Lon Nordbye has joined the award-winning Electrify Expo ("North America's largest Electric Vehicle Festival") as Business Development and Sponsorship Executive. Nordbye most recently served as VP of Strategy & Commercial Development at the Sturgis Buffalo Chip. "Featuring the world's leading brands in e-mobility" Electrify Expo is a weekend festival concept that takes place multiple times per year - Southern California, Miami and Austin in 2021, with additional venues planned for 2022. www.electrifyexpo.com
If Honda can enter the space industry, then why not Sony Corp in the EV market? Sony has created a new division to "explore entering" the market and unveiled an Electric SUV prototype - Sony's Vision-S sport utility vehicle - at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January. Sony unveiled a prototype electric vehicle called the Vision-S sedan two years ago. This was viewed mainly as a way to promote the batteries and sensors the group sells to other car manufacturers. The Vision-S has been road tested in Europe since 2020. If or when the project matures, it is unclear as to whether Sony plans to do the manufacturing themselves or outsource the construction of Sony designs to a third party.
Ford has doubled its production target for the electric model of its top-selling F-150 Lightning pick-ups to 150,000 units a year in an "all-in" test for EV demand. "Sales of the F-150 Lightning truck will be a barometer of the success of electric vehicles in the US," according to Bloomberg. This is the second increase, having initially targeted 40,000 a year, the F-150 is regarded as a bellwether - the trucks will be made at Ford's factory in Dearborn, Michigan, with customer deliveries to begin in spring 2022. So far EVs account for about 3 percent of sales of cars and trucks in the US - less than in Europe and China - with Tesla holding a big lead over Ford and GM. Some 200,000 consumers are said to have reserved the F-150 Lightning, at a starting price of about $40,000. Ford has committed to building a "mega campus" in Tennessee that will include an assembly factory to build the Lightning, and CEO Jim Farley is targeting 600,000 battery vehicles a year globally by the end of 2023. That LiveWire forecast of 100,000 units by 2026 still looks ambitious though.
Triumph has finally unveiled the pre-production prototype demonstrator of its much hyped TE-1 electric motorcycle, bringing the curtain down on what it calls the "collaboration phase" and is now headed for planning for the live testing phase to begin. There is still no estimated date for the TE-1 to hit dealer showrooms, at least not publicly, but Triumph has stated that it hopes to be able to offer it to the media for track testing as soon as later this year.
As part of its plans to mark its 60th anniversary, Brembo is planting a forest of 14,000 trees. The initiative, in partnership with Treedom, involves all Group employees. It will reduce CO2 in the atmosphere and support local farming communities. The Brembo Forest will be planted in Kenya, near Lake Victoria, where Brembo will work in partnership with web platform Treedom - the first such system to allow trees to be planted remotely and their stories followed online. Brembo aims to be a carbon neutral company by 2040.
Eugene, OR., based EV manufacturer Arcimoto (of Arcimoto Roadster fame) says it will be livestreaming the ribbon cutting of its first vehicle production line. Founder/CEO Mark Frohnmayer says his company has been engaged in "ground-breaking" development work on "core EV technologies. The purchase and initial renovation of a scale production facility featuring approximately 250,000 sq ft of space under roof on more than 10 acres has allowed us to expand the number of open states for Arcimoto sales by 100 percent, adding Florida, Nevada and Arizona to our original West Coast launch."
Austin, TX., based Volcon ePowersports (Volcon Inc. NASDAQ: VLCN) announced the pricing of an underwritten public offering of 6,666,667 shares of common stock, par value $0.00001 per share ("Common Stock"), to be issued by the company at a price to the public of $3.0 per share. The gross proceeds from the offering, before deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and estimated offering expenses, are expected to be approximately $20.0m. The offering was due to close on February 1. Volcon describes itself as "the first all-electric powersports company producing high quality off-road vehicles."
Several technology companies unveiled new or updated EV projects at the CES, Las Vegas, in January. Among them Vancouver, Canada based Damon Motors built on the well-received HyperDrive technology based HyperSport with the unveiling of its HyperFighter family of streetfighter style motorcycles. A CES 2022 Innovation Award honoree, it is described as "a raw, muscular-silhouetted, electrifying streetfighter motorcycle built for a new generation of urban riders."
Sources: AMD, IDN, FT, Reuters, PSB, MPN, BDN, MCN, AP, Bloomberg, MSNW, Electrek, electricmotorcycles.news, RideApart.com, Motor1.com, Cycle World, motorbikewriter.com