Author: EVAI

Honda and Nissan may be about to walk away from a planned merger Reports out of Japan claim Honda wants increased control over Nissan The merger would be worth $58 billion and would create the world’s fourth-largest automaker A decision on the merger between Honda and Nissan proposed by the automakers last December was anticipated to arrive in…

The second EV from U.S.-bound Alpine has been spotted The new EV will be called the A390 and was previewed by the A390 Beta concept Production is scheduled to start in 2025 at plant in France Alpine is set to launch a compact performance crossover later this year, previewed by the A390 Beta concept at the 2024 Paris auto show. A prototype has now…

Ford sells a wide range of crossover SUVs, but at the smaller end of the lineup it has two of its best and most fuel-efficient gas offerings. The Ford Bronco Sport gives off-road enthusiasts a compact SUV with genuine trail-blazing ability, while the more car-like Escape comes in frugal plug-in and hybrid versions. Each of these has great safety…

Ferrari will move forward with its EV plans in 2025 despite the electrification contraction at many low-volume luxury automakers.

The first electric Ferrari is set to debut on Oct. 9. Ferrari CEO Benedetto Vigna confirmed the date of the automaker’s first EV date during its Q4 and 2024 earnings results on Tuesday.

Vigna called the upcoming EV the elettrica, which is Italian for electric. Elettrica is not expected to be the EV’s name.

The EV will be one of six new Ferraris set to arrive in 2025, some of which might be electrified.

Ferrari revealed during the sales recap that 51% of vehicles sold in 2024 were hybrids. Electrification has taken hold in Maranello.

Ferrari e-building

Ferrari built a new factory just for electric cars. Set at home in Maranello, the factory is known as the e-building, and it’s capable of building gas-powered engines, electric motors, battery packs, and hybrid powertrain components. Ferrari has said it can adjust the mix to meet demand.

In 2024, Reuters reported the first electric Ferrari would start at 500,000 euros, which at the time was approximately $535,000 but is now $518,828 roughly. The pricing will make it the most expensive non-limited-production model in the automaker’s lineup. Reuters reported the average Ferrari cost 350,000 euros ($363,091 approximately).

Ferrari’s first EV is expected to be a crossover SUV-like model.

It might be powered by axial-flux motors, or in-wheel motors while also featuring sound generators to mimic an exhaust system.

Ferrari hasn’t laid out its powertrain, but the automaker partnered with SK On for battery packs in 2024. Bloomberg reported in 2024 that Ferrari might offer an annual subscription for its EV battery warranty costing $7,500 per year. The subscription was said to include battery replacements after eight years.

A new Nissan trademark filing points to an adventurous electric vehicle from the Japanese automaker—but it’s just a hint for now.

In a move first spotted by CarMoses, Nissan filed a trademark application for the name e-Trail with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on Jan. 15. While a trademark filing is no guarantee of production intent, the name is interesting for its closeness to e-Power, the branding of Nissan’s series hybrid system, and e-4ORCE, the dual-motor powertrain currently used in the Ariya EV.

2025 Nissan Rogue

The first version of e-Power was introduced in other markets almost a decade ago, but despite repeated promises, Nissan still hasn’t brought it to the U.S. In 2023, the automaker indicated that U.S. plans for e-Power included trucks, but last year Nissan North America Senior Vice President and Chief Planning Officer Ponz Pandikuthira told Green Car Reports that the system was better suited to crossovers like the Rogue and Kicks.

A next-generation Rogue e-Power is likely a couple of years away at least, but it isn’t the only planned electrified version of Nissan’s compact crossover. The automaker will also leverage its connection to Mitsubishi to use the latter’s plug-in hybrid tech in the Rogue. It’s a straightforward swap, as said tech is already used in the Mitsubishi Outlander, which shares underpinnings with the Rogue. Could an e-Trail badge be applied to that model?

2025 Nissan Ariya

CarMoses also speculates that e-Trail could refer to an off-road version of the Ariya, to be sold alongside current Ariya e-4ORCE models, which are tuned more for on-road driving dynamics.

Whatever Nissan has planned for the e-Trail name, it could very well change. The automaker’s planned merger with Honda could upend some product plans, and Nissan has already reportedly delayed some U.S.-market EVs.

• Parent company of Dodge, Ram, Jeep envisions an exhaust system for EVs
• Would identify battery thermal runaway, could help prevent resulting fire by treating gases
• Dodge Charger Daytona EV already makes the sound of an ICE exhaust system

Exhaust systems remove the byproducts of internal combustion, so they might seem superfluous in electric vehicles. But Stellantis might disagree with that.

On Jan. 16, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) published a patent filing from the automaker (originally filed in 2023) for an electric vehicle exhaust system that, Stellantis claims, could help prevent EV battery fires—or control the extent of their damage.

When batteries overheat—or experience thermal runaway, in engineering parlance—they can release flammable gases that then ignite in the presence of the high temperatures generated by the overheating batteries, Stellantis explains in the document. Those gases can include hydrogen, as well as hydrocarbons like methane, ethane, ethylene, acetylene, propane, cyclopropane, and butane, according to the automaker.

Stellantis EV exhaust system patent image

Removing those gases could prevent thermal runaway from escalating into fires, the automaker reasons, as well as vent pressure from the battery pack. With Stellantis’ four new modular STLA platforms designed to accommodate combustion engines and their exhaust systems, as well as all-electric powertrains, there’s certainly room for the necessary plumbing.

Stellantis even designed an exhaust system of sorts for the Dodge Charger Daytona EV, to reproduce the V-8 rumble of past Chargers—although that system is entirely intended for sound and vibration.

In the battery exhaust system, gases and they would pass through “a plurality of treatment zones for chemically treating the flow of gases to eliminate or at least reduce the number of various chemical species from the flow,” Stellantis says in the filing—bringing to mind some similarities to the catalytic converters used in combustion vehicles.

Stellantis EV exhaust system patent image

Modern batteries in most EVs are rigidly controlled via battery management system parameters. They’re also tightly sealed, with liquid cooling systems, and monitored at the module or cell level in a way that can isolate a defective portion of the pack. So while it’s surprising to see an automaker focusing on an outcome that its engineers have likely gone to great lengths to avoid, this isn’t the only unusual solution proposed for lessening the risk of EV battery fires. In 2019 the automotive supplier Bosch proposed using pyrotechnics to quickly sever electrical connections between battery pack and the rest of the vehicle if thermal runaway occurs. Either solution would be more about containing damage, and potentially making vehicles safer for first responders to approach, than prevent runaways in the first place.

Fire risk has led to several large EV recalls, but in 2023 the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) said that, as a safety concern, it’s outweighed (no pun intended) by the bulk of many current EVs and the damage they can inflict on other road users.

• 2025 ID.4 with 82-kwh battery and 291-mile range starts at $46,520
• VW promises “additional content” midyear; unclear if that’s in addition to NACS adapter
• Base 62-kwh versions haven’t been priced, will come later
  

Volkswagen has put a price on some, but not all, U.S. versions of its 2025 VW ID.4 electric vehicle lineup ahead of their expected arrival at dealerships in February.

The 2025 ID.4 will be offered once again in a total of seven trims. ID.4 models with the larger 82-kwh (77 kwh usable) battery pack start at $46,520 in single-motor rear-wheel-drive form (including the $1,425 destination charge) or $50,420 in all-wheel-drive form. For the former, that’s $220 more than the equivalent 2024 model. This is for the 2025 VW ID.4 Pro, which continues to offer an extensive range of features, such as heated seats, heated washer nozzles, heated mirrors, a heated windshield (AWD models), dual-zone climate control, ambient lighting, 45-watt USB-C charging, and an extensive suite of active-safety tech. 

Pro S versions of the ID.4 with RWD add adaptive front lighting, perforated cooled front seats, a panoramic moonroof, a power tailgate, and 20-inch wheels, and it starts at $51,620, while the AWD Pro S version costs $55,520. Top S Plus versions are only offered in AWD form and cost $58,720, adding 14-speaker premium audio, heated rear seats, an overhead-view camera system, 21-inch wheels, upgraded trims, and more.

That leaves base-battery versions of the 2025 VW ID.4 with the 62-kwh (58 kwh usable) battery pack without a price, as of yet. For 2024 those versions started at $41,160 and were only offered with rear-wheel drive, keeping the 201-hp rear motor unit formerly used throughout the lineup.

The ID.4 has a CCS port, but it has said that its vehicles will obtain Tesla Supercharger access with a NACS adapter starting in June or July. Volkswagen noted with Monday’s update that those base-battery versions will have “later availability,” while all models will get “additional content starting midyear,” with details and pricing to come later, so it’s unclear if these two points are related.

2024 Volkswagen ID.4

2024 Volkswagen ID.4

2024 Volkswagen ID.4

VW confirmed last June that for 2025, even base versions of the ID.4 with the 62-kwh battery pack will get a 12.9-inch infotainment system with a revamped interface that cures, from what we could see in a first drive of the 2024 VW ID.4, nearly all of the interface ills of the ID.4 as it was initially launched. It keeps its Apple CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility, but it adds improved processing hardware to get rid of the latency, a tray of shortcuts, and climate functions that “stick” to the bottom of the screen. Supporting haptic sliders are now backlit and no longer laggy.

VW confirmed last June that the 2025 ID.4 would be carried over essentially unchanged from 2024, and it’s supplemented with a ChatGPT-based voice assistant. In a first experience with that voice interface, what VW is doing with or without the help of AI was not clearly differentiated. The automaker at that time emphasized only that no app or activation is required, and “if the request cannot be answered by the Volkswagen system, it is forwarded anonymously to AI and the familiar Volkswagen voice responds.”

2024 Volkswagen ID.4

2024 Volkswagen ID.4

2024 Volkswagen ID.4

VW has underscored, thankfully, that ChatGPT and the integration partner Cerence don’t gain access to vehicle data, and questions and answers are “deleted immediately to ensure the highest possible level of data protection.” At that time VW said that the new voice assistant could help answer general-knowledge questions, but in a CES demo Green Car Reports didn’t find it any easier than a Google search—or any more competent than Siri, which presents a low bar. 

As with the extensively revamped 2024 models, which arrived earlier this calendar year, the vast majority of the 2025 Volkswagen ID.4 lineup offers a punchier permanent-magnet rear motor unit allowing 282 hp in single-motor rear-wheel-drive form, or 335 hp in dual-motor all-wheel-drive form that includes a smaller induction motor in front. Meanwhile VW boosted ID.4 EPA range ratings to 263 miles for AWD versions or up to 291 miles for the single-motor version, both with the larger 82-kwh (77-kwh usable) battery pack.

VW ID.4 sales were down significantly in 2024, initially due to a slight delay before the refreshed model and then due to the recall and stop-sale of 2021-2024 ID.4 models—nearly 100,000 vehicles—due to defective door handles. Deliveries resumed last month and production restarted at its Chattanooga, Tenn., assembly plant.

As of yet, the 2025 VW ID.4 faces yet another hurdle: It’s not yet listed as qualifying for the $7,500 EV tax credit, which is at the time of writing still valid. With the clock potentially ticking on that piece of policy, and VW faced with a glut of 2024 models it needs to move out from the stop-sale, expect discounts on those much-improved 2024 ID.4s as we wait to get the full 2025 picture on this EV model line.

A redesigned Jeep Cherokee is expected to debut in 2025 Latest prototype sighting points to a bigger, brawnier design for the new Cherokee Jeep officials have hinted at a hybrid powertrain for the new Cherokee Stellantis’ SUV brand, Jeep, has several new models in the pipeline, and a prototype for one of them has just been spotted. The prototype…

Audi announced Monday that it will upend a naming scheme announced last year and have internal-combustion and electric vehicles share nameplates.

In an effort to fit more electric models into its traditional alphanumeric format, Audi previously said it would assign odd-numbered designations to combustion models like the A5 and Q5, and reserve even numbers for EVs along with its current E-Tron suffix, as with the A6 E-Tron and Q6 E-Tron. But that’s no longer the case.

Numbers will once again refer only to a model’s size and positioning in the lineup, Audi said in a press release. The letters A and Q will remain as differentiators between cars and SUVs, respectively, rather than powertrain type, meaning electric and combustion models can now share the same alphanumeric combination, Audi confirmed.

2025 Audi SQ6 E-Tron

Powertrain-specific branding such as E-Tron, TFSI for combustion engines, and TFSI e for plug-in hybrids will continue, along with body-style nomenclature like Sportback (used for fastbacks) and Avant (wagons), Audi confirmed.

“This decision is the result of intensive discussions and also follows the wishes of our customers as well as feedback from our international dealers,” Audi sales and marketing boss Marco Schubert said in a statement. The return to the previous nomenclature is more “intuitive,” allowing customers to more easily judge a model’s place in the lineup, Schubert added.

In addition to making things easier for customers to understand, the revised naming scheme better accounts for the numerous plug-in hybrids Audi has said it will introduce as a hedge against an unpredictable EV market. They might otherwise fall into the gap of a naming scheme that divides all models into electric or internal-combustion.

2025 Audi Q5

The first model affected by this change will be the next-generation gasoline Audi A6, which would have been badged as an A7 under the previous nomenclature. Due to be revealed Mar. 4, it will be styled as an A6 TFSI, while its electric companion model will keep its A6 E-Tron nomenclature.

But while they now share a name, it’s likely that the two models will be based on different platforms. The A6 E-Tron is based on the Premium Platform Electric (PPE) also used by the Q6 E-Tron and electric Porsche Macan, but as that’s an EV-specific platform, the gasoline A6 will likely use the Premium Platform Combustion (PPC) introduced with the latest Audi A5 and Q5.

Audi on Monday announced that it will drop a naming convention announced last year and allow internal-combustion and electric vehicles to share names. The automaker previously said it would keep its alphanumeric format as more EVs entered the lineup, but reserve even numbers for electric models and odd numbers for combustion models. That naming…