#ElectricVehicles

On Wednesday, Toyota Motor Corp. confirmed that its first U.S.-made all-electric vehicle will be assembled in Kentucky starting in 2025. The Georgetown facility is the automaker’s largest in the world and will be incorporating a three-row EV into its production lines once Toyota’s battery plant in North Carolina is completed.

Despite Alpine and Lotus having previously indicated plans to jointly develop a successor to the A110 sports coupe, reports have emerged stating that all work on the project has stopped. With both companies vowing to go electric, the partnership was supposed to help both companies benefit from their performance expertise.

Readers who are fully caffeinated will recall Cadillac’s promise to exist this decade as a purveyor of electric-only vehicles. With the Lyriq already out in the wild and Celestiq in the hopper, plus a mysterious Vistiq and Lumistiq waiting in the wings, it doesn’t take an MBA in marketing to figure out Cadillac’s new naming scheme.

Except for one: Escalade. There’s a ton of brand equity in that name, so changing it to Escaladiq would likely cause weeping in the corner offices of RenCen. How about Escalade IQ, then?

With the Chrysler Airflow debuting during the CES expo in 2022, practically everyone assumed it would be the brand’s first all-electric model. The concept looked more like a prototype than some fantastical model intended for production decades down the road and even came with a limited spec sheet offering figures that seemed to exist within the confines of reality.

But it’s not the vehicle the brand intends to lead with. Stellantis’ chief design officer, Ralph Gilles, has confirmed that Chrysler’s new CEO, Chris Feuell, wanted something completely different that would differentiate the brand from everything else on the market.

Chevrolet has announced that the all-electric Silverado will boast a much-higher maximum range than anyone had anticipated. Rory Harvey, General Motors' incoming president for North America, has stated that the Silverado EV Work Truck (WT) will have an EPA-estimated 450 miles of range 450 miles on a full charge. That’s far better than what its rivals are currently offering and exceeds earlier assumptions made by those watching the industry.

Volkswagen has confirmed the debut of the U.S.-spec ID.Buzz for June 2nd — naming it “the first ever International Volkswagen Bus Day.”

When rumors first emerged that Renault’s Alpine brand might be coming to North America, driving enthusiasts seemed excited by the prospect of the mid-engine A110 being available. However, subsequent talk from the automaker has confirmed that the French performance marquee might take a while to get here and had opted to focus entirely on all-electric vehicles.

Honda raised the curtain for its second all-electric model for the European market this week. The e:Ny1 is an atrociously named battery-powered crossover that serves as the electrified counterpart to the Euro-spec HR-V. While not a formal debut, the Japanese manufacturer is teasing the EV’s design language and offering up some relevant details — perhaps foreshadowing things to come in North America.

Lucid Group’s report for the first quarter of 2023 was off the mark, with the automaker suffering a $780-million net loss. While any burgeoning carmaker should expect to burn through cash for a while, electric-vehicle firms seem broadly dedicated to the practice. Many EV startups have floundered and some have even bordered on shell games, promising things they shouldn’t in the hopes to draw in more investment capital. However, Lucid has seemed committed to delivering enviable products — making the financial report genuinely disappointing. 

What does it take to get a home EV charger installed?

Well for one Boston man, it took two and a half years, 37 letters, and four endorsements from councilors.

I am almost certain we've asked this question, or a variation of it, relatively recently, but I want to ask it anyway in light of recent stories -- are YOU going to, or at least willing to, buy an EV any time soon?

Electric vehicles are more common and popular than ever, but a new study shows that we’re just getting started. IEA, a global sustainable energy advocacy firm, recently released a study that shows incredible demand for EVs and a projection of even more growth in 2022.

A poll making the rounds this month suggests that almost half of Americans wouldn't buy an EV for their next vehicle purchase, due to a lack of reliable charging and high costs.

Honda has sent us a brief on its hopes and plans for the near future.

Not surprisingly, there's a fair amount of optimism and some gestures toward EV plans.

While the automotive sector is habitually discussing how electric vehicle adoption will be spurred on by the country building a more robust charging infrastructure, nobody seems to be talking about how to make charging profitable enough to sustain itself. As of now, government subsidies are helping to ease the financial burden of installing EV charging stations. But their long-term viability is being undermined by the fact that most people prefer charging at home.