Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

shinytop

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61919581

Not exactly cheerleading I'm afraid but it's one of the top BBC news stories.  What were Nio thinking??

Coastalwatch

No doubt still a long way to go before the necessary minerals are mined here in usable quantities but another step along the way to future UK sourced battery manufacture, be it for BEV's, Storage or anything in between.

The extracts below are taken from an investors report received by email this morning and I thought worth passing on. Apologies for not being able to supply a link to the report in it's entirety but if anyone should be interested enough to view their website it can be found here. https://cornishlithium.com/

TechMet exercises its option to invest a further £9 million in Cornish Lithium following its review of the Trelavour Scoping Study

Jeremy Wrathall, CEO and Founder of Cornish Lithium, said:

“We are delighted that TechMet has elected to exercise its Option following its detailed review of our Scoping Study, as this demonstrates the robustness of the Trelavour Project. The project team has undertaken a significant amount of work to ensure that this is a fulsome and detailed study, and I am delighted that it has generated such a strong result. The Trelavour Project provides a significant opportunity to create additional skilled jobs in the St Austell region and to develop lithium on a commercial scale to service the UK’s growing battery industry. We are looking forward to completing the additional processing test work and demonstrating the full potential of the project once the scope of the by-products has been incorporated within the economic model.

Brian Menell, CEO and Chairman of TechMet, commented:

“After a full review of the Scoping Study, TechMet is extremely pleased to be continuing its support for Cornish Lithium as it progresses to the next stage.  This represents the first detailed engineering study to demonstrate, with conservative modelling, the economic viability of primary lithium production in the UK. 
 
“TechMet continues to be impressed not only with the high calibre work from the Cornish Lithium team, which has resulted in the successful completion of the study, but also by the way in which the work has been carried out to include all stakeholders within Cornwall.

“The UK is now one step closer to ensuring a domestic source of lithium to supply its future battery and automotive industries.”

Grumpy_chap

Well, here is some BEV news.
I know this is news as it is on the BBC news site and I know it is BEV news as the click link for the story starts "electric car" in the headline.

It is a tragic event and one that should not have happened, but I also suspect that had this just been a "car" or anything else that had fallen, then the event would not have reached the international news pages, certainly not the landing page of the BBC news website.  I am unclear as to why the fact it was an "electric car" really makes it more newsworthy - it really looks to me more like a matter concerning building regulations.  In fact, whether it was an "electric car" or not seems largely irrelevant to the whole story.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61919581

All was not wasted though as the original news article has an "also interesting" link to an article about EVs with swappable batteries rather than needing charging.  I was not aware that was a practical possibility (as a regular activity), so always learning.  FWIW, I am not sure I'd be comfortable with the swappable battery over charging own battery but I don't yet have an EV so that type of semantics is premature.

Martyn1981

Hiya Grumpy, I wonder how long before electric cars, just get lumped with all cars, but you've reminded me of multiple layers of news.

So, going back a year or more, someone noticed that news items often said 'Tesla / Tesla car' not 'car' in fire, or crash, even news of a pedestrian hit and run (UK I think) 'hit by a Tesla'. They did some research to see if the numbers stacked up with others, such as Toyota and VW (as larger/largest manufacturers), but found very few articles headlined with a car make, and only sometimes mentioning the car make/model in the article. So the new kid on the block gets named.


And now very recently, NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) reported on crashes when driver assists are in use, which showed higher numbers for Tesla, and much was made by some main US news. 

TBF to NHTSA they stressed that no conclusions could be drawn as there was no baseline to compare. This article from CNBC is actually quite fair, but you still get to see those headlines first.

U.S. safety agency says Tesla accounts for most driver-assist crashes, but warns data lacks context

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said the first-of-its-kind data doesn’t yet have proper context and is only meant to be a guide to quickly identify potential defect trends and help determine whether the systems are improving the safety of vehicles.

“I would advise caution before attempting to draw conclusions based only on the data that we’re releasing. In fact, the data alone may raise more questions than they answer,” NHTSA Administrator Steven Cliff said during a media event.

The data does not take into context factors such as the number of vehicles automakers have made, the number of vehicles they have on the road or the distances traveled by those vehicles. When and how much data companies provided also varies, meaning much of it is incomplete.

But, moving on to the next layer - without comparisons to accidents without assists, all we see is 'ACCIDENTS' with assists. A bit like only reporting crashes involving blue cars. Or perhaps the number of cars that are involved in accidents shortly after a full service, and new tyres. So psychologically, without context, suggests they are more dangerous than poorly maintained vehicles (especially if they are blue ;-) ).


[Obviously in these examples, Tesla is mentioned, but as EV's grow, I'm sure the same will apply to other EVs.]

Grumpy_chap

But surely, an issue arising with a driver assist system has nothing to do with it being an EV?

It might have to do with one specific manufacturer versus another (but likely the same core components are used, pretty much ruling out that type of variance).

There was actually a thread recently (I am not sure whether higher up this thread or on the motoring board) where a couple of posters had said they'd never have a hybrid / EV because they drove one once and did not like the lane-keep-assist, cruise control, attention-assist, etc.  The individuals are quite entitled to not like those features, but the link to hold that against the drive-train being hybrid / EV is entirely tenuous.

gefnew

So some ones test of a bev and running down the battery to 0%
Real-life review: What happens when you run out of battery in an electric car? | Leasing.com

orrery

Martyn1981 said:
[Obviously in these examples, Tesla is mentioned, but as EV's grow, I'm sure the same will apply to other EVs.]

Similarly, we had the "EVs are not as reliable as ICE stories" and Teslas dominate the EV figures but seem to have poor reliability, thus distorting the numbers. I haven't seen the detail, but someone claimed that the failures didn't relate to EV features anyway.

It is tricky to know what to believe from summaries.

ABrass

Toyota has been forced to recall 2,700 of its first electric vehicles because of concerns the wheels could fall off

For crying out loud Toyota.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jun/24/toyota-recalls-its-first-electric-car-amid-fears-the-wheels-could-fall-off

Martyn1981

orrery said:

Martyn1981 said:
[Obviously in these examples, Tesla is mentioned, but as EV's grow, I'm sure the same will apply to other EVs.]

Similarly, we had the "EVs are not as reliable as ICE stories" and Teslas dominate the EV figures but seem to have poor reliability, thus distorting the numbers. I haven't seen the detail, but someone claimed that the failures didn't relate to EV features anyway.

It is tricky to know what to believe from summaries.

Yep, and there's also the learning curve issue with any new technology/product. I suspect early Ford Model T's had an issue or three.

VW had to stockpile ID3's for about 6 months, delaying launch deliveries, whilst they tried to sort out software issues, and now Ford is recalling the Mustang Mach E, and ceasing deliveries as a major contactor can fail preventing power, or weld itself closed, so the car can't be turned off. Both of those items, whilst newsworthy, appear to me to look like learning curve issues as VW grows its software team, and Ford realises they may need to pay for the next size up switch as pulling hundreds of KW at full power is not to be sniffed at.

Solarchaser

To go against that general trend. 
I travel often and so hire various cars from various makes, and lots these days have "lane assist" but none ive found even nearly as intrusive, annoying and even sometimes dangerous as the tesla.

I have all that switched off as its annoying, but it turned itself back on with a recent update.
Annoying bee bee beeps when it reads road markings wrong took a darker turn last week when on a dual carriage way with no markings, it picked up a skid mark on the road, assumed it was a line and yanked the steering wheel to the left, somewhat closer than I would like to a car I was overtaking. 
Mr. Musk had some swear words aimed at him I'll tell you that for nothing.

It's only happened like that once in over a year of driving, but it was enough to make me ensure all that stuff was turned back off.