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Good morning, good afternoon and good evening wherever you are in the world, welcome to EV News Daily for Monday 15th October 2018. It’s Martyn Lee here and I’ve been through EV story today so you don’t have to.

 

Thank you to those Patrons who pushed us over 100 supporters – and I just checked Patreon again, yesterday’s supporter who was only known as ‘Paul’ is now showing up as Paul Stephenson. So I can finally give him a full credit! I was probably looking at the wrong page. And a new supporter earlier today MARC WILLIAM GANEY is a new Producer of the podcast. Nothing gets made without Producer and so thank you to everyone who helps make this podcast.

 

Thank you to MYEV.com for helping make this show, they’ve built the first marketplace specifically for Electric Vehicles. It’s a totally free marketplace that simplifies the buying and selling process, and help you learn about EVs along the way too.

 

FORMULA E MUST HAVE AN EXCITING START    

The last few days have seen a handful of Formula E Gen 2 car launches from various teams. And now we hear from the Formula E CEO Alejandro Agag courtesy of Autosport. He says it's very important that from the moment the lights go out for the first race, the new electric cars give is some exciting racing. This is the first time for Formula E without a mid-race car swap and the cars have twice the power of the previous generation cars. "In an attempt to guarantee on-track action with no need for pit strategies, the 2018/19 race format will feature FE's attack mode concept, which allows drivers to use an extra 25kW of power at certain pre-determined times throughout the race." says Autosport. The first eprix will be on 15th December and I've talked about before, my concern that some of the previous street circuits were fine for lower powered cars but we need to be thinking on a larger scale now for electric racing, Alejandro Agag says the circuits will be very large with plenty of opportunities for overtaking.  

https://www.autosport.com/fe/news/139367/agag-important-first-gen2-race-is-exciting

 

POLESTAR OPENING ITS FIRST SHOWROOM IN EV-FRIENDLY NORWAY

"With assembly of the first pre-production prototypes underway in Sweden, Polestar is now focusing on opening its network of showrooms." reports CarScoops: "The first Polestar Space will be located in Norway, and more specifically on Øvre Slottsgate in downtown Oslo. That’s not far away from parent-company Volvo’s home base in Gothenburg, Sweden, but they’ve chosen Norway for another reason. That’s because the country is “one of the world’s most important electric vehicle markets”. Norway has some of the highest gasoline pump prices in the world. At $7.66, gasoline is nearly two and a half times as expensive in Norway as it is in the United States." Polestar boss Thomas Ingelath says: "Polestar Spaces are an important part of our customer experience, and where we will physically meet our customers. As Norway is one of the world’s most important electric vehicle markets, it is logical to begin the Polestar Space story in Oslo. Polestar Spaces will be staffed by non-commissioned product experts rather than hard-selling sales executives.” Whilst the Polestar 1 is a $150,000 plug in performance car, from the Polestar 2 onwards the brand will be pure EV and more affordable.  

https://www.carscoops.com/2018/10/polestar-opening-first-showroom-ev-friendly-norway/

 

EV SALES FOR NETHERLANDS AND FRANCE

It's that time of the month when all the EV sales figures are being updated and once again, the increases just keep on coming. In the Netherlands last month they love their Tesla's. Out of a total of 2,986 plug in cars sold, the Model S was way out in the lead with 1,052 sales, versus Model X on 593 and the LEAF on 292. It's a small market but that's the best since 2016. In The Netherlands there will be much higher taxation of expensive BEV's from next year so well done to Tesla for shipping cars to a market which is hot for their products. And whilst the Zoe doesn't do well in Holland in it's home market of France they can't get enough of them. In France the Zoe was easily number one with 1482 sales, the next closest being the LEAF with 390. Generally France was up 10% for EV's over the months. So why are pure electrics doing well and PHEVs not so well, especially here in the UK where that trend has been the opposite? I can tell you...!  

WHAT HAS EUROPE DONE TO PLUG IN HYBRIDS?

A reminder than Europe now has a new test cycle for measuring emissions and efficiency called WLTP, in force since Sep 1st. Until now drivers, and particularly company car drivers, have been...