Looks like that Audi Ad has another fan besides me:
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This is what EVs need
This is kind of cool: I’ve now seen two OEM’s EV commercials on TV (the other one I mentioned in this post). The new commercial prompting this post is this one:
This is great: Take people’s reservations about owning an EV and turn them around throwing them in your face. Love it.
Another interesting thing about these two commercials is that they are for non-US based manufacturers. Clearly the US companies aren’t really interested in selling their EVs (Haven’t seen any Bolt commercials or Focus Electric commercials [back when they sold it] at all).
Keep them coming: more commercials mean more people see that EVs are a viable product.
Camping with a Bolt
Now that camping season is upon us we can include the Bolt. Of course the weather almost didn’t cooperate as about 5″ of snow was forecast for overnight Saturday. Fortunately none of that materialized.
Later on in the season we have a few longer trips planned which include pulling the Bolt; this trip was a mere 90 miles to ensure everything worked ok (also the annual “make sure nothing broke in the RV over winter” trip as well). The results (as you can see above): The Bolt made it the 90 miles on the dolly without major issue. There were some minor things:
- For some reason a flock of birds decided to target the Bolt (and completely miss the RV) necessitating a car wash.
- The Bolt briefly panicked and set off its alarm when I reconnected the battery (which included a quick e-mail from OnStar indicating that someone was attempting to steal it ! LOL)
With a weekend trip to a town that is about 10 square miles a fully charged Bolt was more than adequate for any touring and even a drive home if necessary without needing to recharge. Thus I wasn’t able to try charging it up in the campground (in addition: My site only had a 30 amp plug).
One bonus of having an EV at a campground is that you can creep around in the car without anyone hearing you (could also be a detriment if you’re not careful, however, as many campgrounds are quite busy with all the activities and people milling about).
On the whole a successful weekend…bring on smmer.
Well now, speaking of Rivian
Wow just mentioned them this morning in a post and now comes this interesting news tidbit:
Ford invests $500 million in Rivian!
The most interesting point about this is:
Joe Hinrichs, Ford’s president of automotive, will get a seat on Rivian’s board, but more importantly Ford will use Rivian’s battery EV platform to build a new Blue Oval-badged BEV.
Ars Technica
Granted Rivian isn’t producing anything just yet but still how long will it be before Ford launches a Rivian based vehicle? (5-10 years?? LOL)
What’s charging at Rivian?
Yup Rivian, that Rivian (LOL as if there is more than one).
My daily commute takes me past their Michigan office. Out in front of said office is a row of (at least) 6 Level 2 charge stations (which are not listed on plugshare–I’ve seen a few charge stations disappear from there recently like the companies where they are at didn’t want them “visible” hmmm).
Nonetheless I often see a car or two charging there in the morning when I pass–sadly none of them have been their R1T or R1S–but then I hear they have only one “production intent” copy of each and those are usually off at shows (until production gets going sometime in 2021). Lately, however, the car or two have been all different and varied but today was quite the collection: A 500e, Jaguar I-Pace, Chevy Bolt, and a Tesla Model 3 a veritable smorgasbord of EVs available in the market (only needed an S and X LOL).
The office’s location doesn’t lend itself to just parking your car and walking somewhere (like a mall or something to do) thus I have to conclude that these are likely all employee cars that they left there overnight to charge (I’d guess that since Rivian is an “EV manufacturer” they would also encourage employees to drive electric)–they also could be “competitive evaluation vehicles”; company cars they use to see the competition (although since they make trucks and these are all cars how much competition is there??).
We’ll see what tomorrow brings, maybe there will be a model S or X, perhaps a Kona electric, an eTron, etc. Who knows LOL.
Is it Spring?
At this point we are well into “Spring” here in Michigan. This means Monday is 60F or more and sunny, Tuesday we awake to 3″ of snow, Wednesday rain in the 40Fs, Thursday back to 60F, etc. All four seasons within a week…
This means I’m still charging every day as overnight temps go low enough that plenty of heat is required in the morning. At some point I’ll be switching back to the summer charging cycle of only charging when needed as the summer range is sufficient for several commutes.
The range has been increasing as the temps increase–now up to almost 200 miles (hilltop reserve still on so not all the way to full). Holding it back has been those morning temps: the morning commute has usually been less than 40F and thus limiting the range.
At least this weekend we missed the big blizzard (it passed mostly to the west of us even postponing some MLB baseball games)…
Have you seen one?
Have you? What am I asking here? A Model 3? No that is not the question here (although I am seeing more and more 3’s on the road now). No my question is with respect to EV advertising; specifically EV TV commercials?
Now if you’re in an area with a lot of EV’s (California, Washington–a CARB state) you’ve probably seen a lot of EV TV commercials. Here in Southeastern Michigan, home of the “Big 3” US automakers, I haven’t seen one in years until recently…
I think at one point in time I may have seen one of the national Leaf commercials as part of some national broadcast (most likely a national sporting event). As far as other EV’s we did see the quick 15 second Focus Electric commercial a few times (it was just someone driving across the desert to a charger and plugging it in; a very quick blink and you’ll miss it commercial).
I mention all this because for the past few weeks I’ve seen a lot of this commercial lately:
Wow kudos to Jaguar for running an EV commercial in the Detroit area (I’m pretty sure its national but still I’m seeing this a lot). I wonder how much that will increase Jaguar’s I-Pace sales? (A lot of buying an EV is actually knowing that they are available and many consumers just don’t know they are around and available).
Its a funny commercial playing on how silent EV’s are. It still doesn’t beat this Focus Electric commercial, however:
LOL!
