Author: EVAI

The U.S. EV charging network Ionna is picking up speed in its infrastructure build-out as the nascent network aims to make good on its promise of installing tens of thousands of electric vehicle chargers over the next five years.

It said on Tuesday in a press release that it is transitioning “from public beta to full-scale national release” following the opening of its first location and the conclusion of a testing program in 2024.

The testing program involved more than 4,400 charging sessions with more than 80 unique EV models, dispensing nearly 63,000 kwh of energy, according to Ionna. It added that the goal was to “stress-test” the network; now the focus shifts to the network build-out.

Ionna was initially backed by seven automakers, including BMW Group, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, and Stellantis. Toyota joined Ionna in 2024. The network was announced in 2023 as the first potential rival to the Tesla Supercharger network in North America, and has steadily built momentum as plans for continued expansion of the Supercharger network have fluctuated.

Ionna now claims to have more than 100 contracted charging sites nationwide, and just this week announced new sites in Houston, Texas; Abilene, Kansas; and Wilcox, Arizona. Those join six already under construction. They’ll be accompanied by new tech features, including expanded Plug & Charge compatibility and Amazon “Just Walk Out” tech that lets drivers grab refreshments without having to wait in line.

Its first location is in Apex, N.C., in what Ionna refers to as a “Rechargery”—in a converted gas station.

Ionna hopes to have 1,000 new charging bays online by the end of the year, on the way to a goal of 30,000 bays by 2030 that was first announced in 2023. “Bays” is the metric Ionna uses in place of charging connectors. It essentially means charging spots, although each spot can have multiple connectors. Those connectors can be CCS or NACS, it has noted. 

As promised, Mercedes-Benz electric vehicles can now charge at 20,000 Tesla Supercharger stations in the U.S. market.

Mercedes-Benz said in January access to Tesla’s Supercharger charging network would open to the German EVs in February. While Mercedes didn’t announce the switch has been flipped, Tesla updated its list of automakers with access to the Supercharger network shifting Mercedes-Benz from “coming soon” to “supported.”

Supercharger will be enabled via a software update installed by dealerships—not over-the-air. Customers will be contacted by Mercedes to schedule this. The update will preserve the plug-and-charge capability offered in current Mercedes EVs, allowing drivers to charge simply by plugging in, and allow Superchargers to show up on the Mercedes app and infotainment systems.

Mercedes-Benz opens Tesla Supercharger access

Adapters cost $185 and will also be distributed through dealerships. They’ll be available in the U.S. this quarter, Mercedes said, but Canadian drivers will have to wait until Q2. Pricing for that market will be confirmed at a later date. Between the U.S. and Canada, Mercedes expects drivers to have access to about 20,000 Supercharger stations.

Mercedes plans to build Tesla NACS ports into new vehicles for North American markets starting this year. So far the refreshed 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5 is the only non-Tesla EV on sale with a NACS port—and it charges slower with it. That’s because most Tesla Superchargers can’t currently charge at 800-volt peak rates, which doesn’t apply to 400-volt Mercedes EVs on the road today.

Mercedes-Benz opens Tesla Supercharger access

Mercedes joined the list of brands switching to NACS in July 2023, even as it was working on its own fast-charging network. The first location, featuring 400-kw DC fast chargers provided by ChargePoint, opened in Georgia in November 2023.

And it’s part of the Ionna charging network joint venture, along with seven other automakers. Ionna aims for 30,000 chargers across North America, with the first site scheduled to open later this year.

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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.

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