“California We Have Problem” – Electric Vehicles Need Access to Charging Equity – Who are the companies working to solve it?

Photo Courtesy of GM

The electric vehicle revolution is well underway, with California banning the sale of new gas cars by 2035 and automakers increasing their lineup of EV offerings. While electric has plenty of supporters in the automotive, power, and charging industries, the issue of charging equity, or fair and equal access to charging, looms large.

Currently, the EV market is dominated by luxury cars, with Tesla controlling three-fourths of the U.S. market. The cost of these cars is still well beyond the reach of many Americans. According to the U.S. Census, median household income was $70,784 in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available. The average price for an electric vehicle in July of 2022, was over $66,000, according to Kelley Blue Book (KBB).

As the EV market expands, however, equity will become a growing problem. In a report on the auto industry earlier this year, Morning Consult found that 83% of vehicle owners who make under $50,000 per year don’t have dedicated access to EV charging at home. In the same study, 39% of people in that income bracket expressed interest in buying an electric vehicle. Even now, EV owners who live in rentals must sometimes go to great lengths—including running electric cord extensions out their apartment windows—to get their cars charged.

The U.S. government has earmarked more than $7.5 billion to invest in charging infrastructure in the bill that President Joe Biden signed into law in February. Most of this investment is earmarked to put chargers along major highway locations, which won’t address the equity issue.

For some companies, equity is front and center as EV charging infrastructure is built out. Dianne Martinez is chair of East Bay Community Energy, a public electric power agency in Northern California. The EBCE uses the buying power of ratepayers to procure clean energy for customers, and it’s working on a project to install fast charging in municipal lots—not just along highway corridors.  

“When you look at EV charging infrastructure delivered through an equity lens, you have to consider how a community has been impacted negatively by the fossil fuel industry,” Martinez says. “Huge swaths of urban neighborhoods that suffer the ill health effects of pollution, from freeways, from ports and goods movement, from proximity to drilling and gas-powered plants. Instead of just looking to provide the same charging opportunities that we have to folks who already have more wealth, what if we found a metric that included and supported those who have been traditionally the last ones considered in the green revolution? What if we even put them first?”

A challenge for renters

EV owners Jason Mott of Venice, Calif., and Natacha Favry of Boston have gone to great lengths to charge their cars while living in rentals. Neither Mott nor Favry have charging access in their apartment or condo buildings, so they use a combination of public charging stations and, occasionally, power cords strung out of apartment windows. Charging an EV fully using a standard power cord can take as long as a week.

“There’s a lot of folks who don’t have parking,” Mott notes. “And you will see people with extension cords [running] over the sidewalk to a tree, so that when they can happen to grab that spot in front of their place, they can plug in their car. You see people putting down those little rubber cord protectors as you’re walking down the sidewalk, because people have their cord running out to their car.”

A longtime EV owner and environmentalist, Mott says he’s learned to lock his extension cord to his current vehicle, a new Rivian R1T, when he’s charging overnight since the heavy-duty extension cords he uses to charge regularly get stolen. Previously, Mott owned a Fiat 500e, and a Chevrolet Bolt. 

Favry has owned an EV and rented flats both overseas and on the outskirts of Boston, where she and her family moved in January for work. She says that her charging experience in her native home of France was far more nerve-racking than it is in the U.S. She drives a Tesla Model 3 and uses a nearby proprietary Tesla supercharger at a local mall to keep her vehicle running. She says she’s asked the landlord of her building to install a charger, but her request was denied. 

“There’s no plug in the garage,” Favry says. “And we were told by the owner that it’s not allowed.” Local and state incentives exist to help landlords install chargers in multifamily dwellings, but they don’t cover the costs of upgrading building power or wiring—and landlords don’t have a profit incentive to make the investment worthwhile. 

Rentals comprise about one-third of American housing units, according to the U.S. Census. They are typically located in dense urban areas, and a majority were built in the 1970s and 1980s, according to a report from 2020 by the Urban Institute. Upgrading them to handle the charge required to power EVs is a costly endeavor.

“The reality is that 90% of the multifamily housing in our territory is 50 years or older, and 47% of our community here in our territory live in that multifamily housing,” says Martinez of EBCE. “It’s very hard to incentivize landlords to make the necessary upgrades to support their tenants in buying EVs.”

Businesses tackle charging equity

The good news for consumers is that a number of startups, utilities, and auto manufacturers are working to solve the charging equity problem. 

Joseph Vellone is head of North America operations for Ev.energy, a London-based certified B Corporation whose software platform connects utilities, automakers, EV chargers, and drivers to streamline charging and make it more affordable and sustainable. About 80% of EV charging happens at home, which Vellone cites as a reason why charging equity must begin with increasing access at multifamily dwellings.

“Home charging access is very much a question of income level, and very quickly becomes a social equity issue,” he says. 

To solve this, Ev.energy recently launched a first-of-its-kind smart charging cable and app, which allows multifamily unit occupants to manage their own individual power usage and get credits or incentives for charging in off-peak hours. The cord, called Smartenit, enables EV drivers without dedicated home charging to optimize their usage and access, as well as save money on home charging.

California-based charging-station company ChargePoint is also thinking about how to get landlords to embrace the EV revolution. The company primarily operates charging stations at stores and offices, with some stations in multifamily units. CEO Pasquale Romano says landlords should think of EV charging the same way they do cable or internet—as a must-have for modern living.

“The landlord doesn’t really make any money on cable TV or internet,” he says. “EV charging is going to be like Wi-Fi. Access is going to be required.” 

Even large companies like General Motors, which is already heavily invested in the EV and electrification space, are working to tackle the charging equity question. The company has just announced a new business unit called GM Energy, which will offer everything from commercial battery and energy management solutions to individual home and multiunit solutions. By getting battery storage to multifamily units, landlords can then install EV chargers. 

These solutions will be built on GM’s Ultium battery technology and utilize integrated energy management that will include bidirectional charging, vehicle-to-home and vehicle-to-grid solutions, as well as stationary storage, solar products, software applications, cloud management tools, microgrid solutions, hydrogen fuel cells, and more. 

“The public charging infrastructure needs to grow, and grow rapidly, both on freeway infrastructure as well as multiunit dwellings and high-density living,” says Travis Hester, vice president of EV growth operations at GM. “We’re walking into this area where EVs are about to scale. They’re not there yet, but they’re about to, and this, we think, is an integral part of the electric vehicle ecosystem, but it’s also part of a non-vehicle ecosystem.”

On the utility and municipal side, the EBCE is focusing on working with state and local authorities to lease municipal parking lots and install chargers where, Martinez says, they are needed the most. “What we find to be the greatest bang for our buck is supporting DC [direct current] fast chargers in communities where there’s a high degree of multifamily housing,” Martinez says. She hopes that the EBCE’s efforts will help serve as a blueprint for other cities. 

“Low-income and disadvantaged communities [are] not the first-wave adopters of electric vehicles. They have their minds set on keeping their households together, getting to work,” Martinez says. “It’s time to focus on that second wave of people who are thinking about their next small-car purchase.”

Article Provided by A. Bassett: Fortune

Tesla battery research group unveils paper on new high-energy-density battery that could last 100 years

Tesla’s advanced battery research group in Canada in partnership with Dalhousie University has released a new paper on a new nickel-based battery that could last 100 years while still favorably comparing to LFP cells on charging and energy density.

Back in 2016, Tesla established its “Tesla Advanced Battery Research” in Canada through a partnership with Jeff Dahn’s battery lab at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.

Dahn is considered a pioneer in Li-ion battery cells. He has been working on the Li-ion batteries pretty much since they were invented. He is credited for helping to increase the life cycle of the cells, which helped their commercialization.

His work now focuses mainly on a potential increase in energy density and durability, while also decreasing the cost.

The group has already produced quite a few patents and papers on batteries for Tesla. The automaker recently extended its contract with the group through 2026 as it added two new leaders to be mentored by Dahn.

One of those new leaders, Michael Metzger, along with Dahn himself, and a handful of PhDs in the program, are named as authors of a new research paper called “Li[Ni_0.5Mn_0.3Co_0.2]O₂ as a Superior Alternative to LiFePO₄ for Long-Lived Low Voltage Li-Ion Cells” in the Journal of the Electrochemical Society.

The paper describes a nickel-based battery chemistry meant to compete with LFP battery cells on longevity while retaining the properties that people like in nickel-based batteries, like higher energy density, which enables longer range with fewer batteries for electric vehicles.

The group wrote in the paper’s abstract:

Single crystal Li[Ni_0.5Mn_0.3Co_0.2]O₂//graphite (NMC532) pouch cells with only sufficient graphite for operation to 3.80 V (rather than ≥4.2 V) were cycled with charging to either 3.65 V or 3.80 V to facilitate comparison with LiFePO₄//graphite (LFP) pouch cells on the grounds of similar maximum charging potential and similar negative electrode utilization. The NMC532 cells, when constructed with only sufficient graphite to be charged to 3.80 V, have an energy density that exceeds that of the LFP cells and a cycle-life that greatly exceeds that of the LFP cells at 40 °C, 55 °C and 70 °C. Excellent lifetime at high temperature is demonstrated with electrolytes that contain lithium bis(fluorosulfonyl)imide (LiFSI) salt, well beyond those provided by conventional LiPF₆ electrolytes. 

The cells showed an impressive capacity retention over a high number of cycles:

The research group even noted that the new cell described in the paper could last a 100 years if the temperature is controlled at 25C:

Ultra-high precision coulometry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy are used to complement cycling results and investigate the reasons for the improved performance of the NMC cells. NMC cells, particularly those balanced and charged to 3.8 V, show better coulombic efficiency, less capacity fade and higher energy density compared to LFP cells and are projected to yield lifetimes approaching a century at 25 °C.

One of the keys appears to be using an electrolyte with LiFSI lithium salts, and the paper notes that the benefits could also apply to other nickel-based chemistries, including those with no or low cobalt.

** Contributed from Fred Lambert, at Electrek

Eliminating the bottlenecks in performance of lithium-sulfur batteries

Graphical abstract. Credit: Chem (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.chempr.2022.03.001

Energy storage in lithium-sulfur batteries is potentially higher than in lithium-ion batteries but they are hampered by a short life. Researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden have now identified the main bottlenecks in performance.

Lithium-sulfur batteries are high on the wish-list for future batteries as they are made from cheaper and more environmentally friendly materials than lithium-ion batteries. They also have higher energy storage capacity and work well at much lower temperatures. However, they suffer from short lifetimes and energy loss. An article just published in the journal Chem by a research group from Uppsala University has now identified the processes that are limiting the performance of the sulfur electrodes that in turn reduces the current that can be delivered. Various different materials are formed during the discharge/charge cycles and these cause various problems. Often a localized shortage of lithium causes a bottleneck.

“Learning about problems allows us to develop new strategies and materials to improve battery performance. Identifying the real bottlenecks is needed to take the next steps. This is big research challenge in a system as complex as lithium-sulfur,” says Daniel Brandell, Professor of Materials Chemistry at Uppsala University who works at the Ångström Advanced Battery Centre.

The study combined various radiation scattering techniques: X-ray analyses were made in Uppsala, Sweden and neutron results came from a large research facility, the Institut Laue Langevin, in Grenoble, France.

“The study demonstrates the importance of using these infrastructures to tackle problems in materials science,” says Professor Adrian Rennie. “These instruments are expensive but are necessary to understand such complex systems as these batteries. Many different reactions happen at the same time and materials are formed and can disappear quickly during operation.”

The study was carried-out as part of a co-operation with Scania CV AB.

“Electric power is needed for the heavy truck business and not just personal vehicles. They must keep up with developments of a range of different batteries that may soon become highly relevant,” says Daniel Brandell.

Ola eyes 5-minute electric scooter charging with StoreDot battery tech

Could this audacious electric scooter be the Honda Cub of the 21st Century? Ola is betting big on the S1

Ola is building the world’s largest motorcycle “Futurefactory,” and planning a staggeringly massive push into India’s electric scooter market. It has now made a “multi-million dollar investment” in an ultra-fast charging battery company from Israel.

It’s no understatement to say the Ola S1 could end up being one of the most important vehicles in the world, full stop. It’s a feature-packed, highway-capable electric scooter designed to sell from as little as US$1,345 – or just under 100,000 Indian Rupees. Even at double the money, it’d be a steal for commuters in Western cities.

Part of that rock-bottom price comes from serious volume; Ola is building the biggest motorcycle factory in history. The Futurefactory under construction now is a colossal, 500-acre, carbon-negative production complex that will be capable of pouring out up to an astonishing 10 million bikes per year once it reaches full capacity – that’s around 15 percent of the entire current global motorcycle production run. So there’s enormous hopes and dreams behind these scoots, and considerable pressure to get the S1 right.

Now, it seems Ola has made a move that could give its bikes some extreme fast-charging capabilities.

The company has made a “multi-million dollar investment” in Israel’s StoreDot, which makes it a “strategic partner” and will allow it to “incorporate and manufacture StoreDot’s fast charging technologies for future vehicles in India.”

Ola’s Futurefactory, now under construction, will be the world’s largest motorcycle manufacturing plant, capable of building 10 million bikes a year

StoreDot claims that its nanodot-enhanced, silicon-dominant anode, XFC lithium-ion cells will go into mass manufacture in 2024 as pouch cells and 4680-family cylinder cells, and they’ll initially be able to deliver 100 miles (160 km) of scooter range in a 5-minute charge, with an impressive 300 Wh/kg specific energy – considerably more energy-dense than today’s state of the art commercial cells. 

Its second-gen solid-state cells, slated for 2028, promise a sky-high 450 Wh/kg, so they’ll be significantly lighter, as well as even faster to charge – StoreDot claims 100 miles in 3 minutes.

And in 10 years’ time, the company says it’s got plans for a “post-lithium” design capable of 100-mile charges in 2 minutes, with a monstrous 550 Wh/kg of energy on board. Such is the “clear, hype-free technology roadmap” that StoreDot CEO Doron Myersdorf promises partners.

“The future of EVs lies in better, faster and high energy density batteries, capable of rapid charging and delivering higher range,” said Ola founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal in a press release. “We are increasing our investments in core cell and battery technologies and ramping up our in-house capabilities and global talent hiring, as well as partnering with global companies doing cutting edge work in this field. Our partnership with StoreDot, a pioneer of extreme fast charging battery technologies, is of strategic importance and a first of many.”

It all sounds great, but the big unknown here is whether StoreDot will actually finally deliver on its fast-charge battery promises.

We first encountered this company in 2014, when it was planning mass production of smartphone batteries with 30-second charging timeswithin two years. These did not materialize. By 2017, it was saying it’d have 5-minute electric car battery packs popping up as OEM equipment by 2020. These have not yet materialized.

The company has been sending sample batteries to EV manufacturers for testing. “We are not releasing a lab prototype,” Myersdorf told The Guardian in January 2021. “We are releasing engineering samples from a mass production line.

This demonstrates it is feasible and it’s commercially ready.” And yet the nanodot technology in these samples was based on highly expensive germanium, rather than the cheap and widely available silicon, indicating that it was perhaps not quite ready.

Still, StoreDot has taken on at least US$190 million in investments and formed similar strategic partnerships with companies including VinFast, BP, Daimler, Samsung, TDK and Eve Energy – so along with Ola Electric, plenty of serious players have liked what they’ve seen enough to put their money on the line. Last November, StoreDot announced that Eve Energy had managed to produce “A-series samples” of the silicon-dominant batteries in a factory in China. 

We’d all like to see EV charge times drop to the level where a top-up takes no longer than filling a tank of gas. Will StoreDot be the company that makes that a reality? Stay tuned!

Source: StoreDot

ONE (Our Next Energy) Raises $65M to Accelerate Plans for First US factory – Tests New Prototype Battery in Tesla Model S – Achieves 752 Mile Range

ONE’s battery powers electric vehicle 752 miles without recharging. Credit: ONE

Michigan-based energy storage technology company, Our Next Energy (ONE), has raised an additional $65 million in a new funding round led by BMW i Ventures. The new funding round will allow ONE to expand its operations and prepare for increasing demand and customer activity.

It also announced that it has signed contracts with four customers totaling more than 25 GWh of energy storage capacity over the next five years, equating to approximately 300,000 electric vehicle battery packs. This development allows ONE to begin the process of site selection for its first US-based battery factory.

Last year, the company demonstrated its proof-of-concept Gemini battery that powered an electric vehicle 752-mile (1,210-km) without recharging. In late December. It retrofitted a Tesla Model S with an experimental battery for real-world road testing across Michigan, where the test vehicle achieved 882 miles (1,419 km) at an average speed of 55 mph (88.5 km/h).

“This most recent investment accelerates the timeline for ONE’s Gemini battery technology following our recent 752-mile range demonstration. We are excited to have BMW i Ventures lead this round, and we are thrilled to welcome Coatue Management and their support as we raise the capital required to build a U.S. cell factory that supports Aries and Gemini,” said Mujeeb Ijaz, Founder, and CEO of ONE.

The ONE battery factory wants to accelerate electrification with safer, more powerful energy storage technologies that use more sustainable raw materials while creating a reliable, low-cost, and conflict-free supply chain.

ONE will begin evaluating site locations for its US-based battery factory, where production will start on its first product, a smaller battery cell called Aries, in late 2022. It expects to demonstrate a production prototype of the Gemini dual-chemistry battery in 2023.

Read About ONE (Our Next Energy)

A Potentially ‘Powerful Alliance – ‘Sony and Honda Join Forces to develop Electric Vehicles

The electric car market is creating alliances that were unpredictable until yesterday. The most recent example is Japan’s manufacturing giant Honda motors and Sony Group Corporation that, have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to establish a joint venture through which they plan to engage in the joint development and sales of high value-added battery electric vehicles (EVs) and commercialize them in conjunction with providing mobility services.

The two companies will proceed with a goal of establishing the New Company within 2022, and the sales of the first EV model are expected to start in 2025.

In 2020, Sony unveiled a prototype car, the Vision-S, and soon after, the company was looking for an important partner with experience in the mobility sector. At this year’s CES, the company unveiled a new concept SUV dubbed Vision-S 02. It is now pressing ahead with its vision through the new partnership with Honda.

The agreement also opens the doors to other partners interested in the electric mobility revolution, which also counts on technological giants such as Alphabet with Waymo platform and Apple with the elusive Titan Project. There are also significant investments underway in electric cars by Ford, General Motors, Volkswagen, Toyota, and other famous car brands.

                      Sony ‘Vision S -02: Concept Model

The roles that the two partners will play are very clear: Honda will handle the development and production of the cars and after-sales services that are essential for customer satisfaction. Sony, on the other hand, will deal with technologies present in cars, including onboard entertainment, a sector in which Sony boasts a world leadership.

The New Company is expected to plan, design, develop, and sell the electric vehicles but not own and operate manufacturing facilities, so Honda is expected to be responsible for manufacturing the first EV model at its vehicle manufacturing plant. It is expected that a mobility service platform will be developed by Sony and made available for the New Company.

“Sony’s Purpose is to ‘fill the world with emotion through the power of creativity and technology,” said Kenichiro Yoshida, Representative Corporate Executive Officer, Chairman, President, and CEO, Sony Group Corporation. “Through this alliance with Honda, which has accumulated extensive global experience and achievements in the automobile industry over many years and continues to make revolutionary advancements in this field, we intend to build on our vision to ‘make the mobility space an emotional one,’ and contribute to the evolution of mobility centered around safety, entertainment, and adaptability.”

New synthesized PDI-TEMPO molecule boosts lithium-oxygen battery performance – Extends EV Ranges Dramatically – Univerity of Technology Sydney

Credit: Possessed Photography/Unsplash

Researchers at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) have designed a molecule to boost the performance of lithium-oxygen batteries to give electric vehiclesthe same driving range as petrol-fuelled cars.

Lithium-oxygen batteries employ cutting-edge technology aimed to deliver maximum energy density through breathing air to generate electricity.

To date, however, they have been beset by challenges, including low discharge capacity, poor energy efficiency, and severe parasitic reactions. This new all-in-one molecule can simultaneously tackle those issues.

According to the researchers, their new discovery resolved several existing obstacles and created the possibility of developing a long-life, energy-dense lithium-oxygen battery that was highly efficient.

“Batteries are changing fundamentally,” said UTS Professor Guoxiu Wang, who led the research team. “They will facilitate the transition towards a climate-neutral society and open up new industry opportunities for a country like Australia that is rich in the fundamental elements for building batteries.

They will also help utilities improve power quality and reliability and help governments around the world achieve net-zero carbon emissions.”

The study reports a lithium-oxygen battery operated via a new quenching/mediating mechanism that relies on the direct chemical reactions between a versatile molecule and superoxide radical/Li2O2. The battery exhibits a 46-fold increase in discharge capacity, a low charge overpotential of 0.7 V, and an ultralong cycle life greater than 1400 cycles.

“Our rationally designed and synthesized PDI-TEMPO molecule opens a new avenue for developing high-performance Li-O2 batteries,”Professor Wang said. “The capacity of next-generation lithium-oxygen batteries to extend the driving range between charges would be a significant leap forward for the electric vehicle industry. We are confident our all-in-one molecule can dramatically improve the performances of lithium-oxygen batteries and enable new generation lithium-oxygen batteries to be practical.”

StoreDot Makes Ultra-Fast 4680 EV Battery cells – Develops Tech to Extend Batteries’ First and Second Life

StoreDot, an Israel-based electric vehicle extreme fast charging (XFC) battery startup, today announced that it has advanced technology that extends the life span of batteries, making them highly effective not only during the vehicle life span, but also for second-life applications.

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The technology combines the electrochemistry system of the company’s silicon dominant cells to ensure that there is minimal drop-off in performance even as the battery ages.

StoreDot reports that a robust performance is maintained even after 1,000 cycles and 80% capacity, the point at which rival lithium-ion fast-charging technologies start to rapidly deteriorate in performance. Even after 1,700 cycles, long after the accepted industry norm, StoreDot claims its batteries can maintain 70% of their original capacity, making them effective in second-life usage for less dynamic applications such as in energy storage and grid load balancing systems.

Dr. Doron Myersdorf, StoreDot CEO, said:

StoreDot is well known for creating extreme fast charging technologies and helping drivers overcome charging anxiety, which is currently the biggest barrier to EV ownership.

But we believe in advancing the entire battery eco-system, ultimately delivering an optimum solution to sustain the transition to full EV electrification. This latest development is proof of that.

We now have the ability to hugely extend the life of our batteries, long after their vehicle service life. This not only has benefits for the drivers of EVs, allowing them to maintain performance of their vehicles for many more years, but also in second-life applications.

Not only will this transformative development encourage more people to drive EVs, but this technology has huge benefits for sustainability, too, reducing the need to retire and recycle an expensive component that can now serve in critical second-life applications.

StoreDot says it’s in advanced talks with global car makers. It also says it’s on track to deliver mass-produced XFC batteries, which provide a 50% reduction in charging time at the same cost, by 2024.

In early September 2021, StoreDot announced that it produced the first 4680 cylindrical cell, that it claims can charge in only 10 minutes.

In November, StoreDot claimed it had become the first company to produce XFC cells for electric vehicles on a mass production line. And on December 1, 2021, StoreDot announced new patented technology that uses a background repair mechanism to allow battery cells to regenerate while they are in use.

Images: StoreDot

Genesis Is Going Very Electric, Very Soon

Hyundai’s luxury brand pledges to stop releasing new ICE-powered models in 2025.

Genesis will lead Hyundai’s electrification efforts, Takata airbag recalls are still a thing and, surprise, the Tesla Roadster has slipped back another year. All this and more in this Thursday edition of The Morning Shift for September 2, 2021.

1st Gear: Genesis Isn’t Waiting Around

Automakers are busy making projections that they’ll stop selling gas-powered vehicles by maybe 2030 or 2035. Genesis in now among them. As a very young brand with just five models on sale in the United States, it doesn’t have a lot of history or buyers entrenched in the brand to please. It’s pretty much free to go in any direction it chooses, when it chooses. Starting in 2025, it’ll stop bringing new ICE cars to market, it announced Wednesday. From Automotive News:

Hyundai Motor Group’s top-shelf brand said that all new vehicles will be electric from 2025 under a dual-pronged approach that focuses on full-electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cells.

The company will drop internal combustion technology from new models beginning that year, meaning Genesis will also bypass hybrids and plug-in hybrids, spokesman Jee Hyun Kim said.

By 2030, the global lineup will consist of eight EV and fuel cell models, he said. Around that time, Genesis plans to achieve worldwide sales of 400,000 vehicles a year. As recently as late 2019, Genesis was expecting annual sales to crest at 100,000 for the first time.

The report notes that Genesis shifted 128,365 cars in 2020. Last year was Genesis’ first in which it offered an SUV — the GV80 — and this year, the company added the GV70. The weird-looking GV60 is next, and will represent the brand’s first EV. Now that it finally has a couple SUVs and crossovers under its belt, I imagine Genesis is well on its way toward that 400,000-car goal. Unfortunately, it doesn’t change the way I feel about the GV60, which is that it looks like the automotive equivalent of a naked mole rat.

2nd Gear: NHTSA Is Probing Tesla Over That Autopilot Crash With a Police Car In Florida

Last Saturday morning, a Tesla Model 3 in Orlando collided with a parked police car while Autopilot was enabled. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened a probe into crashes between Autopilot-enabled Teslas and emergency vehicles last month. The department added this one to the list on Tuesday, making for the 12th incident on the books. From Reuters:

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on Aug. 16 said it had opened a formal safety probe into Tesla driver assistance system Autopilot after 11 crashes. The probe covers 765,000 U.S. Tesla vehicles built between 2014 and 2021.

The 12th occurred in Orlando on Saturday, NHTSA said. The agency sent Tesla a detailed 11-page letter on Tuesday with numerous questions it must answer, as part of its investigation.

Like with the latest crash, most of them have happened in dark conditions according to the NHTSA. As part of the probe, Tesla is asked to explain how its software is designed to respond to emergency vehicles and hazard alerts like cones, lights and flares.

Tesla is required to disclose any adjustments it plans to make to Autopilot over the next 120 days, Reuters reports. The company must also answer the NHTSA’s questions by October 22, or risk fines up to $115 million if it doesn’t respond.

3rd Gear: Volkswagen’s Latest Takata Settlement Is Worth $42 Million

Supposedly, every vehicle with a Takata airbag inflator has been recalled. But millions of those cars are still driving around with potentially faulty inflators and automakers have struggled to get them into service — Volkswagen included. From Reuters:

Volkswagen’s U.S. unit has agreed to a $42 million settlement covering 1.35 million vehicles that were equipped with potentially dangerous Takata air bag inflators, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Miami.

The settlement is the latest by major automakers and much of the funding goes to boosting recall completion rates. To date, seven other major automakers have agreed to settlements worth about $1.5 billion covering tens of millions of vehicles.

According to court documents, it’s estimated that 35 percent of the inflators in question in Volkswagen and Audi cars have not been replaced. The main purpose of this settlement is to cover out-of-pocket expenses like rental fees, or cover for wages lost while owners are without their cars.

4th Gear: 2021 Imprezas Recalled For Welding Issue

Speaking of recalls, Subaru will soon reach out to some owners of 2021 Imprezas due to an “improper weld” on the car’s front driver’s side lower control arm. Some 802 vehicles are reportedly affected. If the weld breaks, it could cause the tire to partially detach and strike the inside of the wheel well. From Automotive News:

Subaru on Wednesday said the improper weld is near a connection joint between the lower control arm and the crossmember, and could lead to a partial separation of the two components.

Subaru says it has received no reports of crashes or injuries related to the defect, but is warning owners to have their vehicles checked by Subaru dealers to see if the lot number stamped into the control arm is part of the recall. If it is, consumers are being told not to drive the vehicle until it is repaired.

Subaru will notify owners by mail, but if you’re wondering if your Impreza might be affected and would rather not wait to know for sure, you could visit the NHTSA’s recall tracker or Subaru’s website, enter your car’s VIN number, and find out.

5th Gear: Tesla Roadster Delayed

The Tesla Roadster was announced in 2017. Lots of people made deposits. Then thrusters were added as an optional extra for some reason. Then Elon Musk said around the middle of last year that Roadster production would begin basically now, during mid-to-late 2021. On Wednesday, Musk tweeted that the production target’s been pushed back to next year, and the cars will reach buyers in 2023. The reason? The chip shortage!

I know automotive manufacturing is wholeheartedly broken right now, but considering the Roadster was announced four whole years ago, the “oh, us too” excuse doesn’t quite sound so convincing. I do believe the Roadster will eventually be a real thing that really exists. Because Tesla felt it necessary to announce the car extremely early for some reason, now it feels like vaporware. It’ll continue to feel like vaporware until it’s proven to be otherwise.

Reverse: Let’s Go See The ‘Vettes

The National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky opened its doors on September 2, 1994. 120,000 visitors reportedly attended its grand opening during its first weekend. I learned about the existence of this museum the same way I figure a great many people did: when a sinkhole opened up underneath it in 2014 and swallowed up a bunch of cars. Thankfully the Corvette Museum bounced back, and here’s something else: you can actually tour the sinkhole itself from your web browser, right now, in 3D. I’m not kidding.

Read the Top 4 Articles from Genesis Nanotech This Week Like: New MIT Nano-Kevlar – Hydrogen Fuel from the Sea + More …

An Alternative to Kevlar – MIT and Caltech Create Nanotech Carbon Materials – Can withstand supersonic microparticle impacts

New Nanoscale Material Harvests Hydrogen Fuel From the Sea – University of Central Florida

Engineers Develop a Simple Way to Desalinate Water Using Solar Energy – Reduced Costs + 4X Production Volume

Hydrogen Powered Fuel Cell EV’s? Or Battery Powered EV’s? Toyota is Placing a Bet on the Green Future