It is Thusrday night here in Europe and it seems like there are just Tesla news around the e-car business again.
While Tesla teases the semi-truck which should be introduced in September and releases smaller information pieces regarding the Tesla 3 technical snippets (like the Auto Pilot 2.5) peu-à-peu – probably a good marketing campaign – the German car manufacteurs fail again and again:
Merceds Benz asked customers on Twitter with the assumption „With electric cars increasing in popularity…“ if they would like to buy an e-car.
Really MB? The market of e-cars is increasing? Where did you hear that from? … Good morning Mercedes Benz. The asked possible customers told them in big parts that they already moved forward to the single company that provides e-cars in relevant numbers today – and there is the name again – Tesla.
BMW wants to show a new i8 this year, but still with a gas tank beside the smaller e-machine. A rumor says that they will announce a fully electric i8 for 2022 – 5 years from now.
Within Volkswagen it seems to be shaking, no big news from there, other then maybe 2019 there will be some e-cars and that in 2025 they expect upto 25% of the cars to be – maybe – electric.
Opel struggles deeply and it looks like Chevrolet won’t sent them new Amperas anymore. Seems like both companies loose many on that car.
Japan keeps quiet, Toyota, Mazda, no news there about EV’s, but there is something to report from Nissan: They started teasing their new, 3rd generation Leap, possibily with a 220-240km distance for maybe less then 35.000 Euro. On the other side Nissan’s battery business is not profitable, so the decision was made that the AESC company (a former cooperation with NEC) will sell the battery production company to an Chinese investor as Electrek communicates. At least i had luck to once again see an EV-200, not a very common car here in Germany.
Korea deals with a lot of shitty news these days and keeps understandably quiet about the e-car developments.
Just China seems to have – beside that acquisition of Nissans battery business – some news with a larger invested into a company which wants to produce smaller trucks for the business market in the U.S. The car is being produced by Chanje in China, it’s name is Chanje 8070 (file backup: Chanje-V8070).
Rome Season I