Run through the list of cars you think are timeless and ask yourself why? I can think of a few. Classic brands like the Mercedes Benz Roadster, the Pontiac GTO, and the Ford Mustang are pleasing, timeless and ingrained in automobile culture and history.
Read moreThe Growing Need for Battery Analytics
All,
How many of you park your car inside your garage?
Are you like my family, where one car is in the garage and the other is in the driveway? Do you only use the driveway? What about the street? What if one of the US's biggest car manufacturers told you to keep your car outside and away from your house because it could spontaneously catch fire?
What if that car was your only way to work?
50,000 Chevrolet Bolts owners have been told to keep their cars parked outside and away from their homes and other structures, according to a recent Automotive Newsarticle (linked below). Many of these vehicles were recalled last November but NHTSA and General Motors still warn owners of this potential danger and to caution when parking it.
The 50,000 U.S. Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicles are from the 2017-2019 model years and were recalled for the potential of an unattended fire in the high-voltage battery pack underneath the backseat’s bottom cushion.
NHTSA opened an investigation in October into the Bolt fires, the agency noted Wednesday and "continues to evaluate the information received, and is looking into these latest fires."
The November recall of nearly 69,000 Chevrolet Bolt EVs -- including about 50,000 in the United States -- with high voltage batteries produced at LG Chem Ltd's Ochang, South Korea facility, was made after five reported fires and two minor injuries.
The recall sparked General Motors to reveal a software update in April that would identify any issues with the battery unit in the vehicle and give alerts when something is wrong.
Batteries are incredibly complicated things, but what if we treated them like living organisms? Could we treat each battery as an individual?
That's where Voltaiq, a battery analytics company, steps in. Scott likes to say they are the "Moneyball for batteries".
Voltaiq uses advanced software to monitor batteries and run diagnostics. Their technology could have prevented the 50,000 Chevy Bolt recall because they could have identified the issue with those batteries before they went out into the field.
The EU wants to phase out the internal combustion engine by 2035. We will need a lot of batteries. We'll need battery analytics to make sure there are fewer recalls, and Voltaiq can offer that solution.
Jacob
Electric F-150: Lighting or Flash in the Pan?
A little bit old-school, a little bit new-school. Maybe that also describes the Ford F-150 Lightning, Ford's first electric pickup. Now, for those of you who don't know, F-150 is the best-selling vehicle in the world. Has been for years. Ford sold nearly 900,000 F-150s in 2019. Put another way, one out of 18 new vehicles sold in the United States is a Ford F-150. It is Ford's cash cow.
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