Weekly-ish News - Episode 46 (July 10, 2022)

What's the Alternative?

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Interchange Podcast episode about Power Purchase Agreements.

Vehicles:

The Hyundai Ioniq 5 has achieved the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) Top Safety Pick+ list.

The federal electric vehicle tax credit is going to begin phasing out for Toyota and Lexus starting in October of 2022.

• This means it will drop down from $7,500 to $3,750 until April 1, 2023, then phase out entirely in October 2023.
• Here is a page with the tax credit status by automaker/vehicle.

Not a surprise, but the F-150 Lightning's vehicle-to-home system will require additional hardware that may cost around $4k, maybe more depending on the home.

• This is in addition to needing Ford's Level 2 charger, which costs $1,310.

The Chevy Bolt received a massive price cut across the board, now starting at $26,595.

• GM is also giving retroactive discounts to Bolts bought new in 2022.

Hyundai is discontinuing the Hyundai Ioniq hybrid and plug-in hybrid, after already cancelling the fully electric Ioniq.

• This mostly makes sense, since they're properly moving towards electrification with the Ioniq name.
• This is a shame, though, since the Hyundai Ioniq hybrid was the most efficient gas car on the market for several years.

We now have pricing for the Mercedes-Benz EQB, which will start at $55,550.

Nissan and Wallbox (the charging company) are partnering to offer at-home charging to Nissan customers.

• Nissan owners will be able to purchase a level 2 Wallbox charger and schedule its installation through Nissan, all in one process on the Nissan website.
• Owners will also receive a rebate of an unknown amount when going through their website.

Stellantis is testing under-road wireless charging in their Fiat 500 with a system that is capable of up to 20kW.

Ford is going to assemble its "next generation" EV platform in Valencia, Spain, and is moving forward with converting its Cologne, Germany facility to produce EVs.

• The site in Spain would begin production at the end of the decade.
• The Germany site's conversion is a $2b project.

BMW is opening its own battery production facility in late 2022, not to produce its own batteries at a large scale, but to develop specifications for other battery manufacturers to meet.

• The idea is that learning more about battery manufacturing will allow them to set higher quality technical standards for their suppliers to meet.
• This facility will also do battery research to develop new batteries that meet their performance goals.
• This is a 130m Euro investment.

LG Chem and Korean Energy Materials are partnering to build a $160m battery precursor factory in South Korea.

Stellantis and Samsung are partnering to build a battery plant in Kokomo, Indiana.

• It will have an initial capacity of 23GWh/year and will ramp up to 33GWh over a few years.
• Production is to begin in 2025.
• This is a $2.5b investment.
• It will create 1,400 jobs.

Toyota is now also partnering with Redwood Materials to develop a "closed-loop" battery market.

• Redwood Materials is a company that does battery recycling and is partnering with Ford and Volvo already.
• Redwood Materials is already processing 6GWh of batteries annually with the goal of ramping up to 100GWh by 2025.

Electrify America has set up a Virtual Power Purchase Agreement with Terra-Gen to take advantage of 75MW of solar power with an annual electricity production of 225TWh.

• That is enough electricity to drive roughly 675m miles or 1b km.
• Operations of that solar facility in the Mojave are expected to begin in Summer of 2023.

The EV charging company, FreeWire Technologies, has opened a new headquarters in Newark, California and raised $125m in additional funding for scaling up.

• FreeWire is definitely gearing up to take advantage of Infrastructure Bill funding.
• Their charger uses a large battery to lessen the grid-connection requirements at their chargers.

Deployment:

The charging company FreeWire and Phillips 66 have signed a letter of intent to partner on installing FreeWire chargers at Phillips 66 fuel stations across the U.S.

• There are unfortunately no details available about the number of planned sites, timeline, etc.
• It's worth noting that "letters of intent" are usually not binding.

Seattle is offering (a limited number of) free curbside Level 2 chargers to property owners who don’t have a way of installing EV chargers at their sites.

• The chargers would have a flat rate to charge, but would be free to install.

Rivian has installed its first two WayPoint Level 2 chargers in Michigan at the Holland State Park on Lake Michigan.

The United Kingdom's Department for Transportation has announced more than £200 million of new funding for demonstration projects for hydrogen and electric heavy duty trucks.

• This will be a 3yr project.

Milan's transit system has ordered 75 more electric transit buses from Solaris to go into service in late 2022.

• This brings their total order up to 215, out of 250 included in their original deal with Solaris.
• They intend to completely phase diesel out by 2030.

Los Angeles has deployed its first electric fire truck in Hollywood.

• It only has a 132kWh battery pack, which can allow for about 2 hours of pump operation.
• It has a "range extender" 6-cylinder diesel engine that can operate the pumps for an additional 6 hours.
• This vehicle will not be a full replacement for traditional fire trucks, which may need to operate for well over a dozen hours continuously.

Energy:

Grand Rapids, Michigan is hoping to reach 100% renewable power by 2025 and just launched a 0.9MW solar facility to help power its water filtration plant.

Nebraska Public Power District held a ribbon cutting for a new solar facility in Norfolk that produces 8.5MW of solar power with 1MW of battery storage.

The Sandy Creek Solar Power Plant in Bay County, Florida is now online, producing 74.9MW of power.

Entergy has completed a 100MW solar facility in Mississippi.

The French Road Solar project in Burlington, Indiana has officially come online with 2.8MW of solar power.

The DeCordova Energy Storage Facility by Vistra in Granbury, Texas is now online with 260MW of battery storage, which makes it the largest storage facility in Texas.

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) researchers have developed a record-breaking solar panel that is 39.5% efficient.