Happy New Year! Wishing you a year full of good health and adventure. This is the year we have been promised several exciting new EV offerings and anticipate many new announcements. This week's Roundup will highlight many of those vehicles!
Southern Alliance for Clean Energy is Hiring for an EV Advocate
SACE is seeking a leader to drive SACE's advocacy on electric vehicle infrastructure policy in the Southeast. View job posting here and please share among your networks.
Electric Vehicles
The number of electric vehicle models continues to grow as do EV sales. Green Car Reports highlights the list of EVs that have just been released or are coming soon. Car manufacturers are bringing more choices than ever to 2019. This wider range of offerings is noted in the following article.
Up to this point, EV offerings have been premium-priced and long-range or affordable and shorter-range. Consumer Reports shares how the ‘Goldilocks’ EVs (longer range and lower-priced) are on the way.
These three longer-range, lower-price EVs are similar in range and power, making availability of the Kona a major factor in the purchasing decision for drivers in the Southeast.
Electric vehicle startup Byton revealed their M-Byte prototype last year at the technology trade show CES 2018 and gave an update at CES 19 this week: with over 100 prototypes made, they will begin production this year.
Offering their own charging network, 4-wheel drive with independent traction motors at each wheel, a 20K pound towing capacity and funky, non-rear-view mirrors this truck will surely convert some truck drivers to an EV. However, another contributor at Inside EVs thinks the Atlis is "too good to be true". Check out this counter-point article Rivian R1T Is A Real Electric Pickup Truck, But Atlis XT Is Not.
Infrastructure
The Korean battery maker already wants to up the ante for their planned gigafactory near Atlanta, GA. Just last month, SK Innovation announced a $1.67 billion investment to build the factory but already feel they need more capacity. The move may be based on increased demand from their customers-Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai-Kia Motors, and Daimler.
The Shanghai factory-set to be completed by summer 2019-will focus on producing the Model 3 for the Chinese market only. Tesla is reluctant to say when they will be at full production capacity but eventually plan on turning out 500,000 EVs a year!
The partnership will aggregate data from the third-party charging networks and share it on the mobile app for Chevy Bolt EV owners and is intended to make the charging experience easier.
Finally, we wanted to share this fun infographic from The Zebra that makes understanding the EV technology easier.
