Velocity truck rental is doing its part to help commercial fleets electrify by energizing 47 high-powered charging stations at four strategic dealer locations across Southern California. And they’re doing it now.
The new Velocity Truck Rental & Leasing (VTRL) charging network isn’t some far-off goal being announced for PR purposes. The company says its new chargers are already in the ground, and set to be fully online and energized by the end of this month at at VTRL facilities in Rancho Dominguez (17), Fontana (14), the City of Industry (14), and San Diego (2).
45 120 kW Detroit e-Fill chargers make up the bulk of VTRL’s infrastructure project, while two DCFC stations from ChargePoint get them to 47. All of the chargers, however, where chosen specifically to cater to the needs of medium and heavy-duty battery electric work trucks.
The company says it chose the Detroit e-Fill commercial-grade chargers because they’ve already proven themselves in Daimler-heavy fleets with their ability to bring Class 8 Freightliner eCascadias, Class 6 and 7 Freightliner eM2 box trucks, and RIZON Class 4 and 5 cabover trucks, “to 80% state of charge in just 90 minutes or less.”
At Velocity, we are not just reacting to the shift towards electric mobility; we are at the forefront with our customers and actively shaping it. By integrating high-powered, commercial-grade charging solutions along key transit corridors, we are ensuring that our customers have the support they need today. This charging infrastructure investment is a testament to our commitment to helping our customers transition smoothly to electromobility solutions and to prepare for compliance with the Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) regulations.
David Deon, velocity president
Velocity plans to offer flexible charging options to accommodate the needs of different fleets, including both managed, “charging as a service” subscription plans and self-managed/opportunity charging during daily routes. While trucks are charging, drivers and operators will be able to relax in comfortable break rooms equipped with WIFI, television, snacks, water, and restrooms.
Electrek’s Take
Image via DTNA.
While it feels a bit underwhelming to write about trucking companies simply following the letter of the law in California, the rollout of an all-electric, zero-emission commercial trucking fleet remains something that, I think, should be celebrated.
As I peruse Alibaba for all sorts of fun and interesting electric vehicles, I often stumble across seemingly outlandish products that often have a real use case behind them. The best of those make it into the recurring Awesome Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week column, and that’s precisely where this man-carrying drone lands today.
To be fair, I’m not sure the main purpose of this flying EV is to carry people.
They do advertise it with a few images of a person suspended beneath it to show off the drone’s carrying capacity. And at least one of the photos seems like it’s actually non-recreational as the guy appears to be in the process of accessing a communications tower platform.
I guess for those who don’t want to spend half an hour climbing a ladder to change a light bulb or swap a connector, a drone might be a shortcut to some of these difficult access areas. It could also open up the worker pool for that job to not only people with Popeye’s forearms.
But manned work doesn’t seem like the main use case for a heavy-lift drone like this.
Instead, it appears to me that it’s primarily a work drone designed for utility tasks where you’d want to lift a serious amount of weight in tools or supplies.
The stated 200 kg (440 lb) weight-carrying capacity is quite impressive, especially since the unit only weighs 40 kg (88 lb) by itself. But you’ll want that extra lift potential for a number of its other advertised uses, such as a water sprayer for cleaning tasks or a heavy-lift drone for moving supplies in mountainous or otherwise hard-to-reach areas.
Interestingly, the drone can either run off of its 16 on-board batteries or can be tethered to an electrical cable for continuous flying. For longer duration jobs like window washing, that’s probably the better way to go.
The batteries only offer 20 minutes of flying time, and replacing 16 batteries with freshly charged units would probably take you another 20 minutes on the ground. That limited battery flight time also means that if you are going to use it to carry workers up onto aerial platforms, you better not take the scenic route.
The drone does come with three parachutes that can automatically deploy if it enters free fall, which makes me feel only marginally better about hanging onto that rope ladder and going for a ride.
The factory also advertises that the controls can be run tethered, so you don’t have to use radio frequency in areas where it might be jammed. That has me a bit worried about what other uses they’re envisioning for a heavy-lift drone like this, but I’ll leave that for another day.
How our resident Photoshop wizard imagines I’d look on one of these things
With an advertised price of US $5,000, it also seems weirdly affordable. I have no idea what the going rate for a man-lift drone is these days, but I probably would have guessed more than that. You can barely buy an electric motorcycle for that much, and those only move in a single plane.
Of course, the catch is that you have to buy two of them, as that’s the minimum order quantity from the seller. So if you’re crazy enough to strap into one of these things, you better find an equally crazy friend for the second one.
And in case it wasn’t yet clear, please don’t actually try to buy one of these from Alibaba. This column is a tongue-in-cheek exercise in exploring just how amazing and interesting the world’s largest EV provider’s catalog of wacky vehicles has become. But I am certainly not encouraging anyone to run the financial and emotional gauntlet of trying to buy something expensive on Alibaba. I’ve been there and done that, and it’s not for the timid.
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Those who’ve owned or leased a Chevrolet Bolt EV from the 2017 through 2022 model year are likely eligible for an amount ranging from $700 to $1,400, as part of a $150 million settlement amount against GM and LG Energy Solution.
The Michigan class-action case is the consolidated version of eight class-action cases filed in various U.S. District Courts vs. GM in late 2020 and early 2021 and, in settlement documents posted by CBS, lays out eligibility and amounts.
According to the settlement, Bolt owners who installed diagnostic software that temporarily affected these models’ driving range are eligible to get $1,400, provided they installed it by Dec. 31, 2023, while those who owned or leased a Bolt prior to the remedy can claim $700.
2021 Chevrolet Bolt EV
The $1,400 amount is the same that GM offered to pay 2020-2022 Chevrolet Bolt EV and EUV owners in October 2023, in exchange for the installation of diagnostic software limiting capacity (and range) to 80% of the original over a period of 6,200 miles. That was considered an early settlement amount and required signing a legal release.
The class action settlement also excludes customers who opted for a buyback from GM, which was on the table for some customers early on in the diagnosis and recall process. But it doesn’t exclude drivers who already got a new battery.
The 2021 recall effort eventually spanned all of the roughly 140,000 Bolt EV and Bolt EUV vehicles in North America, after two specific manufacturing battery defects in cells supplied by GM partner LG led to at many fires. GM said that it would replace all battery modules in 2017-2019 Bolt EVs. Some of those owners of earlier Bolt EV models got a completely new pack, resulting in more range than they originally had.
2020 Chevrolet Bolt EV review update – Portland OR
Bolt EV drivers were inconvenienced. For many months before a recall remedy was announced, GM asked Bolt EV drivers to park 50 feet away from other vehicles—a challenge for many of its drivers, who tend to live in urban areas. It also instructed customers to set their vehicles to a maximum 90 percent state of charge, charge their vehicles more frequently and not allow range to drop below 70 miles, and park their vehicles outside immediately after charging.
The incidents were generally when the vehicles were parked and nearly fully charged but still hooked up to a charger, not when they were being driven.
LG eventually agreed to pay GM $1.9 billion for the issue—effectively covering the cost of the recall itself, but not other factors like reputation.
A new-generation Chevy Bolt EV is set to replace the Malibu at GM’s Kansas plant, likely arriving later in 2025. It’s expected to make a switch to GM’s Ultium EV platform and will be GM’s first U.S. product to use lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery cells on that platform.
Forget the $100,000 spaceships. What the world needs most now is affordable electric cars. And after plenty of setbacks on the electric front, General Motors thinks it’s found the secret sauce in the now-on-sale 2024 Chevrolet Equinox EV, as executives and engineers put it.
The crossover boasts 319 miles of range in front-wheel-drive 2LT form, which starts at $43,295 (excluding destination) before the $7,500 EV tax credit gets factored in. Later this year, the base Equinox EV LT will debut at just $34,995 before any tax credits and with the same impressive range.
The battle for affordable EVs
More and more automakers are rushing to sell EVs priced around $35,000 or less, including Kia, Chevrolet and possibly Tesla sometime in the near future. It’s seen as the next great growth front in the electric space.
In other words, GM just unveiled the cheapest new way to get more than 300 miles of electric range in America, since a 2LT will be in the mid-$30,000 range after tax credits and the LT will go even lower than that. (Opting for all-wheel drive cuts range to a still-not-bad 285 miles across the lineup.) After years of having to pay hefty premiums for decent range, the Equinox EV seems poised to take long-range EVs more mainstream—especially as a crossover, which American buyers love.
“We really do believe that this is the one that’s going to crack the code and allow us to bring EVs to Main Street,” Brad Franz, Chevy’s crossover marketing director, said at the Equinox EV’s media preview in Detroit this week. “It’s not just about expensive vehicles anymore.”
Until the revamped Chevy Bolt makes its return, the Equinox is the least expensive Ultium EV you can get. It undercuts its larger cousin, the Blazer EV, by around $10,000 or more, and comes in far lower than the $94,500 Silverado EV RST First Edition that journalists also drove in Detroit this week.
33Photos
Still, the Equinox EV has a lot in common with those cars. And that’s how GM kept its price so low.
“Because we developed this as an architecture upfront across many brands, you get scale,” Matthew Purdy, the executive chief engineer for GM’s battery-powered SUVs, told InsideEVs. “It uses the same front motor as the [Cadillac] Lyriq, Blazer, Equinox and [Cadillac] Optiq. You’ll see that same 17-inch display across the Silverados, the Blazers.”
Purdy added that the Equinox shares many other components with those cars, including their steering wheels, new Android Automotive-based operating system and, of course, the Ultium battery in the floor.
“It’s one thing when you purchase in low volumes. Your costs tend to go up quite a bit, as well as your development costs,” Purdy said. “But once you start to scale that across many different cars in the family, then you can start to take advantage of [economies of scale].”
This was always the plan for GM’s Ultium platform: Build an entire family of future EVs, even ones sold in China or for other brands like Cadillac, on one common architecture. The modular battery packs are designed to have energy ranges from 50 kWh to more than 200 kWh, like the GMC Hummer EV and Silverado EV, and the platform can be front-wheel-drive, rear-wheel-drive or all-wheel-drive.
Unfortunately for GM, that scalable EV platform dream turned into a nightmare last year, as the automaker struggled with software bugs and the automated production of its battery packs. In the months since, GM executives—including new hires from the tech space—have said the company is working past its issues to make 2024 a kind of comeback year on the electric front. While that unfortunately coincides with a slowdown in the rate of EV adoption globally, electric sales remain the fastest-growing automotive sector, and GM hopes the more affordable Equinox EV will convince people to make the jump.
The Equinox EV cuts down on costs in other areas as well. Unlike the pricier Silverado EV, which can undertake DC fast charging at speeds north of 350 kW, the Equinox EV maxes out at 150 kW. While that isn’t as fast as some rivals out there, such as the Tesla Model Y or Hyundai Ioniq 5, it can still add an estimated 77 miles of range in 10 minutes, according to GM estimates. The automaker says that should help families get back on the road during trips more quickly than they think. Having a less cutting-edge electric architecture kept costs in check, Purdy said. Additionally, bi-directional charging—the ability to power other high-powered electrical devices using the car’s battery—is only optional on the top-trim 3RS model.
But what’s interesting is that while the Equinox EV is more affordable than some of its GM relatives, it doesn’t feel de-contented, even compared to the more expensive Blazer EV. It still offers Super Cruise hands-free automated driving assistance system, robust Google Assistant voice controls, automatic liftgate opening and many other tech features.
Purdy added that the decision to make the Equinox EV FWD or AWD spoke to what crossover customers are used to, especially in more snow-heavy states. “Of course, one could argue for a rear-drive variant because these cars weigh more, so the weight distribution’s a little better,” he said. But going FWD was also tied to GM’s plans for scaling its electric motors across the Ultium lineup, he said.
Like several of GM’s other electric cars, the Equinox EV won’t replace the mechanically unrelated gas version, which is all-new for 2025. That continues to be a top-selling crossover for GM, with over 212,000 sales last year. But Purdy hopes the EV variant is familiar enough, and a strong enough deal, that it may convert some of those customers and bring in new ones too.
“It’s not a science project,” Purdy said. “We wanted people who are used to the Equinox to hop in this and go, ‘Oh hey, this is an Equinox.’ And it just happens to have an EV propulsion system.”
If you’ve been eyeing a new Rivian R1T, now may be the time to start shopping. Rivian is offering R1T lease rates as low as $559 per month, which is even cheaper than the Nissan Titan.
After introducing leasing for the R1T last November, Rivian is already offering some massive savings opportunities.
Rivian is offering R1T lease configurations for as low as $559 per month. That’s for a new 2024 Rivian R1T Standard Adventure Package and includes $7,500 in lease cash.
The offer is for a 36-month lease with 30,000 total miles with $7,454 due at signing. That amounts to $766 per month. Total vehicle pricing totals $71,700, including Dual Motor AWD, 21″ Wheels, LA Silver Paint, Black Mountain interior, and a $1,800 destination fee.
Although the Nissan Titan’s MSRP is about $24,000 cheaper, the Rivian R1T is still the better lease deal.
Nissan has the 2024 Titan listed at $659 for 36 months. That’s with $5,949 due at signing, according to online research firm CarsDirect. The offer is based on an MSRP of $52,380 for the SV 4×2 Crew Cab model and 10,000 miles a year, which amounts to $824 a month.
Rivian R1T (left) and R1S (right) (Source: Rivian)
Rivian R1T is not the only EV lease getting cheaper
The difference maker is the incentives. We’ve seen it with other models like the Hyundai IONIQ6/5 and Kona Electric.
Kia is also offering up to $12,000 off 2024 EV6 and EV9 models with massive stackable incentives.
GM cut prices on its Blazer EV, while deliveries of the new Equinox EV are now underway. The Equinox EV (2LT) currently starts at $43,295, but the $34,995 (1LT) version will be available later this year. With the $7,500 credit, the Equinox EV can be bought for as little as $35,795.
Rival Ford also slashed prices on the Mach-E by 17% earlier this year, driving triple-digit volume growth. Meanwhile, Ford has introduced several incentives for the F-150 Lightning as it looks to keep its title of top-selling EV pickup in the US.
With up to 410 miles range, an 83.9″ long extendable tailgate, up to 11,000 lbs towing, and a 0 to 60 mph sprint in 3 seconds, the R1T is built to upgrade your next adventure.
Rivian R1T (left) and R1S (right) (Source: Rivian)
Rivian added R1S leasing options in January. The Rivian R1S can be leased for as little as $639 per month. That’s also for 36 months (30,000 miles total), with $8,534 due at signing.
Rivian’s R1S electric SUV was the seventh best-selling EV in the US last year, topping the Ford F-150 Lightning and Tesla Model X, as demand for large electric SUVs continues to grow.
If you’re ready to see what Rivian has to offer at some of the lowest prices so far, we can help you get started. You can use our links below to view deals on the Rivian R1S and R1T in your area.
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Amazon’s electric delivery trucks, which the retail giant developed in cooperation with Rivian, are becoming common sights in many parts of the US. Now the company is adding fifty Class 8 EVs to its drayage fleet in Southern California.
Amazon’s Volvo VNR Electric tractors will haul both cargo containers and customer package loads in Amazon’s first- and middle-mile operations. They’ve already started hitting the road at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and a dozen are expected to be in service by the end of the year.
The Volvo VNR Electric has a range of up to 275 miles, and a gross combined vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 82,000 pounds. Safety features include active collision mitigation, blind spot detection, lane departure warning, lane keeping assist and adaptive cruise control.
As Electrek’s Jo Borrás notes, Amazon is giving itself a pat on the back for deploying the emissions-reducing electric trucks, but in fact the company has little choice—thanks to California’s new Advanced Clean Fleets regulation, deploying new ICE trucks in drayage applications will effectively be banned soon. (Enforcement of the regulation is currently on hold pending a decision from the EPA, but this is expected to be resolved within a year.)
“We’re proud to launch our largest fleet of electric heavy-duty vehicles yet in California,” said Udit Madan, VP of Worldwide Amazon Operations. “Heavy-duty trucking is a particularly difficult area to decarbonize, which makes us all the more excited to have these vehicles on the road today. We’ll use what we learn from deploying these vehicles as we continue to identify and invest in solutions to reduce emissions in our transportation network.”
Mercedes-Benz kicks off EQS SUV production in Alabama (Source: Mercedes-Benz)
Hot on the heels of a historic victory where VW workers in Tennessee voted to join the United Auto Workers union, Mercedes workers in Vance, Alabama have narrowly voted against joining UAW themselves.
The vote comes a day after another union victory in Alabama, where the New Flyer bus plant, which makes some EV buses, joined UAW.
Workers at the Mercedes plant voted over the course of the last week, with voting ending this morning. The votes are still being counted, but with ~4,700 out of ~5,200 votes cast and counted at press time, the vote stands at 44% yes and 56% no, meaning remaining votes wouldn’t be able to overcome the deficit. The vote total isn’t finalized so things could change somewhat, but the result seems clear from the numbers we’ve seen.
The vote was initiated by Mercedes workers, who approached UAW rather than the other way around. UAW has recently signaled its intent to unionize all other US automakers – an idea which President Biden lent support to.
Workers had complained about difficulties with new management and schedule changes implemented against the complaints of workers.
And it would have been a historic vote – only the second time a plant owned by a foreign automaker had voted to unionize in the US South, after VW did last month. The VW vote failed narrowly two times before it passed by a wide margin last month, whereas the Mercedes vote failed on its first count, by a larger margin than VW’s first two ballots did.
Mercedes had commented ahead of the vote that it looks forward “to participating in the election process to ensure every Team Member has a chance to cast their own secret-ballot vote, as well as having access to the information necessary to make an informed choice.”
But reports from employees said that they have been made to watch anti-union videos at the beginning of their shifts, and Reuters reports that Mercedes hired anti-union firms to sway employees away from joining, and that anti-union signs have been hung around the plant.
The vote also came in the midst of a hostile regional political environment for workers’ rights. The South as a whole tends to have lower unionization rates and lower levels of workers’ rights, with lower minimum wages and “right-to-work” laws, a deceptively-named category of laws that are intended to sideline workers’ unions.
In addition, prior to the VW vote, six Southern governors, including Kay Ivey of Alabama, made a joint statement to encourage workers against voting to join UAW, but VW workers went ahead and joined the union anyway. And earlier this week, Ivey signed a law that would retaliate against companies that voluntarily recognize unions by withholding economic incentives from them. The bill was signed during the Mercedes union voting period.
Auto-related manufacturing in Alabama has faced scrutiny lately, including Mercedes specifically. The National Labor Relations Board – which has been working overtime under the Biden administration, collecting a lot of wins for workers’ rights – is currently investigating both Mercedes and Hyundai in Alabama for unfair labor practices. And not long ago, a Hyundai supplier was found to be using child labor in Alabama.
The German government is also investigating Mercedes in Alabama. It is mandatory for German companies above a certain size to have labor representation on their board of directors, and the German auto industry is almost universally unionized.
However, not all is bad for UAW in Alabama. Just yesterday, the New Flyer factory in Anniston, Alabama voted to join UAW. Among other things, the plant builds New Flyer’s Xcelsior CHARGE NG battery-electric bus. That plant has around 600 employees, much smaller than the ~5,200 workers at the Mercedes plant.
Prior to today, the UAW had had quite a year, launching an unprecedented strike against all three major US automakers at the same time last September. The tactic worked, and six weeks later the UAW had made a deal with all three automakers, winning big pay increases and other assurances from each of them.
The win didn’t just help UAW workers, though, as soon after the strikes closed, several other companies announced big pay increases. Workers at VW, Hyundai, Toyota, Honda and Tesla all earned pay increases of about 10% or more as companies recognized the need to compete for skilled workers with better packages. Mercedes also recently raised pay ahead of this week’s union vote.
UAW President Shawn Fain called this “the UAW bump,” and said UAW stands for “U Are Welcome,” highlighting to non-union workers that strong unions help workers across the economy, not just at their own respective shops.
These wins are what encouraged UAW to open its recruitment drive at all other automakers in the US. UAW encouraged employees from other plants to signal their intent to join up by signing a union card through the website uaw.org/join/.
Fain even said that when the newly-negotiated contracts with the “Big Three” come up for renegotiation (on May 1, 2028 – International Workers’ Day), that this time the negotiations “won’t just be with a Big Three, but with a Big Five or Big Six” – meaning that the UAW plan to have unionized other automakers by that timeframe.
Today’s setback won’t put them closer to that goal, and it remains to be seen what strategy UAW will take going forward after this initial blow to the momentum it has built over the last year.
Electrek’s Take
I’ve used the same take several times in these UAW articles, which I will copy again here.
Much of union popularity has been driven by COVID-19-related disruptions across the economy, with workers becoming unsatisfied due to mistreatment (labeling everyone “essential,” companies ending work-from-home) and with the labor market getting tighter with over 1 million Americans dead from the virus and another 2-4 million out of work due to long COVID.
Unions have seized on this dissatisfaction to build momentum in the labor movement, with successful strikes across many industries and organizers starting to organize workforces that had previously been non-union.
However, union membership has been down over several decades in the US. As a result, pay hasn’t kept pace with worker productivity, and income distribution has become more unequal over time. It’s really not hard to see this influence when you plot these trends against each other.
It’s quite clear that lower union membership has resulted in lower inflation-adjusted compensation for workers, even as productivity has skyrocketed. As workers have produced more and more value for their companies, those earnings have gone more and more to their bosses rather than to the workers who produce that value. It all began in the ’80s, around the time of Reagan – a timeline that should be familiar to those who study social ills in America.
All of this isn’t just true in the US but also internationally. If you look at other countries with high levels of labor organization, they tend to have more fair wealth distribution across the economy and more ability for workers to get their fair share.
We’re seeing this in Sweden right now, as Tesla workers are still striking for better conditions. Since Sweden has 90% collective bargaining coverage, it tends to have a happy and well-paid workforce, and it seems clear that these two things are correlated. That strike is still continuing, but Tesla CEO Elon Musk – who just fired 14,000 people while holding the company hostage and begging for a $55 billion payday for himself which he’s even spending Tesla ad money to pitch – is seemingly uninterested in negotiating.
These are all reasons why, as I’ve mentioned in many of these UAW-related articles, I’m pro-union. And I think everyone should be – it only makes sense that people should have their interests collectively represented and that people should be able to join together to support each other and exercise their power collectively instead of individually.
This is precisely what companies do with industry organizations, lobby organizations, chambers of commerce, and so on. And it’s what people do when sorting themselves into local, state, or national governments. So naturally, workers should do the same. It’s just fair.
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Criminals beware! The Chevy Blazer EV Police Pursuit Vehicle (PPV) is in the hands of the coppers, and it offers some serious torque and acceleration. We got the chance to not only get behind the wheel of this custom BEV for law enforcement but also ride along with some officers in a simulated chase. Check out the full video below.
As we awaited the arrival of the passenger version of Chevy’s all-electric Blazer EV, the American automaker teased an intimidating variant in the works, designed specifically for the boys in blue. We got our first look at renderings of the Chevy Blazer EV Police Pursuit Vehicle in the summer of 2022 as the first ‘pursuit-rated’ EV from Chevy ever made.
The customized BEV is based on the top-tier Chevy Blazer EV SS trim and was refit to meet specific Michigan State Police standards for hot pursuits of perps. By August 2023, Chevy shared video footage of an actual Blazer EV Police Pursuit Vehicle, complete with a police-certified speedometer, heavy-duty suspension, underbody skid plates, and 20-inch steel wheels (seen below).
Powered by a 400V dual-motor AWD system, the electric Blazer can produce up to 498 horsepower and 531 lb-ft of torque. At the time, Chevy shared that GM’s Ultium platform enables an optimized weight distribution and low center of gravity for dynamic driving.
This week, we got the chance to take the Blazer EV PPV for a spin, along with some time in the backseat (briefly) before riding shotgun for a speedy ride along.
Police just got a lot more sustainable with the Blazer EV
We recently traveled around the Detroit metropolitan area to test drive the upcoming Chevy Silverado RST and Equinox EVs. You’ll have to wait for those impressions later this month, but as a sweetener, Chevy surprised the media with a break in the drives to visit a local police academy and see the Blazer EV Police Pursuit Vehicles up close.
From afar and up close, the PPVs are sharp and intimidating. They can be appreciated as a unique step in sustainable law enforcement vehicles, as long as you’re a bystander and not the one being pursued.
The police-certified all-electric Blazers look like a standard police vehicle up front, with radios, a laptop, and “protection” (don’t worry, the guns in our EVs were rubber). The backseat was cold and uncomfortable (who knew?) but designed to keep both the rear passengers and police officers safe from one another.
There was not much to report back there except the decision to keep carbon fiber accents on the doors. I’m sure plenty of alleged criminals will say that’s a nice touch. The trunk leaves plenty of room for police equipment like riot gear, although I wasn’t allowed to try it on.
During our visit, I got to do some hot laps in the Blazer EV outside of the police academy, which you can see in the footage below. Afterward, I hopped in the front seat with an officer who took me on the same course at much higher speeds for a simulated chase. It was a blast.
Check out the full video of my experience with the Chevy Blazer EV Police Pursuit Vehicle below:
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Toshiba Electronics has launched a motor control driver IC that implements a gate driver and a CPU core together for driving three-phase brushless DC (BLDC) motors and permanent magnet synchronous motors (PMSM) more efficiently.
The TB9M003FG is the first device in Toshiba’s Smart Motor Control Driver (SmartMCD) family, designed for applications including electric pumps, fans, body control and thermal management systems in automotive. The device uses Toshiba’s advanced mixed-signal process technology, combining an Arm Cortex-M0 CPU with a vector engine co-processor and pre-drivers to control external B6 N-channel MOSFETs. For 30-1000 W BLDC motor systems, it is housed in an HTQFP48 thermal enhanced package measuring 9.0 × 9.0 mm. The device connects directly to the battery and local interconnect network (LIN) bus, has a vector engine co-processor to enable precise field-oriented control, and reduces the load on the CPU. The high-speed PWM frequency and advanced control algorithms reduce vibration and noise.
Features such as 1-shunt sensorless measurement, reduced component count and smaller program code size contribute to lower overall system costs. The operating temperature range of the AEC-Q100 (Grade 0) qualified device is -40° C to +150° C for harsh automotive environments. The SmartMCD incorporates current limiter, overcurrent, VBAT overvoltage, overtemperature protection circuitry and fault detection for undervoltage, external power MOSFET open/short failure and overheating.
The first model of NIO’s new low-cost Onvo brand, the L60 electric SUV, could lead to a sales surge, according to at least one analyst. Aimed at Tesla’s best-selling Model Y, the NIO Onvo L60 could boost sales to over 20,000 per month as an even more affordable ($30K) option.
NIO’s new $30K Onvo L60 could lead to a sales surge
After launching the first EV under its new mass-market Onvo brand this week, starting at $30,500 (219,900 yuan), NIO’s new electric SUV is already attracting analysts’ attention.
In a statement sent to investors overnight, Deutsche Bank (via CnEVPost) analyst Wang Bin’s team said: “Onvo L60 SUV will officially start delivery in Sep. 2024, and the company is targeting Onvo L60 monthly delivery volume of ~10,000 units.”
However, the analyst agreed NIO’s previous target of 20,000 deliveries per month is doable. “Thus we think Nio’s expectation of monthly >20,000 unit delivery is achievable with boost from Onvo.”
At 4,828 mm long, 1,930 mm wide, and 1,616 mm tall, the Onvo L60 will directly rival the Model Y (4,750 mm long X 1,921 mm wide X 1,624 mm tall).
NIO CEO William Li presents the Onvo L60 electric SUV (Source: NIO)
A true Tesla Y rival?
Starting at $30,500 (219,900 yuan), NIO’s new electric SUV undercuts the Tesla Model Y in China. Tesla’s base RWD Model Y starts at $34,500 (249,900 yuan) with up to 554 km (344 mi) CLTC range.
NIO Onvo L60 vs Tesla Model Y trims
Range (CLTC)
Starting Price
NIO Onvo L60 (60 kWh)
555 km (341 mi)
219,900 yuan ($30,500)
NIO Onvo L60 (90 kWh)
730 km (454 mi)
TBD
NIO Onvo L60 (150 kWh)
+1,000 km (+621 mi)
TBD
Tesla Model Y RWD
554 km (344 mi)
249,900 yuan ($34,600)
Tesla Model Y AWD Long Range
688 km (427 mi)
290,900 yuan ($40,300)
Tesla Model Y AWD Performance
615 km (382 mi)
354,900 yuan ($49,100)
NIO Onvo L60 vs Tesla Model Y
The new NIO Onvo L60 gets over 1,000 km (+621 mi) CLTC range with the top-of-the-line 150 kWh version. However, the base L60, starting at $30,500 (60 kWh battery), gets up to 555 km (341 mi) range.
Tesla’s Long Range AWD Model Y starts at $40,300 (290,900 yuan) with up to 688 km (427 mi) range, while the AWD Performance model costs $49,100 (354,900 yuan).
NIO Onvo L60 electric SUV (Source: NIO)
NIO says its new electric SUV has better energy consumption than the Tesla Model Y (12.1 kWh/100km vs. 12.5 kWh/100km) under the same CLTC conditions.
Bin’s team expects NIO to launch six new vehicles next year, generating 300,000 in sales. That would be 25,000 unit sales per month, including NIO’s new Onvo brand.
NIO Onvo L60 electric SUV (Source: NIO)
New EVs to accelerate growth
NIO CEO William Li and Alan Ai, president of Onvo, revealed the brand’s second model will be a larger (six or seven-seater) electric SUV. According to CarNewsChina, the second Onvo EV is expected to launch in 2025.
In addition to the two new Onvo EVs, Bin’s team expects four new NIO brand models to roll out next year: the ET9 Sedan, ES8 SUV, and ES7 SUV, all based on its new NT 2.0 platform.
NIO Onvo L60 electric SUV (Source: NIO)
“As a result, we forecast Nio’s total 2025 sales volume to increase 62% YoY to 300,000 units,” the note read. The breakdown includes 200,000 NIO brand models and another 100,000 in Onvo sales.
NIO delivered 15,620 vehicles last month, up 135% YOY, with the EC6 (+53%), ES6 (+48%), and ET5 (+52%) all seeing double-digit month-over-month gains.
NIO management told the media this morning that the the development of Onvo’s second EV is almost complete and deliveries will begin next year.
NIO EC6 (Source: NIO)
“If the product is done right, a single model could sell enough, as Tesla BYD has proven,” Li said. BYD recently launched its own Model Y competitor, the Sea Lion 07, starting at 189,800 ($26,250), undercutting both rival EVs (Check out BYD’s Sea Lion 07 here).
What do you you think? Can NIO’s new Onvo brand match Tesla’s or BYD’s sales? Drop us a comment below to let us know your thoughts.
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