G. David Felt

The Commercial Auto industry is usually a slow-moving beast when it comes to change. You can look at how little has changed in CAT tractors, Class 8 Semi Trucks and other companies. Recently change has started as Tesla showed off their own Electric Tesla Class 8 Semi Truck that has forced Paccar, parent owner of Peterbuilt and Kenworth Class 8 and more Diesel trucks to start investing in electric trucks. Caterpillar has rolled out the first of some new Hybrid and Diesel-electric products over the last few years and now has their first fully electric tractor for select use in inner city construction. CAT biggest area of growth has been their Hybrid system where electric really shines as they have powerful electric drive trains backed by efficient diesel generators giving much longer time between maintenance schedules. Yet even with the hybrid area taking off and all the talk of Hydrogen in Semi trucks, the future seems to be pure electric with solid-state batteries and as such, two of the biggest companies in the commercial space is making major change and growth. We start with ZF of Germany, a large supplier of auto parts to the auto industry and now they are moving forward with a commercial portfolio of electric motors, controllers, etc. We start with the ZF CeTrax 2 heavy-duty electric motor. This electrical drive unit has the following: Two high performance -oil-cooled e-motors Two integrated 800V Silicon carbide inverters Uses an advanced three-speed gearbox allowing the ability to powershift Weight of motor unit - 385 kg or 849 lbs Continuous power - 360kW or 483 HP Torque - 24,700 Nm or 18,218 lb-ft of torque Motor is aimed at commercial vehicles up to 44 tons. ZF decades of building transmissions and other auto components has them ready to go commercial big time as a major global truck manufacturer will be using this motor in their new Commercial EV product line starting in 2023. The next new ZF product is the eWorX, an electrified commercial Vehicle Power Take-Off (PTO) system to drive on-board work equipment. This is for those that take a basic cab/frame setup and add value as a body manufacture. eWorX is a fully integrated system that combines all the functions required for electrification of work vehicles. This system combines all the functions required for electrification of on-board equipment in a single compact unit. Providing a known mechanical interface, eWorX supports the body manufactures by removing the need to deal with the drivetrain electrical system. This allows various body builders to plug n play depending on the type of equipment they are adding to the basic body/frame solution without having to touch the actual power train which facilitates easier operations in inner city and residential areas. ZF has built an all-new Electric Power Steering (EPS) that will be the cornerstone of the 21st century. Building off their decades in building such units for the ICE Auto industry, ZF now offers an integrated e-motor to replace hydraulic fluid systems in medium and heavy-duty trucks. This system will also be the building block for next generation Advanced Driver Assistance Systems for commercial EVs. One might ask why I would want to replace the Hydraulic steering systems that have worked so well for decades with an electronic one? Easy, drive by wire is the future where this system can be independent of the vehicles drivetrain and no need to deal with a liquid or leaking hoses. This unit can come in either 24V or 48V variants, meeting diverse packaging requirements. This EPS unit is also ready for autonomous driving up to Level 5 per ZF and currently works with the ADAS system to support safety functions including continuous lane keeping. ZF is aiming to not only support the rapidly changing personal auto industry but also the commercial space as more and more cities around the world move to emission free commercial autos giving city living a cleaner breath of fresh air. For those wanting to see even more of what ZF is doing from cars to medium and heavy duty commercial vehicles and even buses and trains, check out their press page for coverage on the Global Technology Day and IAA Transportation day 2022. Press Start Page - ZF Today many see the news and hear about climate change, quality of life and greenhouse gas. On top of this, many have seen the benefits of diesel trucks, but also have complained about the black toxic exhaust that comes out. Even with treatment to try and get the exhaust cleaner, there are still toxic elements that come out and then the smell. Not everyone likes the exhaust smell of diesel. Many places have converted diesel buses to run on vegetable oil thus giving one a French Fry type of exhaust smell as some have said making them hungry while riding to and from work. Yet you still have the ICE system that has exhaust and a wide variety of fluids, noise, etc. Many companies such as Mack, Kenworth, Peterbuilt from a commercial Class 8 / Medium Duty have announced products coming to replace diesel or even Hybrid diesel or CNG products in the cities. Waste Management has one of the largest CNG fleets in the US for collecting our garbage in our neighborhoods and inner cities. Yet with this we still have ICE or internal combustion engines burning some form of gas / liquid and an exhaust. Battle Motors, formerly Crane Carrier Corporation was formed recently when CCC was bought out and the new owners have a passion for a quiet exhaust free future. Battle Motors is moving to go from building the best Garbage and Delivery trucks to the Best Electric Garbage/Delivery trucks. CCC was working on an electric truck but taking a very slow approach when they were bought out by the ex-CEO of Romeo Power who had called on CCC to buy their batteries for their future EVs. When Romeo Power went public, their CEO Mike Patterson took the opportunity to step down and focus on his desire to offer Commercial EVs and Mike bought CCC renaming it Battle Motors. Here they sped up the development of an Electric garbage truck and Electric Delivery truck. With this purchase, Battle Motors has done a $40 million dollar expansion of their New Philadelphia production site as well as tripling their production in Ohio as more cities are demanding quiet electric trucks to replace diesel/CNG. The Growth of Battle Motors has allowed the company to not only raise an initial $120 million of Series A investment but this summer also a second Series B round of $150 million to support expansion of a complete Electric portfolio and charging network. Battle Ground has acknowledged that charging is a challenge and as such, taking a page from Tesla, will setup rapid charging infrastructure based on the 800V CCS spec to ensure the delivery and garbage trucks have a network of charging places to quickly charge and continue their work. One area that CEO Mike Patterson saw potential in was the need to replace the old analogue dash system with a modern GPS system that would allow tracking, routing and maintenance all in one. This would optimize the routes drivers would take to collect garbage, minimizing power usage and allow the maintenance staff to see what vehicles really needed work, ensuring a better up time for the trucks. Battle Motors understands that not everything can be changed to pure electric and as such has moved forward with a Hybrid Electric truck series with a generator system to power the electric powertrain and a pure electric system. Companies like Battle Motors, ZF and others see a quiet, emission free service for companies in the long-term future and a need for Hybrids allowing for battery tech to continue to improve for the long road of when everything is pure electric. Look for a quiet delivery or garbage truck in your future part of the neighborhood or city. View full article

I have not seen a Polestar in the wild yet, but wow is Kia/Hyundai coming on strong as I see so many EVs all over. Becoming very common sight like Tesla. I see more Kia/Hyundai than I do the Chevrolet Bolt.

I would agree. While the truck is built in the U.S. and many parts are supplied by U.S. companies, the profits return to Japan to a Japanese corporation. I find this a contradiction that I am seeing allot this fall which I think is due to it being a mid-presidential term election year. I wonder how people can be on this Beat the American Drum kick and yet their own buying habits contradict their statements. On the October spotting, there must be a local old car get together somewhere around here locally on Sunday as I just ran an Errand to Home Depot and on the way home, half a dozen old autos were following each other up highway 99 here.

Saw two things this morning while running errands. First was a very old Chevrolet Suburban from the 1950's era in the process of being restored. It was on a trailer being towed someplace while I was driving on I5. Second thing was a Toyota Tacoma that had an interesting bumper sticker. Pro-America Buy America Anti-Trump So not a political statement or discussion I want to start, but I am interested in what others think is meant by the Pro-America/Buy America part of this. IMHO I find this a contradiction that they are driving a Toyota with that part of the bumper sticker. Thoughts?

Yes, soothing, but would you really want to fly on a Russian maintained or lack there of plane? Always reminds me of about 8 years ago, a China Airways Jet flew into Germany and the Germans would not let the plane fly due to the poor condition of the engines where Chinese folks uses seatbelt straps to hold the fins together. We have seen plenty of 3rd world planes that were fine when new in the US or Europe then sold after decades of use to a poor country who then flies them literally into the ground with minimal maintenance and then a crash costing human life. An amazing feat of human engineering that can also be deadly.

As you say, FUD is what is driving Solid-state batteries that are anywhere from 4 times to 10 times denser than today's Lithium-ion batteries plus safer. I suspect EVs starting in 2026 will tend to go towards solid-state as their production comes online. Example is the latest solid-state battery that charges in as little as 3 minutes is 4 times as dense and so if you had the battery pack the same size as current GMC Hummer, that is their current 210 kWH Lithium-ion battery pack would be a 840 kWH battery pack in solid state or from 329 MPGe to 1,316 MPGe. I doubt any sane person would have range anxiety, but they would probably complain about charging time. Course so many people are ignorant to the fact that a Diesel semi-truck can easily take up to 1hr to fuel depending on if it is a regular truck,15 minutes, extra-large tanks, up to 30 minutes or long-haul tanks up to 1hr for about 400 gallons of diesel.

@oldshurst442 Interesting that Musk posted a picture taken by Drone of their huge MegaPack Tesla Power Storage system that will allow them to not loose any power generated by Solar or Wind and in the background is the soon to be decommissioned Coal Power Plant. On the day that the next batch of MegaPacks arrived was also the day the last shipment of coal came to Maui and the plant is to be offline by the end of the year. Tesla is supposed to have this MegaPack storage online by the end of September. Then you have the fear mongering from this terrible news site. https://www.newsmax.com/finance/laurenfix/electric-vehicle-lithium-battery-recycling-china/2022/09/26/id/1089021/ That was one thing I found interesting on my vacation to Maui was the amount of wind generators offline due to no need for the power or way to store it. Tesla MegaPack will help with storing the energy for use at night.

Seems since the start of the auto industry there has always been a push in a certain direction and much of that has been driven by the oil industry with ICE autos. With the start of the electrical vehicle the media narrative has been the world will be awash in dead batteries clogging up landfills and adding an expense to consumers in having to replace a $10,000 or more battery pack. Lately an interesting counter point was made in a story by Forbes magazine in an interview with Nissan executive Nic Thomas who has gone on record that for the last 12 years that Nissan has been selling their electric Leaf auto that almost all of the lithium-ion batteries they have produced are still working just fine in their cars. In fact, Nissan is now expecting the battery packs to outlast the life expectancy of the Nissan Leaf auto. Nissan expects their Leaf to easily last 20 years. Since the Leaf went on sale in 2010, the worry by opponents to EVs was that the world would have to deal with millions upon millions of spent EV battery packs. As such many Legacy Auto Companies have set up battery recycling centers and yet due to the sophisticated battery management systems that have been guarding the long-term health of these batteries very little has found its way back for recycling. In fact, for EVs from Hyundai, the owner gets a lifetime warranty where Kia has given their EV battery packs a 10-year warranty. GM has chosen to give all their EVs an 8-year 100,000-mile warranty on their Ultium battery system. Ford has also gone with an 8-year, 100,000-mile battery pack warranty. Yet the end result is that the battery packs in the Hybrid and BEVs are lasting far longer than ever expected. Nissan has gone on record that after 20 years; they expect the average Leaf battery pack to have 60 to 70% capacity still making it usable for other products such as a home energy storage system. The average battery life is expected to outlast the average auto life. As Nissan has pointed out, battery degradation in EVs is a major concern among both buyers and manufacturers. Nissan assures that the problem is not an issue especially as folks move to newer EVs such as the Nissan Ariya. Nissan says that down the road, it will probably be more sustainable to recycle the auto and reuse the battery pack. To date, Nissan has stated they have only recovered a small quantity of the Leaf's batteries, the majority of them from accidents and a smaller number for those that have not complied with the conditions of the guarantee. Where at all possible, the batteries are sent to stationary storage systems for extended life use such as the Nissan Factory in Sunderland, England, which uses the batteries to store energy from solar panels and wind turbines to power the factory. The International Energy Angecy (IEA) says they estimate current global recycling capacity at around 180,000 metric tons per year. The IEA has stated that by 2040, they estimate 1,300 GWh of spent batteries that will need to be recycled. One area that is of interest is the denser and longer range of solid-state batteries. Nissan LEAF Battery Replacement The owner of the Nissan LEAF Battery Replacement site and owner of Nissan Leafs has gone through 3 battery replacements and felt a site was needed to help all EV owners know where to go for battery repairs and replacement so they could avoid paying the extreme arke View full article

OUCH, pictures out of Florida especially this one makes an Auto fan cry. Why would the owner leave that Road Runner out in the weather where a Hurrican could flip it? Hurricane Ian live updates: Ian might be deadliest in Florida history, Biden says (msn.com)

Yes, until they add it to their website available for configuration, who knows what other looks it might have for color, trim, etc. I will say for an M version, it does not say performance to me but gaudier look at me.

I would agree with you that the Grill is way better than the gargantuan one they have on the other SUVs. In looking at the comments, people really are hating the gold trim all over the auto as well as the disconnected weird total front end and the Japanese anime like rearend. Interior has not gotten to many hates, but the exterior, especially among the BMW faithful have them really hating the look of the auto. Interesting for sure.

Too Funny BMW has released their new Hybrid $160,000 SUV and the public is hating it based on social media reports. People are roasting BMW for unveiling a 'hideous' $160,000 SUV with 644 horsepower — see the polarizing XM (msn.com) Full Press Release is here along with a ton of pictures. The First-Ever BMW XM: A BMW M Original. (bmwgroup.com) Have to say that the Hybrid M XM SUV is just tacky in so many ways.

Like the auto industry, the motorcycle industry has been turned upside down by the electric revolution. Harley-Davidson attempted to hold off a slew of electric motorcycle startups by bringing out the LiveWire motorcycle. The LiveWire motorcycle clashed with the traditional Harley-Davidson buyers in many ways and to most followers of the motorcycle industry this was a young versus old battle. Millennials embracing electric motorcycles while baby boomers in their final years embracing the HOG. Harley-Davidson for the last few years struggled with getting a price and feature competitive electric motorcycle out. The original Livewire motorcycle was considered too expensive and not enough range for the price. In 2018, we here at Cheers and Gears covered the Reveal of the Harley-Davidson Livewire motorcycle. Harley-Davidson felt people would be willing to pay $30,000 for an electric motorcycle that only had 100 miles of range and fell to around 75 miles of range with highway riding. Yet in January one of the oldest startups brought out another electric motorcycle that has received rave reviews as an entry level electric motorcycle at $13,000 starting price and a range of 150 miles highway. Lighting Motorcycles has been leading the revolution in electric motorcycles. With dismal sales, a clash between cultures, and then worse yet, financial decline since 2008 with plunging sales, Harley-Davidson has been hit hard. A decade of fewer models, in the red financially, fewer markets that can support their high price, this then led to the Pandemic of 2020-2022 with firing of hundreds of employees and the firing and hiring of a new CEO Jochen Zeitz. Harley-Davidson in crisis: The downward trend continues | About motorcycles (misfitmademotorcycles.com) The new CEO Jochen Zeitz realized that with an aging conservative clientele and little success with young motorcyclists that a radical change had to take place. This was put into their future roadmap as Harley-Davidson needed to expand their portfolio of models to include smaller displacement classes that are in demand in Asia, especially with a demand from e-bikes to electric motorcycles. To achieve this change, it would require large investment of capital, something Harley-Davidson had in short supply. This was then complicated with a trade dispute with the European Union which hurt the American made motorcycles further straining the balance sheet of the company. Worse yet with the global Covid-19 lockdowns, Harley-Davidson saw a year over year drop in sales by 53%, going from a profit of $181 million in 2019 to a loss of $121 million in 2020. 2021 was not much better for motorcycle sales globally. Harley new CEO, Jochen Zeitz announced a new five-year plan that would take immediate effect in 2021 and with it a new brand ambassador, Jason Mamoa. The Pandemic years saw a financial restructuring, reduction of American employees, building of motorcycles overseas for the European market and Asian rim to deal with the trade dispute and a move of the Harley manufacturing in the U.S. All total, over 700 employees have been laid off, considerable consolidation and optimization of the current structure along with a $150 million dollar loan in 2021. These changes while helping to slow things down have not reversed the fortunes of Harley nor have, they brought in the new younger generations. As such, Harley did the next logical step, spun off as a separate motorcycle company the electric motorcycle division and gave birth to LiveWire Motorcycles. LiveWire Electric Motorcycles | Home Focused on the young generations of new electric motorcycle riders, LiveWire has their initial motorcycle called the LiveWire ONE with a starting price of $22,799 and a range of 146 miles city, 95 miles combined. There is then the S2 Del Mar electric motorcycle with a 110-mile range city and a starting price of $16,999. Per LiveWire News release, the S2 Del Mar electric motorcycle sold out first year's production in 18 minutes having the company point to pent up demand for clean, emission free motorcycles. LiveWire went live as a publicly traded company on September 27th under the ticker "LVWR". They are the first EV motorcycle company to be listed on the NYSE. The stock raised $334 million in gross proceeds to help fund LiveWire as it starts building and delivering electric motorcycles. Harley-Davidson as a publicly traded company under the ticker "HOG" holds considerable stock in LiveWire and their CEO Jochen Zeitz is both Chairman and CEO of Harley-Davidson and LiveWire. This transaction freed up resources for Harley to reinvigorate their own identity and brand of ICE motorcycles worldwide while also funding the growth of the electric motorcycle under its own identity. It would appear that Harley-Davidson took a page out of the Ford Motor Company playbook in separating the ICE from the EV and as global sales change in one or the other will allow the board and executives to survive as one company grows and another declines. The future looks bright for LiveWire and very interesting for Harley-Davidson. Harley has reinvigorated their product line which one can check out here: Shop Harley-Davidson Motorcycles | Harley-Davidson USA LiveWire is clearly focusing on the youthful future electric motorcycle riders and their products can be looked at here: LiveWire Electric Motorcycles | Home One thing that the new Chairman and CEO felt was underutilized was apparel, parts and cross merchandising sales. Here one can find plenty to shop for on both websites depending on ones interest in supporting ICE or Electric Motorcycles and the brands they represent. View full article

I like the Genesis look of the auto but for me, the rims while nice to look at are so busy and so time intensive to clean properly. I would go with a much simpler design that is easy to clean. Those rims just do not last looking that nice. These rims that I had on my Suburban before one broke and I could not get a replacement is the style of simple, clean and nice.

Agree totally that it will happen much faster than many believe. Yes, we will have ICE Heritage around for a long time, but even then, I also believe that ICE Heritage will be re-powered to be EV-Heritage with e-crate solutions too. Options is all it will take, and I think this is the one time that GM will not back off or just play games but follow through on low to high-cost EV solutions for all. I think some companies that are at the top will not be there as hydrogen is not the solution nor is hybrids and as such, some top companies are going to drop down and others are going to go away. We have a major auto company consolidation coming as there are too many Legacies Auto companies just as there are too many EV startups. Many will not survive the next decade.

Cool seeing the video not for the guy talking but the Ocean interior. I really like it and I think it would go well with the R1S Forest Green Exterior color.

WoW, that is a stormy mess. on the water. So happy for you Robert that you are away on PTO. Enjoy it.

True, yet at least Cadillac to me has a better generic style than the Mercedes EQ series of auto's. Has to be one of the worst ever I think. I am hoping we see better with the Cadillac EV line.

I was at one time excited about Polestar and trying out their EV as a possible on my list to buy. Now, NOPE, Not Gonna Happen. Where at all possible, I am avoiding buying anything from China.

Yes, Once the Chinese parent company bought Volvo and Polestar, they choose to move the Polestar division to China and make it a pure EV performance line built in China. That is my understanding of the purchase of those two companies. Geely is the parent owner of those two auto companies.

Interesting to see that Mercedes has posted to their Instagram account an EQS/EQB picture and wow, talk about a styling failure when at a quick glance one cannot tell the difference. https://www.instagram.com/p/CfFcH01v-3t/