The Current News: Nov. 4 2021

As part of the buildup to our Electric Revolution Live event in May 2022, as a follow-up of our Electric Revolution exhibit at the Petersen Museum, we are ramping up reportage on the EV scene.  It’s an ever-evolving, even frantic, landscape of electric vehicles, and it can be tough to keep abreast of all the latest bikes, batteries, and news constantly flooding the market. That’s why we’ve re-launched our weekly EV News Roundup to bring you cherry-picked stories that matter to you. 

Hello dear readers and riders! Are some of you feeling the frosty bite of winter in the air yet? Have you busted out your winter riding gear? Thankfully, we have some hot EV news this week that is guaranteed to warm things up! From a café racer e-Motorbike and an itty-bitty caravan to a former Tesla employee shattering the Cannonball Run record aboard the manufacturer’s Model S, our weekly EV roundup always brings stories that matter the most to EV enthusiasts and traditionalist riders alike.

As always, drop us a line at stephanie@thevintagent.com if anything out there catches your eye.

Here we go!

Enigma Reveals Café Racer e-Motorcycle

India-based EV manufacturer, Enigma, revealed its EV “café racer” earlier this week. The bike, planned to be manufactured at the company’s plants in Bhopal, Mandideep and Uppal Hyderabad, will feature a 72V, lithium ferro phosphate battery that delivers a 140-km (86.9 miles) range on a single charge. Enigma promises that the bike will reach top speeds of 136 kmph (84 mph) and have a peak power of 5.6 KW. The e-motorcycle will go from 0 to 80% charged in just three hours and will be available in five colors. “When we started designing our motorcycle, our ambition was to create a motorbike that would serve as a powerful exploration tool but also balance the everyday commuting without breaking the bank,” Enigma founder and CEO, Anmol Bohre, said.

World’s Smallest (and Cutest!) Towable Caravan

Skip those Royal Wedding queues once and for all! Designed by Yannick Read and Britain’s Environmental Transport Association (ETA), the QTvan is the world’s tiniest and most adorable towable caravan. Measuring just 2.39 meters in length and 1.53 meters in height, the QTvan caters to Britain’s three biggest obsessions: tea, queuing, and caravans. Occupants can enjoy watching the next Royal Wedding on the 19-inch TV or make a cup of PG Tips via the caravan’s tea-making facilities. It is effortlessly hooked up to a mobility scooter or other micro EV, and is priced at £5,500 ($7,421).

Meet the Ford F-100 EV Pickup

We are losing our minds over this retro-inspired electric pickup truck concept recently unveiled by Ford. Harkening back to the aesthetics of the ‘70s, the all-electric F-100 Eluminator is a zero-tailpipe-emissions demonstration truck that features all-wheel drive and two electric traction motors that are capable of producing 480 ponies and 634 lb.-ft. of torque from a ‘crate motor’ out of the Mach E GT Performance Edition.  You can’t buy this truck, but you can buy the powerplant from Ford to put into your own vintage F-100 chassis…serious suspension upgrades required.

EV Personal Aerial Vehicle is a Whole Lotta Fun to Fly!

Sweden’s Jetson Aero just announced that it is completely sold out of its 2022 production of the personal eVTOL, a cute little single-seat EV aerial craft. Capable of zooming along at 63 mph, the craft features an aluminum/carbon fiber spaceframe, eight props mounted on four arms that put out 118 horsepower, a throttle/joystick control combo, and a display dash. So, if you want an airplane that you can stash in your garage, now you know where to look!

OTTOEDGE Releases Its First Campaign for AMO Electric Mobility

Listen up all of you marketing gurus out there! OTTOEDGE, a global independent agency, recently deployed a successful marketing campaign for AMO Electric Mobility that really resonated with youths positioned to change the world. Released primarily on digital platforms, the campaign has garnered 2+ million views on YouTube with unique 1.5 million views. The campaign will also appear on National Television and regional news channels. Amongst all the marketing static the EV space has produced, it’s nice to see a campaign that really stands out.

Fresh Funding:

• Tesla hit a trillion-dollar market valuation earlier this week when shares increased thanks to Hertz’s announcement of plans to purchase 100,000 of its EVs.  With revenues of around $50Billion, this makes Tesla the lowest-revenue company to hit the 10-figure valuation, which worries some economists.

• Rad Power Bikes, the fat tire EV manufacturer, raised $154 million Series D from existing investors, bringing the startup’s total funding to $329 million.

• EV startup, Rivian, is looking to raise $8.4 billion, which would give it a value equal to Honda.  Does this make sense?  It seems market valuations have more to do with anticipated value than actual production capacity or products available…then again, Amazon wasn’t profitable for many years when it sold primarily books…

Former Tesla Employee Uses a Tesla to Shatter Cannonball Run Records

We’ve all secretly dreamed of getting payback on employers we downright loathe. Well, that’s the story behind Ryan Levenson’s staggering Cannonball Race record. The former Tesla employee and EV enthusiast rented a Tesla Model S and outfitted it with 19-inch-rimmed racing tires to increase its range. Ryan and his team could race 1.5 to two hours between stops, thanks to the Model S’s 405-mile range and Ryan’s minor tweaks. Using the quick-charge capacity of Tesla’s coast-to-coast facilities, he set a new record at 42 hours and 52 minutes, of which around 7 hours was spent on charging time.   The current IC record for a Cannonball run is 25 hours 39 minutes, by comparison, which included only ten minutes for refueling!  Several fuel cells were packed into that car…could a Tesla (or other EV) be packed with batteries for a shorter run?