EuroWire September 2018

Transatlantic cable

On Volvo’s XC60, wrote Mr Stock, that “makes for Porsche-style speed in an SUV designed for soccer practice carpools.” † † Half of all USA vehicles now have a turbo or supercharger, up from 27 per cent a decade ago. The share of cars and trucks with an electric motor climbed from 2.5 per cent to 10 per cent in that time. Only 16 per cent of USA vehicles available this year come with V8 engines. Powered bicycles are increasingly gaining in popularity, especially in Europe and China With Chinese consumers alone having purchased more than half a million electric cars in 2017, sales worldwide topped one million for the year – for a 57 per cent increase over 2016. Bloomberg New Energy Finance expects more than half of all new cars sold, and a third of the total light vehicles on the road, to be electric by the year 2040. “But that all pales in comparison to electric bikes,” according to Bloomberg ’s Nathaniel Bullard, who wrote: “Europeans especially have embraced them, snapping them up in greater numbers than electric cars are being bought in other, far larger countries.” (“Electric Cars Feel a Little Competition,” 25 th May) Amplifying its own data with information gathered from a number of sources (Zweirad-Industrie-Verband; Rai Vereniging; Union Sport & Cycle; Associazione Nazionale Ciclo Motociclo Accessori), Bloomberg New Energy Finance compiled these sales statistics for electric vehicle sales in select markets last year:

Over the past decade, while striving for lower emissions, automotive engineers were also gaining the unintended bonus of speed. (“Detroit Went Green and Accidentally Got Faster, ”18 th June) Citing data analysis by Edmunds.com , Mr Stock wrote that the average miles-per-gallon of fuel for the American fleet has climbed by 24 per cent since 2008. Over the same period, cars achieved a 14 per cent boost in power, registering a three per cent jump over the last year alone. “We’re in the golden age of horsepower,” said Ivan Drury, senior manager of data strategy at Edmunds , incontrovertibly. In retrospect, the phenomenal advance is readily understood. As global regulators progressively tightened emissions standards, automakers were forced to do more with less. They built relatively small, super-efficient four-cylinder engines to swap out V8s. They further boosted power with turbochargers and electric motors, in the process creating the efficient, quiet and very fast modern engine. “You can get the best of both worlds,” Mr Drury told Bloomberg . “If you really want it, the power is there.” Mr Stock offered Volvo as the best example of this approach. The Swedish automaker, owned by China’s Geely Holding Group, fits most of its vehicles with the same four-cylinder engine and then tweaks it slightly. When fitted with a turbocharger, a supercharger and a pair of electric motors, the original 260 HP engine yields 400 horsepower.

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September 2018