Electric Cars II - Not Silly!

[PHXPhlyer]

A Cybertruck owner says his accelerator got stuck while he was driving
Some Cybertruck purchasers said their deliveries had been put on pause.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/ ... rcna147832

A federal vehicle safety regulator says it has contacted Tesla after a Cybertruck owner went viral over the weekend with claims that his accelerator pedal got stuck while he was driving the vehicle.

On Thursday, Jose Martinez said he was driving his new Tesla Cybertruck on his local drag strip in Southern California when the car started accelerating on its own. He said he put his foot firmly on the brake, stopped the car and realized that a rubber cover attached to the accelerator had come loose, pinning the pedal down. He said he had the car for six days total.

Over the weekend, Martinez heard that some Cybertruck deliveries had been paused, he said in a phone interview with NBC News. On Sunday morning, he made a TikTok showing the issue with his accelerator. As of Monday afternoon, Martinez’s video has been viewed almost 2 million times on TikTok and almost 6 million times on X, the social media website purchased and renamed from Twitter by Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

https://www.tiktok.com/@el.chepito1985/ ... 6504089898

“The moment I let go of the brake, it would lurch forward at full throttle again,” Martinez told NBC News. “I had space where I could figure out what was going on. It wasn’t a situation where there were cars in front of me or a building or a tree.”

Various Tesla news sources have reported at least a weeklong pause in some Cybertruck deliveries related to an accelerator issue. Cybertruck enthusiasts on an owners forum have described getting calls alerting them to delays on their deliveries for an unknown amount of time related to an accelerator issue.

Tesla has not announced any official recall or pause and did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In Martinez’s case, he said he found he could continue driving the Cybertruck without the accelerator cover. He said he plans to fiddle around with it more during his next day off from working in car sales. Before the incident, Martinez said he drove the Cybertruck for more than 2,000 miles, in a trip to San Francisco and back.

“Other than this, it’s a pretty solidly-built car,” Martinez said. “I know saying ‘Other than this’ makes it sound like it’s not major, and it is.”

“Because it is such a massive car, and it’s got such a great amount of power, I do feel like things in regard to safety definitely need to be a priority in getting it addressed and fixed,” he added.

A spokesperson for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which tracks recalls, investigations and complaints, said in a statement to CNBC that "NHTSA is aware of this issue and is in contact with the manufacturer to gather additional information."

Tesla previously initiated a voluntary recall of its vehicles in January 2024, including the Cybertruck, in order to make the font size on their touchscreens more readable.

In December, the NHTSA told CNBC that it contacted Tesla after a YouTube car reviewer claimed that the sharp edges on the Cybertruck cut his hand.

Previously, safety experts have raised concerns about the car’s speed, weight and sharp edges.

The first car accident involving a Cybertruck was reported in California in December. A Toyota Corolla crashed into a Cybertruck, and while the Tesla driver sustained a minor injury, the Corolla appeared to be much more damaged than the Cybertruck in photos.

At least one anonymous person previously posted on a Cybertruck owners forum about an issue with their accelerator and brake, saying they crashed into a pole. NBC News could not contact the user or independently verify their story. Other forum members cast doubt on their story and have expressed skepticism about Martinez’s TikTok.

The Cybertruck has been marketed as extremely durable and high-performing, generating intense interest and scrutiny of the vehicle and its rollout.

During the Cybertruck’s launch event in 2019, the car’s “unbreakable” glass window shattered. Still, the car quickly became a status symbol and object of cultural hype, and numerous examples of Cybertrucks on the road have made a splash on social media. Some celebrities, like Kim Kardashian, have flaunted them. In January, there were more than 2 million reservations to potentially order the Cybertruck, according to Barron's.

“Four years ago, I was sitting at the computer watching the reveal,” Martinez said. “I thought it looked cool, so I put the deposit down that same night.”

But Martinez said he isn’t a Tesla “fanboy,” adding, “My perception of Elon Musk a few years ago, versus my perception of him now, has changed.”

Martinez’s video and the reported delays come at a tumultuous time for Tesla.

Musk announced Monday morning that Tesla would be laying off more than 10% of its global headcount.

In an email sent to the company, obtained by CNBC and NBC News, Musk wrote: “Over the years, we have grown rapidly with multiple factories scaling around the globe. With this rapid growth there has been duplication of roles and job functions in certain areas. As we prepare the company for our next phase of growth, it is extremely important to look at every aspect of the company for cost reductions and increasing productivity.”

PP

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Jaguar is quietly retiring it's I-Pace, very soon..
..of course that's completely unconnected to the unexplained full throttle accidents.

It's nothing new.
I recall one of my Tornado RB199s, the ones with the first electronic throttles, deciding to completely ignore my throttle movements, back in 1990.
I bimbled back to base and shut the fuel off for a single engined approach, as per.
No captions, warnings or anything. And no one could tell me why - having a Engineering degree specialising in jet engine design with a minor in electronic controls, I was of course curious.
They junked the entire control unit and we all pressed on regardless.
Wasn't the only time that year that British WasteOfSpace told me "That can't happen", and received the response "Well, it did".
Aren't new aeroplanes wonderful? Everyone's a test pilot

[OFSO]

Tesla, the electric car company owned by Elon Musk, has recalled thousands of its new Cybertrucks over safety concerns.

It is because their accelerator pedals currently risk getting trapped by the interior trim, increasing the possibility of crashes.

The BBC recently spoke to a whistleblower at the company who had raised concerns over the safety of pedals of previous Tesla models.

Tesla has been contacted for comment.

The recall affects 3,878 Cybertrucks, which cost roughly $61,000 (£48,320), made between November 2023 and April 2024.

[PHXPhlyer]

But is the deaccelerator pedal more effective that the accelerator pedal?

PP

[PHXPhlyer]

Ford just reported a massive loss on every electric vehicle it sold

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/24/business ... index.html

Ford’s electric vehicle unit reported that losses soared in the first quarter to $1.3 billion, or $132,000 for each of the 10,000 vehicles it sold in the first three months of the year, helping to drag down earnings for the company overall.

Ford, like most automakers, has announced plans to shift from traditional gas-powered vehicles to EVs in coming years. But it is the only traditional automaker to break out results of its retail EV sales. And the results it reported Wednesday show another sign of the profit pressures on the EV business at Ford and other automakers.

The EV unit, which Ford calls Model e, sold 10,000 vehicles in the quarter, down 20% from the number it sold a year earlier. And its revenue plunged 84% to about $100 million, which Ford attributed mostly to price cuts for EVs across the industry. That resulted in the $1.3 billion loss before interest and taxes (EBIT), and the massive per-vehicle loss in the Model e unit.

A price war among EVs for about a year and a half has made profitability very difficult said Ford CFO John Lawler. He said while Ford has removed about $5,000 in cost on each Mustang Mach-E, “revenue is dropping faster than we can take out the cost.”

In 2023, Ford Model e reported a full-year EBIT loss of $4.7 billion on sales of 116,000 EVs, or an average of $40,525 per vehicle, just more than a third of the first quarter loss.

Model e doesn’t handle all of the company’s electric vehicle sales. Some are also sold in its Ford Pro unit, which handles fleet sales to businesses and government buyers. And Ford said it had strong demands for electric vehicle sales in that unit, including an order for 9,250 E-Transit vans from the US Postal Service, which are to be delivered through the end of this year, and an order for more than 1,000 of its F-150 Lightning pickups and Mustang Mach-E SUVs from Ecolab, a global sustainability company.

Despite the EV losses, Ford CEO Jim Farley said in a call with investors the company is making changes in its EV business, and that the company’s planned next generation of EVs will allow it to be profitable on that business in the near future.

Ford Pro, which primarily sells traditional internal combustion vehicles, was the primary profit driver for Ford in the quarter, posting EBIT of $3 billion, or more than double what it made a year ago, as revenue from the unit rose 36% to $18 billion. The number of vehicles sold by Ford Pro was up 21% to 409,000.

But Ford Blue, which handles sales of gasoline-powered cars to consumers, reported that sales fell 11% to 626,000, and revenue dropped 13% to $21 billion. That resulted in EBIT in those traditional sales falling by nearly two-thirds to $905 million.

Together Ford Blue and Ford Pro produced roughly the same level of profits as a year earlier, but the increased losses at the Model e unit meant that Ford’s overall net income fell 20% to $1.3 billion, while its adjusted earnings per share fell to 49 cents, down 21% from a year earlier, but slightly better than analyst forecasts of 44 cents a share.

Ford rival General Motors reported earlier this week that it remains on track to have its North American EV business turn profitable in the second half of this year, while Stellantis, which makes cars and trucks in North America under the Jeep, Ram, Dodge and Chrysler brands, said its European EV business was already profitable last year.

On Tuesday Tesla, the world’s largest EV maker, reported that its adjusted earnings plunged 48% in the first quarter as revenue fell 9%, after it reported the first year-over-year drop in sales since the pandemic.

PP

[PHXPhlyer]

How Volvo landed a cheap Chinese EV on U.S. shores in a trade war
The EX30 from Volvo Cars, the Swedish luxury brand owned by China’s Geely, foreshadows the fierce competitive threat U.S. automakers could face from Chinese EV manufacturers.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/ ... rcna149349

A made-in-China electric vehicle will hit U.S. dealers this summer offering power and efficiency similar to the Tesla Model Y, the world’s best-selling EV, but for about $8,000 less.

The EX30 from Volvo Cars, the Swedish luxury brand owned by China’s Geely, foreshadows the fierce competitive threat U.S. automakers could face from Chinese EV manufacturers that have surged far ahead of global rivals, especially on affordability.

The $35,000 window sticker of Volvo’s compact SUV hits a sweet spot in the U.S. market, where most buyers cannot afford most EVs. The competitive price reflects an unusual combination of Geely’s China-specific cost advantages and Volvo’s ability to skirt U.S. tariffs on Chinese cars because it also has U.S. manufacturing operations, according to interviews with four sources familiar with Volvo and Geely strategy and several U.S. trade policy experts.

Chinese EV makers can undercut global competitors largely because of the nation’s domination of battery minerals mining and refining, as well as its long-standing commitment to EV development, including heavy government subsidies.

In addition, Geely has slashed manufacturing costs by merging supply chains and sharing platforms and parts with Volvo and other Geely brands, according to two senior Geely managers, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly.

Despite its aggressive price, Volvo is targeting hefty profit margins on the EX30 of between 15% and 20% globally, said a third Geely source.

China’s EV dominance will be on display this week at the nation’s premier auto show in Beijing. In the China market, the world’s largest, dozens of domestic EV brands are fighting it out in a price war while foreign automakers have steadily lost market share. The intense competition has driven China’s biggest EV makers, led by BYD, to accelerate exporting of EVs that can capture higher prices and profits in less competitive overseas markets.

The EX30 will be among only a handful of China-made cars sold in the United States, none of them from Chinese brands. Vehicles from China currently face a 27.5% tariff and increasingly strident calls for higher trade barriers from U.S. automakers and their political allies.

But Volvo is eligible for tariff refunds under a law that awards them to firms with U.S. manufacturing operations — such as Volvo’s South Carolina plant — that also export similar products, according to U.S. trade law experts and a source familiar with Volvo’s tariff-avoidance strategy.

The U.S. government does not release details of tariff refunds to individual companies.

Asked about tariff refunds, a Volvo spokesperson said the company pays all legally required duties on cars and parts. She said Volvo, though owned by Geely, is independently operated and designs its cars in Sweden.

Geely declined to comment.

The EX30 could get even cheaper if Volvo and its dealers use an EV-policy loophole enacted in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, championed by U.S. President Joe Biden. The legislation reauthorized an existing $7,500 tax credit for EV buyers — but blocked the subsidy for cars with components from countries, including China, that are deemed an economic or security threat.

The U.S. Internal Revenue Service later determined, however, that leased EVs qualify as commercial vehicles and are eligible for a similar $7,500 subsidy with no China-content restrictions.

That could bring a leased EX30’s effective price to $27,500 — a compelling offer for a five-seater electric SUV that Volvo has said will have a 275-mile driving range and a five-second 0-60 mph time. The EX30’s specifications closely match Tesla’s Model Y, and Volvo dealers are touting the comparison. (The Model Y has more cargo room.)

Last weekend, Tesla lowered the Model Y’s price by $2,000 in the United States as part of a series of global reductions. It’s the latest of many Tesla price cuts as it faces softening demand and stiffer competition from China EV makers.

Lance Morgan, sales manager at Volvo Cars Carlsbad in California, said his dealership has already taken deposits for every 2025 EX30 it expects to be allocated.

“I think this could be quite the game-changer for the whole brand,” he said.

Morgan said more than half of his customers who buy currently available Volvo EVs initially lease them to qualify for the U.S. tax credit — then immediately buy out the lease.

The EX30’s price and the buzz it’s generating help explain U.S. automakers’ rising fears of having to compete with low-cost Chinese EV imports.

Industry trade group the Alliance for American Manufacturing said in February that cheap Chinese EVs could cause an “extinction-level event” for U.S. automakers. It warned that Chinese manufacturers could also avoid U.S. tariffs by setting up plants in Mexico, inside the North American free trade zone, then exporting vehicles to the United States.

China’s BYD — which rivals Tesla for the global EV sales crown — announced plans in February for a Mexico plant. BYD offers an array of EVs for less than $30,000 in China, including an electric hatchback that sells for less than $10,000.

In Mexico City in February, BYD announced it would sell the same hatchback in Latin America for about $21,000, still far below any U.S. electric vehicle.

Some U.S. politicians are calling for higher trade barriers, including U.S. Senator Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican.

Referring to Volvo’s tariff refund strategy, Hawley said in a statement to Reuters: “Using taxpayer dollars to subsidize Communist China’s auto sector is an affront to American workers.”

When Geely bought Volvo from Ford in 2010 for $1.8 billion, it struck some analysts as an odd pairing. Geely was an upstart automaker from Hangzhou known for producing lower-quality knockoffs of Western cars while Volvo had a long-standing reputation for safety and sleek Scandinavian designs.

The companies came up with a Volvo growth strategy that relied in part on lowering costs by merging supply chains, giving the combined company leverage to drive down supplier costs.

“Our stated goal was to achieve ‘quality of Volvo, cost of Geely’,” one Geely engineering manager said.

The plan worked. Since 2010, Volvo has nearly doubled its global car sales, from 373,525 to more than 708,000 last year.

Geely and Volvo have created a series of shared platforms allowing Volvo and other Geely brands to share batteries, motors, gears and electric power-management inverters — all high-cost EV components that are cheaper in high volumes.

The EX30 rides on an electric-vehicle platform Geely calls SEA, for “sustainable experience architecture”, the Geely sources said. A third Geely official called it the Russian doll of vehicle platforms because it can be modified to produce a wide array of large and small EVs without major assembly-line changes.

One of the Geely engineering managers said 80% of the underbody components in SEA-platform vehicles are now shared among Geely, Volvo and other affiliated brands including Smart, Lynk & Co. and Zeekr, which make vehicles for Chinese and European markets.

Shifting more of its manufacturing to China required Volvo to confront the punishing tariffs enacted by Republican U.S. President Donald Trump in 2018, as part of a larger trade war, and since supported by Biden.

At the time, a Volvo lobbyist requested an exclusion for its mid-size SUVs imported from China, saying in an October 2018 letter that the duties would cause economic harm to consumers and auto workers. The U.S. Trade Representative denied Volvo’s request, as it did for a similar request from General Motors.

The lobbyist’s letter didn’t name specific models but Volvo imported its XC60 utility vehicle from China at the time. It switched production for the U.S. market to Europe to avoid the tariffs.

Now Volvo has found a different way around the tariffs for the EX30, through the U.S. duty drawback program, which dates to 1789. The program originally refunded companies the tariffs they paid on imported raw materials if they used them to build finished products for export. Today, it allows a much broader array of exports to offset taxes on similar imports.

For Volvo, it means exports of its larger EX90 electric sport-utility vehicles built in South Carolina can be used to offset imports of the EX30 from China.

The drawback program, long used by U.S. automakers that source parts globally, has surged in popularity in the U.S.-China trade war. Total drawback claims have more than tripled since the 2018 tariffs, from $1.3 billion to nearly $4 billion last year, U.S. Customs data show.

PP

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Only the $10,000 Chinese EV will actually make a difference.
Selling one for a bit less than current new vehicles is just window dressing.
Most people drive used vehicles, and indeed have never owned a new vehicle.
There is no significant used EV market. The used EV dealers here went from 3 to 1 to none in three years. Absolutely none of the existing used vehicle dealers will stock them.
The things are still too expensive, it's an expensive nightmare finding either mechanics or spares, there's the range problem and recharging problem for households that can only afford one vehicle and don't have off-street parking, and if the battery fails your investment is basically worthless.

[PHXPhlyer]

There is a dealer a few miles from me selling used EVs.
Maybe 10-20 vehicles on his lot.
Next time I go by I might stop in and check prices out of curiosity.
Will report back.

PP

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Great.
Anecdotal data is all we really have now.
Arizona is as close to ideal as it gets for EV use/charging, rural Canada about the worst.
I'd be interested in sales, and his business model too.
What's the local situation like for mechanics?

[PHXPhlyer]

Great.
Anecdotal data is all we really have now.
Arizona is as close to ideal as it gets for EV use/charging, rural Canada about the worst.
I'd be interested in sales, and his business model too.
What's the local situation like for mechanics?

I have used three different garages over the years but I keep going back to the one I first used.
Relatively reasonable pricing but the real attraction is their honesty.
They will tell you what needs to be done immediately, what can wait, and what is unnecessary.
They have done pre-purchase inspections and second opinions at no charge.

PP

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Interesting, but my apologies. I meant to say EV mechanics.
There are none here. None of the dealerships sell EVs either. I understand it may be the cost of the EV-specific equipment and training vs the number of EV sales.

[PHXPhlyer]

No worries.
I would suspect that most EV maintenance would only be available the dealerships unless a factory trained mechanic broke away and opened a niche EV repair shop.
I remember seeing a piece, I think on CBS Sunday Morning last year, about a shop that specialized in diagnosing EV battery packs and finding the dead cells and replacing them at a reasonable cost, especially compared to the cost of a new battery pack.

PP

[llondel]

Another thing to consider is how much maintenance an EV needs compared to a petrol car. Basic stuff such as brakes and wheels is going to be the same, and I guess if it's a single-motor car then there is some form of transmission, but I wouldn't expect it to need much routine maintenance. Anything else would be down to the electronics blowing up or the motor(s) burning out, which I would hope are rare events.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Brakes, wheels, suspension, etc will require more maintenance due to the increased mass, and also be more expensive.
One of the major problems with EVs appears to be battery pack damage from minor collisions, which also results in higher insurance costs, sometimes much higher.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/autos/scratched- ... -1.6320744

[PHXPhlyer]

Federal regulator finds Tesla Autopilot has 'critical safety gap' linked to hundreds of collisions
The NHTSA report comes as Tesla signals it is betting its future on autonomous driving.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/ ... rcna149512

Federal authorities say a “critical safety gap” in Tesla’s Autopilot system contributed to at least 467 collisions, 13 resulting in fatalities and “many others” resulting in serious injuries.

The findings come from a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration analysis of 956 crashes in which Tesla Autopilot was thought to have been in use. The results of the nearly three-year investigation were published Friday.

Tesla’s Autopilot design has “led to foreseeable misuse and avoidable crashes,” the NHTSA report said. The system did not “sufficiently ensure driver attention and appropriate use.”

NHTSA’s filing pointed to a “weak driver engagement system,” and Autopilot that stays switched on even when a driver isn’t paying adequate attention to the road or the driving task. The driver engagement system includes various prompts, including “nags” or chimes, that tell drivers to pay attention and keep their hands on the wheel, as well as in-cabin cameras that can detect when a driver is not looking at the road.

According to the NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation data, 13 fatal collisions evaluated in the probe resulted in the deaths of 14 people.

The agency also said it was opening a new probe into the effectiveness of a software update Tesla previously issued as part of a recall in December. That update was meant to fix Autopilot defects that NHTSA identified as part of this same investigation.

The voluntary recall via an over-the-air software update covered 2 million Tesla vehicles in the U.S., and was supposed to specifically improve driver monitoring systems in Teslas equipped with Autopilot.

NHTSA suggested in its report Friday that the software update was probably inadequate, since more crashes linked to Autopilot continue to be reported.

In one recent example, a Tesla driver in Snohomish County, Washington, struck and killed a motorcyclist on April 19, according to records obtained by CNBC and NBC News. The driver told police he was using Autopilot at the time of the collision.

The NHTSA findings are the most recent in a series of regulator and watchdog reports that have questioned the safety of Tesla’s Autopilot technology, which the company has promoted as a key differentiator from other car companies.

On its website, Tesla says Autopilot is designed to reduce driver “workload” through advanced cruise control and automatic steering technology.

Tesla has not issued a response to Friday’s NHTSA report and did not respond to a request for comment sent to Tesla’s press inbox, investor relations team and to the company’s vice president of vehicle engineering, Lars Moravy.

Following the release of the NHTSA report, Sens. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., issued a statement calling on federal regulators to require Tesla to restrict its Autopilot feature "to the roads it was designed for."

On its Owner's Manual website, Tesla warns drivers not to operate the Autosteer function of Autopilot "in areas where bicyclists or pedestrians may be present," among a host of other warnings.

"We urge the agency to take all necessary actions to prevent these vehicles from endangering lives,” the senators said.

Earlier this month, Tesla settled a lawsuit from the family of Walter Huang, an Apple engineer and father of two, who died in a crash when his Tesla Model X with Autopilot features switched on hit a highway barrier. Tesla has sought to seal from public view the terms of the settlement.

In the face of these events, Tesla and CEO Elon Musk signaled this week that they are betting the company’s future on autonomous driving.

“If somebody doesn’t believe Tesla’s going to solve autonomy, I think they should not be an investor in the company,” Musk said on Tesla’s earnings call Tuesday. He added, “We will, and we are.”

Musk has for years promised customers and shareholders that Tesla would be able to turn its existing cars into self-driving vehicles with a software update. However, the company only offers driver assistance systems and has not produced self-driving vehicles to date.

He has also made safety claims about Tesla’s driver assistance systems without allowing third-party review of the company’s data.

For example, in 2021, Elon Musk claimed in a post on social media, “Tesla with Autopilot engaged now approaching 10 times lower chance of accident than average vehicle.”

Philip Koopman, an automotive safety researcher and Carnegie Mellon University associate professor of computer engineering, said he views Tesla’s marketing and claims as “autonowashing.” He also said in response to NHTSA’s report that he hopes Tesla will take the agency’s concerns seriously moving forward.

“People are dying due to misplaced confidence in Tesla Autopilot capabilities. Even simple steps could improve safety,” Koopman said. “Tesla could automatically restrict Autopilot use to intended roads based on map data already in the vehicle. Tesla could improve monitoring so drivers can’t routinely become absorbed in their cellphones while Autopilot is in use.”

PP

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

My understanding from studies in aviation is that it takes more attention to monitor an autopilot in a complex manoeuvring environment than it does to control the vehicle directly.
This is not surprising; humans have not evolved to monitor, but to do.
And Tesla comparisons with the average can't be valid, since nothing about Tesla ownership, use, or geographic distribution is average.

[OFSO]

Reading today's Financial Times regarding the manufacture and sales of Chinese Cars, makes me think Tesla wil no longer exist in ten years time

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

It is not a free market.