Why More People Are Ordering The Hybrid Scout Than The Electric One

If 2024 was the “Year of the Hybrid,” then I think it’s fair to say that the next ten years in the United States will be the “Decade of the EREV.” That’ll make some people mad, of course, because the pure-EV folks are always mad about something. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good enough, I say. Consumers seem to agree with us as Scout’s pre-orders for the extended range EV version are outstripping orders for the pure EV.

That doesn’t mean EVs won’t be big business, but perhaps EVs are just less interesting now than autonomous cars? NVIDIA’s CEO thinks Tesla has a big advantage when it comes to autonomous driving. Tesla is pivoting more towards being an AI company at just the right time as BYD moves to become the biggest EV-maker in the world, albeit with some big problems as it tries to expand abroad.

And, finally, it’s been a few days since I’ve made everyone mad with The Morning Dump so… let’s talk about congestion pricing!

Scout CEO ‘A Portion Of America’ Doesn’t Want EVs Yet

If your overriding concern is the future of the environment and global climate change and all the rest, then your ideal outcome is for people to consume less. To travel less. To fly and drive less and, in the name of Greta, to stay the hell off cruise ships. Today, of all days, extreme weather is at the forefront of my mind.

That’s not how this works, though. Even if everyone could be organized to do things around the greater good (the greater good), not everyone would even agree on what the greater good is. What’s always bothered me, though, as someone who cares deeply about the environment and used to work for a transit agency is that electrifying cars is such a half-measure.

If your belief is that we have such an extreme climate emergency that we have to do everything we can to get people to stop producing emissions then you should be advocating for rail, higher-density development, and as much nuclear as we can build. None of this is either-or, you can be pro-EV and pro-all of that other stuff, which is sort of where I am.

It’s the smug EV purity tests that bother me. There’s an extreme convenience to saying: Let’s just make all of our cars electric and we can ignore everything else. Changing all cars to EVs would have a positive environmental impact both at a local and global scale, of course, but it’s not the only thing that needs to get done. Given both the political realities and the necessary infrastructure, getting people to upgrade to hybrids is a huge improvement and something that can be done relatively easily in the short term. Again, if you believe this is urgent, I think you should welcome quick changes.

For instance, I would have loved to nab a cheap EV lease, but I live somewhere where it’s difficult/impossible to efficiently charge an EV (I have EVs all the time so I get to test this). By swapping my ICE Subaru for an HEV Honda I’ve used, to date, about 50% less fuel. That’s a big deal!

I mention all of this because Scout announced it would change its plans and, instead of just building EVs, would also offer a gasoline range-extended model. This is a big deal and was followed up by RAM announcing it would slow down the release of its all-EV truck so it could sell the EREV RAM Ramcharger first.

As David pointed out recently in his article “The Future Of The Auto Industry Is Electric, With A Gasoline Backup,” EREVs just make a lot of sense:

If you’re not familiar with what an EREV is, the short of it is that it’s an electric car with a small gasoline generator acting as backup. All that gasoline engine does is cut on when the main battery gets low, generating electricity to keep the battery from depleting completely. The gas engine does not actually propel the car directly (which is why I don’t consider the Chevy Volt a true EREV — its low range also disqualifies it in my mind). Thus, this gasoline range extender allows you to keep driving even after the high-voltage battery that you charged via a plug runs out of juice. It’s basically a backup to fix the whole “range anxiety” issue.

Are people into it? Yes. Consumers are into it. Scout CEO Scott Keogh was at CES this week and told Bloomberg that the last-minute EREV option is being ordered at a higher rate than the pure-EV option. Why?

He attributes that to EV resistance in “a portion of America” and worries about running out of juice in a pure-EV because there aren’t enough charging stations.

“This gives us a 50-state vehicle,” Keogh said Tuesday in a Bloomberg TV interview with Ed Ludlow at CES, formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show, in Las Vegas. “The two challenges we see with electrification, charging infrastructure — and of course this takes that all off the table — and plus there’s convenience. I think with those two things, a range-extender makes a lot of sense.”

As the article points out, EREVs are popular in China, which is the biggest EV market in the world. While EREVs are a little less efficient than EVs in general due to the extra weight of the gas engine, if the theory behind EVs is that most people don’t need all that range, then most of these owners will rely primarily on the EV portion and realize this rather quickly. Perhaps they’ll buy an EV next time. Some, living in more rural areas, will probably see an EREV as a longer-term solution until our charging infrastructure catches up.

Also, a lot of people in the 2000s unfairly maligned the Toyota Prius and other hybrids out of some weird, knee-jerk anti-environmentalism. The Overton Window on hybrids has shifted entirely. I was in Michigan and saw a Trump sticker on an F-150 in the same driveway as a Honda CR-V Hybrid. Perhaps the move toward EVs will help shift the negative vibes some people clearly have toward them.

NVIDIA CEO: ‘Elon Has A Great Advantage’ On Autonomous Vehicles

Yesterday, I mentioned that advanced chipmaker NVIDIA’s CEO Jensen Huang was a bit of a rockstar at CES this year, with his products being used in some of the most advanced cars.

In a sit-down interview with Bloomberg, embedded above, Huang thinks that all the data Tesla’s vehicles can pull in gives Musk a “phenomenal position” in the market.

“Elon has a great advantage because his AI factory for his cars is fantastic, it has a lot of NVIDIA gear in it. His AV algorithms are incredible. It’s the best in the world. He has a very large fleet of cars on the road that allows him to collect a lot of data.

There’s a lot of debate about whether even LIDAR-equipped vehicles can do full autonomy regularly, and Musk, so far, has resisted LIDAR, instead opting for the use of cameras and other sensors. Maybe given enough data he can?

Interestingly, this was said while it was announced that Tesla is under investigation for its Actually Smart Summon mode (get it?) that allows people to have the Tesla drive to them from a short distance. According to reports, vehicles using this system have been involved in a few crashes with parked cars and posts.

BYD Reportedly Brought Hundreds Of Workers To Brazil From China ‘Irregularly’

Chinese automakers are having mixed results when trying to sell cars outside of China, ranging from the gently permissive (Britain, Australia), to the cautious (EU), to the downright hostile (the United States). One place where Chinese firms think they’ll do better is in Latin America, which is why BYD is building its largest plant outside of China in the country.

As mentioned recently, the Chinese company contracted to build the plant (Jinjiang Group) for BYD got in trouble after Brazilian authorities allegedly found more than a hundred workers being forced to operate in terrible conditions. Exactly who these workers were is becoming a little clearer thanks to a new Reuters report:

A total of 163 of those workers, hired by BYD contractor Jinjiang, were found last month to be working in “slavery-like conditions.”

The 163 workers who were rescued by labor authorities in December are leaving or have already left Brazil, said Liane Durao, who has spearheaded the probe announced in late December.

“All of this was irregular,” said Durao, adding that BYD would be fined for each worker found in this situation, without elaborating on the total amount to be paid.

She said the firm agreed to adjust the conditions of the hundreds of workers who will remain in the country, to comply with Brazilian labor laws. About 500 Chinese workers were brought to work in the Brazilian factory, she said.

BYD announced it cut ties with Jinjiang.

NYC Finally Launches Congestion Pricing

I live outside New York City and, sometimes, drive into the city. I don’t do this regularly, but it does mean that I’m one of the few people who are somewhat impacted by the introduction of Congestion Pricing, which charges people extra money for driving into the city based on a variety of factors. Many of my friends go to the city all the time, and they’re having to grapple with what this means, but in general, it’s like $9 extra to enter the lower third of Manhattan at the busiest times of the day.

The goal of congestion pricing is to reduce the number of trips into the city, thereby improving traffic and making the city more livable. The money from the tolls will go to pay for more and better public transit. This seems like a big win but, of course, some people are freaking out about it.

I think our compatriots over at Defector have a good explanation of why some people are outraged, and a lot of it has to do with the knee-jerk anti-news media that pervades the city:

If it is easy to learn most of what you need to know about congestion pricing from one Gothamist blog—and it is unlikely that you need to know anything, as most people do not live in New York City and something like 55 percent of New Yorkers do not own cars at all—it is effectively impossible to learn anything useful about it from media like this. That coverage teases What You Need To Know across weeks and months like a threat, but is fundamentally not in the business of answering that sort of question so much as it is in the business of rephrasing it in progressively more ominous ways; all someone consuming this media would leave with is the urgent sense that there are some things that they need to know, and a suspicion that they do not know them. Eventually the question vanishes under all that dread, and then the job becomes less journalistic or propagandistic and more like landscaping—keeping the surfaces appropriately uniform, lush, and well fed.

My big curiosity, though, is if this would work. People in the area have a lot of money and the rules are, in typical New York fashion, unnecessarily complex.

Thankfully, someone posted an extremely useful tracker that shows the difference between commute times pre- and post-congestion Pricing. In places where people are typically commuting, like the Queensboro Bridge, commute times seem to be 50% below peak levels. In places where it’s mostly cabs operating, like Tribeca to the Lower East Side, it’s having less of an impact. Given that cabs and rideshare pay a lower rate, this sort of makes sense.

When I go to the city I usually take the train, which is way cheaper overall and much much easier (also there’s a place in Grand Central that has an amazing array of beers you can enjoy while you take the train). I love cars and I love driving and, under certain conditions (like at 7 am on a Sunday morning) it is fun to drive in Manhattan. Most of the time it’s terrible. Being pro-car, I want less congestion and more open roads. Sometimes to get what I want I have to pay for it. This only seems fair to me.

What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD

Hope Sandoval is a gift to this world, and on Massive Attack’s “Paradise Circus” that couldn’t be more obvious. It’s a shame that most people know this song from House, and are therefore deprived of a little Hope.

The Big Question

Would you buy an EREV version of your current DD?