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Let’s get into the news!

“I wanna be married and have 100 kids so I can have 100 friends and no one can say ‘no’ to being my friend.”

-Michael Scott

EV Headlines

During Tesla’s Investor Day, Tom Zhu, Tesla’s manufacturing leader, proudly declared that the company had produced a whopping 4 million cars in total, with a fascinating disparity in the time taken for each million produced: 12 years for the first million, 18 months for the second million, and a mere 11 months for the third million and less than 7 months fourth million. Zhu attributes this remarkable operational efficiency to the company’s well-planned manufacturing changes, as Tesla continues to plan new car and battery cell factories, while also ramping up production at its existing factories.

Rebecca Tinucci, Tesla’s charging leader, revealed that the company provided 9 terawatt hours of charging in 2022, using a variety of methods, including over 40,000 Superchargers installed for home charging, and noted that half of the company’s Superchargers in the EU are open to non-Tesla vehicles, with 10 new Superchargers recently opened in the US for the same purpose.

Tesla’s powertrain VP, Colin Campbell, provided some intriguing insights, including the company’s plans for a new type of drive unit that would be compatible with any battery cell type, and the development of a motor that doesn’t require rare earth metals, as well as announcing that Tesla’s next powertrain factory would be 50% smaller than the one in Austin, Texas, but with the same capacity. If that’s not enough, Tesla is also planning on building a factory in Monterrey, Mexico.  Pheeewwww!

In Other EV News

• The USPS has awarded contracts to purchase 9,250 Ford E-Transit Battery Electric Vehicles and over 14,000 charging stations. The move is consistent with USPS’s vehicle electrification strategy, which aims to acquire a 75% electric fleet of Next Generation Delivery Vehicles (NGDVs) over the next five years and a 100% electric fleet after 2026.
• Stellantis has announced a $155 million investment in three Kokomo, Indiana plants to produce new electric drive modules (EDM) that will power future electric vehicles assembled in North America. The EDM will be integrated into vehicles designed on the STLA Large and STLA Frame platforms and will consist of three main components – the electric motor, power electronics, and transmission..
• On Monday, Fisker declared it had spent less money than anticipated in 2022. Moreover, it announced that it is still on track to begin deliveries of its Ocean SUV in the upcoming spring and to manufacture more than 40,000 vehicles in 2023.

For more Electric Vehicle News and Autonomous Vehicle News, check out the rest of the free newsletter.