• 

  Porsche is preparing an all-electric Macan SUV for 2023. Here's an early prototype, seen testing at Weissach in Germany. [credit: Porsche ]

This morning, in an email extolling the flexibility of in silico development, Porsche sent Ars the first official images of its next Macan crossover. And this Macan, which is still a couple of years from being ready, is entirely electric. Unfortunately, the photos don't give too much away about this electric vehicle replacement to one of Porsche's biggest sellers; the prototypes are camouflaged, and that Safari-spec LED roof bar is presumably just there to help Porsche's engineers test around the clock. The four-element LED headlights are probably the real deal, though.

Porsche first revealed that the Macan would go all-electric in early 2019. The car will use a new electric vehicle architecture called PPE (Premium Platform Electric), which Porsche is developing together with corporate sibling Audi. Audi recently briefed us on one of its first PPE-derived EVs, the 2023 Audi A6 e-tron , which uses an 800 V, 100 kWh battery pack and a motor for each axle, with a combined output of 350 kW (469 hp) and 800 Nm (590 lb-ft). Although Porsche isn't ready to share its own specs yet, the A6 e-tron offers a ballpark within which we can guesstimate.

In its email, Porsche says that it has built 20 digital prototypes, with different departments conducting their own simulations. "We regularly collate the data from the various departments and use it to build up a complete, virtual vehicle that is as detailed as possible," said Porsche's Dr. Andreas Huber, who manages the digital prototypes. The aerodynamicists were among the first to start modeling the EV Macan beginning in 2017.

Enlarge / Yes, I am aware that photographing an electric car in front of an electricity power station is a cliché. Sorry. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

I wasn't expecting the Ford Mustang Mach-E to draw quite as much attention as it did. Over the past few months, I've driven some wild-looking cars, but more people pulled out their camera phones to capture the Mach-E drive pass than they did for the McLaren GT . When stopped in traffic, the Mach-E garnered more curious questions—from other drivers, as well as pedestrians—than did the Polaris Slingshot . Ford's new battery electric vehicle definitely has mindshare, no doubt helped by the fact that over a year has passed since the production version was first unveiled to the public in November 2019 .

I don't think I'm being hyperbolic when I say the Mach-E might be the most important new car of the year. The ubiquity of Ford dealerships makes the Mach-E accessible to people in parts of the country where brands like Tesla or Polestar have yet to reach (although, like its startup rivals, the Mach-E is configured and ordered online, not bought from a forecourt). The influence of Tesla is evident in more than just the sales process, too; the Mach-E's minimalist interior is almost button-free and dominated by a large touchscreen. But the vehicle still offers the familiarity of the Mustang name and some of the sports car's design cues to go with it, like the distinctive triple-barred tail lights.

Not everyone is on board with the Mach-E being called a Mustang. Car people in particular are unhappy that the long and storied name has been attached to a five-door crossover, not a two-door coupe. But Ford wants to sell the Mach-E to the mainstream, and the car-buying public at large wants crossovers, so here we are. Personally, I'm more upset that, over in Europe, Ford chose to resurrect the Puma as a crossover—I offer this anecdote only to show that, to normal people, we sound a bit obsessed when we complain about stuff like this. (Also, the fact is that plenty of Mustangs have been unexciting cars, as anyone who ever rented a V6-powered one in the mid-2000s will attest.)

Enlarge / Fisker now has a market cap of $4.1 billion thanks to a SPAC reverse merger in 2020. It says that the Ocean SUV will be the most sustainable vehicle ever sold. (credit: Fisker)

With technology disrupting the automotive industry, investors have raced to secure exposure to potential winners—whether battery makers, manufacturers of other forms of power storage or developers of the “lidar” sensors that some believe are key to the development of self-driving cars.

Yet according to a Financial Times analysis, the nine auto tech groups that listed via a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) last year expected revenues of just $139 million between them for 2020. They include QuantumScape, a battery company backed by Bill Gates and Volkswagen; the hydrogen truck start-up Nikola; and the lidar company Luminar Technologies.

While the past 12 months proved a hot market for tech groups doing conventional IPOs, bankers and lawyers say that the SPAC process gives companies—and the vehicles acquiring them—far greater latitude in disclosing future financial projections. The nine auto tech companies, for example, together predict their revenues will reach $26 billion by 2024.

• 

  Hyundai Motor Group has a new modular battery electric vehicle (BEV) platform for larger rear- or all-wheel drive vehicles. It's called E-GMP and it sounds very impressive. [credit: Hyundai Motor Group ]

It would be inaccurate to describe the Korean auto industry as firing on all cylinders, if only because it's also really good at making electric vehicles, and those don't have cylinders that fire. The electric versions of the Hyundai Kona , Kia Soul, and Kia Niro are about the only battery EVs to approach the range efficiency of class-leading Tesla, and it makes a pretty fine hydrogen fuel cell EV as well.

On Tuesday, Hyundai Motor Group (which owns Hyundai and Kia, as well as Genesis) showed us what comes next. It's called E-GMP, and it's the group's new modular BEV platform for bigger vehicles ( analogous to Volkswagen Group's PPE architecture ). Hyundai Motor Group has big plans for E-GMP—a million vehicle split over 23 new models by 2025, with the first two hitting showrooms sometime in 2021 .

The tech specs are similarly impressive: an all-800V electrical architecture; bi-directional charging; DC fast charging to 80 percent in 18 minutes; and a WLTP range of 500km (310 miles).

Enlarge / A Nikola Badger pickup truck. (credit: Nikola Motors)

The original design for Nikola’s flagship truck was purchased by founder Trevor Milton from a designer in Croatia, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, despite company claims in a 2018 lawsuit that the vehicle was initially designed by Mr. Milton “in his basement..

The truck, the Nikola One, is at the centre of a $2 billion lawsuit with Tesla, in which Nikola alleges its rival infringed on its patents. Nikola claims in that lawsuit that Mr. Milton began designing the model in 2013, with other company staff later working on it.

In a rebuttal to the lawsuit filed last week, Tesla alleged that Nikola could not protect the designs because they did not originate from the company itself, but from Adriano Mudri, a designer based in Croatia.