Hey guys and welcome to this week's edition of Charged-Up News.
Todays show will include the 2019 updates for Zero Motorcycles, a flying taxi trial for
Singapore, the opening of pre-orders for the Brooklyn based motorcycle startup
Tarform and results from the pre-season testing over the Formula E championship
But first up on the program, the Supervisory Board of Porsche has
given the go-ahead for series production of the Mission E Cross Turismo. Using the
same drivetrain as the upcoming Taycan the Cross Turismo is more of an everyday
car equally at home on snowy mountain passes and gravel roads as it will be in
the city as a commuter. Back in June, Porsche presented a road ready version
of the car to 20 media representatives around Malibu in California and they
obviously received very positive feedback as we now have this car to look
forward to as well as the Taycan. It's great to see Porsche pushing down this
track and this crossover vehicle really is in a category of its own being a
sports car combined with the practical capable designs of an off-roader.
Kia has released a new video highlighting the features of their upcoming release of
the Niro EV. The launch of the Hyundai Kona and the Kia Niro could mark the
start of the mass adoption of electric cars worldwide. The Niro will have a 200
horsepower motor, a respectable 0-100km time of 7.8 seconds as well as
a minimum real-world range of 385 kilometers using a 64 kwh
battery pack. They've already been shown to be capable of up to 500kms if
you're prepared to cruise at 90 km/h. Through the use of a 100 kilowatt
charger a quick charge will also be possible in less than one hour. The
demand for electric cars in this price range is obviously there if you look at
the pre-orders for the Model 3 but how far ahead will Tesla get before the
major manufacturers finally put all of their efforts into EV's. Coming out of
Brooklyn is news from the electric motorcycle start-up Tarform and the
announcement of pre-orders for their handcrafted bikes. One of my favourite
films from the late 90s was the futuristic sci-fi flick Gattaca. The film
was full of classic but electric cars and these bikes would have fitted right
in with their vintage looks and modern power
trains. Their first two models launched are a flat bar scrambler and a cafe
racer with a starting price of US$18,000.
Specifications and features are fairly vague at this point but they do have some interesting radar
based safety displays and they do look very very cool.
From the major manufacturers this week, Volkswagen has started construction on its first
factory specifically designed for its new MEB platform for electric vehicles.
Based in China, the new factory will have a capacity of 300 thousand cars per year
and the first vehicle to be produced will be an all-electric SUV in 2020.
The facility will also utilize 27 types of environmentally friendly technologies
with a special focus on water preservation energy saving and the
reduction of carbon dioxide.
Nissan has confirmed that deliveries of the new
generation Leaf will begin in Australia in mid 2019. It's great that we are
finally getting the new leaf but Nissan will probably have some serious
competition from the Kona and Niro EVs with their 64Kwh battery
packs and could find that selling the leaf with its 40Kwh pack
could be quite difficult.
And in the latest ad from Ford, could this be the
new Mustang ? The first EV I drove was a late 60's Mustang, hopefully they make
this one super quick with classic styling and slightly better safety
standards than the originals.
Volocopter, a German company developing
autonomous electrical vertical takeoff and landing multicopters, or eVTOL, have
announced that their next series of inner urban flight tests will take place
in Singapore in the second half of 2019. Based on drone technology the
Volocopters are specifically designed for stable flight around skyscrapers and the
sound, which I assumed would be a bit of an issue, is so quiet that at a flying
height of 100 meters it cannot be heard over the typical background noise of a city.
Designed to verify the aircraft's ability to operate in a modern city, the
tests will eventually culminate in public demo flights. They regularly
operate in Germany and have performed numerous public flight since 2016 but I
think I'd still be pretty apprehensive going on the first flight around Singapore!
Longer range, more power and fresh styling are the newest features for the
bikes from Zero motorcycles in their 13th year of production. Horsepower is up
by 35% and the long range street bike can now do one hundred and twelve miles
on the highway or up to two hundred and twenty three miles or three hundred and
fifty kilometers around the city. Showing loyalty to previous customers, Zero has
also launched a backwards compatible 6KW charger which will fit the
street and dual-sport models back to 2015.
Using recharge stations, the charge tank is six times faster than a standard wall
outlet and can add up to 85 miles of city range in one hour. Zero motorcycles
continues to be the leader in the electric motorbike segment, I just wish
they still sold them here in Australia.
Our last stories for the week come from
the pre-season Formula E testing in Valencia where BMW has finished the top
of the timesheets on all three days. BMW set significantly faster times than
some of the major competitors and over the course of the three-day test, their
two drivers clocked up 435 laps between them. A comparison for this season's cars
worth looking at is this video from Envision Virgin Racing.
The new cars are obviously in a different league to the original Formula E
models and as you can see from the footage the speed difference is just astounding.
What has also surprised me a lot from
the testing footage this year is the volume and variation of sounds coming
from the new cars
While they don't have the bone-rattling, eardrum smashing noise of the F1 cars,
they're certainly not silent!
So that's it for this week's show,
as always if you'd like to keep up to date with the latest EV news and you're
not subscribed to the channel already, then hit the red button below and tap
the Bell notification and I will see you on the next one
Charged Up News - Stephen Tooke
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