There’s an alternate universe out there where Nissan kept up development of the early-to-the-game electric Leaf, saw what was coming, and expanded its EV lineup to several other models while building out its hybrid portfolio, becoming a technological competitor to both Tesla and Toyota in the process. Alas, that’s not the timeline we exist in. Now one of the original EV pioneers is playing catch up, and it’s starting by convincing its own dealers in America that it can pull this off.
That leads off this wonderful Friday edition of our morning news roundup. Also on tap today: another Nissan-centric Apple TV show you should watch this weekend, union workers at a General Motors battery plant score a win, and how we can expect EVs to become a political football in the U.S. presidential race. Let’s get moving!
Nissan To Dealers: Here’s The Electric Plan, Finally
Nissan has been in the midst of a bit of a comeback lately after years in the wilderness amid the scandalous downfall of its former CEO (which we’ll get to a minute), the pandemic, and a prolonged internal fight with its partner Renault. But as good as many of these updated Nissans look—the new Pathfinder, Z and Frontier all seem pretty sharp—you may notice they run on extremely dated powertrains, like CVTs and the now-ageless VQ V6 engine. Nissan doesn’t even make any hybrid cars in North America anymore.
Don’t even get me started on Infiniti.
Anyway, Nissan hasn’t felt like an automaker that has its shit together in years. Losing the lead it once had in the EV race is particularly painful—especially when you consider how the Chinese market going for the automakers lately. So at a conference for dealers in Las Vegas (these things are always in Vegas) Nissan showed its North American sales partners what the future will be. And it includes hybrids, finally; solid-state batteries; a new Leaf; and an electric sport sedan, too. Take it away, Automotive News:
Top Nissan executives in attendance previewed what will be a rapidly electrifying product portfolio of about a dozen new and updated vehicles.
Nissan CEO Makoto Uchida committed to a diversified powertrain strategy in which the company invests in both internal combustion vehicles and electric vehicles. He emphasized a greater focus on delivering products to market faster — addressing a long-standing dealer gripe.
The automaker will kick-start its EV offensive beginning around 2025, and will bring a promising series-hybrid technology to the U.S. about a decade after launching it in Japan, officials said. Dealers were told the company plans to launch 27 electrified vehicles globally by 2030, including 19 battery-electric models.
The replacement for the Leaf offers 25 percent more range than the hatchback, dealers were told. A dealer who asked not to be identified described the new model’s look as “a mini-Ariya.”
Also, this is funny, because remember how all SUVs are Land Rovers now?
Described by the dealer as “Range Rover-like,” the redesigned Armada debuts a 424-hp twin-turbocharged V6 engine with a nine-speed transmission. It is bigger and more rugged-looking, with redesigned headlights and taillights. An all-new interior includes upgraded finishes, large screens and the latest driver-assist and convenience technology.
Infiniti wouldn’t say if the QX Monograph concept it unveiled at Pebble Beach is electric or not, and the above proves it probably won’t be since it and the Armada are platform-mates; I also think that if that SUV was electric, they would’ve said so.
Anyway, these plans do sound promising enough, and keep in mind Nissan is also said to be planning an electric pickup truck—something I think it’d be great at. It’s also finally getting back to making some hybrids:
Nissan said it will bring its e-Power series-hybrid technology to the U.S. in the redesigned Rogue scheduled for the second half of 2026. The technology introduced in Japan in 2016 uses a battery-powered electric motor to drive a vehicle’s wheels and a gasoline engine to charge the battery.
Nissan has a lot of work to do here, however. It finally seems to realize it can’t coast on that V6 engine forever. And while some critics say starting the “EV offensive” around 2025 is too late, I think that given the ups and downs of the EV market in America—and how companies like Ford, GM and others have struggled to get theirs up and running profitably and at scale—Nissan’s timing may work out just fine here.
I have a Nissan Ariya EV I’m taking on a road trip to the Finger Lakes this weekend. I’ll let you know how that goes.
Carlos Ghosn Apple TV+ Documentary Debuts This Weekend
Apparently, the greatest regret for former Nissan and Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn—currently living in a sort of exile in Lebanon—is not taking the top executive role at GM in 2009 when he had the chance. Granted, 2009 wasn’t a spectacular year to run an American car company, but it would’ve been better than his ultimate fate.
I probably don’t have to tell you, Autopian reader, what happened, but just in case: In 2018, Ghosn was charged in Japan with financial crimes, particularly underreporting his executive compensation. Since the Japanese don’t screw around, he was facing hard prison time, and instead rigged a daring escape out of the country in an instrument case with the aid of a former Green Beret.
It’s still just the most insane story. And it’s having a bit of a moment right now: There’s a Netflix documentary, an upcoming drama mini-series starring Tony Shalhoub of Monk and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel fame, the book “Boundless” by Wall Street Journal reporters Nick Kostov and Sean McLain, and now this Apple TV documentary based on that book. It’s called Wanted: The Escape Of Carlos Ghosn, and it debuts tonight.
Here’s The Detroit Free Press on that:
“This is the hardcore facts. That ultimately is our goal,” [director James Jones] told the Detroit Free Press. “It’s a dark and twisted, complicated story and it poses the question: Is Carlos Ghosn a victim or a villain? We let the viewer decide.”
[…] The series took about two years to make and getting the principal players to participate was a feat in itself. For one thing, Ghosn is a fugitive who can’t leave Lebanon or he risks arrest.
“It took six months to even have a face-to-face meeting with him,” Jones said. “We met in a hotel in Beirut. We walked him through it and I think he respected that we knew a lot about what we were talking about. He’s been around long enough to know this isn’t going to be a puff piece and he wouldn’t have any editorial control. But I talked him into the fact that, ‘You’re your own best advocate’ to participate in it.”
And here’s where things get really interesting:
“I certainly think he was a victim in those early days,” Jones said. “The Japanese charges were inappropriate. We have evidence there was a plot to take him down to stop the merger. He had a hard time in prison. But it gets complicated where you find the allegations they came across later on which were much more serious and even the French have issued an arrest warrant. That suggests there is something more serious going on.”
Now you have something to watch this weekend!
GM’s Ultium Battery Plant Workers Score A Win
As we’ve covered here before, the new U.S. battery plants are a big point of contention in the United Auto Workers’ ongoing contract negotiations with the Big Three. Employees at those plants are joint venture workers so they aren’t automatically UAW members, and thus far have been paid quite a bit less than their car factory counterparts—a real sticking point considering they’re building the future of the American auto industry.
But workers at the LG-GM Ultium plant in Warren, Ohio scored a win by securing 25% pay raises as part of a tentative agreement. They’re even getting back pay, too. Here’s The Detroit News:
The agreement, which will have to be ratified by the UAW members at Ultium, would become effective Aug. 28. It comes as the two parties continue to negotiate an inaugural contract for the Ultium workers. Ultium is a joint venture between General Motors Co. and LG Energy Solution.
“Providing this wage increase is the right thing to do for our team members, all of whom contribute so much to Ultium Cells’ growth and success,” Ultium said in a statement. “This is just a first step. We continue to bargain in good faith with the UAW to reach a comprehensive contract for our employees, including a final wage scale.”
The UAW said in a statement that the “breakthrough agreement” will raise wages by $3 to $4 an hour, adding it will continue to bargain for more wage increases.
“After months of public pressure and worker organizing, Ultium was forced to take a first step towards economic justice for the workers who are powering GM’s electric vehicle future,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a statement. “When we fight hard, we can win big, and we aren’t done fighting for standard-setting wages and benefits at Ultium and beyond.”
And more from Fain:
Fain, at a rally Sunday in Macomb County, addressed the situation at the Ohio Ultium plant.
“We want our standards in this transition to EV,” he said during the event at UAW Region 1 headquarters. “If we don’t get these standards … everyone’s going to lose. This whole country’s gonna lose. It’s imperative that we have good labor standards especially when our tax dollars are financing that.”
Expect more of this as contract negotiations continue.
EVs Get Political At GOP Debate
One day, when I am king (America has had a great track record with guys named King George, as I like to say) I’ll still allow us to have presidential elections. I plan on being a benevolent dictator, you see. But under my reign, campaign season will legally be limited to two weeks. This will keep presidential election cycles and the subsequent news coverage around them—which at this point exists to juice cable TV ratings and little else—at a far less annoying level.
Unfortunately, no one has crowned me king yet. So while the election’s not until next year, this week had the first Republican debate (sans its frontrunner) and it featured lots of talk about EVs. Here’s The Detroit News again:
Asked whether human-caused climate change is real, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said yes but that Biden administration subsidies for EVs are “not working.”
“All he’s done is helped China. He doesn’t understand, all these electric vehicles that he’s done — half of the batteries for electric vehicles are made in China. So that’s not helping the environment,” she said. “You’re putting money in China’s pocket.”
It went on and on like that, and former President Trump also had plenty of anti-EV takes in his pre-recorded interview with Tucker Carlson that aired on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. (You know, the one literally owned by the CEO of an electric automaker. What a weird time to be alive.)
I have little desire to wade in here and I doubt you want that either, but my point is this: Expect EVs to become a big talking point in this interminable election, especially with the battery plant investments spurred by the Biden Administration’s signature legislative package, the Inflation Reduction Act. Those who seek to unseat Biden have linked EVs to China, or said they’re “woke,” or claimed people are being “forced” to buy them eventually. I think it’s just an evolutionary shift in technology—one that’s been in the works for more than a decade now—that happens to have complex geopolitical ramifications around supply chains, but hey, that’s just me.
Either way, expect to hear more politicization of the auto industry this time around, whether you want to or not. And I’d add that this has a lot to do with our own tax dollars, too, so it’s worth keeping some kind of eye on.
Your Turn
What do you want to see from Nissan as it pulls out of this weird funk it’s been in for some time? I’m glad it’s including hybrids in its strategy, but a lot can happen in two years. Hopefully, for Nissan’s own sake, it isn’t too behind the curve.
“Deny it to a king? Then happy low, lie down! Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” Act III, Scene I, of the William Shakespeare play, “Henry IV”
With that out of the way, studies have shown that both physical, and imaginary crowns cut off blood flow to the higher brain functions, to the detriment of all subjected to the influence of their decisions.
Apparently I’m still ticked from Melon making me embarrassed for him from the 10 micron nonsense.
Counterpoint: Mel Brooks saying, “It’s good to be king!”
I always loved his delivery there
Renaults in america. Simple.
A hybrid Rogue? That’s interesting. I considered the Rogue once based on its size, and modernizing it as a hybrid might actually sway some RAV4 or Escape customers to buy one. Nissan has a lot of heritage, and I’d like to see them stick around.
From what I have seen nothing will sway a RAV4 customer.
I would support you as king. Mainly for the reason you gave. We can go to a two week media cycle on campaigns and spend the rest of the year saturated in media coverage of your sex life and indiscretions like they do in the UK.
I appreciate the new notification system. It’s a lot better than scrolling through comment sections to check for replies! Thank you for getting it implemented.
Seconded!
And enjoy this notification!
Going for a notification of my own!
Wow, it made noise at me this time!
It made a noise for me while I had the tab open, when I was in another tab I just got the system notification.
Ding
Thanks to our tech partner, Jazel, for getting this done! Glad you’re enjoying it.
My attention span may not like seeing it wiggle – still did that after I marked them as read, I had to click it open again to really “clear” it. But pleased with it otherwise!
Yeah, I’ve run into the same thing. But it’s easy enough to clear and is much better than not having notifications at all.
Yup – I’m sure more adjustments for the settings may come down the line.
I’m wondering if the slow move to EVs by Japanese automakers has anything to do with their domestic market. I was talking a while back with a visitor from Tokyo and we got on the subject. He said that the Japanese have a bit of a love-hate with electricity. Despite being a pretty high tech place, not everything is electrified. Homes, even in the higher altitute areas of the north don’t often have electric heating, but might have AC. AC is a big part of domestic electricity demand. For one, electricity costs a lot and can be quite unreliable with strong storms often cutting off supply. Add to that the trauma of the Fukashima disaster and it’s not all that sexy of a subject. This might be causing some sort of cultural predisposition to hydrogen.
He also said that there seems to be less of a range anxiety issue than a “where am I going to be able to charge?” issue with EVs. When electricity supply is sketchy, that might amplify it.
Despite the automakers having huge foreign business, they may be biased by their home market viewpoints. Also, that foreign business is pretty big in developing markets that are a long way off from EV infrastructure.
You’re right on the money, from everything I’ve heard. As global as these automakers are, they often have trouble looking past their own front yards.
Either Nissan or Mitsubishi needs to enter into an agreement to bring rebadged Dacias here. A US-spec Duster with a hybrid powertrain would sell like crazy
Rant time.
Let me tell you something about Warren, OH. It is the single most depressing town I’ve ever been to. The city bet everything on the steel manufacturers coming back, and they lost. It is rust belt incarnate. You can buy a house for $50k, but rent is $1000/mo because nobody has the credit or savings for that $50k. Bringing reasonably paid union jobs to Warren is a game changer for them.
Unions are deeply, deeply imperfect, but small town America lives and dies by union contracts. Kokomo, IN managed to recover from the Great Recession (after being in the top 10 worst-hit cities in the US) because the union kept Chrysler from outsourcing their transmission plant. Union jobs, even if there are only a handful of them, provide a reliable economic backbone that can support local shops, restaurants, banks, etcetera.
At the GOP primary debate, when the group was asked if they believed anthropogenic climate change even existed, not a single candidate raised their hand. Not a single one. Every single thing they say must be taken with the context that they believe (or at least want people to think they believe) that climate change is a hoax.
They will always come up with increasingly ridiculous reasons why climate change efforts should stop. If tomorrow we invented a miracle tech that replaced fossil fuels with no drawbacks or tradeoffs, the GOP would still treat it like the antichrist because they do not believe there is a problem that needs to be solved.
The candidates just didn’t know what anthropogenic meant.
As funny as that would be, the verbatim question was, “Do you believe human behavior is causing climate change? Raise your hand if you do.” Not really much room for confusion there.
Left or right hand?
My old man, who “watches less Fox News since Tucker left,” doesn’t believe in anthropogenic climate change. He still cites the Michael Crichton novel “State of Fear,” and much of the cited materials from that book. I attempted to engage, but was shut down hard.
After hearing that bit about watching less Fox because of Tucker, I finally had to have that mental break of not even attempting to engage; there is no hope for us to even try to agree, and I fear that mindset goes with many who support this current incarnation of the GOP. Science? “Scary.” Woke? “Scary.” Making the planet uninhabitable for your grandchildren?
Meh…”
I’ve been noticing a growing trend on Facebook to not only discount climate change, but push back on other pollution issues in ways I haven’t seen in some time. Like “you should just dump used motor oil into the ground because it’s organic” levels of bizarre claims. And, when confronted with things the risk of oil going into the groundwater, they just double down with some sort of claim that it’s not harmful and not to believe scientists.
Nissan killed themselves with CVT all the things, and 50 year old Frontier, hopefully they can turn it around, if they PHEV CVT all the things that may be better, planetary better than bands.
Yes, Nissan should get rid of the CVTs.
But please don’t touch the Frontier.
It’s the last simple low-tech no-nonsense small truck available on the US market.
My Frontier is literally 25 years old and I wish they still sold something that size. What’re you trying to say?
Remember that little 2 door 510 revival concept a few years back that everyone loved? Yeah. Build that, as an EV with city-useable range and power (150 miles and typical econobox acceleration, say) and base price it at $20k.
Hey, you asked what I want, not what I think is realistic…
That would be my dream for Nissan – revive the Datsun marque with RWD EVs, starting with a neo-510 and a compact pickup
Someone else already said it but PHEV Frontier would be a game changer, as long as it’s not too expensive. Could even sell a solar bed cover to get a few extra km’s on those sunny days.
I’d also like to see an Infiniti upscale version of the Frontier, again with the plug in hybrid or maybe even fully electric. Luxury trucks are in these days
Big Nissan guy here, so I’m glad for my opportunity to be new CEO. Looking back at our past profit margins. We were really killing it in the 2010-2015 area. All efforts to produce a better car have so far backfired. So instead of trying to innovate, we’re going to disintegrate back to the old stuff. You want a 2014 Maxima that you can drive home for 6 bucks down and a 485 dollar payment, you got pal! At all Nissan dealerships time now stopped at 12/31/2015. “Uptown Funk” will be played hourly
Over at Infiniti, we’re turning back the clock to Funfinti. We take the JDM sedans America doesn’t get, put a VK v8 in it, then bring to America. Fuga- v8, Cedric-v8! Did it make money the first time we did it, kinda! Was a couple dollars more then Forgottenfinti makes now, hell yeah! So prepare for a second opportunity at a M56 you didn’t buy the first time.
Also Midnight Purple v3 is now an option on Nismo Juke. And the Altima finally gets a Nismo version to terrorize your local freeway. A TT VQ FF no credited needed missle with sick red trim.
A sub-$25k Nismo Altima with a GTR engine would be awesome. Please sell them to people with 400 credit scores that walk into the dealership intoxicated. Give a special discount for juggalos.
The next Gathering of the Juggalos will be at Brookfield Nissan! Shaggy2dope will replace Brie Larson as spokesperson. What is a juggalo? A new owner of the 2024 Altima GT-R V spec Nismo edition.
It goes from 0 to SUCK-MY-ASS in 3.5 seconds!
Want to see?
Hardbody retro revival.
The Pathfinder moniker deserves better. Give it the Bronco treatment.
To expand on that. Unibody Hardbody revival to compete with the Maverick. Make it one of the top three most affordable cars in the lineup.
Bring back both the Pathfinder and Xterra. Make one on the Unibody platform of the reborn Hardbody and the other BOF with live rear axle.
Basically, copy Ford is what I want to see.
Nissan is really dropping the ball in this recent off-roader/truck explosion.
You do you with your kingship, PG.
When I’m king, I’m implementing StillNotATony’s One Shot Law.
Under this law, when a citizen turns 18, they get to shoot 1 person. You can’t kill or permanently injured them, though. Like, shoot them in the butt.
You only get ONE, and it’s non-transferable. When you decide you want to use your shot, you dial 911, the cops come, hand you a pistol (something small, like a .32), hold your shootee down, and you shoot them. An ambulance accompanies the cops and takes care of the shootee right away.
I think after an initial flurry of shootings, people will calm down and start saving their shot. Do you REALLY want to pop that guy who took your parking spot? Don’t you want to save it for the day you get a better job, so you can shoot your boss who is always cooking fish in the microwave?
The idea is that douchebags will get some punishment, and maybe – just maybe – if they get shot enough, the thought will occur to them that the problem was them all along.
Anyway, vote StillNotATony for King of America! Truth, justice, and 30hp attack canoes for all! Plus a vehicular decathlon for the Olympics!
“Careful buddy, I still have mine” could become enough deterrent to diffuse lots of stupid behavior.
What I would personally want to see and what they should do are two different things. They should make a Hybrid or PHEV version of the Altima, Rogue, and Frontier, to start. Get your popular models electrified in some way.
What I want? PHEV Frontier and Hybrid or PHEV Z. Efficiency focus in the first, acceleration and handling prioritized in the second.
Oooh, and they could bring back the Xterra while they’re at it.
They had BETTER offer it in yellow, if they know what’s good for ’em!
I’d like to Nissan to revert to its old US monicker, Datsun. That way, when they announce things like plans to go EV heavy by 2025, I can make bad puns like “Dat soon?”
Nissan, like all automakers, should develop an EV capable of 500 highway miles at 0 degrees F.
That could be a next-Gen Maxima if they had the vision. A slippery streamliner luxobarge with a 150 kWh battery, a drag coefficient around 0.15, same size/frontal area as Maximas currently have, and a mass around 4,500 lbs, could probably pull it off. In good weather, range might be closer to 700-800 miles.
Then sell a gasoline version of the same that exceeds 50 mpg highway and weighs about 1,000 lbs less.
That type of range and performance is what Nissan is trying to develop with solid state batteries.
Solid state batteries are the nuclear fusion of EVs. I’ve been hearing about how awesome they are forever, and I’ll be glad if half the claims ever turn out to be true and reach production, but I’m not holding my breath.
When Solid state finally enter production, my best guess is around 2030, they will fix a lot of the range/ charging time issues that make EVs hard to adapt to for people now. Solid State is already pretty far along in development and quite a few companies are actively testing (CATL, QuantumScape). Also I believe I’ve read that fusion has been reached recently, and finally just netted more energy than needed.
Solid State batteries would be a massive improvement, but today’s technology is more than good enough to get that 500 miles range in the winter if a thoughtful concept is made by someone with the knowledge and vision to pull it off, and is then pursued with all of the compromises necessary to make it happen. Design by committee is not going to get us such a car.
Eh, solid state batteries are moving a decent bit faster than nuclear fusion. Fusion requires solving a couple physics problems, some materials science, and a few thousand engineering and optimization problems. Solid-state batteries are in the “multiple different approaches trying to move from lab/prototype to economical mass production” stage, and there’s a pretty high chance at least one of them will make it the next few years. It’d be like if nuclear fusion worked, and produced a sustained actually-net-positive reaction in both the stellarator and tokamak designs, but hadn’t been turned into an actual mass-produced maintainable product yet (which is a solid 3 decades from where nuclear fusion is now)
if you actually owned an EV/PHEV/REXEV, you’d see how silly this stance is.
Regular vehicles today don’t even have 500 miles of range. You don’t even know what you want. smh.
Buddy, I just drove 500 miles yesterday with a total of 15 minutes in my 2 stops, a trip I make multiple times a year in all weather conditions. I’m extremely sure of what I want, but thanks for your input.
2025 is almost certainly too late. Unless I interpreted this incorrectly, that even means no new hybrids until that date? That’s another 1.5 years without a relevant update to their lineup. That is CRAZY for an automaker that is already so stale
Yep. I suggested back in the day that they put their Nissan Leaf battery packs in a previous gen frontier and just hook up an electric motor to the rear axle either through a carbon fiber driveshaft or just directly bolt it up and they’d sell like hotcakes even with poor range. They never did it (obviously) and I doubt they’ll be the anywhere near the first foreign automaker to come out with a BEV pickup in the US.
As far as the debate went though, offshoring our production to countries with worse pollution standards doesn’t get rid of the pollution. I for one think a country should keep its pollution in its own country so that the citizens can address it accordingly.
The original Leaf’s aerodynamics were mediocre as far as new cars of the time being sold were. An EV version of the Frontier without any tweaks to aerodynamics would have gotten only marginally less range as a result, maybe losing 25% or so vs a 1st gen Leaf.
If they could have kept the cost down, they’d have sold quite a few, me thinks.
If they upped their game and focused on drag reduction for the Leaf, dropping the Cd value to say 0.19(doable; see the 2005 Mercedes Bionic hatchback), the 1st gen Leaf could have gotten 120-140 miles range highway on the same pack that instead gave it 80-100 miles range highway with a 0.28 Cd, with very little added cost. I think that would have greatly expanded its market niche.
I want to see an electric car that harkens back to the days of the small, nimble econoboxes and sports cars that Datsun used to sell.
For a sports car, take inspiration from the 1600 Roadster and early 240Z.
We’re talking reduced size, no more than say 2,700 lbs total vehicle weight, narrow width to keep frontal area down, maybe a 35 kWh battery, slippery aero with a CdA value of 0.4 m^2 or less to allow that battery a decent range(at least when the top is up).
For an affordable everyday car, harken back to the 1200 sedan and coupe, which would be similar to the above.
Keep them simple, basic, lightweight, streamlined, RWD, and affordable.
OK, but this one is actually true, at least in some states.
Where?
It’s a state of mind.
California and I believe at least 8 other states following California now have a ban on new gas powered vehicle sales starting in maybe 2030?
My state is one of them. Thankfully I am planning on leaving the country before then.
2035 in most cases, and a small number of plug-in hybrids are allowed, but sales of new pure ICE cars are banned.
If you want to quibble with the verbage “forced to buy”, then technically yes, you aren’t forced to buy a new car, but the general sentiment is accurate. If you want or need a new car or truck, it must be electrified, whether you want it or not.
We’ll just see how small that number is.
CA recently (and intelligently) revised the 2035 plan to include PIH with minimum electric range. I am unsure of what that range is, but it is in line with current offers in-market today.
That law starts in over a decade. No one is currently being forced to buy an EV
The original quoted line also includes the word “eventually”.
On a long enough timescale everyone will be forced to buy alternative fuel vehicles because gas is a finite resource. Then again, the whole 2035 mandate thing was always political grandstanding so it’s only fair that it gets thrown back in their face a bit.
On a long enough timescale the earth will completely replenish its fossil fuel resources so maybe not?
I would like to see Nissan sell a plug-in hybrid Frontier with a 30+ mile EV range. I’m a bit surprised no one has made a PHEV compact or midsize pickup yet.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the Maverick a PHEV? Or is it just a hybrid?
The Maverick is just a hybrid. A PHEV was rumored to be in development, but Ford has claimed they currently have no plans to pursue that.
Bummer…
Give us the IDx as a PHEV or regular hybrid, biased towards performance and fun, not luxury. Basic interiors with the minimum of faff, keep the price down, and I’ll buy two if they make a mini-ute version, too.
I want the Renault Twizy F1
It doesn’t reach a high enough speed for those downforce enhancements to be functional. Maybe if it weighed less than 100 lbs like the vehicle I’m building… but it doesn’t. What a strange and interesting contraption though. I think the Twizy needs motors wound for 120 mph, AWD, a 30 kWh battery, and at least 200 horsepower.
I. Do. Not. Care. It looks amazing
It does look ridiculous in all the best ways.
Dr. Seuss approves.
Thanks for bringing this thing I didn’t know I needed into my life.. I need one too now!
Shit, that’s cool!
I want a SXS-ified version: long A-arms, 8-9” clearance with 10” of travel, little knobby tires. Little exo-bumpers front&back with half-doors. Chuck an atv winch on the front & sling a mini shepard’s jack on the back. Rear fenders which incorporate snap-in Trax boards. Lightbar on the top. Maybe make the half-doors part-time : a clear top half that can be secured vertically to keep the mud out of your teeth or snap to the bottom half for open-air motoring—or perhaps fold-back vinyl side curtains…
Hey, Bishop!
Hmmm…
DeltaWing as a production car. Market has to be… dozens of people a year!