Patrick George | The Verge

How Tesla almost went out of business — and then broke the auto industry

2023-07-19T10:08:39-04:00

During the development of the Tesla Model S, one top engineer would tick off certain milestones in his mind whenever the tiny, almost bankrupt startup would hit certain goals. A particular number of cars built, for example. And one milestone he distinctly remembers is when the Tesla team completed more than 9,000 cars.

Why? Because that’s all the cars DeLorean ever made before it went out of business. Today, Tesla is rewriting the future more than any DeLorean ever did.

The new season of Vox Media Podcast Network’s award-winning narrative podcast Land of the Giants is debuting next week, and it’s all about Tesla. Tesla has become a giant in the auto industry, dethroning legacy car companies one by one. It is the disruptor of all disruptors in the world of cars, led by a man whose innovations know no bounds — even when many critics say they probably should.

It is the disruptor of all disruptors in the world of cars, led by a man whose innovations know no bounds — even when many critics say they probably should

But it’s not often that story gets recounted directly by those who were working inside Tesla at nearly all levels. That’s what we sought to do here. We are two veteran automotive journalists who have covered Tesla’s unfathomable rise since its early days and are co-hosting this season.

Tamara Warren is the former transportation editor at The Verge who now runs Le Car, a website about cars and culture, and Patrick George, the former editor-in-chief of Jalopnik, is a transportation journalist who contributes to The Verge. Together with our indefatigable producers and editors from the Vox Media Podcast Network, we are mapping out how Tesla went from a niche EV startup to a company that made CEO Elon Musk the richest man in the world — and to see if it can survive what’s coming next.

We’ve talked with expert journalists across Vox Media Network including Pivot hosts Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway, The Verge’s editor-in-chief Nilay Patel, senior writer and Musk expert Liz Lopatto, and transportation editor Andrew Hawkins. We’ve gone deep into Tesla history and spoken to Tesla’s original founders, Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, as well as former Tesla engineers, executives, and employees, many of whom are speaking on the record for the first time. We’ve turned to journalists, business leaders, and automotive experts like Missy Cummings, Doug DeMuro, and Doug Field to help us understand where the industry is going and explore the real-world realities of driving electric and increasingly automated cars.

It’s wild to remember that Tesla was once spoken of in the same breath as DeLorean or the many other tiny, forgotten upstarts that tried and failed to break into the notoriously difficult automotive business. In about 15 years, Tesla has become the world’s biggest maker of electric vehicles, one of the most ambitious proponents of self-driving cars, and the creator of an EV charging network that is the envy of the entire industry. It’s one of the biggest companies in the world by market capitalization (and by far the biggest car company).

But for every victory, there’s been an equal or greater number of disasters

But for every victory, there’s been an equal or greater number of disasters. Tesla nearly crashed and burned a few times along the way, sometimes through its own unforced errors. It’s made bold promises it hasn’t been able to deliver. It’s faced lawsuits, fines, recalls, and investigations over how it deploys its technology and how it treats its workers.

And as for Musk… you almost certainly have an opinion on him because everyone does. No tech mogul alive today is more known, more controversial, or more ambitious — and he has become inseparable from the Tesla saga, for better or worse.

We’ll explore Tesla’s role in the troubled race toward self-driving cars and the auto industry’s contentious shift to electric vehicles; how Musk’s rise and pratfalls have had ripple effects across the world; and whether the legacy automakers can beat Tesla at its own game.

Vox Media’s Land of the Giants narrative podcast series covers how Big Tech companies impact our lives. Past seasons delved into Meta, dating apps, Amazon, Apple, Google, and food delivery. For decades, car companies were left behind in the tech conversation — until Tesla shifted that perception. We are on the precipice of an industrywide transition to electric vehicles and living in a time when burning fossil fuels contributes to a climate crisis we feel more each day. It couldn’t be a better time to explore the state of the car industry through the lens of a company that altered it.

The first episode of Land of the Giants: The Tesla Shock Wave comes out on July 26th. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to the trailer above.

AV fever has cooled off, but driverless cars aren’t going away

2023-05-05T08:00:00-04:00

After years of multibillion-dollar investments, “just around the corner” promises of robotaxis, and predictions that today’s children might never need to learn to drive, 2022 ended with a hard wake-up call for the autonomous car industry.

High-profile crashes made headlines instead of big technological leaps. Major companies raised the white flag and retreated from the effort. And the demise of respected tech leader Argo AI left investors and industry officials alike wondering if they can’t do it, who can?

But even with a newfound understanding that driverless cars are years or even decades away, automakers and tech companies alike are still aiming for that goal. And big investments in driverless technology are being made, proving that autonomous vehicles remain a priority even in a weak capital environment and an uncertain economy.

Automakers and tech companies alike are still aiming for that driverless goal

A recent report from F-Prime Capital showed how steep this decline was. In 2022 alone, AV investments went down nearly 60 percent year over year as startups struggled through layoffs or outright closures.

At the Shanghai Auto Show last month, a spokesperson for the rising Chinese EV giant BYD offered a rare dose of extreme skepticism about AVs that flew in the face of most competitors, telling CNBC that self-driving fully separated from humans is “basically impossible.” And here in America, consumer trust and interest in self-driving cars seem to have hit an all-time low.

And in a perfect encapsulation of mid-2010s autonomy hype, Intel in 2017 predicted a $7 trillion industry — more than double what the global auto industry does now—around autonomy by 2050.

But now it looks like that lofty goal, or something close to it, didn’t actually go away.

It’s just cooled off a bit.

Case in point: Toyota and tech giant Nvidia are two investors putting $43 million into Foretellix, an Israeli company developing autonomy and advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS). Foretellix’s Series C fundraising was announced this week, and company officials say it has already raised $93 million so far.

That, and the fact that the funding comes partly from Nvidia — a graphics chip and software giant now making huge moves in the automotive space — and Woven Captial, Toyota’s $800 million global investment fund for mobility projects — says a lot about where autonomy is going.

AV investments went down nearly 60 percent year over year

Granted, and as TechCrunch pointed out, it’s not quite on the level of the nine-figure acquisition and funding race we saw just a few years ago. Those moves saw things like Ford and Volkswagen’s investments into Argo, General Motors’ acquisition of Cruise Automation, and Uber’s ill-fated foray into self-driving taxis.

But Toyota’s new CEO has placed “city-integrated autonomous mobility” among his top priorities for the future. And apart from the only theoretically lucrative robotaxi business, new enhancements to ADAS functions are coming to passenger cars each year, helping drivers to navigate traffic and protecting them from dangerous situations in novel ways.

Foretellix specializes in verifying and validating the safety and reliability of autonomous systems. In this case, the company’s forté is using supercomputing to virtually test for millions of combinations of scenarios a car might encounter, including extreme edge cases. Foretellix CEO Ziv Binyamini said the trucking units at Daimler and Volvo are already customers as well.

“Autonomous vehicles are extremely complex, but the slightest mistake can cause a lot of damage,” Binyamini said. “So, how do you test the system, in all possible situations, all possible scenarios, and there are millions and millions of them?”

Both the speed of deployment and ensuring safety will be necessary to get to where most automakers want to go, which is so-called Level 4 autonomy: a high level of automation where a vehicle may or may not need a steering wheel and driver controls at all. This is said to be key to most major automakers’ goals of significantly reducing traffic as well as crashes, injuries, and fatalities, to say nothing of future subscription revenue and potential robotaxi businesses.

“Autonomous vehicles are extremely complex, but the slightest mistake can cause a lot of damage”

In the interim, advanced autonomy makes headlines more for high-profile crashes and mistakes than breakthroughs that enhance the urban quality of living. GM’s Cruise robotaxi operation has drawn the ire of San Francisco residents after traffic jams and at least one crash into a bus, and its traffic mishaps in Austin haven’t done much to sell residents on the idea, either.

And Tesla’s Autopilot and so-called Full Self-Driving systems, assuredly the most boundary-pushing automated technologies available on passenger cars, continue to get hit with lawsuits and investigations. Nonetheless, Elon Musk is still hinging Tesla’s future on self-driving. The Wall Street Journal’s Tim Higgins recently reported that one reason for Tesla’s rapid-fire price cuts this year is to get as many buyers into cars as possible right now, then gamble the company’s future on self-driving subscription revenue later on.

Don’t think he’s alone in such an idea, even if Tesla’s willing to move faster on it than others. Even after Ford withdrew its investment in Argo AI, it still established a new division called Latitude AI to do much of the same work in-house — and staffed by hundreds of former Argo employees. And Ford’s already debuted a “hands-free, eyes on” version of its BlueCruise ADAS setup that doesn’t require drivers to keep their hands on a steering wheel so long as in-car cameras detect that they’re paying attention to the road.

GM also didn’t take 2022 as a lesson to slow down. Besides the Cruise Bolts zooming around Austin with nobody inside, it’s ramping up the deployment of its purpose-built Origin robotaxi shuttles there, too, and hopes to open them up to customer rides in a few months. On the consumer side, the next big thing will be the Ultra Cruise ADAS system, which also offers hands-off driving so long as the human pilot is paying attention. That system is due to launch, albeit in limited quantities, in the Cadillac Celestiq luxury EV late this year or in early 2024.

Google’s Waymo has also stepped up its robotaxi business across the country. On Thursday it announced it is doubling its service area in Phoenix and expanding into nearby Scottsdale for the first time, while adding to its existing network in San Francisco. The company claims it’s now offering more than 10,000 rides per week to customers and wants to increase that tenfold by next year. It also recently started testing cars in Los Angeles.

What remains to be seen is what business model will come from this in the longer term, but in terms of expanding what it does now, Waymo shows no signs of slowing down.

Even if Level 4 autonomy is the goal, Binyamini still describes it as a “moonshot.” But he said that while he does predict the eventual deployment of robotaxis in urban environments, more conservative developments are also underway for improving driver assistance systems in passenger vehicles on the road now. Those include Level 2 Plus and Level 3 ADAS systems, which are available on just about every new car sold today, as well as last-mile solutions for delivery vehicles and automating certain parts of long-haul trucking.

Still just a “moonshot”?

He added that high automation is already prevalent in industries like mining, where companies don’t have to worry about road regulations or traffic and just need a faster and safer way to get difficult work done.

“I think there is a readjustment of the overall autonomy to focus on more realistic, achievable goals,” Binyamini said.

Still, he added, “The overall industry is investing in autonomy. There is no slowdown.”

But more than ever now, the onus will be on these AV companies to actually deliver on their eventual robotaxi dreams and prove they can operate more safely than humans do. Otherwise — and much to the chagrin of investors everywhere — you have to wonder how many more downturns fully self-driving cars can take before they get tossed into the same dustbin as flying cars.

Update May 5th 3:15PM ET: Updated to include details about Waymo’s recent expansion.

Hyundai Ioniq 6 review: a Tesla Model 3 fighter with art deco style

2023-05-02T08:00:00-04:00

The greatest trick Tesla ever pulled was convincing the world that electric vehicles should be sexy, fast and interesting. Before that, countless EVs looked like cheap subcompacts at best or golf carts at worst. We forget this today in our era of glowing spheres, hulking electric SUVs that can somehow outrun supercars, cavernous front trunks, and questionably useful features like diagonal “crab walking.”

But what happens if you just want a normal car that happens to be electric?

That’s where Hyundai has pulled a trick of its own with the Hyundai Ioniq 6 sedan: it really only looks avant-garde. As a car, the driving experience is remarkably normal. That’s not what you might expect from a car that looked like it escaped from a new Blade Runner sequel in its neon-drenched debut photos.

But that’s not a mark against it. With a starting price in the low $40,000s, a range of up to 361 miles, and some very impressive fast-charging features, the Ioniq 6 is likely the best and most direct competitor to the Tesla Model 3 to date. And it makes a strong case that the best EVs need to deliver on substance, not wild gimmicks.

The range is the real star

The Ioniq 6 already comes from an impressive family, one that offers size and neck-snapping speeds if you want such things. It’s built on the same Hyundai Motor Group Electric-Global Modular Platform (E-GMP) as the upcoming seven-seat Kia EV9; the crazy-quick 576-horsepower Kia EV6 GT; the opulent Genesis GV60; and, of course, the much-lauded Hyundai Ioniq 5 crossover.

That’s where Hyundai has pulled a trick of its own with the Hyundai Ioniq 6 sedan: it really only looks avant-garde

All of them have similar specs, but the Ioniq 6 is the first sedan on that platform. It has a 77.4 kWh battery pack for most trim levels and can be had with rear-wheel drive or dual-motor all-wheel drive. Being the lowest, lightest car in the E-GMP pack makes it the furthest-driving one, too.

The rear-wheel-drive Ioniq 6 SE is the distance king, offering a Tesla-beating EPA-estimated 361 miles of range, all while starting at $45,500. Opt for all-wheel drive and the SE still delivers a very respectable range of 316 miles.

Going for bigger wheels and more luxury features with the middle SEL and top Limited trims — which start at $47,770 and $52,600, respectively — drops the range further to 305 miles, or 270 if you want all-wheel drive. Those range figures remain above many electric competitors, especially the crossovers.

Additionally, a $42,715 base model SE RWD Standard Range is coming this summer with a smaller 53.0 kWh battery pack. But with just 149 horsepower and 240 miles of range, it feels more suited to fleet and taxi duty than anything else — not to mention the fact that Hyundai says it’ll be sold in “extremely limited quantities.” Doesn’t that sound enticing?

But I think it’s refreshing that the Ioniq 6 is a sedan at all. Car companies are starting their EV rollouts with crossovers and trucks because they need batteries to scale and because those are the kinds of internal-combustion cars Americans primarily bought for years.

Still, the Model 3 remains a top global seller, the Polestar 2 is doing incredibly well, and the new Volkswagen ID.7 looks extremely interesting, too. Plenty of sedan drivers are eyeing the leap to EVs without trading for size or weight they don’t need. Furthermore, smaller, lower and lighter EVs just post better range and performance than their larger counterparts. And now that smaller EVs like the Chevrolet Bolt and Nissan Leaf are on the way out, these cars are the standard-bearers now.

Cyberpunk streamliner

Hyundai’s banking on the Ioniq 6’s eye-catching looks to make it stand out. I’ll give major credit to the design team on this one. The Korean automaker could’ve easily made this just a lowered, downsized version of the Giugiaro-inspired Ioniq 5, and nobody would’ve complained; that angular, retro-’80s crossover practically embodies the word “rad.”

I think it’s refreshing that the Ioniq 6 is a sedan at all

Instead, designers went in a completely different direction, making the Ioniq 6 sleeker, curvier and inspired by classic “streamliners” like the Art Deco Stout Scarab from the 1930s. It boasts a super-aerodynamic 0.22 drag coefficient for maximizing range, and the front bumper has active air flaps that close to reduce air resistance and then open to maximize cooling. And dare I say that rear spoiler has whale-tail Porsche 911 vibes? This ordinary EV sedan is an aerodynamic marvel.

There are some familiar touches, like the squared-off “pixels” built into the headlights, taillights, and throughout the car’s interior. Hyundai told me the Ioniq 6 has more than 700 pixels; I was unable to independently verify this as of publication time, but I may attempt this later if I’m not too busy.

Still, the Ioniq 6 seems to be a love-it-or-hate-it thing. I’m in the former camp, but I’ve also heard viscerally strong reactions to the contrary. To be fair, the front end is a little on the busy side, and arguably the weakest point is its trunk. That opening just isn’t very big or very useful. While the rear seats do fold down, I can’t blame buyers for looking to the Ioniq 5 instead when they see what they’re dealing with. VW’s upcoming ID.7 already has the Ioniq 6 beat there.

Inside, tech, and charging

The Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 6 may look different on the outside, but the family resemblance is very strong inside. On the plus side, it means an open, airy cabin, easy-to-read display screens in front of the driver, and in the center of the dashboard, Hyundai’s generally strong infotainment system and an array of actual physical buttons.

Hyundai’s banking on the Ioniq 6’s eye-catching looks to make it stand out

It also means they share many of the same drawbacks. Those include an oddly rectangular steering wheel that often obscures the display right above it. There’s also a row of digital touch-based controls below the physical buttons that operate the climate controls and heated seats. These digital controls aren’t as irritating as some competitors out there (looking at you, Polestar 2), and you thankfully don’t have to fish through a screen menu to find them. But they’re more cumbersome to operate than actual buttons in those brief moments when you need to take your eyes off the road to operate them.

The only other gripe I have with these cars is a dumb one: I hate that the gear selector toggle needs to be twisted up to go into drive instead of down, which is the opposite of the PRNDL setup we’ve all come to know so well. A dealbreaker? Certainly not. But it’s still wrong, and if anyone from Hyundai asks, the answer is yes, I am willing to die on this hill.

As with most other Hyundai models, you need a cord to operate Android Auto or Apple CarPlay. It’s an annoying drawback for such a high-tech, modern EV (and one of its cousins, the Genesis GV60, has facial recognition but not wireless CarPlay. Come on!)

The Hyundai EVs do have a very good infotainment system working in their favor. While it lacks the brutally effective simplicity of CarPlay, the menus are laid out well, the graphics look great, and the range- and trip-planning features are outstanding.

I hate that the gear selector toggle needs to be twisted up to go into drive instead of down

The only other issue I have to flag is the back seat. Thanks to the coupe-like profile, you do sacrifice some rear headroom. I’m 5’11” and I fit fine, but I wouldn’t want to be any taller back there.

Minor tradeoffs all, given this car’s remarkable charging abilities. Hyundai says the Ioniq 6 will go from 10 percent to 80 percent charged in just 18 minutes on a 350 kW DC public fast charger and should achieve a full charge in seven hours on a Level 2 home or public charger. It joins the other E-GMP cars in being some of the fastest-charging EVs you can buy right now, right up there with Tesla and the Lucid Air.

It may not have Tesla’s Supercharger network — all of them, anyway — but with these speeds and two years of free 30-minute Electrify America charging, the Ioniq 6 is unlikely to leave you stranded.

On the road

I spent the better part of the day driving around West Point, New York, in two Ioniq 6 variants: a battleship-gray (“Transmission Blue,” officially) Limited with all-wheel drive and a black SE with rear-wheel drive. They respectively represented the top and bottom of the current Ioniq 6 lineup.

My first go in the AWD Limited car was pleasant. Quiet. Competent. It’s instantly more taut and athletic than the bigger Ioniq 5 crossover and more fun to drive. With a dual electric motor setup, 320 horsepower, 446 lb-ft of torque, and a Hyundai-claimed 0–60 time of 5.1 seconds, it’s by no means slow. Functionally in everyday driving, it’s plenty quick and with enough of that wonderful electric torque that provides immediate passing power.

Thanks to the coupe-like profile, you do sacrifice some rear headroom

Just know it’s not tear-your-face-off fast like a Model 3 Performance or even the Polestar 2 with its Performance Pack. The Ioniq 6 lacks those cars’ naked, sport-sedan athleticism. Then again, that isn’t what every buyer wants, necessarily; remember how not every EV needs to trade in excess? It’s still fun to drive but in a quick, daily-driver sense more than a sporting one.

Like the rest of the family, the Ioniq 6 has steering wheel paddles that let the driver modulate the level of regenerative braking or temporarily maximize it. It’s not quite as sensational as a paddle-shift gearbox (to say nothing of a manual transmission), but it is a novel way of driving that’s unique to EVs and offers a nice degree of car control not typically found elsewhere.

Beyond choosing rear-wheel drive or all-wheel drive and the colors you want, all Ioniq 6 models offer few options. Those are all baked into the trim levels themselves. The middle SEL gets 20-inch wheels, synthetic leather seats, more power seat options, wireless device charging, 64 colors’ worth of ambient interior lighting and Hyundai’s semi-autonomous Highway Driving Assist II system, among other tech features and creature comforts.

Going all the way up to the Limited model adds ventilated front seats, a Bose stereo system, a heated steering wheel, the super-wide sunroof covering the cabin, remote parking assist, and a few more safety functions. In the upper trims, it is a very nice car with a ton of luxury and quasi-luxury features.

So imagine my surprise when I ended up liking the basic SE rear-wheel-drive model best, complete with its cloth seats. That 361-mile range is just incredibly tough to beat; it’s one of the highest-range EVs currently on sale. In my experience, anything above 300 miles generally makes several days’ of driving worry-free, even if you don’t have home charging access. With 361 miles, an Ioniq 6 driver may be shocked at how infrequently they have to charge up.

The SE’s 225 hp and 258 lb.-ft of torque aren’t numbers that will dazzle anyone. But the hustle was still there, especially in Sport Mode. (Like the other E-GMP cars, it also offers range-maximizing Eco and balanced Comfort modes.) And the Ioniq 6 is just more fun to drive in rear-wheel-drive form.

It’s still fun to drive but in a quick, daily-driver sense more than a sporting one

Its suspension is designed for everyday comfort, not corner carving, and the brakes are average at best. This is how I got walked by a V6 Honda Accord Coupe on a twisty backroad near Bear Mountain State Park. But it’s still kind of tail-happy in its own way, playful and enjoyable in an everyday sense.

I still had the most fun in the SE and saw the most value there. I liked the honesty of it — cloth seats and all. It’s essentially an electric alternative to mainstream sedans like Hyundai’s own Sonata but with no noise, better tech, and way more torque.

Is it worth it to upgrade to the SEL or Limited trims? I think that losing a whole 56 miles of range (46 if you get all-wheel-drive) is too much to ask just to get 20-inch wheels. Besides, the base 18-inch wheels look cool, too.

At the same time, a Hyundai spokesperson confirmed that SE only comes with cloth seats, and they’re nothing to write home about. In other words, if you want synthetic leather, you sacrifice that astounding 361 miles of range because it only comes on the SEL and Limited models. I really wish the SE could be had with synthetic leather; it looks better, and it’s easier to clean, especially if you own and operate a fluffy dog like I do.

If anyone from Hyundai is reading this, I suggest you fix the situation where the max-range Ioniq 6 saddles you with airport rental car seats. And fix the damn gear toggle while you’re at it.

Early verdict

By any metric, the Ioniq 6 is an impressive electric sedan. It may not match all of the Tesla Model 3’s specs, but it’s one of the few that can truly beat some of them. That’s a landmark achievement, and it further cements Hyundai as one of the very top players in the EV space right now.

Sadly, no Ioniq 6 qualifies for EV tax credits, and Hyundai wouldn’t tell me about any plans to produce this model in North America. Until it does, buying one means doing without a discount unless you lease one.

Ultimately, which trim of Ioniq 6 you go with just depends on what you want out of the experience. If you want to maximize the cyberpunk luxury car vibes and impress your passengers with speed, go with the SEL or Limited versions. If you just want to eke out the most electric range and look cool while you’re doing it, the basic SE is fantastic.

Often, we have to choose between style and substance when we buy cars. With the Ioniq 6, you get a ton of both.

Everybody hates GM’s decision to kill Apple CarPlay and Android Auto for its EVs

2023-04-04T10:33:04-04:00

In 2011, amid one of the Cadillac brand’s many reboots, General Motors introduced the Cadillac User Experience (CUE) to its then-latest generation of luxury sedans and SUVs. CUE was a touchscreen infotainment suite, smartphone integration system, and a capacitive touch panel on the dashboard that used haptic feedback in place of physical buttons.

It was an utter disaster. Reviewers at the time, as well as owners, panned CUE’s unresponsiveness, bizarre menu layouts and lag. Car and Driver likened CUE to a sexually transmitted infection; when I was editor-in-chief of Jalopnik in the 2010s, we called it the “most hated infotainment system ever.” Though it received numerous upgrades over the years, the damage was done. CUE remains a black mark for Cadillac, and the branding has since been abandoned.

Fast forward about 10 years later, and GM thinks it can do software better than Apple and Google.

GM thinks it can do software better than Apple and Google

That’s the message underlying an announcement that GM’s forthcoming electric vehicles will not support Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which means users won’t be able to project their smartphones directly onto their car’s infotainment screens to enjoy a native-like experience.

To be fair, GM has come a long way since the CUE days, and it, like every other automaker, is attempting to make huge strides for electric and connected cars. But years of terrible software from an auto industry that lagged far behind the tech industry has led to a dependence on Apple and Google to sort out its terrible interface problems. And it’s taken a toll on people’s faith in traditional car companies to deliver a software experience that doesn’t, for lack of a better term, suck.

GM’s decision sparked an immediate backlash from consumers who aren’t ready to move on from CarPlay or Android Auto yet. None of it should be surprising given the car industry’s shoddy track record with software — or the immense popularity of the Apple and Android systems. (In fact, as Reuters pointed out when it broke this story, GM once bragged of having more CarPlay- and Android Auto-compatible cars than any other automaker.)

Smartphone integration issues, infotainment systems that are difficult to operate and buggy operating systems still rank among the top complaints from new car owners. That’s why CarPlay and Android Auto became so successful; they just work, and they work in a manner that’s effectively identical to the phones people are used to using every day. Even Apple’s own research indicates nearly 80 percent of new car buyers would only consider something that supported CarPlay.

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While existing Cadillac, Chevy, GMC, and Buick owners (including EV drivers) won’t be cut off from CarPlay or Android Auto, GM’s plans won’t include those systems, even though GM’s new software is powered by Google. This clearly runs counter to what buyers want, industry experts told me this week.

“Based on all of our research over the past few years, there’s definitely massive demand and interest in Apple CarPlay and Android Auto,” said Robby DeGraff, an analyst at the automotive research and marketing firm AutoPacific.

DeGraff said that in a recent trend study from his firm, the desire for those smartphone systems was topped only by requests for more USB-C outlets in cars.

“People really want this in their next new vehicle, regardless of segment, propulsion, or price point,” DeGraff added. “Furthermore, it’s puzzling GM is taking this step for its EV products, as our data show that consumers who intend to buy an EV or PHEV in the future, desire wireless Apple CarPlay / Android Auto more so than intenders of ICE [vehicles].”

But there are many reasons this move is happening, and all are symbolic of the headaches that will ensue as car companies attempt to transform into tech companies in the EV era.

Why GM picked a fight with Apple

To understand where GM’s coming from, look to its new upcoming Ultifi software platform. That may not be as sexy as 0–60 mph times and tire-roasting horsepower quotes, but it’s crucial to the EV overhaul GM is currently undertaking.

Ultifi is essentially your smartphone’s OS but in car form. It will be used in GM’s next-gen EV lineup as well as its ICE vehicles, but it’s arguably more important for the former. With EVs essentially being software-driven batteries on wheels, Ultifi will allow for over-the-air updates, more advanced automated driving assistance, connected car capabilities, and native versions of popular apps like Google Maps and Spotify. (It will also enable less palatable features, like data collection and subscription-only features. More on this later.)

But there are many reasons this move is happening, and all are symbolic of the headaches that will ensue as car companies attempt to transform into tech companies in the EV era

Many car companies are undertaking similar efforts. Look at Volkswagen, which has had plenty of challenges too on the software front but is pushing forward with a unified software architecture for all of its brands that will include a native app store. So if cars are going to be defined by software and the user experience in a few years, it’s understandable why GM, VW, and others don’t want to cede that experience to third-party tech companies.

In GM’s case, some of these decisions seem to have to do with maps and plans for automated driving. Edmunds posited that a native navigation system may work better with Super Cruise or its more advanced lidar-powered upcoming sibling, Ultra Cruise. Additionally, Mike Hichme, the executive director of digital cockpit experience at GM, told Reuters that it doesn’t want to design features that could leave out people who don’t own a cellphone.

Then again, the average new EV costs around $65,000; who’s buying such an expensive, high-tech vehicle and doesn’t own a smartphone? I’d love to talk to that person if they exist. (If you are that person and you do exist, send me an email. Or send The Verge’s New York office a fax, in your case. I’ll swing by and pick it up when I have time.)

Ultimately, however, this is about control. Whether drivers want it or not — and I suspect a great many do not — this next generation of cars will be about consumer data and subscription features as much as they’ll be about instant electric torque and eliminating carbon emissions. The auto industry is banking on data and subscriptions being massively lucrative revenue streams. GM alone hopes to grow its subscription revenue more than tenfold to $25 billion per year by 2030. Why would any automaker want to cut Apple in on that or be forced to play ball with its software? And neither Apple nor Google charges car companies to use these features; owners don’t have to subscribe to them monthly, either.

“From a business perspective, having more control over what happens within your vehicles is extremely valuable for both vehicle development as well as the opportunities presented by capturing and repackaging data for analysis and marketing,” Ivan Drury, Edmunds’ director of insights, told The Verge.

“From a business perspective, having more control over what happens within your vehicles is extremely valuable”

“That said, GM is picking a battle with what is arguably one of the most culturally relevant and influential consumer brands in history, specifically the one that most would credit with creating the touchscreen obsession that automakers are currently leaning into,” he added.

Ironically, GM is doing the same thing Apple and other tech companies have done as well. It’s not like your iOS experience isn’t highly curated, tightly controlled, and only open to certain apps — after Apple takes its own generous cut. And even Apple’s next-gen CarPlay system is asking a lot; soon, it will take over the entire user experience, including the digital dashboard. For any car company investing in software, that’s a big pill to swallow.

For its part, GM said it wasn’t surprised that customers dislike the move to ditch the popular smartphone mirroring systems. “We anticipated some negativity and think it’s totally fair to react that way if you haven’t had exposure to the alternative we’re building,” said Stuart Fowle, director of Global Product Development, Software Defined Vehicle and Design Communications at General Motors. “We are committed to this shift and looking forward to the future.”

Apple announces next generation of CarPlay with widgets, climate control, and a customizable instrument cluster at #WWDC22 pic.twitter.com/iPEE2VV4tr
— The Verge (@verge) June 6, 2022

But customer preferences are what they are now. And years of dealing with frustrations from systems like CUE, which became exponentially outclassed by the smartphone experience (and then CarPlay) as each year went on, have added up.

“Talk to anyone that’s been in a vehicle with this feature and they’re often instantly sold on having to have it,” DeGraff said. “I hear constant chatter about it, and to give you even more proof of how desirable Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are, consumers with older vehicles are now upgrading their factory (DIN) head units with aftermarket replacement touchscreens that offer Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.” How many people can even name the other infotainment systems on the market?

“GM is picking a battle with what is arguably one of the most culturally relevant and influential consumer brands in history”

One of the rare exceptions to this trend is Tesla, which has never offered Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. But Tesla’s an odd animal in the auto industry. It’s long seen itself more as a tech company that makes cars — the same pivot all these legacy automakers are trying to make — and CEO Elon Musk is infamous for sparring with competitors. Plus, Tesla’s in-car software experience, while far from perfect, has largely been markedly better than many old-school car companies. GM may be seeking to emulate this approach on some level, but it’s hard to imitate the way Tesla’s always marched to the beat of its own drum.

Then again, some Tesla fans have been clamoring for these features for years, and some intrepid developers have even made various hacks and aftermarket parts to enable CarPlay on those vehicles. That alone says a lot.

The war for your screen

But GM’s decision to walk away from CarPlay and Android Auto could be the start of a larger trend. Even as automakers turn to companies like Google to help build infotainment systems and software suites, it’s entirely plausible more of them will want to abandon third-party smartphone projection systems in the future. Your car, your screen, and the data they collect are about to become extremely profitable revenue streams. Nobody wants to play nice and share.

For now, that feels premature. The car market in 2023 is dominated by huge consumer demand for Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. That’s probably why other car companies like Ford, Volvo, BMW and Hyundai say they’re sticking with these features. Even if they secretly don’t want to, admitting it runs the risk of sending buyers to other dealerships.

Drury said he feels it’s unlikely GM will change its mind on this decision, despite the backlash, but he warned that whatever the company has up its sleeve had better be world-class — not another CUE.

“While GM is unlikely to fully reverse course, one would expect their replacement app to be up to snuff and that any initial reactions of dismay from Apple owners are signs of minor annoyance rather than an outright refusal to purchase vehicles from The General,” Drury said, using a nickname for GM.

“For many Apple consumers, there is no replacement for an iPhone’s seamless connectivity to the rest of their world. GM better hope consumers still feel the same about GM vehicles.”

How to charge your non-Tesla EV at a Tesla Supercharger

2023-03-27T11:48:10-04:00

I never expected to see a non-Tesla EV charging at a Tesla Supercharger.

The electric vehicle market is growing by leaps and bounds every month in the US, but most of these new EV owners are quickly figuring out they have one big thing in common: our public charging infrastructure sucks very badly.

EV drivers face everything from illogical charging station placement and broken equipment to being forced to use a hodgepodge of payment apps. The fact that America is still in the Wild West days of EV charging becomes readily apparent the moment your range starts dwindling and you’re far from home.

There’s one exception to this, of course: Tesla’s Supercharger network. The automaker claims it’s built the largest public fast-charging network in the world, and there’s no evidence to the contrary. It’s also probably the easiest network to use. The Superchargers have been a significant driver of Tesla’s growth, and it’s helped challenge a lot of beliefs about EV ownership.

Tesla’s “Magic Dock” adapters are here

Until very recently, the Supercharger network’s plugs were designed to work only with Teslas. As of this month, however, the company has begun installing its so-called “Magic Dock” adapters at various Supercharger sites across the country, allowing some chargers to work with any EV that has a CCS plug — basically any modern one. (And besides the plugs being different, the Supercharger’s charging setup is a software-based one that works off Tesla’s app and recognizes the account associated with each car; it doesn’t work like a gas station fill-up.)

This now gives owners of EVs made by Volvo, Mercedes, Ford, BMW, and scores of others access to many Supercharger stations, making long-distance travel easier than ever.

For context, Tesla has about 40,000 Superchargers worldwide and about 17,000 are in the US. The Biden administration — which incentivized this move under the Inflation Reduction Act — said earlier this year that Tesla will open 3,500 Superchargers along highway corridors to non-Tesla customers by the end of 2024 as well as 4,000 slower chargers at places like hotels and restaurants. Tesla also intends to double the number of Superchargers in the US in the coming years.

Taken together, it’s a big expansion of America’s EV charging capabilities and something Tesla has been piloting in Europe for several years. At present, that expansion now covers much of Northern and Western Europe and the United Kingdom.

Taken together, it’s a big expansion of America’s EV charging capabilities

Note that not every Supercharger station has the Magic Dock to charge a non-Tesla — not yet, anyway. They’re still being rolled out across the network. As of this writing, only about a dozen stations are open to other EVs, and all of those locations are in New York and California.

Recently, I decided to see how this process works using an electric Genesis GV60. And I can report it’s a remarkably easy and fast process that puts many other public fast chargers to shame.

The downside is that, unfortunately, you’ll need yet another app — in this case, Tesla’s. (If it makes you feel any better, my iPhone is loaded with apps from ChargePoint, Flo, PlugShare, and a couple of others I forgot about. We’ll get through this together.) But the Tesla app is, fortunately, very simple to use for locating and paying for charging, and you will need it since Supercharger stations don’t accept other forms of payment.

It’s a remarkably easy and fast process that puts many other public fast chargers to shame

Here’s how it works.

First, download the Tesla app for your iOS or Android device and set up an account. The first thing you’ll probably see on the homescreen is “Charge Your Non-Tesla.” You’ll see a list of Tesla chargers near you, including what speed they use and whether they’re open to the public. The red icons indicate chargers open to the public and non-Tesla EVs.

In this case, I took the GV60 up to Hancock, New York, near the Pennsylvania border because the app told me the Magic Dock was there, and I wanted to try this out.

Once you’ve arrived at your chosen station, pull up to an empty spot. Note that many EVs have different plug locations, and Superchargers are designed to work with Teslas, so you may need to expect a little awkwardness.

Next, choose which stall you’re parked next to on the Tesla app, then hit “Unlock Adapter.” Once you do, you should be able to release the Tesla charger plug with the Magic Dock attached.

This is the Magic Dock in action. It’s a bulky piece of plastic that attaches over the normally sleek Tesla plug and turns it into a CCS charger. Now comes the easy part: plug it into your charging port, as I did here with the Genesis.

You should be able to tell on both the app and the car’s display screens that the electrons are flowing and at what speed. With the app, you can go for a walk or grab a coffee as I did while the Supercharger does its thing. That’s a nice addition to the process, and like the Supercharger itself, the app is easier to use and more seamless than many non-Tesla alternatives out there.

I do have a confession to make: I actually didn’t need to charge my Genesis. I just wanted to see how this system would work. When I had enough, I hit the “Stop Charging” button, returned the Tesla plug to its post, and hit the road.

In the 26 minutes I stepped away from the car, I added 24kWh of electricity, enough to take the Genesis from around 70 percent charge to about 90 percent. All in, this cost me $11.76. According to InsideEVs, most of these stations are priced at 49 to 51 cents per kWh, but a subscription plan is available for $12.99 a month, which includes a lower price per kWh.

That may well be worth it if you drive a non-Tesla, live near a Supercharger station, and don’t have many other fast-charging options readily available. It’s probably not worth it for me since I have one of the new EVolve NY fast-charging stations closer by, and those are priced at 35 cents per kWh.

But as the number of Magic Dock-equipped stations increases, a subscription plan could be a great option for some drivers. Regardless of how you pay, this is set to be a big boost for EVs of all kinds now, not just the ones Tesla makes. When more of these sites go live, road trip-related range anxiety could be far less than what it is now.

After all, it’s better than some things Elon Musk is asking you to pay for.

Photography by Patrick George for The Verge

I gazed into the Genesis GV60’s ‘Crystal Sphere’ and found joy

2023-03-23T13:42:08-04:00

“All electric vehicles drive the same.” That’s a criticism I hear pretty often lately, especially from car enthusiasts who are none too happy to lose things like engine noises and manual transmissions. It’s not exactly accurate; a Porsche Taycan will deliver a pretty radically different experience from a Volkswagen ID.4, for example, and they come from the same parent company. But that assessment isn’t completely incorrect, either.

The truth is that there probably are fewer ways EVs feel different from one another compared to internal combustion cars. And the general auto industry consensus seems to be that cars of the future will be less defined by individual driving dynamics and more by software-driven functions and special features.

Those things don’t necessarily have to be off-the-charts ostentatious or seemingly designed to land you in traffic court. Sometimes they can be small and beautiful and just unique for their own sake.

Take the “Crystal Sphere” in the Genesis GV60. It’s my latest design obsession, and now, I’m sad when I get into any car that doesn’t have one.

For the record, that would be all other cars. The Crystal Sphere is exclusive to the GV60, the luxury EV crossover that launched from Hyundai’s upstart Lexus- and Mercedes-fighting luxury division. Even the other electric Genesis models, like the Electrified G80 and Electrified GV70, cannot lay claim to this delightful and seemingly useless feature.

Maybe it’s not useless; it looks cool, impresses your passengers, and makes you happy whenever you see it. Doesn’t that have value on its own? Additionally, Genesis describes this as a kind of safety feature: when the Crystal Sphere has retracted, you can easily recognize that the car is on and ready to drive. If the car is charging, the Crystal Sphere won’t rotate, preventing you from ripping an electrical cord away from a public fast charger when you drive away. That would be bad.

Maybe it’s not useless — it looks cool, impresses your passengers, and makes you happy whenever you see it

On the GV60’s center console, you will find a glass ball that glows when you approach the car with key in hand or unlock it. It may even be the first thing you notice when you step inside. And when you hit the start button (the GV60 actually has one, unlike many EVs) the sphere rotates inward and transforms into the rotary-knob gear selector — the center of which glows the same color as the sphere.

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Just try not to be impressed by that. In the week I recently tested the GV60, I never tired of looking at it.

The GV60 itself is kind of a unique animal. It’s possible you haven’t seen many of them on the street yet; Genesis’ EVs are only currently for sale in 15 states, though that number is quickly growing. But it’s bound to catch your eye if you do see one.

Riding on the same electric platform as the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Kia EV6, the GV60 eschews the angular looks of those cars for an elegant, flowing design that echoes the kind of European sport compacts that are usually forbidden fruit to us Americans. Of that trio of cars, it’s the most powerful one, offering 429 horsepower in the Performance model. It even comes in fun colors, like a funky mint green or a highlighter yellow.

Between the power, the looks, and the budget Bentley interior, the GV60 really feels like something different in the growing EV market. It’s got an offbeat but upscale character that sets it apart from other appliance-like electric cars.

The Genesis GV60 is better than most other EVs in its segment. | Image: Patrick George" data-portal-copyright="Image: Patrick George" />

But the Crystal Sphere is certainly the pièce de résistance, as it truly drives home the unique spirit of this car. Each sphere is a single solid piece of glass etched with a pattern of spires that shift and change depending on your perspective. Arguably the best part is that those spires change color on command. The Crystal Sphere’s color can be adjusted in the car’s infotainment screen to a number of preset hues or whatever you desire. That’s right: it can be any color you want.

In the week I recently tested the GV60, I never tired of looking at it

I can’t remember if I’ve ever just sat in my garage staring at a piece of a car interior, but I certainly did here. It looks absolutely dazzling and is sure to impress any of your passengers.

Understandably, Genesis — and fans of the sphere — have gotten blowback from skeptics who worry it may not be safe or may not function properly over time. Why overcomplicate something as important as putting the car into motion? What happens, for example, if you spill a gas station burrito all over the thing? Would it still work? (As a side note, why are you eating a gas station burrito in front of the Crystal Sphere? Show some respect.)

As if to preempt such questions, Genesis engineers say they subjected it to various endurance trials and high- and low-temperature tests. It still works when bearing a heavy load. Liquids, apparently, also pass through it entirely: “Because of the nature of the location, Crystal Sphere is designed so that various other substances can be naturally passed through to the floor of the cabin. To test this, we used a wide variety of liquids, including cola, hot coffee, ketchup, yogurt, and honey,” Genesis’ engineers say.

“To test this, we used a wide variety of liquids, including cola, hot coffee, ketchup, yogurt, and honey.”

The sphere also detects if things get stuck in it and will try to rotate twice with greater force. If that doesn’t work, it advises the driver to clear or clean the area and will eventually stop to protect the motor inside. Finally, the car’s own user manual indicates the sphere can be rotated manually in the event of an emergency.

Certainly, safety and durability are valid concerns. It’s hard to know for sure how the Crystal Sphere will hold up over time. Motorized parts can certainly fail after many years, too — anyone with a sunroof on a car more than 20 years old may be wary of opening it up in case it won’t close again. (Ask me how I know this.)

The GV60 is a brand-new car that’s barely been on sale a year, although Hyundai and its Genesis division have been nailing it on the quality front lately. A Genesis spokesperson told me he thinks it’d be hard to determine how much the Crystal Sphere would cost to replace but that it would be covered under warranty.

But to me, some of the unease here feels tied to edge cases, not the car’s normal operation. And besides, with a heavily software-driven EV like the GV60 that uses a lithium-ion battery and a charging port that could eventually become irrelevant, I think that, decades from now, the Crystal Sphere would be the least of your problems.

All I know is that the Crystal Sphere worked perfectly, even beautifully, in the week that I drove the car. And I was bummed not to have the Crystal Sphere in another Genesis EV I tested afterward.

I missed the Crystal Sphere when the GV60 went back to the press car fleet. I longed for it. I got some good professional news while I had the Crystal Sphere in my possession; I began to wonder, Was this because of the Crystal Sphere? Was it the source of all of the good things in my life? What will happen to me now that it’s gone? Who has it now, and what happens if they misuse its power?

Eventually, I came to my senses. But such is the power of the Crystal Sphere. And all admiration aside, I do think it’s a stellar example of modern car interior design, where little details make a lot of difference and go a long way toward establishing character when EV driving dynamics begin to blur together. There are plenty of things to be concerned about in our electrified, digital, and connected car future. We may as well have some fun along the way.

Can Revel get New York City’s dismal EV charging system out of neutral?

2023-03-10T08:00:00-05:00

There are approximately 2 million cars registered to New York City households, a number that doesn’t even include taxis, buses, motorcycles, commuters, or vehicles from outside of the five boroughs. Every day, those drivers navigate traffic, potholes, a short supply of parking, infamously bad road manners, and the fraught consequences of driving in a city that could probably use a lot fewer cars.

Now, imagine a future where most of those cars, if not all, run on electricity instead of gasoline.

One way or another, the future we seem headed toward will need a lot more plugs. The purchase and use of electric vehicles in New York City is rising quickly, but the city’s public charging infrastructure leaves a lot to be desired — worse, even, than the rest of the country’s admittedly subpar network.

Fixing that is the next big play from Revel, the Brooklyn-based ridehailing service that started in 2018 with its signature neon blue rental mopeds and graduated to an all-Tesla Model Y ridehail alternative to Uber and Lyft. Having grown that operation quickly, it’s now moving into the charging business in a big way.

Now, imagine a future where most of those cars, if not all, run on electricity instead of gasoline

In January, Revel announced it would build five “Superhub” fast-charging sites across the city in addition to the one it operates in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. These hubs will add another 136 charging stations and will serve any EV, not just Revel’s ridehailing vehicles. The current plans call for 60 stalls in Maspeth, Queens; 30 stalls in the Bronx’s Port Morris; 20 stalls in Red Hook, Brooklyn; 16 stalls at The Dime building in South Williamsburg; and an additional 10 stalls at Pier 36 in the Lower East Side between the Williamsburg and Manhattan bridges.

All of them will open by the end of this year, the company says, except for the Red Hook location, which is slated to open in 2024. A Revel spokesperson added that the Williamsburg location will be open “very soon.”

Revel hopes this massive injection of EV charging availability will not only power its nascent ridesharing network and enable it to grow but also provide relief for EV owners in the city.

“When you think about big cities in the US like New York, the transition is just stuck in neutral,” Revel CEO and co-founder Frank Reig told The Verge in an interview. “It’s just not happening.”

Compared to the thousands of EVs in the city, 136 charging stalls may not sound like very many. But it’s key to remember these are fast-charging stations capable of at least 150kW, which should be able to power an EV to near-full levels in just 10 to 20 minutes, depending on the vehicle’s capabilities. This means vehicles from across the five boroughs will be able to charge and go fairly quickly and have charging access they may not have had otherwise.

“When you think about big cities in the US like New York, the transition is just stuck in neutral.”

They’ll also be a boon to Revel’s own expansion plans as well as the scores of Uber and Lyft ridehail vehicles that Mayor Eric Adams wants to be all-electric by 2030 — although that goal faces significant hurdles of its own.

Taken together, Revel says these additions will triple fast-charging access in New York City and that the Maspeth Superhub will be the largest public fast-charging station in the Western Hemisphere.

As for safety concerns around adding high-voltage fast charging in areas like Red Hook, which faced severe flooding during Hurricane Sandy, Revel spokesperson Robert Familiar said: “Revel’s Red Hook Recharge Zone will make the Red Hook community more resilient during extreme weather events. The 20-stall V2G [vehicle-to-grid] system combined with on-site solar+storage can back up the local grid during peak demand and potential blackout situations. All critical infrastructure at the site will be elevated above the 100-year floodplain.”

It’s a big move for Revel, which now operates its moped business in several cities and its electric ridehail service in New York and parts of New Jersey. Besides eschewing fossil fuels, Revel is also notable in the space for paying its drivers as employees, not independent contractors as Lyft and Uber infamously do.

Reig said one goal is to counter what he called “a classic chicken-and-egg” problem: EV adoption is slowed by the lack of infrastructure, but building that infrastructure is contingent on EV demand.

Certainly, EV growth is happening in New York City. But the user experience to go with it is not.

According to New York state data, about 19,000 EVs were registered in New York City’s five boroughs as of early February. That number is growing quickly as more new EVs enter the automotive market. In 2022, those boroughs saw 7,771 new EV registrations, up from 5,513 new EV registrations the year prior. (The city also counts about 9,700 registered plug-in hybrid cars, which may also use the charging infrastructure from time to time.)

In January, the number of EVs registered in NYC passed 1 percent for the first time, a percentage sure to increase as car companies ramp up electric offerings in the years to come. And as The New York Times recently noted, EV registrations in parts of the greater metro area (and the city itself) have seen triple-digit growth since 2020; all of those people will need more charging options sooner than later.

Automakers and industry experts generally say the best use case for EVs is to charge at home or the office. Indeed, at Tesla’s recent Investor Day presentation, one image that stood out in the slideshow was of a car powering up inside a private home. But the challenges facing EV owners in multifamily housing are well known; it’s even more difficult in New York City, where apartment complexes with parking lots and space for chargers are far less common than in other cities.

Certainly, EV growth is happening in New York City, but the user experience to go with it is not

Instead, New York City’s EV drivers face a ramshackle assortment of charging options. Those include chargers in parking garages that may or may not be working or staffed by an attendant who understands how they function; stations fenced off inside private lots; the occasional chargers at places like the Whole Foods in Gowanus; various curbside charging ports installed by Con Edison and NYC’s Department of Transportation (DOT) throughout the city; or in some neighborhoods, the occasional 100-foot extension cord running out of a window.

Do you charge an EV in New York City? I want to hear more about your experience. Contact the author here.

These are the situations Reig wants to start fixing, starting with New York City — and very likely other cities soon.

Thankfully for NYC’s EV drivers, some relief is coming from other sources, too. Last year, the New York Power Authority’s EVolve NY initiative installed more than 100 fast chargers across the state, and Tesla’s proprietary Supercharger network is already starting to open up to non-Tesla vehicles.

Clearly, Revel isn’t alone in this initiative. But the size of its charging investment could put this company on the map in a way that its blue mopeds and Teslas haven’t yet.

In a wide-ranging interview in late January, Reig talked to The Verge about the company’s NYC charging expansion; its transition from a moped company to a charging provider; the many logistical hurdles involved with adding fast charging in the Big Apple; and where he sees the company going next.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

I wanted to talk about the expansion of your charging service in New York City and how Revel is doing in general. I am a fan of the service. We also haven’t been able to get a ride in months. So what’s going on with the demand issue and ridership?

Glad to hear you use the service. It’s always easier to talk to someone that’s actually experienced it themselves instead of trying to translate it to somebody.

So first of all, apologies for that. We had a very serious demand spike around the middle of November in terms of just users coming onto the platform. And it took us a little bit of time to respond to that. I would say the service has leveled out a bit, and now, I think we’re in a really good place. We’re back operating at that pre-November level.

Because of the way we built this service to grow responsibly, we control the infrastructure, we control the vehicle, we control the employee drivers, we control the technology, the brand, everything. There’s only so much you can expand at a certain time.

So when there is a demand spike like that, unfortunately, it’s hard to meet it because of everything that we’re doing to make this business grow.

What drove this big spike in demand back at the end of last year?

Some of our promotional codes that we had done throughout the year for various things to drive ridership — they had accumulated and were allowed to kind of enter into the system at once. So actually, believe it or not, on social media, a sort of Reel went viral. [Note: A Revel spokesperson later added that a TikTok video about Revel blew up, leading to a surge in registrations.]

And that’s what started a lot of this. We signed up tens of thousands of users in that 24-hour period, which is a little too much for several hundred cars to handle.

“Because of the way we built this service to grow responsibly, we control the infrastructure, we control the vehicle, we control the employee drivers, we control the technology, the brand, everything.”

That’s kind of a good problem to have, almost. And was it just not enough cars, not enough drivers to meet this influx of demand, or both?

There are only a certain amount of cars that we have, and then you add tens of thousands of new users in literally a 24-hour period. And then you have someone like yourself, who tried to use the service for six weeks and probably got frustrated. Thankfully, we’re on the other side of that.

You’re also interesting in the ridehailing business because you have a unique employment model compared to, I think, most of your competitors. Your drivers are employees. They’re not paid per ride, like the model Uber and Lyft and most other services have. Why go that route?

I think, first, it just goes back to the culture of the company. You know, we also operate thousands of mopeds in New York and San Francisco. From day one when we launched this company in 2018, we’ve never used the gig economy. So all of our moped swappers, customer support agents, all of our hourly positions — are all employees. So I think that’s just in our DNA.

We believe if you’re going to operate in the city and use a public right-of-way, you should be employing people that live there as well.

The second piece of this is from more of a business aspect: when you’re an employee driver, you now have control. I’m sure you’ve seen for yourself that the cars are very clean. We are able to provide a reliable, consistent type of experience because we control every aspect of it.

If you’re basically just a software platform matching supply and demand, you basically don’t control anything. And it also allows us to actually move forward on electrification and be a first mover there when all other companies are talking about what they’re going to do in 2030.

You say a lot about electrification in general. Can you speak to how that’s driven the company so far?

If you go back to the founding of this company, it was born out of my frustration in getting around the city of New York. I’m a born and bred New Yorker. And it is just frustrating getting around the city sometimes.

So the moped product was born out of that. I saw the moped as maybe one of the best vehicle types to just get around the city in short one-, two-, and three-mile trips.

“We believe if you’re going to operate in the city and use a public right-of-way, you should be employing people that live there as well.”

When it comes to rideshare infrastructure, for us, it’s about really making a really significant investment in New York City’s EV future. If you think about it, just the five sites that we announced a couple of weeks ago: that’s more than 80 percent of New York City’s EV fast charging. I think that that is pretty incredible, right?

As a company, we’re constantly on the bleeding edge, and now, we’re leading on electrification of the city and building up the fast charging that is so desperately needed here.

Not only are we building large-scale charging [hubs] where New Yorkers actually live and work — we’re building one in the Bronx or Maspeth, Queens, or Red Hook, Brooklyn — we’re also building infrastructure a little differently than anybody else. We’re building infrastructure at scale. We’re not putting two chargers at a retail outlet or Walgreens or a Whole Foods.

We’re putting 25 or 60 stalls in strategic areas where New Yorkers live and work. That’s going to deliver to EV drivers a much better experience charging when you have an entire site just devoted to charging, not something that’s an amenity for another business.

You’re about 18 months into operating a car service. Why get into that model at all from the moped business, and how have things been going?

For why, you have to go back to the problem we’re solving as a company, and that’s the chicken-or-egg problem. There are not enough EVs out there. So guess what. There’s no infrastructure — because why would somebody spend all that money if there are no EVs? And since there’s no infrastructure, nobody wants to buy an EV.

Everybody knows it’s a problem. When you think about big cities in the US like New York, the EV transition is just stuck in neutral. It’s just not happening. You see many EVs in New York?

A growing amount, but it’s a difficult thing to operate here for sure.

So you have this EV transition that’s stuck in neutral. One of the things that’s very unique about our business model is that we’re bringing both charging and energy and mobility into one strategy. We’re executing on that right now in 2023. We’re not talking about what we’re good to do in five, seven years.

So that’s why we bring ridesharing and infrastructure into one business. I would also just say, when you think about the mobility market, you can argue rideshare in New York City is a bigger market opportunity than car-sharing across the entire US.

“There’s no infrastructure — because why would somebody spend all that money if there are no EVs? And since there’s no infrastructure, nobody wants to buy an EV.”

Could you elaborate on that for me a little bit, please?

Well, you just add up all the taxi, Uber, Lyft trips, and now Revel in New York City — over a year, you’re talking 300 million-plus trips. You can see the size of that market.

And when you think about the average revenue per trip, you do the math. So all I’m saying is that this is a very big market opportunity. And if you’re going to use mobility to drive this infrastructure business, it needs to be rideshare.

What would you say is the core revenue driver right now — the moped business, charging, or ridehailing? And the second part of that is, can you speak to how 2022 went revenue-wise and say anything about what you’re projecting for 2023?

Yes, rideshare is the largest revenue bucket just because of how many hours a day these vehicles are on the streets and the amount of revenue they’re pulling in, as opposed to a charger.

Back to the core of your question: is this a rideshare company, or is this an infrastructure company? Well, right now, if you’re actually going to lead on electrification in cities and be a first mover, you have to have an integrated strategy. You can’t have one without the other.

If we just go out there like we’re doing, put a massive-scale, dense, public fast-charging network in the ground in New York City, and just hope and pray somebody shows up to use it, it’s a great way to lose money. And there is no scaling of electric rideshare in any significant way unless you’re out there putting infrastructure in the ground that currently does not exist.

So there is no one without the other. And if you’re talking about just one of those, you’re usually talking about 2030 then, as a company.

So can you speak to anything about revenue for last year or projections for this year?

I’ll pass on any revenue conversations.

“Rideshare is the largest revenue bucket just because of how many hours a day these vehicles are on the streets and the amount of revenue they’re pulling in, as opposed to a charger.”

Take me through the plan to expand the charging network. How were these sites chosen, and what roadblocks do you face as you build these out? This is not an easy city to really build anything in, let alone what you’ve been doing.

We’re building very much for the rideshare use case. We designed sites with that in mind, so we’re constantly thinking about where rideshare drivers live and work. So that’s just one part of this.

I would say, if I’m going to answer that question more holistically, just to give you an understanding that, yes, this is really difficult — think of a Venn diagram of all the things that need to overlap in order to put 50 fast-charging stalls in the Bronx or Queens or somewhere else in Brooklyn or Manhattan. To put that amount of infrastructure in the ground, zoning laws need to match up. What does the zoning say? Can you even do that? A good 90 percent of the city is no, approximately. Zoning cuts out large swaths of the city.

Then, can Con Edison even get you power? Because you’re talking about skyscraper levels of power for these sites. Can the utility get you the power and on what timeline? Maybe they can get you power, but it’s three or four years out. That doesn’t work. How am I going to negotiate with a landlord and say, “Hey, can we have a deal, but we have to wait four years?”

Then, I’ll just say, there’s a host of other regulatory agencies. What if you need a curb cutout from DOT to make your site live? What if you need to move a fire hydrant for the local utility to drop a transformer onto the site? What if you need to move a street tree? I’m just giving you examples.

No, this is fascinating. Go on.

Everything needs to match up. You also need a rational landlord. Can you even get them to a rent that makes sense? Do they actually want to do a deal? Also, hey, the timeline for power may be two years — can you give us free rent for two years? (Laughs) Try having that conversation with a landlord.

So you can imagine, yes, this is very difficult. It’s also a reason why a first mover like Revel has a huge competitive moat as well, as we’re going out there snatching up all the best sites.

“Think of a Venn diagram of all the things that need to overlap in order to put 50 fast-charging stalls in the Bronx or Queens or somewhere else in Brooklyn or Manhattan.”

You’re in the construction phase now. Where are you now, progress-wise?

Some of these sites will go live in 2023 — some sooner than later.

Some of these sites, like the 60-stall site in Maspeth, Queens, we signed that site, I believe, in 2021. It took two years to get that site going, and that’s moving fast. That’s like pushing every day, every agency, every landlord, every construction worker — push! And it still takes forever.

So I would say sometimes you can get sites live in six to nine months if the power is already available. Maybe it’s a smaller site where you don’t need an upgrade with the utility. Everything lines up perfectly, six to nine months is the absolute best case.

These bigger sites that are 50–60 stalls, minimum of two years. That’s just the way it is.

How would you describe New York City’s EV charging infrastructure as it is now, before everything that you are working on? How would you describe the lay of the land?

I mean, nonexistent. I don’t count Level 2 as fast charging. Level 2 is a nice amenity. No one, rationally, as a New Yorker where time is money, is going to spend eight to 10 hours charging their car. It has to be fast, it has to be 15–20 minutes. That is true fast charging, which is what we’re building.

If you look at true fast charging as it’s publicly available… that may also include a garage fee. A lot of times you go to use a charger, to use that, you have to pay [the garage] $20–30. Then, you have to pay for the charging as well.

If you think about true fast charging as it’s publicly available, you can count the sites on one hand. And even a lot of those sites have maybe one or two spots. So, I mean, the network right now is abysmal; it is nonexistent.

“No one, rationally, as a New Yorker where time is money, is going to spend eight to 10 hours charging their car. It has to be fast, it has to be 15–20 minutes.”

What else do you think needs to happen in New York City to meet the rise of EVs that are going to be coming over the next decade? What must happen in this city to get to the level that the auto industry is sort of imagining for the near future?

I’m trying to think of something that’s actually tangible. You know, there’s something that I’ve always thought about, and this will be a policy change.

Right now, when we go for a power upgrade — and this is not just New York City, this is really any city where we’re working with utility — a lot of times, when you go for a power upgrade, you just get put into the line. Like the building being built over there, and the government office being built there, and you’re just in line with everybody else.

What if public fast charging got moved further up the line at all times? I’m just trying to think about something that’s actually tangible that would actually make a big difference, but it is a policy change.

So if [charging] is behind a fence, it’s private. Why should you go to the front of the line? But if it’s public charging, it gets prioritized because you’re advancing electrification. Get that power upgrade done.

By the end of this year, how would you describe Revel? Is it a moped company, rideshare company, charging company, or all of the above? How are you envisioning things?

I mean, at a macro level, I just constantly think about this as a company that is accelerating the EV transition in cities today. And this is a company that’s never talking about tomorrow.

Do you ever worry that you’re risking doing too much? In barely two years, you’ve done a very rapid expansion from where you started. How have you squared that with the pitfalls at many startups where they try to do too much too quickly?

Geographic focus. I’m not putting an EV fast-charging infrastructure in 50 states. I’m trying to put it in a handful of the biggest rideshare markets in the densest cities here in the US and being the first company to actually have a scaled and fast-charging network in those markets.

Take me through any plans for expanding or other markets. What do you think the future looks like with regard to other municipalities in America or other regions?

We are absolutely building more EV fast charging right now behind the scenes in other markets. More to come on where those markets are.

And I will just say, we can’t launch rideshare everywhere unless the infrastructure is built.

Ford’s self-repossessing car patent is a nightmare of the connected-car future

2023-03-03T16:46:29-05:00

The electric and digital transformation of the car industry comes with a lot of promises for a better tomorrow. Electric vehicles could dramatically reduce carbon emissions in the transportation sector; connected cars will give us access to services and features we don’t currently enjoy; over-the-air software updates could eliminate high repair costs; and automated vehicles may make driving significantly safer.

But it’s worth remembering that, at the end of the day, car companies are just out to make a buck, not make the world a better place.

This week, it was revealed that Ford applied for a patent on a system that would use connected car technology to better aid in vehicle repossession. News of the patent’s publication was first reported by The Drive this week (which, in the interest of full disclosure, is a publication where I previously served as editorial director), and it describes a variety of procedures around repo-ing cars when payments are delinquent.

Ford applied for a patent on a system that would use connected car technology to better aid in vehicle repossession

Those include sending messages to the owner’s smartphone or the vehicle itself, locking drivers out entirely, disabling functions like air conditioning, geofencing drivers to only operate within a certain time or set area so they can still get to work, and in one especially harrowing example, enabling an autonomous car to just drive itself to an impound lot — or a junkyard if the car’s market value is determined to be below a certain threshold.

Someone at Ford put a lot of thought into all of this.

The patent document describes dozens of ways to remotely and electronically revolutionize the entire repossession process, including liaising directly with lending institutions and police.

Currently, that process is a lot more low-tech, but it’s still infamously predatory and lacking in oversight. In states like California and New York, repossession can occur if an owner is even a few weeks behind on payments, and creditors aren’t even required to notify drivers before it happens.

An owner’s rights in this situation depend on what state they live in and what’s in their loan agreement.

Whether car owners can even reinstate their loans by getting the balance current depends on what’s in their loan agreement, and their right to do so varies from state to state. If they cannot get their car back, it could be swiftly sold at auction.

The patent document describes dozens of ways to remotely and electronically revolutionize the entire repossession process, including liaising directly with lending institutions and police

In recent years, there’s been a rise in the use of electronic transponders on cars financed via subprime loans. Those devices put lower-income or bad-credit buyers at risk of having their vehicles remotely disabled if they’re behind on payments.

Ford’s patent, however, takes this idea to a galaxy-brain level, concocting multiple scenarios where connected vehicle data and autonomy can be used to immediately retrieve vehicles if owners slip up.

The knee-jerk reaction to all of this is “Make your car payments on time.” And that’s certainly true, but no deep introspection is needed to realize people fall behind on payments and other bills all of the time and for all sorts of reasons. Those include sudden job loss, unexpected medical costs, personal emergencies, or losing a partner or family member who was contributing to payments. Nobody wants to get their car repossessed, after all.

Ford self-repossessing car patent by ahawkins8223 on Scribd

But this Ford patent represents a kind of nightmare scenario for the connected-car future, one where the automobile — long a symbol of personal freedom and still advertised as such — comes with a lot more external software-driven control over where we go, what we do, and how we do it. Just as automakers want you to subscribe to features you once got upfront, like heated seats, or seek restrictions on whether you have the right to repair your vehicle or not, the new era of cars will undoubtedly come with a great deal more strings attached.

The repossession patent is especially galling when you consider the state of the car market in recent years.

Cars are more expensive than ever, and people are having a harder time paying for them than ever, a trend that was happening even before the pandemic put a supply chain crunch on the market. By the end of last year, the average new car in America cost a record-high $49,507, according to Kelley Blue Book. This new crop of EVs — which would undoubtedly be the first to feature such technologies — are even more expensive at around $61,448 per vehicle.

No deep introspection is needed to realize people fall behind on payments and other bills all of the time and for all sorts of reasons

Automakers have spent years pushing buyers into more expensive trucks, SUVs, and crossovers and eliminating smaller cars from their lineups in order to take advantage of those vehicles’ higher profit margins. The result has been longer loan terms, a rise in negative equity “rolled over” from past car loans, and more total car debt than ever. Just this week, Fortune reported America is now seeing its highest “severe delinquency” rate since 2006 as high interest rates and skyrocketing prices put a squeeze on people’s budgets. Used car prices are even more out of whack.

Finally, car companies may have taken the worst lessons from the car shortages of the pandemic. The result has been cases like General Motors hitting pause on the production of its most popular trucks to “maintain optimal inventory levels,” leading to fears that supply could be kept artificially low in order to maintain sky-high prices.

In other words, automakers and their dealers have spent years ramping up car prices or taking advantage of market conditions. Now they’re coming up with high-tech ways to hit owners back if they can’t pay up.

Naturally, this isn’t the kind of technology-related headline Ford wants. The automaker demurred in a statement published in various outlets, saying it has no plan to deploy this system. “We submit patents on new inventions as a normal course of business, but they aren’t necessarily an indication of new business or product plans,” Ford said in a statement.

Even if you take Ford at face value there, this kind of thing absolutely can be done. In a world where automakers are actively fighting your ability to fix your own car, there’s no reason to believe they have consumers’ best interests in mind all of the time. And while connected car technology is still in its relative infancy, it is only a matter of time before those cars enter the used market or the tech spreads to cheaper vehicles.

So when we look at how car technology is advancing in the years to come, it’s worth drivers everywhere asking this: Who is all of this for, anyway? And is this next generation of cars going to save the planet and its people, or is it just going to save the auto industry?

Volkswagen, Audi, and Porsche are getting their own in-car app store — and yes, that includes TikTok

2023-03-01T07:45:00-05:00

If you’ve long felt like the one thing missing from your Audi was in-car TikTok, fret no more. Volkswagen Group is the latest to join the in-car app party, and it’s doing it in a big way. And it’s a preview of the conglomerate’s big plans for a unified in-car software platform that will govern how its cars operate for years to come.

The world’s second-largest vehicle manufacturer announced today that it will soon roll out an app store designed to serve its wide portfolio of car brands. Inside, drivers will find familiar third-party apps optimized for car-friendly usage.

The initial rollout includes big names like TikTok, Spotify, Yelp, and more, all optimized for in-car use and designed to run from an infotainment system screen. The app store will launch with certain new Audi models this year and will be rolled out to additional cars and brands, like Porsche, Lamborghini, and Bentley, later on.

The initial rollout includes big names like TikTok, Spotify, Yelp, and more

In doing so, VW Group joins in the increasing proliferation of a smartphone-like experience in the car. Last month, Mercedes-Benz also announced that its new cars, starting with the 2024 E-Class, will include built-in apps for TikTok, Zoom, the Vivaldi web browser, and more.

The VW Group’s app store launch is even more extensive. The apps available at launch span a wide range of categories, including music and podcasting, video conferencing, weather, parking, EV charging, gaming, news, smart home integration, and more.

The app store will launch with much of Audi’s 2023 lineup in the US, Canada, Mexico, and Europe starting this summer, including cars like the A4 / A5, Q5, A6 / A7, A8, Q8 E-tron, and E-tron GT. Further Audi models will follow later this year with more brands and cars added after that. (A Volkswagen brand spokesperson in the US declined to comment on when the app store might debut on those vehicles in this market.)

While the app store won’t be available via over-the-air updates on existing models, the automaker says it previews a completely new infotainment stack called One.Infotainment for all its brands coming soon. That, and the operating system that underpins it, will be based on Android Automotive, the automaker has said. The app store was developed with Harman, an automotive supplier that’s now a Samsung subsidiary.

The apps available at launch span a wide range of categories, including music and podcasting, video conferencing, weather, parking, EV charging, gaming, news, smart home integration, and more

“It’s a new level of digital experiences we want to show,” said Dirk Hilgenberg, the CEO of Cariad, VW Group’s in-house software division, on a call with reporters. With regard to third-party app companies, “We can combine and leverage with each other creating an immersive experience, especially as far as gaming, relaxing is concerned,” he said.

Hilgenberg also said one goal was to add “in-office functionalities” designed from the outset to work in a vehicle setting. Furthermore, VW Group is in talks to add native Google Maps integration to the system.

Apps formatted specifically for automotive use have become increasingly popular in recent years as more and more drivers (and passengers) expect a level of functionality and features on par with their smartphones. Similarly, setups like Apple CarPlay and Android Auto largely bypass the native car tech experience, much to the chagrin of automakers who don’t want to cede all of that to tech companies.

The VW Group’s app store announcement is notable for a few reasons, including the fact that it will be made available on current-model internal combustion cars like the A4 and Q5— not just the next-gen electric vehicles where connected services and over-the-air updates will likely become the norm.

However, Hilgenberg said the app store is crucial to VW’s plans for exactly that — a network of connected vehicles running on the same software platforms, even if they range from humble Volkswagens to expensive Porsches.

“If you talk about 40 million connected vehicles by 2030, this is relevant for developers to say, hey, why not [curate] my application also in that ecosystem?” Hilgenberg said.

In TikTok’s case in particular, it’s yet another sign of the explosive, almost overnight popularity of the often-controversial social video platform. VW’s move speaks to the ubiquity of the app with Gen Z users, especially in China, which is also the world’s largest car market. In Mercedes’ case, that directly informed the decision to add the service to its own upcoming cars, TechCrunch reported.

The VW Group is in talks to add native Google Maps integration to the system

Given TikTok’s data privacy and security concerns, Hilgenberg said Cariad has been “very strict” on this point and said third-party apps are not able to write to the automotive software itself. And unlike the Mercedes-Benz E-Class, there won’t be an in-cabin selfie camera for recording TikToks in any VW vehicles. “For now, the TikTok App can only be used to consume content,” a spokesperson said.

The app store rollout is also a big software test for Volkswagen Group, which has struggled in that regard for years despite an aggressive push toward electric and connected cars. Specifically, the company’s Cariad division has been tasked with unifying previously disparate initiatives and platforms, all to serve a new generation of EVs that will rely heavily on software for charging, updates, automated driving, and more.

It’s a difficult balancing act. Though it faces tough competition from Tesla, BYD, and others, VW seeks to be the world leader in EV production. Previously, however, this has led VW to rush cars to market with software that wasn’t quite ready for prime time, even though advanced features like over-the-air updates and battery management are crucial to their success. The current VW Group CEO’s immediate predecessor was ousted in part over these problems.

Cariad spokesperson Fabian Lebersorger said the division’s plans this year include debuting new software platforms and improved driver-assistance systems for upcoming vehicles like the electric Porsche Macan and the Audi Q6 E-tron.

“We have adjusted our roadmaps to more realistic time schedules,” Lebersorger said. “2023 is the year of delivery for Cariad.”

Ford can’t afford to miss on quality in the EV revolution

2023-02-17T15:59:30-05:00

On Monday, Ford fired its biggest round yet in the electric vehicle arms race by announcing it would transform 1,900 acres of farmland in rural Marshall, Michigan, into a $3.5 billion electric vehicle and battery factory. Spurred by the economic incentives of the Inflation Reduction Act, the new BlueOval Battery Park Michigan will not only crank out US-made batteries and EVs, but it will also develop new lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries expected to be more durable and faster charging than conventional ones.

A mere 90 miles away in Romulus, however, something else was happening: the plant that produces the electric F-150 Lightning had been sitting idle for about a week as engineers sought to solve an undisclosed battery issue. Ford officials later conceded the problem was a battery fire during a pre-delivery quality inspection that spread to another vehicle.

Ford issued more recalls in America than any other automaker

Both developments made headlines this week. That they came within 24 hours of one another says a lot about the current state of Ford.

On one hand, Ford ended 2022 as the number two seller of electric vehicles behind Tesla. The F-150 Lightning has already established Ford as the leader in electric pickup trucks, and demand for the Mustang Mach-E isn’t slowing down, either.

On the other hand, the automaker that once famously claimed “Quality is Job One” continues to struggle with problems on that front, particularly with new products. In 2022, Ford issued more recalls in America than any other automaker: 68 of them, affecting more than 8.7 million vehicles. That was up from 53 recalls affecting 5.4 million cars the year prior, according to federal data. In 2021, Ford set aside some $4 billion just for warranty costs, The Wall Street Journal reported last year.

Owners have been left feeling frustrated over issues and repairs, especially to new, high-profile vehicles like the F-150 Lightning. Texas-based Lightning owner Justin Esquibel told The Verge his truck is a “$90,000 brick nobody knows how to fix,” suffering from issues almost immediately after he bought it in early December. He said he’s a member of a Lightning owner Facebook group where numerous people have complained of problems.

“It has been in the shop three times and now sits and waits for a wiring harness that’s on backorder,” Justin Esquibel said. “No ETA, and they don’t even know if it’s going to fix it.”

“A $90,000 brick nobody knows how to fix”

The situation became even more acute on Wednesday when it came out that Ford was also hitting pause inside a Louisville, Kentucky plant to solve a software issue affecting the updated Escape crossover, according to Automotive News. A plant manager told employees at the plant that if the car were to ship as such, it would need to be recalled and fixed later.

Following the battery fire, Ford officials said that Lightning production would stay paused while an investigation and repairs take place, which could take several weeks. The company also noted the battery issue would be attributable to SKon, the supplier affiliated with South Korean battery giant SK Innovation. Ford formed a joint venture with SK to build batteries at the company’s new factories in Kentucky.

Ford spokesperson Maria Buczkowski said the issues this week with the Lightning and the Escape are separate, unrelated ones. She added that the Escape’s Louisville plant is still in the “pre-production” process, where defects and issues are often caught on early vehicles that aren’t intended for customers.

Even if the Escape’s issue was the kind of normal problem that could be caught by any automaker, the fact that it made headlines this week speaks to how many eyes are on Ford’s quality challenges.

Those are certainly no secret. The automaker has had four CEOs since the Great Recession, and essentially all of them have groused about profit losses due to warranty and recall costs on calls with investors. And when Ford closed out 2022 with a $2.2 billion loss, current CEO Jim Farley blamed some hits on investments in startups Rivian and Argo AI, but he didn’t mince words about what recalls and defects were costing the company.

“In quality, we have work to do,” Farley said on an earnings call earlier this month. “Ford has been the number one in recalls in the US for the last two years. Clearly, that’s not acceptable.”

Ford’s quality issues have been blamed on a number of factors, including updating its lineup with multiple new vehicles at once for years to rapid, last-minute fixes when problems were caught.

No car company — no company period, really — wants to be known for quality problems or to deal with costly recalls. But Farley called Ford’s current moment a “double transformation”: improving its quality and bringing costs down, and becoming the kind of electric-focused, connected, tech-driven “mobility company” investors want car companies to be now. Doing both at once will be an expensive and difficult proposition.

“Ford has been the number one in recalls in the US for the last two years. Clearly, that’s not acceptable.”

“The issue right now, as Ford has pointed out, is that its future is costly, as are recalls,” said Jessica Caldwell, the executive director of insights at car-buying website Edmunds. “This is something the company wants to avoid as reduction of costs is more important than ever before. But nonetheless, it’s an expensive venture for Ford to simultaneously run [its traditional car business] and [its electric vehicle operation] so every penny must be strategically spent.”

For Ford’s part, Farley and other officials at the company say they’ve been working on the problem for a while and claim they’ve already put several quality-improvement processes into place.

Buczkowski added that a number of quality-related improvements are already in place at Ford and to get ahead of problems before they become costly recalls.

“Yes, there’s a lot of pressure on the company to move in this direction,” she said. “But I think every day there seems to be progress.”

New Cars, New Problems

Nearly every automaker has had teething issues with the types of cars that will define personal transportation in the future — ones driven by electricity and more defined by software than mechanical features.

Volkswagen’s new generation of EVs has struggled with software bugs. The groundbreaking Chevrolet Bolt has had repeated recalls for battery fires. Consumers across every brand continue to have frustrations with complicated controls, user interfaces, and automated driving assistance programs. Even Toyota, arguably the undisputed master of manufacturing quality, released an EV that had to be recalled because its wheels were literally falling off. In that way, Ford’s challenges aren’t unique.

But Ford’s issues started well before it kicked off its EV rollout.

“Ford, in particular, has run into its fair share of blunders with new vehicle launches in recent years,” said Robby DeGraff, an industry analyst at the marketing and consulting firm AutoPacific. “Products that are fiery hot and demanded, like the Bronco, or really important members of the lineup like the Explorer, for example, didn’t have the easiest roll-outs.”

Nearly every new Ford released in recent years faced costly recalls

Nearly every new Ford released in recent years faced costly recalls. The Bronco’s V6 engine was plagued with engine failures; the Explorer, all new for 2020, had scores of issues at launch; one recall last year for the Expedition and Lincoln Navigator asked owners to park away from buildings due to fire risk; and though Ford doesn’t even make the Focus or Fiesta for the North American market anymore, it’s still paying out claims for lawsuits over faulty transmissions made a decade ago.

Caldwell said that with massive recall campaigns in recent years like the Takata airbag scandal or General Motors’ ignition switch fiasco, consumers get so bombarded with vehicle announcements that they tune them out like “white noise.” Still, none of Ford’s quality issues help it convince consumers that it can pull off a shift to new technology like EVs.

She said that while many drivers have given Tesla leeway for its well-documented quality problems, that won’t last forever, and Ford won’t get the same treatment.

“That sentiment is fading fast,” Caldwell said. “Ford, with an established name and reputation for the invention of the automotive assembly line, will receive less latitude from its customers. This is why there is a lot of pressure on Ford to get it right the first time and deliver a good customer experience, which will set it apart from the emerging brands who will inevitably struggle to produce EVs at high volumes.”

Back To ‘Job One’?

In theory, pivoting to EVs and software-defined vehicles could eventually mean positive news on the cost front for companies like Ford and its competitors. Those cars require far fewer parts to build and can have issues solved with over-the-air updates. Farley indicated as much on the investor call this month.

“These EVs will be fully software-updatable,” he said. “That means a brand-new electric architecture, and they’re going to be radically simplified. Imagine three body styles, each with a volume potential of up to 1 million units and just a handful of orderable combinations. That’s what we’re doing at Ford for the second generation of products.”

But getting to that point — and bringing costs down to where these new technologies can all scale profitably — will be a major near-term challenge for every automaker.

In theory, pivoting to EVs and software-defined vehicles could eventually mean positive news on the cost front for companies like Ford and its competitors

Ford officials say they’ve done a lot to take the quality issue seriously. Farley, who took the CEO job in 2020, last year appointed former J.D. Power executive and engineer Josh Halliburton to be its quality czar. Halliburton told the WSJ last year that Ford has started monitoring assembly lines via cameras to catch problems, is more actively watching social media to catch consumer complaints, and has acted to empower workers to more proactively say something if they notice problems.

Buczkowski said a number of other changes are in place that didn’t exist years ago. Those include communicating better with parts supplier companies, using the connected data from new cars to detect trends, and ramping up its mobile service and loaners for everything from oil changes to recalls.

DeGraff said he does think there’s a difference in how Ford operates now compared to previous eras. “I have superior trust and confidence that Ford is doing literally everything it can to fix the issue immediately,” he said. “Farley and his team have really demonstrated the kind of leadership needed to react to a crisis like this and take action.”

Still, with the EV competition heating up on every front and the billions needed to transform its business, one wonders what the story will be if 2023 ends with Farley yet again vowing to bring recall costs down.

Buczkowski said there’s an urgency at Ford to keep that outcome from happening.

“I think what is really getting across to people is that this is a priority in every part of the business right now,” she said. “We’re at a critical moment in time and it has to change. It’s what we talk about in every global town hall, every form of communication.”

Updated February 20th 9:25PM ET: SKon is the joint venture that is supplying Ford with EV batteries. This story has been updated to note that.