Electric Vehicles, Tools, & Other Once Fossil Fuel Things

[andydp]

I'm sure many of you have seen the memes about running out of power and going to get a "bucketful" of electricity.

My answer is: "I would call for a tow truck to the nearest charging point."

[LFC]

Just the thing for parents to give their kids this Xmas, assuming they have money to burn.

The entry point for Tesla's range of electric vehicles just got a lot lower. On Thursday, the American automaker announced the Cyberquad for Kids, an angular electric all-terrain vehicle inspired by the company's 2019 Cybertruck concept. At $1,900, the ATV costs a tiny fraction of the next-cheapest Tesla you can order online.

This isn't the first time we've seen an ATV from Tesla. When CEO Elon Musk debuted the polarizing pickup, he also showed off an ATV to go with it, albeit one that turned out to be a Yamaha Raptor with a powertrain swap. The Cyberquad for Kids is manufactured for the automaker by Radio Flyer.

As the name suggests, this ATV is a bit smaller. Although Tesla says it's suitable for anyone ages 8 or older, the Cyberquad for Kids can only accommodate riders of up to 150 lbs (68 kg), so adults might find it too diminutive.

For those that fit, Tesla says you can expect up to 15 miles (24 km) of range and a top speed of 10 mph (16 km/h), although it can optionally be limited to 5 mph (8 km/h).

[LFC]

Well this is good news for EV owners.

It took an act of Congress and $7.5 billion in federal funding, but more than 50 of the nation’s power companies are ready to build a coast-to-coast fast-charging network for electric vehicles.

The proposal so far is light on details. Members of the National Electric Highway Coalition say they serve nearly 120 million customers across 47 states and the District of Columbia. The coalition hasn’t said how many fast chargers it will be installing, but the companies said they would focus first on gaps in existing fast-charging networks along interstate highways.

The group is “committed to investing in and providing the charging infrastructure necessary to facilitate electric vehicle growth and to helping alleviate any remaining customer range anxiety,” said Tom Kuhn, president of the Edison Electric Institute, which helped build the coalition.

“By merging and expanding the existing efforts underway to build fast charging infrastructure along major travel corridors, we are building a foundational EV charging network that will help to encourage more customers to purchase an electric vehicle,” he said in a statement.

[Bact PhD]

A trade-off to consider when looking at energy storage. At what point do diminishing returns become a factor/the environmental equation no longer makes sense?

www.nbcnews.com/news/all/how-rise-electric-cars-endangers-last-frontier-philippines-n1285455

A nickel mine stretching nearly 4 square miles scars the forest above Bartolome’s farmland. The mine, Rio Tuba, plays a vital role in satisfying the global demand for a mineral more coveted than ever due in part to the explosion of the electric car industry.

The raw nickel dug out of the ground here ends up in the lithium batteries of plug-in vehicles manufactured by Tesla, Toyota and other automakers, according to an NBC News review of company filings and shipping records.

With the demand for nickel skyrocketing, the Rio Tuba mine is now on the brink of expanding deeper into the rainforest, adding almost 10 square miles to its current footprint. Local environmentalists fear that it will wipe out the forest’s fragile ecosystem and increase toxic runoff into the rivers that flow past the farmland down below, jeopardizing the crops.

[LFC]

Dec 3, 2021 19:53:45 GMT andydp said:

I'm sure many of you have seen the memes about running out of power and going to get a "bucketful" of electricity.

My answer is: "I would call for a tow truck to the nearest charging point."

I suspect there will be service vehicles carrying a battery meant for charging. They'd show up, "pump" in 50 miles, and you'd be good to get to the next charging station.

[LFC]

China is pushing into the EV market hard.

NIO shared more details of the ET5 through a press release coinciding with the reveal from Suzhou. According to the automaker, the ET5 was designed with autonomous driving in mind, starting with its silhouette based on the ET7 while integrating autonomous driving sensors into its body lines. The haunches were specifically designed to resemble NIO’s EP9 hypercar and add a muscular feel.

The ET5 will come with NIO Autonomous Driving (NAD), NIO Aquila Super Sensing, and NIO Adam Super Computing, allowing the new EV to gradually achieve safe autonomous driving in scenarios such as highways, urban areas, parking, and battery swaps. NIO stated its autonomous features will roll out gradually after validation and can be added as an RMB 680 (~$107) monthly subscription.

Now for the performance specs. NIO shared that the ET5 can accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h (0-62 mph) in 4.3 seconds. Its high-performance four-piston fixed calipers developed specifically by NIO offer a braking distance from 100 km/h to a complete stop in 33.9 meters (~111 ft).

The ET5’s drag coefficient is 0.24, and its CLTC range is 550+ km (342 mi) with the 75 kWh Standard Range Battery, 700 km (435 mi) with the 100 kWh Long Range Battery, and over 1,000 km (620 mi) with the 150 kWh Ultra-long Range Battery.

The interior of the ET5 will come with PanoCinema, a panoramic digital cockpit featuring AR and VR tech. NIO partnered with an AR device company called NREAL to jointly develop AR glasses exclusive to NIO, which can project a 201-inch screen at six meters for drivers. You’ll also notice an all-new 256-color curtain of ambient lighting and a Dolby Atmos 7.1.4 surround sound system.

The ET5 is priced at RMB 328,000 ($51,450) before subsidies, and RMB 258,000 ($40,468) with BaaS (Battery-as-a-Service). Deliveries are expected to begin in China in September 2022.

As we’ve previously reported, the ET7 will also enter the European market beginning with Norway and Germany, but NIO has now shared plans for further expansion overseas. The Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark will also see NIO EVs in 2022, and by 2025, NIO plans expand to over 25 countries and regions worldwide.

Meanwhile in the U.S. we have people fighting every attempt at helping the EV industry forward and MAGAts who are outright hostile to people with EVs because ... well who the f*** knows what motivates these morons.

[LFC]

If this study holds up it drives a stake in the heart of the biggest argument (biggest lie?) about the energy impact of EVs. They love to talk about the environmental and energy costs of manufacturing batteries but you really don't ever see comparisons to those same costs for an internal combustion engine.

With new major spending packages investing billions of dollars in electric vehicles in the U.S., some analysts have raised concerns over how green the electric vehicle industry actually is, focusing particularly on indirect emissions caused within the supply chains of the vehicle components and the fuels used to power electricity that charges the vehicles.

But a recent study from the Yale School of the Environment published in Nature Communications found that the total indirect emissions from electric vehicles pale in comparison to the indirect emissions from fossil fuel-powered vehicles. This is in addition to the direct emissions from combusting fossil fuels—either at the tailpipe for conventional vehicles or at the power plant smokestack for electricity generation—showing electric vehicles have a clear advantage emissions-wise over conventional vehicles.

"The surprising element was how much lower the emissions of electric vehicles were," says postdoctoral associate Stephanie Weber. "The supply chain for combustion vehicles is just so dirty that electric vehicles can't surpass them, even when you factor in indirect emissions."

Weber was part of the study led by Paul Wolfram '21 Ph.D.—now a postdoc with the Joint Global Change Research Institute at the University of Maryland—and that included YSE economics professor Ken Gillingham and Edgar Hertwich, an industrial ecologist from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and a former YSE faculty member. The research team combined concepts from energy economics and industrial ecology—carbon pricing, life cycle assessment, and modeling energy systems—to find if carbon emissions were still reduced when indirect emissions from the electric vehicle supply chain were factored in.

"A major concern about electric vehicles is that the supply chain, including the mining and processing of raw materials and the manufacturing of batteries, is far from clean," says Gillingham. "So, if we priced the carbon embodied in these processes, the expectation is electric vehicles would be exorbitantly expensive. It turns out that's not the case; if you level the playing field by also pricing the carbon in the fossil fuel vehicle supply chain, electric vehicle sales would actually increase."

[LFC]

Hyundai just fully committed to EVs by shutting down their entire ICE vehicle research division. It's full steam ahead.

Last year was challenging for many reasons, but 2021 wasn't entirely bad. Despite the pandemic and the chip shortage, it was a great year for new battery electric vehicles. So much so that more than half of our top 10 drives of the year were BEVs. That's good for consumers looking for a new car—assuming they can find one in stock.

End-of-year top 10 lists are extremely subjective, and no one should read too much into them. But if you want proof of the impending extinction of the internal combustion engine, consider this: On December 23, Hyundai Motor Group (parent company of Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis) shuttered its internal combustion engine research and development division, according to The Korea Economic Daily.

Park Chung-kook, the new head of Hyundai's R&D efforts, explained in an email to Hyundai Motor Group employees that "[o]ur own engine development is a great achievement, but we must change the system to create future innovation based on the great asset from the past."

Instead of developing new gasoline- or diesel-powered engines, the researchers and engineers will work on electric powertrains—an area where Hyundai is already extremely competitive.

[goldenvalley]

Jan 3, 2022 21:10:23 GMT LFC said:

Hyundai just fully committed to EVs by shutting down their entire ICE vehicle research division. It's full steam ahead.

Last year was challenging for many reasons, but 2021 wasn't entirely bad. Despite the pandemic and the chip shortage, it was a great year for new battery electric vehicles. So much so that more than half of our top 10 drives of the year were BEVs. That's good for consumers looking for a new car—assuming they can find one in stock.

End-of-year top 10 lists are extremely subjective, and no one should read too much into them. But if you want proof of the impending extinction of the internal combustion engine, consider this: On December 23, Hyundai Motor Group (parent company of Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis) shuttered its internal combustion engine research and development division, according to The Korea Economic Daily.

Park Chung-kook, the new head of Hyundai's R&D efforts, explained in an email to Hyundai Motor Group employees that "[o]ur own engine development is a great achievement, but we must change the system to create future innovation based on the great asset from the past."

Instead of developing new gasoline- or diesel-powered engines, the researchers and engineers will work on electric powertrains—an area where Hyundai is already extremely competitive.

I bought the first Hyundai (an Excel) back in the mid '80's because it was what I could afford.  Amazing to see how the company has developed since then.  Even my dad, a buy America guy, was sold and bought one of their high end cars in the 2010's.

[Bact PhD]

Jan 3, 2022 22:01:50 GMT goldenvalley said:

Jan 3, 2022 21:10:23 GMT LFC said:

Hyundai just fully committed to EVs by shutting down their entire ICE vehicle research division. It's full steam ahead.

I bought the first Hyundai (an Excel) back in the mid '80's because it was what I could afford...

Gawd, back then when some comedian (Leno, Letterman, maybe??) made the crack that " 'Hyundai' is Korean for 'Pinto.' " Looks like Hyundai is getting the last laugh.

[goldenvalley]

Jan 3, 2022 22:08:51 GMT Bact PhD said:

Jan 3, 2022 22:01:50 GMT goldenvalley said:

I bought the first Hyundai (an Excel) back in the mid '80's because it was what I could afford...

Gawd, back then when some comedian (Leno, Letterman, maybe??) made the crack that " 'Hyundai' is Korean for 'Pinto.' " Looks like Hyundai is getting the last laugh.

The Excel wasn't flammable as the Pinto was, but it initially was not up to the heat of California's Central Valley.  It was tested in North America in Canada.  Mine had to be modified to operate better in the heat.  I managed to kick it up the Sierra to take depositions in South Lake Tahoe quite a few times and eventually got rid of it in favor of a Sonata, also Hyundai.  Had that one for 8 years.  

[LFC]

The tide continues to flow towards EVs.

Even without having driven it yet, I feel confident in proclaiming this year's Ford F-150 Lightning one of the most important new vehicles of 2022. It's the first battery electric variant of the automaker's best-selling—and its most quintessentially American—machine, and even before the first trucks reach customers later this year it seems clear Ford has a hit on its hands.

In response to nearly 200,000 reservations on its books, the Blue Oval has decided to increase annual production of the F-150 Lightning. It's nearly doubling the original production plan at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Michigan, and will churn out 150,000 Lightnings a year to meet demand.

A stripped-out F-150 Lightning Pro, aimed at the commercial market, starts at $39,974 for the version with the standard battery pack and 230 miles (370 km) of range, or $49,974 for the 300-mile (482 km) extended-range Lightning Pro.

The Lightning looks like it's not the only electric Ford to find favor with the public. Last month, the automaker announced that it is going to triple annual production of the Mustang Mach-E crossover to 200,000 units a year by 2023. And global production of the battery electric Transit van—which Ars is going to drive later this month—is set to give Ford the annual capacity to produce 600,000 BEVs a year.

[LFC]

Battery technology for EVs continues to move forward.

An electric car's driving range is a big frickin' deal. It's why Mercedes-Benz was so pleased when it leveraged F1-derived battery and wind-tunnel technology to create the Vision EQXX Concept with a massive 620 miles of range. That's not sarcasm. If accurate, 620 miles is huge—even in a relative concept car, given that it actually works and is road legal. Michigan battery startup Our Next Energy (ONE), however, has reportedly gone a step further, squeezing 752 miles from a single charge without stopping to recharge.

According to ONE, it swapped a Tesla Model S's battery for one of its own design—a patented technology called Gemini—then it ran a bunch of tests to prove the range possible. ONE's founder and CEO, Mujeeb Ijaz (formerly the senior director of energy storage at Apple) told The Drive the following in regards to its findings:

"We conducted two tests, the first on public roads in a trip that spanned Detroit Michigan to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and back," said Ijaz. "We recorded 752.2 miles one this run at an average speed of 55 mph and in average ambient temperature conditions below freezing. The second test was conducted indoors on a vehicle dynamometer at 23 C (73.4 F) temperature at 55 mph and we achieved 882 miles during this test."

"It is not surprising that we were getting more range on the dynamometer given the improved temperature conditions and no other factors such as hills and headwinds."

[pnwguy]

I understand the initial market for Ford's new E-Transit cargo van is fleet operators. People like Amazon, UPS, FedEx, and the USPS constitute a gigantic pool of initial sales to make it a success. Delivery companies business use has them parked overnight where a slow recharge is a non-issue. The same case works for people like contractors, that are mostly doing limited miles per work day. But I'm disappointed in the stated range -- 125 miles for the low roof version. I don't know if they will offer a way to carry extra batteries in the cargo area to extend the range, although I can imagine some after-market firms working on one.

[LFC]

Chevy's getting into the more affordable EV market.

Chevrolet's headline news at CES this year was its forthcoming Silverado EV, a truck that—initially at least—will carry a lot of lithium ion, and a six-figure price tag to reflect that. When seen together with the bombastic Hummer EV, it's easy to get the impression that General Motors' product planners see the first wave of Ultium battery electric vehicles as just for the well-off.

But GM's battery platform is modular, and while it can accommodate huge 200 kWh packs to give bluff-faced pickup trucks a potential 400 miles of range, you can also design a car around a six-module battery with 50 kWh. If I had to guess, I'd say that's the pack we'll find in another new electric Chevrolet—the Equinox EV—which goes on sale in fall 2023.

The Equinox EV got a brief mention in GM's CES keynote, and the company isn't sharing any more details on the crossover right now other than that fall 2023 arrival and the fact that the model will start "around $30,000."

[LFC]

VW is making its EV moves. Bold mine.

On Tuesday, Volkswagen Group revealed its new strategy for the coming decade. Under the tagline "New Auto," VW Group CEO Herbert Diess laid out how the company plans to increase profitability and streamline its operations by introducing a single battery electric vehicle (BEV) platform across all the group's brands.

By 2030, VW says that it will make more money selling EVs than vehicles with internal combustion engines, and it expects mobility services and software to make significant contributions to the bottomline by then.

VW Group has been one of the most successful pioneers of using flexible architectures across multiple brands to build a diverse array of vehicles. Currently, there are four internal combustion platforms (MQB, MLB, MSB, and MMB) and one BEV platform (MEB), with a second BEV platform called PPE coming online next year. MEB is for the volume brands VW, Seat, and Skoda, and PPE will be used by Audi and Porsche (and probably Bentley).

In 2026, VW Group will introduce its Scalable Systems Platform (SSP). Diess says that SSP will scale for vehicles from 85 to 850 kW (114 to 1,140 hp)—everything from small city cars to supercars. (The recent off-loading of Bugatti to EV specialists Rimac suggests that Bugatti won't use SSP, but we expect Lamborghini will.) VW projects that SSP will be used to build more than 40 million EVs over the platform's life cycle, and like with MEB, the company will license the platform to other automakers.

VW Group is spending $945 million (€800 million) for a new research and development facility in Wolfsburg, Germany, to improve its platform design capabilities, part of an $86.3 billion (€73 billion) investment in R&D between now and 2025.

"Introducing the SSP means leveraging our strengths in platform management and building on our capabilities to maximize synergies across segments and brands. In the long run, our SSP will significantly reduce complexity in mechatronics," said Audi CEO Markus Duesmann. "Thereby, it is not only a central premise to lower CAPEX, R&D, and unit costs compared to MEB and PPE and to enable the Group to reach its financial targets. It particularly is the enabler to manage future challenges in vehicle development, as cars become more and more software-oriented."

That last sentence is a huge realization. I'm still struggling with a Subaru control interface (most things are now screen driven) that is failing to handle Apple CarPlay correctly and once in a while just shits the bed. Car companies have to become major software centers or they'll die.

VW is also kind of bringing back the Microbus as an EV.

This week, Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess set a date for the launch of what might be the most eagerly anticipated of VW's new battery electric vehicles. The retro-styled ID Buzz concept car blew so many socks off when we first saw it in 2017, and we'll get our first proper look at the production version on March 9, according to Diess' Twitter feed.

Intentionally or not, Volkswagen's ID Buzz concept might be the most successful aspect of the company's post-Dieselgate charm offensive. VW has had to pivot hard into electrification, applying its proven strategy of building many different styles of vehicles from the same family of parts and designs.

[LFC]

An EV that mines crypto in its downtime. I ... can't ... even.

Toronto-based personal light electric vehicle (LEV) producer Daymak plans to launch a cryptocurrency-mining car that will allow owners to make money when parked, plugged in, or wireless charging.

The car, known as the Spiritus, is a three-wheeled all-electric vehicle able to seat two adults aimed at being a daily commuter “designed with the track in mind,” according to Daymak’s website. The base model Spiritus Deluxe has a top speed of over 85 mph, a 0-to-60 time of 6.9 seconds, and a range of 180 miles. The upgraded sport model Spiritus Ultimate has a top speed of over 130 mph, a 0-to-60 time of 1.8 seconds and a range of 300 miles.

“I think that in the future, we'll see [cryptocurrency] replacing banks and transactions,” Aldo Baiocchi, president and founder of Daymak, told Yahoo Finance Live. “So it was just logical [to incorporate crypto mining capabilities] since the car comes with computers on board, and most cars, as you know, they depreciate.”

[LFC]

Tesla built an "Assertive Mode" into their self-driving algorithms.

Tesla has brought back its Full Self-Driving (FSD) profiles around three months after pulling the feature from an October update. The three driving profiles, labeled “Chill” “Average” and “Assertive,” dictate the ways FSD equipped Tesla’s behave in certain scenarios and the amount of risk the vehicles may take when making decisions. Images of the profile settings, first highlighted by The Verge, show in-vehicle descriptions associated with the settings which dictate the vehicle’s follow distance, and frequency of lane changes.

Of particular interest here is FSD’s assertive profile, which, according to the images, will “have a smaller follow distance, perform more frequent speed lane changes, will not exit passing lanes and may perform more rolling stops.” Tesla’s wording around rolling stops here remains unclear, particularly since rolling stops at stop signs in the U.S. are generally illegal. Gizmodo reached out to Tesla for comment but has not heard back.

[goldenvalley]

Jan 10, 2022 20:05:23 GMT LFC said:

Tesla built an "Assertive Mode" into their self-driving algorithms.

Tesla has brought back its Full Self-Driving (FSD) profiles around three months after pulling the feature from an October update. The three driving profiles, labeled “Chill” “Average” and “Assertive,” dictate the ways FSD equipped Tesla’s behave in certain scenarios and the amount of risk the vehicles may take when making decisions. Images of the profile settings, first highlighted by The Verge, show in-vehicle descriptions associated with the settings which dictate the vehicle’s follow distance, and frequency of lane changes.

Of particular interest here is FSD’s assertive profile, which, according to the images, will “have a smaller follow distance, perform more frequent speed lane changes, will not exit passing lanes and may perform more rolling stops.” Tesla’s wording around rolling stops here remains unclear, particularly since rolling stops at stop signs in the U.S. are generally illegal. Gizmodo reached out to Tesla for comment but has not heard back.

There are enough living, breathing assertive types on the roads now. We don't electronically assisted types too.

[goldenvalley]

Here's a small farm worker town that is using electric cars to provide free transportation to its residents:

Tucked behind the boarded-up buildings of the town’s struggling main drag is an arsenal of innovation that León calls the Green Raiteros. It has put Huron on the map as perhaps the greenest migrant farmworker community in the country. Headquartered in a former diesel truck garage, the growing fleet of nine electric cars managed by León’s Green Raiteros program shuttles residents all over Fresno County free of charge.

“It’s a Spanglish term,” León said of the word “raitero” and its root, “raite” — slang for “ride.” In the long history of migrant workers seeking and offering lifts, the person who gives or receives the ride, León said, is the raitero.

The Green Raiteros program’s costs are covered mostly with hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants León cobbled together from state climate programs that industrial polluters are required to fund. Passengers are asked to reserve their rides a few days in advance, and they are welcome to use the service as often as they need.

Comfortably well off people just don't seem to realize how car dependent this country is.  Lack of a car makes life infinitely more difficult.  Use of electric cars in the Central Valley of CA makes a lot of sense...air quality in that area can be quite bad due to dust and the inversion layers that trap heat and bad air into the valley.

[LFC]

Holy crap! Airstream has created an electric travel trailer that can work in tandem with the towing vehicle to save batter (if towing with an EV) or fuel (if towing with an ICE). And if that's not cool enough you can use an app and have it park itself without any help from the towing vehicle.

Thor industries just revealed its new electric Airstream concept, and made every other RV on the market – even the ones announced a few short hours ago – seem like antique relics of a distant past. The new “eStream” travel trailer revealed today is the iPhone on January 9, 2007, and everything else is … well, everything else.

We knew what was coming, we just didn’t know what was coming. Earlier today, Thor Industries – Airstream’s parent company – revealed a travel trailer that could power itself thanks to a “revolutionary” electric drive axle developed by ZF that eliminates range penalties on EV tow vehicles and improves fuel economy for conventional ICE haulers. We got that, as promised and on schedule… but I audibly gasped when I saw it rear up, Segway-style, and park itself next to a picnic bench.

You read that right. Using an Airstream developed app, the eStream’s electric motors can move the trailer around on its own power, making all manner of previously difficult (if not impossible) trailer parking maneuvers as easy as parking your car. Easier, even, if your car can’t park itself.

See for yourself, just five seconds into the launch video.

[Bact PhD]

Oooooh.
Sounds great, if Thor can actually deliver something resembling a quality product (their reputation has taken a beating these last few years).

[LFC]

EVs aren't better for everything.

[LFC]

This article is written by a proponent of nuclear power using SMRs (small modular reactors). I've long said that nuclear power is an expensive dead end without standardized designs and parts and this seems to address that. It's not too in depth and seems to make sense though this one statement set off alarm bells.

And skeptics often raise concerns around dealing with the radioactive waste nuclear reactors produce.

Still, most experts counter that modern reactors are safe (Fukushima and Chernobyl were commissioned in the 1970s), and specially designed to make sure there’s little chance of a meltdown when they’re properly operated. As for the waste, Allen thinks that’s an often overstated issue. “Nuclear doesn’t make a lot of waste,” he said. “The problem is the waste it does make has to be treated very carefully.”

Well, duh. Sweeping the waste problem aside this casually doesn't help one's credibility. You have to come up with a solution that spans many, many lifetimes. And if this small amount of waste isn't contained it can cause massive problems which are impossible to clean up. The fact that the above is the entirety of words spent of this subject are a real hole in the argument.

[LFC]

Jan 3, 2022 21:10:23 GMT LFC said:

Hyundai just fully committed to EVs by shutting down their entire ICE vehicle research division. It's full steam ahead.

Nissan is mostly following suit. America is, of course, the big exception.

Nissan is the latest automaker to pull the plug on its internal combustion engine development. Well, mostly.

According to Nikkei Asia, the Japanese automaker has looked at the likely next set of European emissions rules and has decided it would be too expensive to design a new generation of engines that comply. Nissan is also not planning on any new internal combustion engines for Japan or China, although it will apparently keep refining existing engines and continue to work on hybrid powertrains.

However, this new policy isn't a global one—it doesn't apply to the US. That's because here, the automaker expects continuing demand for internal combustion engines, particularly in pickup trucks.

That makes this at least the third caveated story about OEMs abandoning engine development in the past few months. In July 2021, Volvo announced that it was done developing new engines, instead transferring those activities to a new spin-off instead.

And in January 2022, it was reported that Hyundai was hitting the brakes on internal combustion engine R&D—something the Korean company denied.

If Nikkei Asia's reporting is correct, Nissan is just making explicit the fact that electrification of light passenger vehicles is going to be much more rapid in regions where governments create strong policy incentives.