⚡ Friday Companies: The global EV sitrep of April 2020
Since we haven't for a while, let's take a look at the EV numbers in April and year-to-date.
The registrations of electric vehicles globally (as usual, we don't count hybrids here) have increased 235% to 251,000 units in April. According to EV-sales (link), this is the top 5:
- 29,251 Wuling HongGuang Mini EV (126k YTD)
- 16,232 Tesla Model Y (72k YTD)
- 14,980 Tesla Model 3 (142k YTD)
- 10,318 VW ID.4 (18k YTD)
- 5,941 VW ID.3 (18k YTD)
Just for fun, I dug up what was the sitrep same time last year:
- 11,761 Tesla Model 3 (86k YTD)
- 5,096 BYD Qin Pro EV (13k YTD)
- 3,836 VW e-Golf (15k YTD)
- 3,586 GAC Aion S (11k YTD)
- 2,118 Renault Zoe (23k YTD)
Of course, last year's results might have been distorted by the you-know-what, but the picture is quite different, isn't it?
We live in turbulent times.
Meanwhile:
‣ Hyundai will use the 135 kW integrated drive module (iDM) from BorgWarner in its small EVs from mid-2023 (link).
‣ Is Tesla the only automaker that knows everything about your car? When removing the lumbar feature in front passenger seat of Model 3 and Y, he claims its "not worth cost/mass for everyone when almost never used" (tweet). I kind of love that they have the log for the usage. I'd assume most automakers are just guessing.
Related: Tesla released an update for Model 3 and Y, activating its in-car camera to 'detect and alert driver inattentiveness while Autopilot is engaged'. The data will remain in a closed system unless the data sharing in the car is enabled (tweet).
Couldn't-wait-till-Wednesday $TSLA tidbit: the stock was down 5.33% yesterday, most likely due to an article of The Information, claiming Tesla's orders in May fell by nearly half compared to April (link). Perspective: our stock tracker (link) says TSLA is down 36.4% from it's 52-week high, while the average EV maker is down 57.09%.
‣ ABB announced it will electrify its fleet of 10k vehicles by 2030 (link). ‣ Italian postal services ordered 1,744 Opel Corsa-e's (link) *does quick math.... that's about $50M worth?*
‣ Nissan COO Ashwani Gupta sees the Euro 7 regulations that will be introduced around 2025 influencing its EV plan (link):
For us, the cost of developing Euro 7 is more than developing EVs, and as a result, the tipping point in Europe will come sooner [than 2030]. Maybe we don’t wait until 2030 because customers go for 100% electrification in Europe by 2026. Our job is to bring a competitive electric car in terms of cost and performance to the customer, and then the customer will decide.
‣ About half of the Hyundai Motor Group (Hyundai, Kia, Genesis) models might be under question now, as the group plans to free up resources for investments in electric cars - per sources to Reuters (link).
‣ Ford challenges Britain's smallest town with 380 inhabitants, suitably called Fordwich, to go electric after research shows rural and small towns don't really want to. (link)
