F-150 Lightning discount, Jaguar I-Pace review, EVs with 800V charging: The Week in Reverse

Which company revealed plans for a lightweight electric sports car?

And which one decided to mimic some of the cues of combustion engines for its top-performance EV?

This is our look back at the Week In Reverse—right here at Green Car Reports—for the week ending July 14, 2023.

Hyundai gave its 2024 Ioniq 5 N performance EV an official debut Thursday at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. The 5 N has all kinds of improvements aimed at driving enthusiasts—and a lot more power, of course, good for 0-60 mph times of just 3.4 seconds—but it’s the larger battery pack and the cabin noise meant to mimic combustion engines that are most noteworthy.

Also at the UK event, Caterham revealed the Project V concept electric sports car—signaling that the niche automaker is working on a genuinely compact, lightweight performance EV a bit smaller than the original Tesla Roadster or a Mazda Miata.

Mercedes-Benz announced a shift to the Tesla charge port—not just for its vehicles, starting in 2025, but at least partly in its own American charging network that’s starting to take form. It’s the first German automaker to do so. Among full-line automakers, Mercedes is the one with the deepest history with Tesla, as it used to own about a tenth of Tesla and exchanged technology and components in earlier EVs. 

Audi EP4 concept based on the NSU Prinz 4

Audi is tapping into its NSU heritage with the Audi EP4 project, which fitted modern Audi electrification pieces into a vintage NSU Prinz 4—yielding a special go-fast retromod compact car that could be a proof point for future compact EVs from the brand. 

In a long-awaited follow-up review of the Jaguar I-Pace, we found that this pioneering luxury model is a far better EV than it was on arrival nearly five years ago. From interface to driving range, it now delights; but are shoppers even noticing?

Dealership inventories of EVs are swelling, according to a recent report. Meanwhile, EV sales are leveling off. What that likely means is that EV deals may finally be coming—and at the very least, the price gouging is gone. 

2023 Ford F-150 Lightning

Ford is reportedly offering a $1,500 discount on the 2023 F-150 Lightning in some regions. That’s after a series of price hikes that leave it costing nearly 50% higher, in its base Lightning Pro version, than it originally did for 2022. 

The production ramp of the Fisker Ocean is moving slowly. But in a Friday update the startup pointed to supplier challenges as a reason it only made about a thousand of the EVs with contract supplier Magna.

Fisker Ocean

A $7.7 billion joint venture between Renault and Volvo and Polestar parent Geely appears to be taking on Toyota for hybrid supremacy. Potentially also involving the oil company Aramco, it “aims to become the leader in next-generation hybrid and highly efficient powertrain solutions to meet worldwide demand for the years to come.”

Meanwhile, Toyota is shifting its hydrogen fuel-cell attention toward Europe and China—in addition to the U.S.—as it targets cost reductions and even profitability for the tech. It’s now seeking to get fuel-cell systems into 100,000 vehicles annually by 2030. 

Canoo Crew Transportation Vehicles for NASA Artemis program

The U.S. startup Canoo this week announced its delivery of EVs to NASA for use in the Artemis program bringing astronauts back to the Moon; it also delivered a battery pack for U.S. Navy military applications—all while the company’s financials make a full-scale production ramp of its personal EVs look less likely. 

Rivian filed a patent for pass-through charging tech that effectively turns its electric trucks into an extension cord for another EV—which may be useful when one of the EVs is towing a trailer that can’t fit in the charging bay, or when there simply aren’t enough connectors to go around. 

2022 GMC Hummer EV

The 2024 GMC Hummer EV has received a higher range rating from GM for the new model year, in its 3X Pickup configuration. With the largest 205-kwh battery pack, the Hummer EV now achieves up to 381 miles of range—although it’s worth keeping in mind that this is still not an official EPA rating.

And the GMC Hummer EV is one of only a handful of U.S.-market EVs are as of yet capable of the 800-volt charging that’s widely seen as a tech advantage. We looked into why 800V charging matters and why the shift over to the Tesla port throws an extra bit of confusion into the arena. 

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