This Week in EV: Wrong Side Drive
Tom Clarke
Strategy & Product Leader | EV Product Manager at Parkopedia | Founder, This Week in EV | Advisory Board Member | MBA, CMgr FCMI
After a little holiday This Week in EV is back and first up are a few Tesla updates. Whilst there’s been quite a few the last couple of weeks Elon meeting with French President Emanuel Macron is quite interesting. I’ve written about the need for a robust industrial policy and those countries that are incentivising EV manufacturing are reaping the benefits right now (Canada and US). Following the meeting Elon has said that Tesla will make a significant investment in France and I’ll bet that Macron has offered some very compelling incentives for that investment. If the UK government doesn’t wake up soon they’ll be no EV manufacturing in the UK.
Re-enforcing this is Stellantis who are the parent company of Vauxhall, Citroen, Peugeot and Fiat. The company employs 5000 people in the UK and in a submission to the commons that it won’t be able to keep its commitment to make electric vehicles in the UK without changes to the Brexit deal. Whilst this is more trade deal specific rather than industrial policy it’s another example of the UK government not prioritising EV manufacturing for UK Plc.
Back on Tesla and in one of the weirder decisions I’ve seen an OEM make the company have decided to start selling the Model S and X again in the UK (and other right hand drive markets) but only as a left-hand drive version. Considering demand is obviously softening for the S and X given the immediate delivery and incentives like three years of unlimited supercharging this seems like an odd move. Whilst moving the steering wheel in a production line isn’t the easiest thing it is easier in EV production than ICE production and this move effectively kills off the Model S and X in all right hand driver markets.
One of the biggest myths that still does the round with EV’s is the risk of them catching fire. Well data from the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency has shown that EV’s are 20 times less (that’s right less) likely to catch fire than an ICE car. Just 23 EV fires were reported in Sweden in 2022 and with 611,000 EV’s on the road that means just 0.004% caught fire. Over the same period ICE vehicles suffered 3,400 fires which represents 0.08% of ICE vehicles on Sweden’s roads
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It's always good to see more charging infrastructure going into the ground and Osprey have added a new ultra rapid hub near the M25. The new charging hub will have 6 180kW chargers just 5 minutes from the M25. It's great to see more ultra hubs going in near the motorways.
P.S. I’m at Fully Charged Live North today (Friday 19th May) so if you’re also attending please say hello!
Co-Founder at Recharge Rescue
1 年Very interesting edition, particularly the piece on Stellantis, and the threat to UK car production. The EU also has a problem with lack of battery production, lets hope the government can sign a deal with Tata to go ahead with a gigafactory here in the UK