Author: EVAI

Ford Mustang owners can now reskin their cars’ digital instrument clusters with a retro design inspired by the 1967-1968 Mustang gauge cluster. This option is now rolling out to 2024 Ford Mustang models via an over-the-air (OTA) software update, according to a brief announcement from Ford. It’s another attempt by the automaker to make the most of…

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The Toyota Highlander midsize SUV could go all-electric, while the Grand Highlander would continue with internal-combustion engines, according to a new report from CarBuzz.

This is part of a strategy to replace the alphanumeric naming scheme used by the Toyota bZ4X—currently the only EV in Toyota’s U.S. lineup—for more conventional names, according to the report. Just as the current Highlander shares underpinnings with the Lexus RX, the Highlander EV could have a Lexus sibling, potentially called TZ, according to the report.

2024 Toyota Highlander Hybrid

Meanwhile, the Grand Highlander, which just debuted as a 2024 model, would reportedly continue with a mix of powertrains similar to those of the current version, which is available in gasoline and hybrid forms.

Toyota confirmed a 3-row electric SUV in 2023, due for 2025 production in Kentucky. It also upped investment in the Kentucky plant earlier this year to support assembly of this model, including the addition of a battery assembly line that will be supplied with cells from another Toyota facility currently under construction in North Carolina.

2024 Toyota Highlander Hybrid

Toyota also showed the Land Cruiser Se concept SUV last fall. While we expected that to be the look of the Kentucky-built three-row SUV, maybe in production it will instead look more like the Highlander.

The current-generation Highlander isn’t available with a plug-in hybrid powertrain like the smaller RAV4, but the Highlander Hybrid earns a respectable 36 mpg combined with front-wheel drive. The Highlander was last redesigned for the 2020 model year, so it is due for an update. So if Toyota really is planning a switch to an all-electric powertrain, we may get official confirmation soon.

Prospective customers can now vie for a 2025 Ford Mustang GTD build slot, but getting this race-bred limited edition isn’t as simple as plunking down a deposit. Like the Ford GT supercar, the Blue Oval is requiring customers to apply for the opportunity to purchase a Mustang GTD. Applications are currently open for U.S. and Canadian customers…

Mercedes-Benz AMG’s redesigned C 63 finally rolls into showrooms in the U.S. this spring, and the automaker on Wednesday confirmed prices will start at $85,050, including a $1,150 destination charge. It arrives as a 2024 model in a single grade called the C 63 S E Performance, and there’s no longer a V-8 under the hood. Instead you get a hybrid…

Chevrolet Corvette chief engineer Tadge Juechter is retiring, effective later this summer, General Motors announced Wednesday, ending a 47-year career with the company. A replacement will be announced at a later date, GM said in a press release. Juechter began his career with GM in 1977, working at the automaker’s Lordstown, Ohio, assembly plant…

Lucid adds a heat pump and subtracts charging time for its range-leading Air electric sedan. Mercedes-Benz might not see what Ram sees in a plug-in range-extended vehicle. And why is each EV still losing thousands to full-line automakers? This and more, here at Green Car Reports. 

The 2024 Lucid Air Grand Touring is now being delivered, and once again it hits a 516-mile EPA range—the best of any EV. But with the addition of a head pump, improved automatic preconditioning, and up to 30% faster DC charging, it’s likely to cut the time spent at road-trip charging stops even more. 

Mercedes-Benz has reportedly scrapped its extended-range EV powertrains under development, at least partly because they were too expensive and seen as a technological patch. The plug-in series hybrids would have used dramatically downsized engines—a turbo-2 for the EQS—while halving the EV battery pack. 

And if $50,000 EVs still lose $6,000, according to a recent analysis, when will EVs become profitable? Various financial incentives will help; so will range and efficiency; but the simple answer may rest on production volume. 

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Legacy automakers are still losing thousands of dollars on many EV sales, according to newly published analysis from the Boston Consulting Group.

BCG estimates that most automakers lose around $6,000 on each EV they effectively sell for $50,000, that price accounting for any tax credits or other incentives the customer might be eligible for.

Automakers will only be able to close about half of that cost gap with technology choices, BCG estimates. Economies of scale created by ramp-ups of EV production will help, but won’t completely close the gap either, according to analysts, adding that this could be a problem for legacy automakers in the U.S. market if heavily-subsidized Chinese EVs ever break through here.

Factory Zero – GM Detroit-Hamtramck revamped for EVs

“Closing the cost-profitability gap will require help from elsewhere, whether through more aggressive efficiency programs, additional public support, or both,” according to BCG. One possibility floated by analysts is linking financial incentives to range or efficiency. And, as in most discussions of ways to grow EV adoption, expansion of charging infrastructure will likely be a factor as well.

This all a bit surprising, as several legacy automakers are already into the programs in which they were supposed to be turning a profit on EVs—or at least have it in sight.

Ford EV platforms for mid-decade, presented by Hau Thai-Tang

General Motors, for instance, suggested in 2018 that it could make money on future EVs, by 2021, and then last year Mary Barra suggested it could already do it for models above $40,000.

The simple answer may rest on volume. GM was supposed to be producing hundreds of thousands of its Ultium EVs annually by now. Tesla is turning a profit on its EVs, but it definitely helps to have the bestselling vehicle on the planet and no legacy internal-combustion business to tend to. Ford in February announced a new strategy focusing on smaller, lower-cost EVs at higher volume, to tackle potential Chinese rivals.

Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares has said that EVs cost the company 50% more to make, however, and it’s not a premium that can be passed along in the final price. A new round of incentives, a continued drop in EV battery prices, and other factors like tariffs aimed at blocking Chinese automakers from importing cars from Mexico could also change the profitability equation for U.S. automakers.

Mercedes-Benz is scrapping extended-range EV powertrains after tests of prototypes, according to an Autocar report citing an anonymous source with knowledge of the matter.

Mercedes built and tested some prototypes based on existing models, “concluded that the range-extender drivetrain is a transitional technology with a relatively short-term benefit in terms of sales and comparatively high production costs,” the source told Autocar.

One of the prototypes was reportedly an EQS with a front-mounted 1.0-liter turbo-2, reported to be essentially half of the M254 2.0-liter turbo-4 currently used throughout the Mercedes lineup. This engine reportedly acted purely as a generator, supplying power to an electric motor rather than directly driving the wheels.

2024 Mercedes-Benz EQS

The engine ran on the Miller cycle to improve efficiency at the near-constant-rpm operation a range extender is likely to experience, as well as a front-mounted exhaust system for packaging efficiency, according to the report.

Propulsion was reportedly provided by a 268-hp rear-mounted electric motor, drawing power from a lithium-ion battery pack roughly half the size of a production EQS pack. As in other range-extended EVs, the battery could be replenished either by the internal-combustion engine/generator or via conventional AC or DC charging, per the report.

Autocar reports that combined range from both battery and fossil-fuel power was estimated by Mercedes to be beyond that of the EQS 450+ model. That’s the longest-range version of the production EQS, currently EPA-rated at 352 miles.

2024 Mercedes-Benz EQS 580 4Matic

Ram apparently knows some engineering tricks that Mercedes doesn’t. It says that it can pull this off in the Ram 1500 REV, while allowing the towing prowess of Ram’s non-electrified trucks. But other automakers have had less success with range extenders.

BMW used a range extender with its i3 REx, and at the end of the life cycle essentially said that the batteries had improved enough to push the idea to extinction. One of the few other vehicles to have used such a system is the Karma Revero—also called the GS-6 and, originally, the Fisker Karma.

2024 Mercedes-Benz EQS 580 4Matic

Several years ago Infiniti envisioned its entire future around series hybrids with range extenders and downsized engines, such as this, with complementary full EVs sharing some of the components. But in 2021 it aborted that plan. In that case, the small combustion engine was set to be a 1.5-liter turbo-3 with special encapsulating noise insulation.

Mercedes has instead been shifting toward more plug-in hybrids, with DC fast-charging capability and larger batteries—but it hasn’t downsized the engines substantially yet on those.

The 2024 Lucid Air Grand Touring—the longest-range version of the Air luxury sedan—gets some small but notable changes for the current model year, Lucid announced Wednesday in a press release.

The Grand Touring is the second Air model to get a heat pump, after the high-performance Sapphire. As previously shown in other EVs, a heat pump generally means improved efficiency in cold weather, on longer trips. That helps solve some of the issue of cold-weather range loss in EVs.

2024 Lucid Air

Tesla insisted it didn’t need a heat pump and that its EVs might be less efficient with one—until it introduced one in 2023. Other models adding them in the past year have included the Mercedes-Benz EQS and EQE, and some versions of the Ford F-150 Lightning. General Motors plans to put heat pumps in every one of its Ultium EVs, and Rivian plans to add them soon.

Lucid also claims “about 15-30% faster DC charging” for the 2024 Air Grand Touring, as well as improved automatic battery preconditioning en route to the charging station to further maximize charging speeds (the Air also allows for manual preconditioning, which we appreciate).

2024 Lucid Air

Changes to the motors, battery cell chemistry, and “thermal characteristics” also reduce waste heat, allowing for the Grand Touring “to perform at its best even during sustained spirited driving,” according to Lucid.

The Air Grand Touring retains its EPA-estimated 516-mile range and is priced at $111,400 with the mandatory $1,500 destination charge. It sits above the 419-mile Air Pure and 411-mile Air Touring, which start at $71,400 and $79,400, respectively, with destination. The 1,234-hp, 427-mile Air Sapphire starts at $250,500 with destination. These prices are essentially in line with cuts Lucid made in February.