Stop us if you’ve heard this one before, but a North American automaker is about to temporarily reduce its manufacturing output due to the ongoing global chip shortage. A Ford spokesperson told Reuters on Friday the automaker would cut or suspend production at eight of its factories across the US, Mexico and Canada. The shutdown will start on February 7th. Among other facilities, the decision will affect the Kansas City plant where Ford produces the F-150, one of its most popular and profitable vehicles.
This isn’t the first time Ford has felt the chip crunch, nor has it been the only automaker affected by the situation. Last September, General Motors temporarily suspended production at all but four of its North American factories amid component shortages. At the start of the year, the US Commerce Department warned semiconductor-related supply constraints would last until at least the second of half of 2022. “We aren’t even close to being out of the woods,” Department Secretary Gina Raimondo said at the time.
Companies like Ford have taken action to address the problem. In November, the company announced a strategic partnership with GlobalFoundries to boost US semiconductor production, but the automaker likely won’t benefit from that arrangement for a while. In the meantime, Ford told Reuters it expects its production volume to “improve significantly” in the second half of the year.
“Financial performance is obviously critical,” President and CEO Jim Farley said in a release Thursday. “We’re also proud that customers see how Ford is taking EVs mainstream, and have already ordered or reserved more than 275,000 all-electric Mustang Mach-E SUVs, F-150 Lightning pickups and E-Transit commercial vehicles – and we’re breaking constraints to deliver every one of them as fast as we can.”
In fact, the company reports that sales of its EVs in January "grew almost 4 times faster than the overall electrified segment" (13,169 units in total), making Ford the current number 2 retailer of electric vehicles in the country behind Tesla (and the country’s top-selling automaker overall), prompting a promise from Farley to double the company's global production capacity for EVs "to at least 600,000 by 2023." He expects EVs to "represent at least 40 percent of its product mix by 2030."
In all, Ford saw revenue of $37.7 billion, a net income of $12.3 billion and $2 billion in EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) in Q4 2021. The company sold 6,513 Mavericks in January alone — with 3,549 of these sold as hybrids — along with 2,370 Mach-Es, 27 percent of which were of the GT variety. Ford also saw strong interest in its new Transit line of commercial EVs with more than 300 American businesses placing orders for 10,000 vehicles. And, while not wholly electrified, Ford did point out that its pickup lines — the F-150, Ranger, and Maverick — with combined sales of 62,293, outsold GM’s pickups in January.
Starting today, owners of non-Tesla electric vehicles can juice up their batteries at select Superchargers in France and Norway. Drivers can find eligible locations in the Tesla app. Based on screenshots Tesla shared, there are 20 such sites in France and 15 in Norway.
Tesla started opening up broader access to its Supercharger network in November. It initially allowed drivers of non-Tesla EVs to charge their car at 10 stations in the Netherlands. The pilot is open to EV drivers who live in the Netherlands, France, Norway, Germany and Belgium.
Only CCS-enabled vehicles are supported for now. Tesla owners will still be able to charge at Supercharger stations as normal, though drivers of other EVs will need to pay some additional fees to "support charging a broad range of vehicles and adjustments to our sites to accommodate these vehicles."
The company said it will keep an eye on possible congestion at each site. Future expansion of the pilot will depend on capacity, though Tesla said that "more customers using the Supercharger network enables faster expansion." It aims to eventually open all of its sites to all EV owners. Tesla said it has long been its ambition to open Supercharger locations to non-Tesla EVs to boost the overall availability of charging locations and encourage more drivers to opt for an electric vehicle (while earning some more scratch, of course).
While #vanlife makes for great Instagram posts, the reality is that vans are one of the backbones of many businesses. One of the most popular models in that market is Ford’s Transit van. So when the automaker announced that it would electrify the vehicle and add new telematic software, businesses like Amazon and Walmart perked up.
We had a chance to drive the new electric E-Transit, and while this version won’t make it to customers, it does point to a future where the van-life crowd will be appeased. For now, it’s strictly a business-only affair and, from our time in the van, it’s ready to take on most of those work tasks. Check out the video above for the full story.
We got our first good look at the EV6 last March and, nearly a year later, finally got to sit in it, drive it, and push every button in the cabin last week during a day-long press event in Northern California. It’s the first Kia vehicle to be produced under the company’s new Plan S electrification strategy and is expected to be joined by nearly a dozen other new EV models by 2026 - with Kia noting that “All dedicated Kia EVs will begin with the ‘EV’ prefix, followed by a number that indicates the car’s size and position in the lineup, not its chronological place in the launch cadence.”
The EV6 will be made available in three trim levels: Light, Wind, and GT-Line. Technically there’s a fourth version, the First Edition, but the 1,500 units in that introductory lot sold out in something like 11 hours so your chances of catching one for sale at the local dealership are quite low.
Hyundai Motor Group
The EV6 Light is Kia’s introductory trim level, retailing for $40,900 and offering performance to match. Its 58 kWh nickel-cobalt-manganese battery powers a 168k W rear motor to produce 167 horsepower. That translates into an 8-second 0-60 with an electronically limited 115 MPH top speed and an EPA-rated range of 232-miles. In terms of efficiency, the Light will net you around 136 eMPG in the city (thanks, regenerative braking!) and 100 eMPG at freeway speeds. Like its better-appointed brethren, the Light employs MacPherson struts up front and a multi-link suspension in the rear.
Its drivetrain, unfortunately, can only handle a 400V charging architecture which lengthens the amount it takes to fully recharge it. It’s not terrible, mind you, with a full charge off a 50W DC fast charger taking just over an hour — and a cool 18 minutes if you’re lucky enough to snag a 350W station. At home, using a 240V / 48A connection (ie a home-charging box), you’re looking at just under 6 hours for a full charge but with a standard 110V / 12A socket (like what you plug your coffee maker into), that’s going to take days. Literally it’d have to sit on charge for more than a weekend — 51 hours and 5 minutes specifically, according to Kia’s numbers — to max out its battery capacity. You’re not going to see the same delays with either the Wind or GT’s on account of them using the same 800V-style drivetrains that we’re starting to see on higher-end EVs like GM’s Hummer EV, the Porsche Taycan, Audi’s E-Tron and even the Mach-E.
Hyundai Motor Group
What’s more, the Wind (starting at $47,000) and GT (starting at $51,200 and topping out at $55,900) both offer larger 77.4 kWh packs as well as the option of having both front and rear motors, enabling AWD. You’re looking at 310 miles of range with a 7.2 second 0-60 and 117 MPH top speed with the RWD iterations; 274 miles of range and 5.1 second 0-60 for the AWDs. The AWD notches 134 eMPG in cities and 101 eMPG on freeways, though the AWD’s efficiency takes a noticeable hit, 116 eMPG and 94 eMPG, respectively.
In terms of charging, the Wind and GT will require 73 minutes for a full charge on a 50W DC connection (and again, 18 minutes with a 350W port which provides roughly 217 miles of added range), about 7 hours on a 240V plug and a whopping 68 hours using 110V. They’ll also offer another first for Kia, V2L (vehicle to load) capabilities similar to the Ford F-150 Lightning meaning that you’ll be able to use the EV6 as a giant, rolling battery to power various accessories, 110V power tools and sundry household items in the event of a blackout.
Hyundai Motor Group
Aside from the trim levels and powertrain differences, the various EV6s are practically identical from the outside given the common E-GMP underpinnings. Each measures 114 inches at the wheelbase (same as the Telluride SUV) with an overall length of ~184 inches. The crossover is 74 inches wide and 60.8 inches tall. The EV6 may look like a svelte sports coupe from its promotional photos but in real life, this is one chonky boi — not quite as tall as the Mach-E but just as broad and sporting beefy 19-inch rims (dubs are optional on the GT). It really fills out a standard parking space, though Kia is offering a cool valet feature (optional on Wind, standard on the GT) with the EV6 that allows you to line up the vehicle with a parking space, get out of the car and then use the key fob to remotely back it into the spot.
The EV6 has a damn comfortable interior. Its cabin is disconcertingly quiet with the doors closed and windows up. There’s a total of 102 cubic feet of space inside the EV6, 24.4 of which is dedicated to storage in the rear cargo area (50.2 cubic feet if you fold the seats down). You’ve got plenty of head and leg space regardless of whether you’re sitting in the front or back, though you might need to slouch a bit to fit three sets of shoulders across the rear bench seat. On the plus side, there is no central drive shaft running under the cabin (thanks, e-motors!) so there’s no hump to endure if you’re sitting in the middle.
Hyundai Motor Group
Kia also sprinkled USB and USB-C ports throughout the front and rear seating areas so you won’t have to stretch very far to plug in. Heck there’s even a wireless charging pad on the front armrest (next to the engine start button and drive selector). My only bugaboo with the seating layout was a minor one: the front seats employ a rather elaborate headrest that tends to obscure the forward facing view for people in the rear of the vehicle and, conversely, block out a noticeable portion of the rearview mirror.
Blind spots are not really a worry, however, seeing how many cameras Kia managed to pack into the vehicle. For example, when you engage your turn signal, a live rear-facing video feed from the side mirror pops up on the driver’s instrument cluster so you don’t cut off bicyclists or merge into the path of a tractor-trailer. You’ve also got a slew of 21 different ADAS (driver assist) features including rearview cameras for parking, lane keeping assist, lane departure warnings, automatic high beams, and forward collision avoidance.
Hyundai Motor Group
I was especially impressed with the EV6’s level 2 highway autonomy driving feature, Highway Driving Assist 2. Just click the appropriate button on the steering wheel and the adaptive cruise control will automatically center the vehicle in the lane, maintaining its course and speed even through turns. There were a handful of times when the system and I (and the car in the next lane over) mildly disagreed when a turn in the road either began or finished but as long as I kept my hands on the wheel, minor course corrections were no big deal.
If anything, the reduced need to keep my eyes on the road allowed me sufficient time to figure out how to work the rather confusing central infotainment system. The EV6 comes equipped with a 12.3-inch color TFT touchscreen navigation display unit mounted into the center console. It offers AM/FM/Sirius radio running through a Meridian sound system, Bluetooth connectivity, a WiFi hotspot, and Android Auto/Apple Carplay — ugh, the phone has to to be physically tethered to enable Carplay/Auto? Really? This is what we’re doing in 2022?
Hyundai Motor Group
I’m a fan of the physical volume and temperature control knobs that Kia incorporated into the design, not so much a fan of the lower, secondary touchscreen which alternates between a quick selection bar for the media, navigation, and climate menus. The problem is that the button space that flips functionality between the menu select screen and the dedicated climate control menu is not well defined or really delineated in any meaningful way (I honestly thought it was the button for the hazard lights until a Kia PR rep showed me otherwise) so unless you either know what you’re specifically looking for or tap it at random, there’s no direct way to change the cabin temperature, adjust the fan speeds or activate the defogger — or, conversely, quickly access the navigation map or radio. And asking the onboard virtual assistant for help in doing so was like talking to an (even more) incompetent Siri; there was no amount of enunciation that could get this thing to understand the words that were coming out of my mouth.
Hyundai Motor Group
There was one feature that really stood out to me, easily redeeming the secondary touchscreen’s learning curve, and that was the AR display. It is absolutely brilliant. I gushed about Kia’s use of AR back in 2019 when I drove the Niro EV. That one seemed more a proof-of-concept with its little pop up screen mounted on the steering shaft. The EV6’s, instead, is a far more finished and polished product beamed directly onto the front windshield with startling clarity. The vehicle’s speed, the road’s speed limit, the status of various cruise control features, and upcoming turns all appear to be floating about a car length ahead of you. It’s a fantastic, streamlined alternative to the, in my opinion, overly busy layout of the driver’s cluster. The information can be a bit tricky to read when wearing sunglasses (especially the polarized variety) but other than that, the display is easily understandable regardless of how bright or dark it is outside and can be adjusted to account for the driver’s height and viewing preferences.
Of course all these technological bells and whistles would be rendered moot if it handled like the decrepit Elantra I usually drive. Thankfully, the EV6 does not. It isn’t as overtly aggressive as the Mach-E, nor is it quite as nimble through turns as the Polestar 2 — it certainly isn’t near as pretentious as the Model Y — and the EV6 doesn’t have to be. Kia, from what I gathered from the company’s pre-drive presentation, is positioning the EV6 to be a Gen Z family sedan, a Taurus SHO for millennials, and for that I applaud them. Cranking through hairpins on the 175 and opening up the throttle along quiet stretches of the 101 were fun and all but this car is not built for racing — it’s not going to suck the fillings out of your teeth when you floor the accelerator, you’re not going to be taking street bikes on the inside through turns in it. What the EV6 will do is help ferry your anklebiters to soccer practice before you run errands around town for the afternoon — maybe even take the family out glamping on the weekend — and do it in comfort, style and safety.
Ahead of being able to actually drive it, Ford offered us a chance to check out a prototype of the fleet version of the upcoming F-150 Lightning. While we don’t know what it’s like to be behind the wheel, we did have a chance to check out the truck, some of its features and experience the EV torque as it blasted up a hill.
The F-150 Lightning, whether it be for fleets or for customers, is a huge deal in the EV world. The F-Series truck has been the number one selling vehicle in the United States for three decades. Electrifying that sales juggernaut gives the automaker a leg up in the EV truck world since it has such a large established customer base. Check out the video above for the full story.
Following a profitable — and, ahem, notable — 2021, Tesla remains at the forefront of EV production in America as we enter the new year. With deliveries up nearly 90 percent over 2020’s figures, Tesla achieved “the highest quarterly operating margin among all volume OEMs,” during that time frame, according to the company’s Q4 figures released Wednesday The company not only hit $5.5 billion in net income despite a $6.5 billion outlay for new production facilities in Berlin and Austin, Texas, it also exceeded its own revenue goals by a cool billion dollars.
In Q4, 2021, Tesla produced 930,000 electric vehicles (99 percent of which were Xs and Ys) and delivered 936,000 of them to customers around the world. At the same time, the company expanded its proprietary Supercharger network by a third, now totalling 3,476 stations.
Despite widespread supply chain issues impacting the entire automotive industry, Tesla maintained its production capabilities better than virtually any other automaker. The Fremont factory churned out around 600,000 vehicles last year with plans to increase that figure even after the Austin and Berlin plants come online later this year. Production in the Shanghai plant continues to ramp up as well. According to Tesla, it has managed to lower the per unit cost of producing its vehicles to around $36,000 (and did so in both Q3 and Q4, 2021).
Tesla's Q4 investor call happens at 5:30pm ET today, stay tuned for live updates and comment from Tesla executives.
Ultium Cells, a joint venture between the companies, expects to create 1,700 manufacturing jobs at the plant, which is projected to open in late 2024. At full production, Ultium expects the factory to have a battery cell capacity of 50 gigawatt hours, and it will be able to adapt to advancements in materials and tech. Construction is underway on Ultium's other battery manufacturing sites in Tennessee and Ohio.
Ultium's cells can be stacked vertically or horizontally inside battery packs, which allows GM to customize the layout for each vehicle design. Energy options range between 50kWh and 200kWh. GM says Ultium system may deliver a range of 450 miles or more on a single charge and accelerate from zero to 60MPH in three seconds. The company is designing Ultium-powered EVs with fast charging in mind — most of them will have 400-volt battery packs and up to 200 kW fast charging. Electric trucks, meanwhile, will have 800-volt packs with 350kW charging.
The Ultium factory forms part of a new $7 billion investment by GM (the company's largest single outlay to date) in four Michigan sites. The automaker is spending $4 billion to convert a plant in Orion Township, which will become its second US manufacturing location for the Chevrolet Silverado EV and electric GMC Sierra.
Conversion work is underway, and GM expects to start making the electric trucks at the plant in 2024. It expects to retain around 1,000 current jobs and add more than 2,350. Production of the Chevrolet Bolt EV and EUV will continue during the transition. The company projects that it will convert half of its North American assembly capacity to EV production by 2030.
GM is aiming to make more than a million EVs in the US per year by the end of 2025, and today's investment announcement forms a key part of that. The company's also spending more than $510 million to increase production at two sites in the Lansing area, one of which is building the next-gen Chevrolet Traverse and Buick Enclave.
With more automakers including driver assistance systems in their cars, Consumer Reports is changing how it grades those vehicles. Starting this year, the outlet will add an additional two points to a car’s overall score if its included driver assistance system encourages safe driving. Moving forward, it will also deduct points from a vehicle’s total score if it finds the opposite is true, starting with two points in 2024 and then four points in 2026 and beyond.
“We believe it's time to recognize vehicles that have found a safer way to deploy this technology,” said Jake Fisher, senior director of the publication’s Auto Test Center. By its own estimation, Consumer Reports says an adequate driver monitoring system is one that will “reliably” detect when the driver has become inattentive and alert them to that fact. It adds the system should escalate those warnings and eventually stop the car if it finds they’re not responding.
Consumer Reports said it would also take into account an automaker’s privacy policy when evaluating a driver monitoring system, and may not award additional points in some instances. The outlet reasons strong privacy protections are essential to convince drivers to use the feature.
The outletwill put the new ranking guidelines into action when revealsits2022 Autos Top Pickson February 17th, but it gave an early preview of what to expect on Thursday, noting only cars from Ford and GM earned additional points for their driver assistance features. The outlet said BMW, Ford, GM, Tesla and Subaru all claim their systems can detect and prevent driver inattention, but notes it found some “serious flaws” in those systems through its testing.
Beyond mentioning the automaker, Consumer Reports didn’t call out Tesla specifically, but the two have an adversarial history. In 2020, Consumer Reports ranked Autopilot a “distant second” to GM’s Super Cruise. At the time, it said GM’s system was better at notifying drivers when it was about to disengage, and the automaker’s use of an infrared camera to monitor the driver led to a safer system overall.
Even Airstream is getting in on electric vehicles. According to Autoblog, the Thor brand has introduced a pair of EV concepts that include the eStream, a self-propelled camper. The dual-motor trailer not only reduces the burden on the towing vehicle, but can be remote-controlled from your phone to help you hitch up, reverse or simply move your camp site. You can even use the motors to shift the weight distribution, so you might not need a special hitch to handle certain trailer loads.
The other concept, the Thor Vision Vehicle, is a Ford Transit-based electric RV. The design is conventional, but Thor teased a "best in class" 300-mile range along with a digital cockpit that includes extensive tools to find chargers along your route.
There's no mention of whether or not the eStream or TVV will lead to ready-to-buy models, let alone timeframes for production. However, it's easy to see both reaching customers. Campers and other trailers significantly limit the range of any towing vehicle, and often demand extra power. While an electric camper like the eStream would have its own challenges (the weight and wear of its batteries, for instance), it could limit the overall impact on range and make towing an option for vehicles that would normally struggle.
