On this week’s show : Renault's tiny Twizy
goes to Canada, How CHAdeMo could one day
power your home, and Tesla shareholders ask
the Californian automaker to go Vegan.
These stories and more, coming up next on
TEN.
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to today?
Either click on the little information bar
at the top of this video on selected stories,
or head to our website at www dot transport
evolved dot com, where you’ll find the latest
future car news as well as our buying guides,
tech primers and of course, our weekly show
notes.
It’s Friday, June 12th, 2015. I’m Nikki
Gordon-Bloomfield, and I’m wondering just
how fun it would be to drive a Renault Twizy
in minus 40 degree weather.
When it reaches completion next year, the
Tesla gigafactory in Reno, Nevada will be
the biggest lithium-ion manufacturing and
reprocessing facility in the world, employing
some six thousand five hundred workers, and
outputting more than fifty gigawatt-hours
of lithium-ion battery packs per year.
As such, it’s hard to grasp how big the
gigafactory construction site truly is, especially
if like us, you haven’t been there.
A few weeks ago, we got our first real sense
of scale thanks to an excellent super-high
resolution 4k video filmed from a drone flying
over the facility one weekend, and this week,
a second 4k video popped online from another
cameraman keen to show us the entire site
from the air.
With permission from Tesla to film, this pilot
actually took off from the Gigafctory parking
lot, next to a Tesla Supercharger we didn’t
even know existed there. It’s another gorgeous
video, despite being filmed several months
ago, so make sure you watch it when you’re
done with us.
With plenty of room for luggage and an all-electric
range in the real world of between sixty and
80 miles, depending on how you drive, the
Nissan e-NV200 electric van was a versatile
and welcome addition to Nissan’s electric
car fleet when it entered production last
year.
And at this year’s Geneva Motor Show, Nissan
made lots of minivan fans happy when it announced
that the e-NV200 -- which originally launched
with 5-seat and cargo van variants -- would
go on sale this summer as a 7-seat minivan
too.
This week, Nissan GB set the price for UK
buyers for the seven-seat e-NV200, as well
as introducing the up-market Evalia trim line
for the first time in the UK.
With less van and more car-like trim, the
Evalia variant of the e-NV200 is ideal for
anyone with lots of stuff -- or kids -- to
transport, and will be available from £23,400
with battery rental for the five-seat, or
£27,225 with battery rental for the 7-seat
variation.
We don’t have time to detail all the options
here, but head to our website for more info.
We’re heading back to Reno, Nevada for this
story via Japan, courtessy of Panasonic, Tesla’s
partner in the $6 billion gigafactory project.
As we reported this week, Panasonic has just
announced its intention to send hundreds of
its workers to Reno in the coming months to
help Tesla finish construction of the Gigafactory
and ready it for lithium-ion cell production,
something that might seem a little complicated
and perhaps even counter-intutative.
But as we found out on our recent trip to
the Nissan battery facility in Sunderland,
UK, the reason Panasonic is sending its own
highly-trained staff all the way to the U.S.
is to help Tesla ensure its Gigafactory facility
adheres to all the strict clean-room procedures
which must be undertaken before a building
can produce lithium-ion cells.
Like a NASA facility or a microelectronics
plant, Tesla’s Gigafactory will need to
be free from any contaminants before a single
cell is produced, so we suspect Panasonic’s
experts will be on hand to ensure that not
a single spec of dust goes where it shouldn’t.
And while it might seem like that’s easy,
having talked to Nissan staff, I can tell
you that’s really, really hard. And yes,
decontamination is seriously expensive.
Here at Transport Evolved, we’ve had the
joy of spending some time behind the wheel
of the all-new Volkswagen GTE. It’s a plug
in hybrid that combines sporty performance
of a 75 kilowatt-motor and 1.4-litre turbocharged
4-cylinder engine with 30-miles of zero emissions
capabilities and Volkswagen’s legendary
Golf family name.
But for those in the U.S., the closest you’re
going to get to the GTE for now is the upcoming
Audi A3 e-tron sportback hatch. Based on the
same chassis and drivetrain as the Golf GTE
-- it’s essentially an up-market Golf -- the
A3 e-tron Sportback has been promised to the
U.S. now for more than a year. But despite
that -- and it already being on sale in Europe,
it hasn’t made the trip over the Atlantic
ocean just yet.
Thankfully, that wait may be over, says AutoSpies,
which obtained information earlier this week
to suggest that Audi will launch the plug-in
hybrid this fall, with dealerships due to
take their first cars just before Halloween.
Audi hasn’t confirmed the release date,
or the launch price, but if you're on the
lookout for a fun compact hatchback plug-in
hybrid and you like your Vorsprung Durch Technik,
we think you’ll want to note the date in
your diary.
It’s the oldest and most popular electric
car rapid charging standard in the world,
despite attempts from both German and American
automakers to convince the world that CCS
is the way forward -- and now CHAdeMO has
a plan to offer more than just electric car
charging in the near future.
As we reported on Tuesday, the CHAdeMO association
-- which obviously defines what is and isn’t
part of the CHAdeMO standard -- is on a drive
to encourage utility companies and electronics
firms to adopt the CHAdeMO standard for domestic
charging stations for electric cars, using
it to enable two-way power transfer to and
from electric car battery packs.
It’s something that’s already happening
in Japan, thanks to Nissan and various other
similar Vehicle-to-Home systems designed to
help electric car owners run their homes off
the energy stored in their car’s battery
pack in an emergency. Even hydrogen fuel cell
cars from automakers like Toyota and Honda
include the standard for the same reason.
To that end, the CHAdeMO association says
it’s hoping to tie down vehicle-to-grid
operatability in its official standard moving
forward, so that its charge standard can become
a power transfer standard for more than just
filling up your battery pack quicker than
it takes to have a cup of tea. Jolly good.
They offer a glimpse of things to come in
the near future, but to date, only four states
in the U.S. allow autonomous vehicles to travel
on their roads alongside everyday traffic:
California, Florida, Michigan and Nevada.
That’s partly due to the complex process
of ensuring cars are both safe and correctly
insured for use on the public highway, but
as we explained this week, autonomous vehicles
are about to be let loose on some of the most
congested roads in the United States, specifically
70 miles of roads in the northeastern most
portion of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
A pilot project being overseen by the Virginia
Tech Transportation Institute, the 70-miles
of highways will be opened up to approved
autonomous cars to investigate and research
how they can interact with other road users
in the real world. Those roads happen to include
I-95, I-66 and I-495 -- the latter of which
is of course the Capital Beltway around Washington
DC, known for its horrendous congestion as
thousands of Americans head into the capitol
every day
We’re going to be watching this one carefully,
because from what we hear, autonomous cars
are a little on the timid side, and that’s
something you can’t say of the drivers on
the 495. Good luck, little buddies.
I know it’s the third Tesla story this week,
but hey, there’s been a LOT of Tesla news,
and we’ve thrown out four other stories
to get these three in.
Anyway. This week, Tesla had its annual Shareholder
Meeting at the Computer Museum in Mountain
View, California. As usual, shareholders were
given the chance to submit proposals ahead
of the event for a democratic vote, and this
year’s two proposals essentially boiled
down to the same thing: namely that Tesla
should stop using real animal products in
its range of electric cars.
Enter husband and wife team Mark and Elizabeth
Peters from Hurst, Texas, who implored fellow
Tesla shareholders and the Tesla board to
stop using leather in their cars and instead
use synthetic leather substitutes.
While Mark gave the environmental case for
dumping leather -- namely the massive carbon
emissions from animal farming -- his wife
gave the ethical argument, sharing her opinion
that killing animals for food and their skin
is morally wrong. While the Tesla Board recommended
voting against the measure, we’ll have to
wait a few more days to see if the rest of
Tesla’s shareholders voted with or against
the board.
And finally, if you’ve spent any length
of time watching this show, you’ll know
that the tiny Renault Twizy is a car we hold
a lot of affection for. Despite being smaller
than a smart ForTwo with no heater, no windows
and no doors in some cases, the tiny Twizy
is a pocket rocket with a top speed of 50
miles per hour and the kind of go-kart handling
that is frankly, addictive.
And we’re not alone either, with some of
its fans including the legendary Sir Stirling
Moss.
Well this week, we found out that if you live
in Canada, you’ll soon be able to buy one,
courtesy of the Azra charging network. As
we explained on Thursday, the French-Canadian
company has just become the official Renault
Twizy importer and once all the necessary
paperwork has been completed, will be offering
the TWizy for sale across Canada to anyone
who wants one.
The price? Seventeen thousand canadian dollars,
which we assume includes battery ownership
too. There’s no plans to introduce the tiny
car south of the border yet, but we wouldn’t
be surprised if some head south. After all,
you’ve got to be seriously hard-core to
own a car with no heater in Canada in the
winter, right? And I’m saying that as someone
who is half canuck.
Another week of cool stories done. At least
ones we had B-roll footage for.
We’ll be back next week at the usual time
for another show, but in the meantime, you
can find all the other news that’s fit to
print on our website at www dot transport
evolved dot com, chat to us on twitter at
transport evolve, or head to our YouTube channel
to catch up with our latest shows.
As always, there’s a lot we haven’t managed
to fit into today’s show, including the
new diesel-electric hybrid trucks going into
service in Sweden that use overhead power
lines for Zero-emissions travel, Elon Musk’s’
hyperloop is about to become reality on a
five-mile track in California, the Mercedes-Benz
E-Class gets autonomous drive capability from
March next year, and Tesla promises the Model
X will be a better SUV than the Model S is
a sedan.
So when we’re done, be sure to head to our
site to read them all.
Thanks for watching, I’m Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield,
have a great week, and until next time, keep
evolving!
