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Mercedes Is Still Playing Coy About Its Formula E Future

About a month ago, the Mercedes-EQ Formula E team announced it’d signed an option with the series to begin development of its Gen 3 car. “Development,” in this sense, is pretty much tantamount to attending meetings alongside all the other constructors — but don’t mistake it as a confirmation of ongoing participation. The Gen 3 regulations are expected to kick in after the next season, beginning with the 2022-23 championship, and last until the end of the 2025-26 campaign.

On Tuesday, team boss Ian James related in a virtual roundtable discussion, of which Jalopnik was a part, that Mercedes still isn’t quite ready to officially commit to the Gen 3 cycle. However, James also said that formalization will come “in due course.”

We need to take decision obviously at some point because of the development work that’s going on, and at the moment we’ve registered as an interested manufacturer. Therefore we’re able to take part in the technical working groups and so on and so forth.

So I don’t think it’s going to drag on for too much longer, but this just like the natural part of the process — just making sure that, you know, we understand the direction the things are going in and that it’s right. Mercedes has a lot of things going on internally — as there is across the whole automotive industry at the moment — and so there’s sort of external factors to us as a team, which needs to be taken into consideration, and that will all be done in due course.

What’s interesting about Mercedes dragging its feet with respect to a full endorsement is that many of its major automaker-aligned rivals have not. At the end of March a group of constructors, including Porsche, Nissan, Mahindra and DS, made their continued involvement known. There was said to be a deadline at this time for teams to make that call, as The Race reported, but Mercedes evidently decided to take its sweet time and not worry too much if anyone noticed.

If the tentative Gen 3 specifications bear out as planned, Formula E cars should receive quite the power bump — rising from the current qualifying spec of 250 kW (335 horsepower) to 350 kW (469 HP), and 300 kW for races. Energy recovery, or regen, will be harvested from both axles. The addition of mid-race “flash-charging” will necessitate pit stops for refueling, adding a degree of strategy and unpredictability while potentially extending race length, too. Perhaps Formula E will even be able to entertain more full-scale circuits as it’s attempted to this year, considering the cars will be more powerful and possibly be able to run for longer.

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But Formula E is in no position to twist Mercedes’ arm. It’s already losing Audi and BMW after this season, as the Silver Arrows’ top two domestic rivals have set their sights on sports car racing, specifically with LMDh prototype programs. LMDh is not a pure-electric series — though it does involve a spec hybrid component — so there is some alternative energy marketability there.

So the ball is really in Mercedes’ court at this point. That said, given the language James and the team’s technical advisor/development driver, Gary Paffett, were using on the call, it doesn’t seem like the company is feigning interest in Formula E just to dip out without a moment’s notice. I asked Paffett — who wears multiple hats within the team — to sum up his feelings on what Gen 3 will bring to the series. It seems he’ll relish the opportunity to get behind the wheel:

The circuits we race at, they’re very tight. Already with the car we have now, the Gen 2 car, the 250 kW in qualifying — you’re arriving at some corners thinking, you know, you could be in an F1 car in Mexico doing 320 [km/h]. They are damn quick. So the prospect of the speed we’re going to have in Gen 3 cars is going to be incredible. It’s going to be an incredible car to drive. And … the harvesting from both axles adds a completely new dimension.

James and Mercedes in general have been nonspecific in explaining why the team hasn’t yet planted its flag for Formula E’s next era, but it’s fair to assume money probably has something to do with it.

It’s understandable that Mercedes would want to be absolutely sure it’s making the proper investment. Part of Gen 3’s addendums states that any team that exits the series midway through a regulatory cycle, as Audi and BMW are about to, must pay Formula E the lump sum of all the regulatory fees it would have incurred on a yearly basis if it’d just kept competing until the end of the cycle.

Those fees amount to $415,000 per year — quite a lot to pony up at once just to not race, though only a small portion of the roughly $12 million Jaguar is said to have spent in 2019. (A prospective cost cap figures to bring that down by as much as two thirds.) Formula E is hoping constructors see that bill and decide they might as well stick around. And even if they don’t, the organizers can still make some scratch as teams walk out the door.

Battery Swap Stations Are Gaining Momentum In China

The simplest and most genius-brain solution to charging times and range with EVs isn’t one you’ll find in America. In China, though, it’s gaining ground. All that and more in The Morning Shift for June 2, 2021.

1st Gear: China Is An Alternate Universe For EVs

China is like the American car market in so many ways. It’s huge, for one, (the biggest in the world while we’re number two) and filled with people inexplicably buying sedans and not hatchbacks or wagons. It’s also the biggest market for electric cars in the world, and you see as many Teslas bopping around Shanghai as you do here in New York or Los Angeles.

But China also offers us a market where GM builds small, adorable, unbelievably popular EVs as opposed to 9,000-pound hulking Hummers for the rich. It feels like an alternate reality where everyone takes EVs as a given, not as a radical tech.

This is a long intro to the point that battery-swapping stations are taking off there, as noted in this overview story by Automotive News China:

Until 2019, state-owned BAIC Motor Co. and EV startup Nio were the only two automakers offering battery swap services for customers.

[…]

Competition from Tesla and Nio’s success in gaining customers with battery swap services have prompted other Chinese EV makers to take bold steps.

[…]

While Geely is constructing battery swap stations on its own, other Chinese automakers have opted to build facilities along with domestic companies to share costs.

In September, state-owned Changan Automobile Co. launched its first battery swap station in Chongqing along with a consortium of other major domestic companies.

The partner companies include CATL, China’s largest EV battery maker; Aulton New Energy Vehicle Technology Co., a Shanghai-based battery swap station operator; and State Grid, a state-owned power grid operator.

In March, SAIC Motor Corp., another major state-owned automaker, also teamed up with Aulton to kick off operation of the first battery swap station for its EVs.

Aiways, an EV startup, tapped Blue Part Smart Energy, an EV charging facility operator under BAIC, in April to offer battery swap services.

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This is all interesting to see from an American perspective, especially one based out of New York City. Around the turn of the century, NYC was home to the largest electric car company in the world, the Electric Vehicle Company, and it operated using battery-swapping stations right in the middle of Manhattan. The tech is basic. We could go down this route if we wanted to.

2nd Gear: Another Tesla Recall

Some 6,000 Tesla Model 3 and Model Ys are getting recalled for loose brake caliper bolts, as Reuters reports:

Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) is recalling nearly 6,000 U.S. vehicles because brake caliper bolts could be loose, with the potential to cause a loss of tire pressure, documents made public on Wednesday show.

The recall covers certain 2019-2021 Model 3 vehicles and 2020-2021 Model Y vehicles. Tesla’s filing with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it had no reports of crashes or injuries related to the issue and that the company will inspect and tighten, or replace, the caliper bolts as necessary.

Tesla said that loose caliper bolts could allow the brake caliper to separate and contact the wheel rim, which could cause a loss of tire pressure in “very rare circumstances.” The company said that, in the “unlikely event” there is vehicle damage from a loose or missing fastener, it will arrange for a tow to the nearest service center for repair.

Hey, at least they got the bolts on there this time!

3rd Gear: Everyone Is Copying How Elon Talks

Another interesting Tesla story comes from Bloomberg, which has taken notice that everyone is not just copying Tesla’s plans to make attractive and desirable electric cars, but also how Tesla talks them up with ever-grander terminology. Per Bloomberg:

Many of the words speak to the sheer scale of Musk’s ambitions, which are always far grander than people realize initially. A battery factory isn’t just a battery factory, it’s a Gigafactory. (Giga comes from the Greek word “gigas,” or giant.)

A fast charging station for Tesla’s electric cars isn’t just a charging station, it’s a Supercharger. (Tesla has more than 25,000, giving them the largest network in the world.)

The battery packs that Tesla sells to utilities that promise “massive energy storage?” Megapacks.

There are no signs of him stopping. At Tesla’s “Battery Day” in September 2020, Musk talked about reaching “Terawatt-hour” scale battery production. “Tera is the new Giga,” Musk said on stage.

We’ve now reached the point where every battery factory — even those being made by competitors — is called a gigafactory, regardless of its physical size or planned output. “Nissan in advanced talks to build battery gigafactory in UK,” reported the Financial Times. “Stellantis discussing conditions with Rome to build gigafactory in Italy,” said Reuters.

Would Tesla be where it is if everyone just called gigafactories what they are? (They’re just regular factories.)

4th Gear: Toyota Scaling Back Olympic Plans

The Olympics in Japan seem to be still on somebody’s schedule, even if the people of Japan seem less than stoked on a global travel-fest in the midst of a still-ongoing global pandemic. Of course, this has huge implications for … high-profile industrial manufacturing that hopes to use the Olympics as a sales and marketing opportunity! Reuters has a broad report on it, and I’ll just take out this little section on Toyota:

For global sponsor Toyota Motor Corp., the Games were a chance to showcase its latest technology. It had planned to roll out about 3,700 vehicles, including 500 Mirai hydrogen fuel-cell sedans, to shuttle athletes and VIPs among venues.

It also planned to use self-driving pods to carry athletes around the Olympic village.

Such vehicles will still be used, but on a much smaller scale — a “far cry from what we had hoped and envisioned,” a Toyota source said. A full-scale Olympics, the source said, would have been a “grand moment for electric cars.”

A Toyota spokeswoman declined to comment on whether there were any changes to its marketing.

5th Gear: Biden Blocks Trump Plan For Arctic Drilling In Alaska

This is not a total win for climate, but it’s something, as the Financial Times reports:

The Biden administration has announced it will suspend the Arctic oil drilling rights sold in the last days of Donald Trump’s presidency, reversing a signature policy of the previous White House and handing a victory to environmentalists.

[…]

Tuesday’s decision marked a victory for environmentalists and activists, a pillar of Biden’s support in last year’s election, who have begun to grow impatient with some of the White House’s climate actions. The administration recently opted not to intervene to force the closure of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline and has supported a major Alaska oil project approved during Trump’s term in office.

“In general the Biden administration is acting vigorously on climate change,” said Michael Gerrard, founder of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. “This action on ANWR is quite consistent with that. The actions on the other two projects do not seem so consistent.”

I’ll take anything I can get at this point!

Neutral: How Is Your Car?

My Bug refused to start the other day just as I had loaded the car up for a multi-day road trip. With rain coming down, it refused to start even when I flagged down a ‘90s Infiniti for a jump. I ran out and got a new battery and it did start, but was running like shit until I found a half-bare wire leading to the coil. Some electrical tape later and we were on the road, though I’m still finding the car getting hot and leaking oil around some seals I know I just replaced. Stopping after one mountain pass I saw vapor rising out of one of the two carburetors. Time for a tune-up!

Nissan Should Have Made The Ariya Years Ago

The Ariya is one of Nissan’s best designs in a while. It feels like a return to form for the carmaker but I can’t help feel a sense of déjà vu as I take in its contours.

The Ariya looks a lot like the Murano concept sketch Nissan showed when the Murano debuted almost two decades ago and I am convinced that the Ariya owes some of its spirit to that old sketch.

Take a look at this new video which goes into detail about the Ariya’s design:

Who doesn’t love a good clay model, but the wind tunnel testing is what inspired me to make the comparison.

Now look at the design sketch of the Murano:

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It might not be a carbon copy or a perfect graft but damn if the Ariya doesn’t embody the spirit of that design sketch. It just took Nissan almost two decades.

And here’s the Ariya design sketch:

Boy, I’ll never forget the feeling I had when I saw that Murano sketch. I recall encountering it for the first time and wanting nothing more than to trace it on a piece of paper. It felt like something out of time. It looked bold and new. It was daring! In the early aughts it truly felt like something out of a utopian future.

I understand that when it comes to design sketches, the essence will dilute as a car moves on through various phases and onto production. Even so, I resented the production Murano for some time afterwards, and Nissan, too. I just couldn’t forgive both for being unable to produce the same feeling as that sketch.

It may have been my reckoning with my own imagination, and a true sense of never meet your car heroes. Somehow, though, the Ariya changed very little as it went through to production.

What’s more, the Ariya not only finally delivers on the lofty design of the carmaker’s sketches, it also brings some of the carmaker’s best new tech with it.

I know I’ll be seeing the Ariya on public roads later this year, but I think it’s going to feel a little less like meeting someone new and a little more like seeing an old friend. Welcome back, Nissan.