[Steverino]

The Honey/Honda joint venture to develop and build electric cars revealed the name of their new car brand. It will be called Afeela. They are showing a concept car. First deliveries of the car would not take place in North America until 2026

Running above the car’s front bumper is a narrow exterior display screen the company calls the media bar. It will allow the vehicle to show information and interact with people outside the vehicle, Mizuno said.

Not sure how I feel-a-bout that concept. Seems odd. What, instead of yelling at other drivers you give them a digital finger? Play them a calming video clip?lol

Sony and Honda reveal their new car brand | CNN Business

Three things you need to know about the Sony Afeela

 

[obermd]

Don't worry - you won't be able to play any music unless it's on a Sony owned recording label.

 

[Evan1]

The Honey/Honda joint venture to develop and build electric cars revealed the name of their new car brand. It will be called Afeela. They are showing a concept car. First deliveries of the car would not take place in North America until 2026

Running above the car’s front bumper is a narrow exterior display screen the company calls the media bar. It will allow the vehicle to show information and interact with people outside the vehicle, Mizuno said.

Not sure how I feel-a-bout that concept. Seems odd. What, instead of yelling at other drivers you give them a digital finger? Play them a calming video clip?lol

Sony and Honda reveal their new car brand | CNN Business

Three things you need to know about the Sony Afeela

Honey? lol SONY.

 

[Steverino]

Hony? Sonda? Shonda? Sonya? Honday?

 

[MaybeFutureBuyer]

The interior looks nice, but I like physical buttons for everyday functions (AC, heated seats, volume control, etc). I also don't like a square steering wheel. The exterior looks kind of bland from the front, and it's probably gonna be just another $80K EV, with 0-60 of 2.5 second that no one really needs.

I really don't get why 95% of ICE\hybrids are aimed for normal driving, but 70% of EVs are aimed for people who want to pay 3X for a rocketship car. There's a point where too much of an acceleration becomes unsafe. Anything below 6 sec is a waste for public roads.

This just makes me want to support GM even more, because they seem to go the opposite route.

I used to be a hater of domestic manufacturers because of reliability issues, but EVs parts are pretty much the same for everyone. Almost all electric motors come from 2 manufacturers in China, and almost all the batteries are from China\Korea.

But I might still give up on the Equinox and go ICE\hybrid if the 2LT is too expensive.

 

[Steverino]

Almost all electric motors come from 2 manufacturers in China, and almost all the batteries are from China\Korea.

Maybe, at least some of the Ultium Drive motor components will be domestic, other components will be globally sourced. But GM leads the design and development of Ultium Drive’s modular architecture and will assemble the units in it's own plants:

Feb 2022:

General Motors announced plans to invest nearly $154 million in its Western New York Lockport Components plant. The investment will be used to renovate the facility and purchase and install new machinery and equipment used in the production of the stator module, a key component in an electric motor. Electric motors will be used in a variety of GM’s future Ultium Platform-based electric trucks and SUVs. Facility renovations will begin immediately.

As Lockport Components prepares for electric motor component production, the facility will continue to build a variety of components that support GM’s current truck and SUV production. Lockport Components currently produces radiators, condensers, heater cores, evaporators, HVAC modules, oil coolers and other components used in a variety of GM trucks. GM currently estimates Lockport Components will add approximately 230 positions between 2023 and 2026. Actual staffing plans will be finalized closer to the start of production as the facility transitions to support EV motor component production.

GM also said:

Most of the Ultium Drive components, including castings, gears and assemblies, will be built with globally sourced parts at GM’s existing global propulsion facilities on shared, flexible assembly lines, allowing the company to more quickly ramp up its EV production, achieve economies of scale and adjust its production mix to match market demand.

Ultium Drive to Help Power GM’s All-Electric Future

Interesting tidbit: while the inverter and other power electronics operate outside of the drive units of GM's current EVs, they will be integrated directly into Ultium Drive units enabling the mass of the power electronics to be reduced by nearly 50 percent from GM’s previous EV generation (Spark EV, Bolt EV), saving cost and packaging space while increasing capability by 25 percent and reducing manufacturing complexity.

The GM family of Ultium Drive electric vehicle drive units. From L-R: Assist all-wheel drive unit, front-wheel drive unit, rear wheel drive unit, front- or rear-wheel truck drive unit, dual motor truck drive unit. The unit's incorporate not only the motor by the inverter, etc. as above.

The rear-wheel drive unit. Like the others, it combines the electric motor along with its power electronics into a compact package.

The Ultium Drive units can be combined in a variety of ways to create front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive, or all-wheel drive vehicles with varying levels of power and torque.

We went with a modular strategy, so there are three motors inside of these drive units that scale—they look like siblings and interchange a lot of parts—and then the drive units themselves also interchange a lot of parts. They have common manufacturing locators so multiple different types of drive units can run down the same manufacturing line. And because they share parts, and because they're flexible, we can really leverage our scale: we can adjust different types of drive units by vehicle mix; we can source components at really high volumes, and we can vertically integrate much more of the drive

At launch, three oil-cooled axial-flux motors (the traditional barrel-shaped ones, not the newer pancake style) are envisioned: two permanent-magnet machines good for up to 241 and 342 hp, and one AC induction-type good for 83 horses. The latter will be paired with one of the former to provide high-efficiency AWD, because it creates none of the electromagnetic drag when "coasting" that a permanent-magnet motor does. It appears the metal plates that get stacked together to form the stator are shared, with the more powerful motors getting more of them to become longer, their windings getting more "turns" and their rotors perhaps using more of the shared permanent magnets. All can be built using common tooling, and all motors will be unitized with a reduction drive and power inverter. Furthermore, GM will employ a control strategy that fine-tunes the input power every 10 milliseconds, boosting efficiency to near 97 percent and providing finer control during stability control interventions.

This is GM’s new series of Ultium Drive electric motors

GM’s Ultium Electric Car Platform Technology: Everything You Need to Know

 

[Evan1]

The interior looks nice, but I like physical buttons for everyday functions (AC, heated seats, volume control, etc). I also don't like a square steering wheel. The exterior looks kind of bland from the front, and it's probably gonna be just another $80K EV, with 0-60 of 2.5 second that no one really needs.

I really don't get why 95% of ICE\hybrids are aimed for normal driving, but 70% of EVs are aimed for people who want to pay 3X for a rocketship car. There's a point where too much of an acceleration becomes unsafe. Anything below 6 sec is a waste for public roads.

This just makes me want to support GM even more, because they seem to go the opposite route.

I used to be a hater of domestic manufacturers because of reliability issues, but EVs parts are pretty much the same for everyone. Almost all electric motors come from 2 manufacturers in China, and almost all the batteries are from China\Korea.

But I might still give up on the Equinox and go ICE\hybrid if the 2LT is too expensive.

Do you Canadians get a certain amont off MSRP when buying an EV?

 

[MaybeFutureBuyer]

Do you Canadians get a certain amont off MSRP when buying an EV?

Yes. 5K federal, and I get (Quebec) another 7K provincial.

*Canadian Dollars

But that's up to a ceiling... I think the price has to be under 60K or something.

 

[Evan1]

Yes. 5K federal, and I get (Quebec) another 7K provincial.

*Canadian Dollars

But that's up to a ceiling... I think the price has to be under 60K or something.

That's much better than the crap here in the US.

 

[MaybeFutureBuyer]

That's much better than the crap here in the US.

Yeah, but wait until you hear about my income taxes in Quebec (highest in Canada).... I pretty much pay for that incentive 2.5X every year!