A real, new, BMW for e799 - nice. Won't have the same profit margin as a 520D, however.

These vehicles are rather nasty. They are very functional, but I can't see people aspiring to owning one. The basic specs are OK for urban use, but they are not safe in crashes and look pretty awful. The challenge is to make them more marketable, while keeping the cost down. They seem to use lead-acid batteries, so it would be good to get them up to LiIon batteries, but then the cost goes up. From a safety perspective, I suppose you should compare them to motorbikes rather than full spec cars (and avoid crashing into trucks or Mercs).

They look a bit like the autonomous trucks in Logan (only a bit pointier).

It seems obvious that single occupancy ride hailing will increase VKT. Thus, it should be policy (more or less everywhere) to increase the occupancy levels. However, I can see lots of reasons why people might not want to do it. [ There is a certain distance between people in buses and trains, but they are very close in a Taxi. Women, especially, might not like being bundled in with a bunch of men. (So have women only ride sharing) ]

IMO, you'd be better putting the effort into land or sea transport. Both of these can handle heavy vehicles better, and land transport can use rails and wires to supply electricity. Also, H2 is usually made by reforming methane, which is not so green to start off with. OK, some short range planes are being built, for for anything over, say 400 miles, you are in trouble.

"Simulations on a WLTP (Worldwide harmonized Light vehicles Test Procedures) cycle demonstrate an energy gain of 20% when compared to incumbent multi-core microcontroller-based applications." Keyword: Simulations. + 1st paragraph: "up to 20%" It sounds too good to be true. There may be certain cases where it is a major improvement, but I doubt it is an across the board 20% improvement. Wait till it is tested by 3rd parties in real vehicles in real conditions.

Good call. It will be a lot easier to mine cobalt in old batteries than in the DRC. There could be a lot of money in recycling lithium batteries.

Nice to see reasonable prices and a range of battery energy options. Q: Would you rather one of these than a Tesla Model 3 ? IMO, quality-wise, I'd go for the VW. But I might go for the Tesla for the self driving tech. or, just wait another 5 years.

@EP, it would be nice if everyone went to Hybrids or EVs, but there is not much sign of it. Some people are moving, but not many. Oil is too cheap (even in Europe) and petrol is too convenient. Hybrids and EVs are still too expensive (unless you count used Leaf mk1's). Also, as the rich west + East gets into more electric vehicles, the poorer parts of the world will buy up their used ICEs. Maybe, you can shame people out of ICEs, but IMO you really need a pull to EVs (and lower prices would be a good start).

@EP: "This is not particularly difficult, but getting people to set it up is likely to be." - I agree, easy to do, hard to get people to change. Might need a mandate to force the timers onto new machines. [ Still can't force people to use them, but its a start. ] I don't think the noise thing is a problem (it never struck me till now). Maybe spin washers a bit slower. If you had retail pricing that followed wholesale prices, it would go a long way. But probably too complex for most people, old people especially. Most people are unable to sort for recycling, so timing washing is just another thing, plus, after the second time of coming down in the morning to find the dishes / clothes unwashed, they'll put them on as soon as it is filled. I take your point on adding extra heating elements + controls to air / water heaters. Again, you'll need a robust, hard to hack, control signal + control boxes everywhere. Maybe people will just have to get used to all this. People are happy to listen to the weather forecast, maybe they could get used to listening to the power forecast, if you had sufficiently attractive forecasters. "Be sure to charge your cars tonight, lot of wind blowing through" etc., or, "Charge your cars in work tomorrow, lots of sun on the way".

Short of a breakthrough, I don't think you'll ever get medium - long term energy storage. Thus, you'll always need something else to balance renewables, most likely the fossil units you had before the renewables came along. Even then, it probably won't work - you'll need "new" thermal plant designed to be switched on and off continuously. You'll need the storage to manage this by load shaping. Can you do this with nukes?, I don't know. IMO, the best use of batteries is in vehicles, where it they be used to replace inefficient ICE engines. After that, you might be able to use it to generally destress the grid and manage peak demand and unit switching. An alternative would be to get people to use electricity when it was available, rather than when it suits people. For instance, you could use dish and clothes washers at night rather than straight after eating. Also, you will end up with loads of renewable energy that nobody can use, unless we find a way of storing it, or doing something with it. Actually, we have this now, and it will get a lot lot worse as more and more renewables come onto the world's grids - look at Germany on sunny, windy sunday afternoons. (Sounds like The Kinks !)

Anyone any idea how much more efficient it is than the previous version?

Any idea how much more efficient it is than the previous version ?

Shiny Happy people.

@EP, it says 15% methanol and 5% bioethanol. Does this mean that the methanol is not from a biologic source, and thus we should count the CO2 in it? Not really clear. As you say, a 3% reduction in co2 is not much of a deal. Maybe they are just trying to get around the European CO2 directives by using fuel as well as engine improvements.

The Euromix carbon intensity is quite low: about 295 gms / KwH (for 2015). https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/overview-of-the-electricity-production-2/assessment-4 Can anyone find a a newer value ? Germany is about 440, so a fair bit worse (in 2015, probably a good bit better now). If you used the German figure, there would be little to chose between the two - unless the notional German was able to charge mostly when the grid was carbon light. You also get considerable local air quality improvements, for sure, whatever the generation source.

Anyone know what gmsCO2/KwH figure they are using ? There is a big difference between Germany and France or Sweden. There is also a huge difference in Germany by time of day / time of year with all their solar and wind renewables. If you could get people to charge when the grid was low CO2, it would make a huge difference. Obviously, this won't be possible all the time - sometimes you will have to charge from a lignite grid, but if people delayed charging till after 12pm, or near noon, you could get lower co2 some of the time. If you had "smart chargers" which can see electricity prices for the next 24-48 hours, and a billing system which runs off real time power prices, then this could work. If you need to charge now, you have to do it and you must take the current price; but if you have flexibility as to when you can charge, you should be able to get lower prices, especially if you have a large enough battery to allow you to charge today or tomorrow.

@Yoat, @Lad, agreed. Both benefit, (Rivian hugely, IMO). Building cars is very hard and Ford can do it. The EV people have a separate set of skills that Ford can use quickly, and maybe some IP that they need.

So they are using very wide baseline stereo to get 3d range data, and remapping it to look like Lidar data so they can use Lidar style image analysis tools - clever. If you think about it, the cameras are probably 1.8m apart, while human eyes are about 80mm apart, so it is ~22x wider - impressive. It will be nice if you can get away without Lidar as it is expensive and mechanical. Solid state lidar is a great idea - but is it actually available ?

It is a pity Toyota don't have a potted pulse and glide mode where the car does it for you. Any idea what the mph range should be - 3, 5, 8 mph ? It would be rather annoying following one of these cars, but you can see the benefits. Also, if you go from say 1 kwH to 2 KwH batteries, how much benefit can you get?

It seems incredible that 40% of the distance covered is in ZEV mode - some of the commutes are quite long. I can understand why 60% of the time is in ZEV mode (Dublin traffic congestion) - but distance - please explain - does it coast every so often on the motorway ?

@EP, I was not suggesting that they do not use EVs when there is no renewable electricity, they will have to charge them from Lignite electricity, which is not so good. The point is that if you have flexibility about when you charge, you can charge at the most suitable time. This would mean having a "two day" battery which can be charged once every two days in normal use. A 40KwH leaf or Tesla model 3 would be an example. A 24KwH Leaf, less to. In summer, you could charge at midday, in winter, you would charge when there is least demand or lots of wind. Similarly, with the long range 2nd car idea, you could keep your old ICE and use it a couple of times a year for the odd long run. You would use the EV most of the time, even if you had to charge it from Lignite electricity. My view is that you may as well keep the old cars for occasional long runs, rather than sell them off (and probably receive very little for them). Perhaps I was not clear enough in my proposals. Ideally, you could charge your EVs with low CO2 power any time (France, Sweden, Switzerland), but this is not the case an many countries, and you have to do the best you can in those cases.

Also, for expensive electricity, don't forget Denmark as well as Germany. https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/electricity_prices/ Does Anyone know of a list of gms CO2 / KwH by country? We have some individual figures here, but no list. IMO, the Germans would do better to use gas rather than Lignite. Also, if they had a large fleet of EVs in germany, they could charge them when there was a load of renewables on the grid. You won;t be able to drive from Frankfurt to Munich at high speed with most EVs, but you could do most of your normal driving. Question: should people be allowed to keep their ICE cars (and pay low tax and insurance on them) if they also have an EV? The idea is that people will be more likely to buy an EV if they have occasional access to an ICE car for the odd long trip.

The Germans made a huge mistake by turning off their nuclear and replacing it with brown coal. Nonetheless, they have loads of wind and solar so the CO2 / kwH shouldn't be too bad as Mikael has said, Also, if you could get them to charge when there is a lot of renewables on the grid, you could make use of it even more. I am sure that the Germans could (and would) do this. My view is that they really want to be green, and if they could increase this by charging at night (or midday) they would. I can see two problems with CNG - the amount of space the tanks take up in a car and availability of fuelling stations. Beyond that, it is OK - not (by any means) zero co2, but better than diesel (and better again if hybridised). The Germans will have to give up their long range, high speed driving if they go electric - power is the cube of the speed, so you better not go much above 120 kph. Also, Does anyone know if they could turn their reactors back on, or have to they gone too far with decommissioning ?

In Ireland, it is unaffordable housing (and lack of rail transport). Rail is the best as it is much smoother than car/bus and you can work on a laptop / read without getting queezy, Another problem of AVs will be road congestion if everyone wants a vehicle to themselves. Shared occupancy is the solution - the question being how many people are you most comfortable with. IMO, more is better - I am happier to be on a bus with 30 people (who I am not expected to talk to), rather than in a taxi with one (who I might or might not want to talk to), or a shared taxi with say 4-6.