosing the powertrain it already has for massive gains. Though this also means it’s artificially limiting the output of those very same vehicles until its customers cave in and allow themselves to be locked into an annual fee.

General Motors has an important investors meeting coming up this week and the keystone item will be explaining how profitable its planned shift toward electric vehicles will eventually be. Details of GM's presentation have leaked and, if the claims are true, leadership should be spending a substantial portion of November 17th explaining exactly how EVs will become money-makers for the business by 2025.

Spy shooters have spotted a Buick EV SUV.

Autoblog's spy photogs have been busy. We just brought you the Porsche 718 Boxster EV shots, and now we also have some Hyundai Ioniq 5 N spy shots thanks to our friends/competitors.