Author: EVAI

More than 90,000 Mazda MX-5 Miata and Fiat 124 convertible roadsters have been recalled for front airbags that can deploy with excessive force, putting front seat occupants in a kind of danger airbags are designed to prevent. Front-seat occupants are the only possible occupants in the two-seat convertibles. The recall covers 77,670 current…

While challenges remain, dealerships have an opportunity to sell more cars if they commit to better sales training and improving their financing skills and technology.

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Chevy dropped the price and increased the range and power of the 2025 Blazer EV, Chevrolet revealed on Friday. A new front-wheel-drive model is the new base model with a price of $45,995, including a $1,395 destination fee. Additionally, every 2025 Blazer EV qualifies for a $7,500 tax credit at the point of purchase. That model had been promised…

Ford’s aiming to make life easier and less confusing for EV buyers.

On Monday, Ford CEO Jim Farley posted on LinkedIn that the automaker will be providing a free home charger, along with installation, to its buyers that buy or lease a Mustang Mach-E, F-150 Lightning, or E-Transit.

Farley said the complimentary Level 2 home charger will either come with the vehicle or can be delivered when buyers are ready. Ford will arrange to have a professional install the charger for buyers at no charge.

The free charger install needs to be considered a “standard install, which Ford said means completed at a residential property with a dedicated electrical meter, circuit of up to 60 amps, and wiring that will only need to run up to 80 feet. 

Recently, Farley took long road trips in EVs both across Western U.S. and Europe. The takeaway, according to Farley, is consumers are looking for “convenience, peace of mind and expert service.” 

Farley said Ford’s learned home charging is important to overall electric vehicle adoption in the U.S. and nearly 90% of shoppers said they’d be more likely to buy an EV if they knew they could charge at home. Where, who, and at what cost is confusing to consumers, according to the executive. This latest incentive takes the guesswork out of the home charging situation in Farley’s view.

Ford was the first automaker to address the public charging infrastructure issue outside of Tesla, by partnering with Tesla. In 2023 Farley and Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced Tesla’s Superchargers would open to Fords. Farley also committed that Ford would adopt Tesla’s NACS charge port in future EVs.

Earlier in 2024 Ford began delivering CCS to NACS adapters free of charge to F-150 Lightning and Mustang Mach-E owners as Tesla opened its Supercharger network up to Ford EV owners.

Note – This story was updated with clarification on what Ford considers a standard installation

Revel on Thursday opened what the company claims is New York City’s first electric vehicle fast-charging site open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Located at Pier 36 in the Lower East Side section of New York’s Manhattan borough, the site features 10 320-kw DC fast-chargers from Finnish company Kempower, according to a Revel press release. The site, which brings Revel’s total number of New York City fast chargers to 64, is off FDR Drive, the main highway running along the east side of Manhattan.

Revel claims the 320-kw chargers “will offer the fastest charging experience in New York City,” but a Manhattan site opened by Gravity earlier this year west of the Revel location claims to provide charging at up to 500 kw.

Revel DC fast-charging site at New York City’s Pier 36

While the Gravity site may see more mixed use, the Revel fast-charging site at Pier 36 will likely be used primarily used by ridesharing drivers, both from Revel’s own service and Uber. Earlier this year, Revel and Uber launched a partnership that gives Uber drivers a 25% discount at Revel chargers, while Uber guarantees a minimal rate of utilization at existing and future Revel charging sites.

Revel has had a confusing trajectory, shifting from electric mopeds under its original iteration five years ago to rideshare a couple years ago and now earlier this year just charging. The company now aims to expand its New York City charging network to 300 chargers by the end of 2025, including a 60-charger site in the borough of Queens and a 48-charger site at LaGuardia Airport, also located in Queens.

Revel rideshare service

Revel claims utilization of its charging sites has increased tenfold in the last year as a result of New York City’s Green Rides initiative, which aims to make the city’s rideshare fleet fully electric by 2030. Uber also targets all-electric rides wherever it operates by that year.

The opening of Revel’s new fast-charging site follows an announcement by New York’s largest parking operator just this past month of plans to equip 5,000 parking spots with Level 2 charging. These slower chargers will likely prove more useful for residents’ private cars rather than rideshare vehicles, though.

New York City had electric taxis in the ’90s—the 1890s, that is—but with last decade’s taxi of tomorrow push shunning EVs, it’s been a surprisingly long adoption curve for one of America’s densest cities. More public fast chargers could lay the groundwork for making the fleet of yellow cabs greener.

The Volkswagen Group ultra-luxury brand Bentley appears to have cooled even more on EVs.

As its CEO Frank-Steffen Walliser recently told Car and Driver “what we see in the luxury market right now (is that) people reject electric cars.” Wealthy consumers “consider luxury cars only with a combustion engine,” the executive claimed.

In 2020, Bentley laid out plans to make its entire lineup plug-in hybrids by 2026 and all-electric by 2030. The luxury automaker’s first EV was going to roll off the assembly line in 2025, according to Bentley in 2022.

After a change of plans, Bentley’s in the process of turning over its lineup and moving to plug-in hybrid V-8s replacing the former W-12 engine. The W-12 engine won’t be revived and is dead for good, according to Walliser. The automaker’s first EV is now set to debut in 2026 with a market arrival in 2027.

Walliser noted that Bentley is too small an automaker to afford simultaneous ICE and EV versions of the same car as Mercedes and BMW have been doing. Plug-in hybrids make sense and are more than a novel bridging technology in the executive’s eyes.

While the executive won’t commit to a Bentley offering only plug-in hybrids, he’s bullish on e-fuels. Walliser was an executive at Bentley’s sister company Porsche before being named CEO of the luxury automaker in July.

Bentley may continue producing non-hybrid gasoline cars, though those might be limited-production models only, according to Walliser.

Bentley’s main competitor Rolls-Royce is doubling down on EVs. The luxury rival already launched its first EV known as the Spectre, and an electric SUV and sedan are set to arrive in 2027 and 2028 respectively. Rolls-Royce committed to go all-electric by 2030 and remains steadfast with that plan.

Lucid may be out to break the electric vehicle lap record for the Nurburgring Nordschleife, which was set by the Porsche Taycan Turbo GT in March of this year. An Air Sapphire prototype was recently spotted doing laps of the ‘Ring, covered by a light camouflage wrap and sporting racing seats.

CarSpyMedia posted a video of the Air Sapphire, which starts by showing the driver swerving at the start of the lap to put heat into the tires to get them to provide maximum grip. This is a strong indication that they may have been preparing the car for a hot lap, as is the aggressive cornering shown throughout the video.

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Lucid will have a tough time taking the record from the Taycan Turbo GT, whose two motors deliver a 1,019 horsepower burst of power for 10 seconds that allows the car to sprint to sixty in 2.2 seconds with launch control. It’s not quite as quick in a straight line as the Air Sapphire, whose claimed sprint time dips under the 2-second mark thanks to 1,234 hp from its three electric motors.

However, you can get the Taycan Turbo GT with the Weissach package, which adds additional aero components that improve downforce, Attack Mode, which unleashes the full potential of the motors and makes the power delivery more aggressive, as well as removing the rear seat and replacing some of the steel panels in the back with lightweight carbon fiber. The Weissach package makes the Turbo GT 165 pounds lighter, bringing the car to 4,894 lbs.

The Air Sapphire is over 440 pounds heavier and it has narrower rear tires. It’s not going to be as quick through the corners as the Turbo GT Weissach, but its superior power and torque should make up some of the difference on the straights. The current Nurburgring Nordschleife EV lap record stands at 7:07.55, which is on par with a track-honed 911 GT3 RS, and with its extra weight, the Air Sapphire stands little chance of challenging it.

It should have no problem posting a quicker lap time than the Tesla Model S Plaid, whose quickest-ever lap time was 7:25.231. It will be interesting to see if Lucid explains why it took an Air Sapphire to the Nurburgring, whether it was looking to break records or just test its hottest model on one of the world’s most challenging drives.