We spent almost two hours talking about the history and impact of Prius on the world. Current and former members of the Prius Team from Toyota join us for the first hour. It’s a great look back at one of the biggest impacts in cleaner vehicles. We’re all current and previous Prius owners and Prius enthusiasts. But when asking about previous decisions and future plans, that doesn’t mean we went easy on them.
Supercar article referenced by Tony: https://whatdrives.us/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/SuperCar.pdf
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This week, we talk about the ongoing Nikola saga, solid state batteries in Mercedes buses, This Week in Tesla with new catchy theme music, Plastic eating enzymes, a cheap EV in China, and Toyota’s Lunar Cruiser.
00:00 Show Start 05:15 New Allegations with Nikola Motors
13:00 Mercedes Introduces Solid State Battery Buses
20:05 This Week in Tesla
28:55 Plastic Eating Enzymes
40:30 A $5,000 EV in China 49:25 Toyota’s Mars Rover
54:10 Shout Outs and Go Home
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batteries, battery, bus, china, EV, LE, nikola motors, solid-state, Tesla, Toyota
00:00 Intros
04:13 – Hybrids, Plug-ins, and EVs
25:15 – Xos Raises $20 Million to Scale Production
32:30 – This Week in Tesla
37:05 – Toyota Solid-State Batteries
43:15 – Tritium Fast Charger
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batteries, EV, hybrid, LE, Plug-in, solid-state, Tesla, Toyota
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bus, California, Charging, commercial, electric, EV, first, Hyundai, LE, prime, RAV4, solar, tax, Toyota, truck
Russell spent a week with the Toyota Supra and put together this review.
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2020, Better Place, Eco, EV, hybrid, LE, prime, RAV4, RAV4 Hybrid, review, Supra, Toyota
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2017, battery, bus, Car, EV, first, hybrid, LE, Model Y, review, Tesla, Toyota, van, Vehicles, Volvo
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2020, batteries, Car, e-bike, electric, EV, General Motors, gm, hybrid, LE, LED, solar, Toyota, Vehicles
audio only,Chicago Auto Show,What Drives Us episode
1) Russell has just returned from a Toyota event in which he was driving their brand new AWD systems they are introducing in their sedans.
2) Tony and Jon B spent two days at the Chicago Auto Show and provide their impressions of what they saw.
3) Jon B provides speculative insights as to what the upcoming RAV4 Prime might reveal about possible changes coming to the Prius Prime.
4) Jaguar is having to temporarily stop production of the I-Pace due to a battery shortage.
5) Why is it extremely possible that ICE vehicles are not going away anytime soon?
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auto show, battery, chicago, EV, LE, prime, Prius, prius prime, RAV4, reveal, Toyota, Vehicles
audio only,What Drives Us episode
1) Russell teases that he’s been invited to a Toyota AWD event. More details in a future show.
2) Simon Wecker, a guy in Berlin, Germany, pulled 90 cell phones – all with Google Maps active – through empty streets. Why? Because Google interpreted all that data to mean that the streets were congested with 90 cars, all barely moving along. The result was empty streets thanks to Google routing everyone around Wecker and his wagon of phones.
3) Hyundai is doubling their Kona EV production be adding a second factory. This is in response to the Kona’s massive demand, which Hyundai is not able to keep up with.
4) The new US Building Codes will call for new homes in the US to be manufactured “EV Ready”.
5) Rivian and Amazon are designing and building a custom EV Amazon delivery van. It’s kind of cute.
6) We’re relatively excited to see that there are EV trucks coming to market. Americans love their trucks so if we want to win them over we’re going to need electric trucks.
7) Toyota is introducing new technology to safe stupid people from themselves. This new software will detect when someone mashes the accelerator rather than the brake and make sure the car doesn’t surge forward. Because, let’s face it, unexpected acceleration was really human error all along.
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Car, Eco, electric, EV, future, german, google, Hyundai, LE, LED, Software, Technology, Toyota, truck, van