⚡️🔋Current Events 5/29/23: Ford and Tesla Strike A Deal, Hyundai Ioniq 6 Demo.
Hyundai built an excellent sedan I hope will not go under-appreciated and Ford hugs it out with Tesla, adopts the NACS.
Hello friends,
Happy Sunday and welcome back to Current Events, where we bring you news and lore from the world of electrification. I’d like to personally wish everyone a meaningful and restful 🇺🇸 Memorial Day. Life, work, studies, and the never-ending search for EV demos had taken me away from the writer’s desk for a little bit, but I am back to full fitness and excited for a packed Summer of global electrification. This dispatch was meant to only be my thoughts on the Hyundai Ioniq 6 after my demo this week, but the news coming from Ford and Tesla are just too important not to share. Let’s jump in.
Ford gets Supercharger Access, Adopts Tesla’s Charging Standard
Elon Musk and Jim Farley in a joint Twitter Spaces, announced to the public an incredibly important partnership. After listening to the call, it seems the CEOs possess a fascinating level of friendliness that isn’t commonly shared between the most diehard fans of either brand.
Ford customers will have access to 12,000 Superchargers in early 2024. It was already well-telegraphed that Tesla would be opening its chargers to other brand’s customers. They had already done so in Europe and New York state. For those owners, the Tesla charging experience is handled entirely through the Tesla app. Non-Tesla EV owners simply download it, create an account, add a credit card, and then they are able to use the Supercharger stations equipped with a Magic Dock (CCS + NACS). With Ford and Tesla’s new partnership, Musk said that the Tesla charging API access would be granted to Ford customers and so charging would be seamless with their already downloaded FordPass app. This is a first for a competing OEM.
While Supercharging access is awesome news for Ford’s customers and important for greater EV adoption, I think the far more critical detail was that Ford bent the knee and accepted the adoption of Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) plug for their second generation electric vehicles in 2024. This move away from CCS is tremendously important, and I’ll explain why.
Consider just how many electric charging stations humanity would need to build to support the conversion of every transportation solution on earth into battery power. The amount of copper, lithium, aluminum, steel, and plastics among other materials required is by definition going to be enormous. Why then would we not select the universal charging standard that is both the most reliable, lowest cost to produce, and uses the least amount of source materials? Jim Farley probably saw how much they would save on component costs by working with Tesla to adopt the standard and jumped at the opportunity. This smacks of proper long term thinking.
To be transparent, I have been far from the only human making this argument in favor of NACS. The founders of the EV-maker Aptera were so open about their support for adopting the NACS that after adding it to their own vehicle’s design, they unveiled a petition demanding that Congress directly assign the standard to the industry by law. Their arguments?
As the founders of Aptera, EV enthusiasts, and vehicle charging experts, we believe the U.S. government should adopt Tesla’s Supercharger Technology as the standard for ALL EV charging in the U.S.
A Texas program recently disclosed that installing a Supercharger station costs just one-fifth of other networks. Given the significant amount of funding our government will put into charging infrastructure, we believe that fast charging stations across the U.S. should be based on Tesla’s standards.
If our country began to support Tesla’s charging standards now, we could begin expanding our infrastructure at a much reduced cost, saving $4 billion dollars on projected charging infrastructure spending through 2027. Imagine what other EV programs we could support with that $4 billion in savings!
As of this writing, the petition only had around 43k signatures. Seems to me like this Ford and Tesla partnership has vindicated the petitioners. What remains to be seen are the finer details and how they shake out financially for both companies. The benefits to Ford and greater EV adoption are immediately obvious; they’ve acquired access to the premier charging service for their current customers, that they can now use as a selling point to deliver more electric vehicles to new EV customers (a great set up for the coming Q4 holiday season). But what does Tesla get strategically out of this deal? Personally, I think the charging standard adoption was the real target and now I wonder which OEM will be next. Your guess is as good as mine.
Hyundai Ioniq 6, True Rival to the Model 3
As I made my way to the Hyundai dealership through the after-school traffic slog in western Chicago, I was blessed by the presence of a pounding headache, and the only thing I could think to myself was, “This really better be worth it.” I saw Ioniq 6 at the Chicago Auto Show earlier this year and was really impressed by everything from material choices to the deep forest green paint. I just didn’t get to drive it. The only problem is that I had no guarantee that the sedan I was excited about was even really there. The Hyundai employees that had helped me schedule the drive were not part of the dealership at all. Thankfully, after arriving and introducing myself to the newest employee of the dealership, let’s call him Sam, I was assured that we could, in fact, take out the one Ioniq 6 SEL they had, and away we went.
As I walked around the car, the first thing I noticed was that it was longer than my Model 3, but the nose of the vehicle was very short, almost snub-nosed. The paint job was superb, even if the color wasn’t my favorite. Side note, I did not appreciate Hyundai trying to gaslight me by naming this Nardo Grey replica color as Transmission Blue. Come on, Hyundai, this thing is as blue as epoxy-covered pavement. Paint aside, the lines on this vehicle are bodaciously curved, lending themselves to an excellent drag coefficient of 0.22, less drag than my Tesla Model 3 Performance. As the Cybertruck’s design summons intrusive thoughts of triangles, the Ioniq 6 sends you into daydreams of semi-circles. The pixel-styled lighting fixtures paired well enough with all the bubbly curvature for my own sensibilities, and it aligns well with the rest of the brand’s EV lineup, like the Ioniq 5.
Opening and closing the doors was nothing short of a crispy sensation and the flush door handles are both aerodynamic and solid, exactly the way I like them. The driver’s seat was the right combination of firm and absorbing and felt built to suit either long-distance or sporty driving relatively well, even if the H-Tex material texture felt a bit dry and scratchy. The rear seats had excellent leg and headroom and the added convenience of 2 USB-C ports available to rear passengers. This is where I think the car benefits from being slightly longer than the Model 3 with no frunk. They put the extra space into the cabin, not storage. The only point of criticism with rear seating was the thigh height of the rear seats. In order to achieve its excellent headroom, the seat ends up being too close to the floor. For long-legged customers, even half-hour trips in the back could be deeply unpleasant. While the cabin gets the benefit of those extra inches of length, it seems they focused much less on trunk space. The cargo of this car leaves a lot to be desired, especially for an EV. With only a measly 11.2 cubic feet available at the back and only charge cable space up front, it is the most disappointing aspect of this vehicle’s design.
This next thing may be a personal issue for me that doesn’t translate to all customers. Still, I was not able to actually see the front driver display when I adjusted the steering wheel into the most comfortable position for myself. Instead, I needed to leave it uncomfortably high on the dash in order for me to see my speed. The UI was fairly simple and had nothing to write home about. The meme about traditional automakers being unable to build world-class software will not change as a result of this vehicle, but it won’t be gaining any strength either. It is quite clearly not at the standard of Tesla’s UI, but it doesn’t feel like it would drive anybody mad, either. Switching gears for reverse and neutral was done through the haptic knob under the right side of the wheel, while drive modes were toggled through a button on the wheel itself. It would take some getting used to the knob, but it’s perfectly usable if given time to adjust.
Now let’s talk about the drive. The suspension was incredibly soft and airy at low speeds despite having no air suspension and 20” rims. I don’t know how they achieved that on a Chicago street with the surface consistency of the primordial Moon, but kudos to Hyundai. The cornering was sharp, and the car hid its considerable weight very well, even at tighter turns at speed. The potholes started feeling a lot sloppier on the suspension when I got up to 45 mph and above. Still, the agility the car had to dodge them and accelerate smoothly away was exceptional. The grip from the Pirelli P-Zeros that came standard was nothing short of pristine, an excellent tire choice, although I’d be reluctant to ever order a car with 20” rims for fear of wheel damage. While hitting 60 mph in 5.1 seconds is always plenty of fun, even the highest trim AWD SEL feels nowhere close to the raw power of a Model 3 Performance in Sport Mode. But is that what people are looking for in this car? Raw track performance?
I don’t think so. It’s an exceptional sedan whose design seems to focus more on the livability of an EV than trying to break performance records for supercars. There are clearly things that can be improved upon for the second generation of this car, cargo space and UI being top priority, but as it stands it can be a true rival to the Model 3 at a price point that is legitimately competitive for most customers. Whether it’s the efficiency of a standard heat pump, the utility of vehicle-to-load capability, the convenience of up to 350 kW charging, or the range-obsessed aerodynamic design, the Ioniq 6 shows that Hyundai is at least focused in all the right places for building EVs now and for the future. I highly recommend a test drive of this car if you’re in the market for a commuter sedan and have charging available in your garage or parking lot. If you regularly carry lots of cargo or kids, this one may not be for you.
Hyundai Ioniq 6 SEL Specs:
Seats 5 adults comfortably.
Battery Capacity of 77.4 kWh
Available in Single Motor RWD or Dual Motor AWD
Range of 491 km or 305 miles for RWD, 435 km or 270 miles for AWD
Power output of 168 kW for RWD, 74 kW + 165 kW for AWD
Has 350 kW Level 3 DC charging capability for an 18-minute, 80% charge
Vehicle-to-Load feature available with 230V or 120V provided inside and outside, and you can use up to 3.6kW to power the more energy-intensive devices like heaters or cooking equipment
A heat pump is included in SEL’s standard Battery Heating system
0 to 60 mph in 5.1 seconds
0.22 Drag Coefficient
Drive Mode Selector allows 5 options: Eco, Normal, Sport, Snow, and “My Mode,” where you personalize your drive output
Wheels come in 20”s for SEL and 18”s for SE
Only 11.2 cubic feet of cargo space, despite excellent cabin space
Bose Premium Sound System only available with their Limited variant
Starting MSRP is $47,700, but the spec I drove was priced at $51,200 not including a $1,115 Freight and Handling Fee.
Important to note: Lease customers can get the benefit of the $7500 federal tax credit built into their monthly payments.
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With love and gratitude this Memorial Day,
Renato
Renato A. Amboss is the author of Current Events, The All-Electric Newsletter. He is also the Founder and First Pilot of Ronin EV. The thoughts and opinions expressed here are his own. None of the views expressed are intended as investment advice of any kind and should not be taken as such. Have a lovely day!