EV’s win Autocar Awards, Ditch Conventional Brakes, and Commercial Truck EV’s Gain Traction
FIAT and Skoda EV cars get praise from Autocar, while DS vehicles gets rid of convention brakes. And, truck stuff!
European EV’s show us what we are missing here in the US.
FIAT quite literally now only sells the 500X in the United States. So if you’re looking for variety, there’s other options. If you’re in Europe, you get the option of the 500E. It’s a handsome little EV hatchback, and with just shy of 200 miles of range, is a perfect city car, too. UK’s Autocar has named it best small car of 2022, which covered EV and ICE vehicles.
Skoda is another European make that we don’t get stateside. Owned by the VW group, Skoda’s ENYAQ iV shown above is named by Autocar as the family car of the year. 329 miles of range give it a boost among its competitors, some of which are combustion powered.
DS Automobiles envisions the E TENSE supercar as going entirely without conventional brakes.
When it comes to harnessing energy, conventional brakes to a lousy job. They take the car’s kinetic energy and convert it to heat through friction. DS, however, sees this as wasteful. Granted, regenerative braking has been around for a long time, but DS Automobiles is one of the first to go to extremes. They claim it is possible for regenerative braking to be strong enough to ditch the old-school brakes entirely.
Technology adopted from the DS Formula E team means this road-going performance car will have 815 horsepower and with 350kw charging, can get a full charge in a spritely 5 minutes. That quick recharge time also plays into the regenerative braking. This would mean the car’s own motors act as generators, strong enough to act as brakes. This saves weight, reduces complexities and can make for adaptive braking much in the same way individual motors can assists with performance and handling.
Volta Trucks lays out it’s plans for US market roll out.
One area that has been an EV stumbling point has been in commercial trucks. Several makers like Bollinger are already in the mix, but now Volta Trucks has laid out a full set of plans for the US market. Focusing on class 7 trucks (class 8 is the largest), Volta is going after box trucks, busses and other similar sized vehicles that cater to local transport needs.
Range is a bit short at 95-125 miles, but for local deliveries, this is more than efficient. Volta has data from London, Paris and other metropolitan areas to prove it. Keep in mind, class 8 trucks are the tractors and big rigs on the road, so class 7 vehicles typically see shorter hauls and more localized deliveries.
Photos courtesy of Fiat, Skoda, DS, Volta