The Korean automaker is charging ahead toward a cleaner future. Hyundai just signed the largest renewable energy supply contract in Korea. The massive clean energy supply is enough to fully charge its all-electric IONIQ 5 SUV over 7 million times.

On Wednesday, Hyundai Motor Company announced a new renewable energy supply contract with Hyundai Engineering & Construction, SK E&S, GS E&R, and Enlighten.

Through the new power purchase agreement (PPA), Hyundai will receive 610 GWh of renewable energy annually over the next 20 years, making it the largest in Korea.

Hyundai said the electricity is enough to fully charge the IONIQ 5, with an 84 kWh battery, over 7 million times. With the new supply, Hyundai expects to reduce greenhouse gases by around 5.6 million tons.

A Hyundai Motor Company spokesperson said, in addition to PPAs, “We plan to build a diverse renewable energy portfolio and accelerate carbon reduction through expansion of solar power generation facilities, and convert 100% of the electricity used in all our domestic and overseas business sites to renewable energy by 2045.”

The agreement is the latest as Hyundai accelerates its transition to 100% renewable energy use domestically and overseas.

Hyundai said it plans to gradually expand solar power in Korea to secure a stable supply in the future.

In 2024, Hyundai has already built 20MW of solar power generation across its network in Korea. Next year, it will add another 11MW in Ulsan, where it will finish construction at its first dedicated EV plant.

With its Czech and Indonesian plants already converted to 100% renewable energy, Hyundai is also accelerating the shift overseas. Next year, the company plans to purchase all electricity from renewable energy sources at its US, India, and Turkey plants through PPAs.

The company spokesperson added Hyundai “will proactively respond to climate change in the future by providing customers with vehicles produced using eco-friendly electricity.”

Hyundai kicked off production at its new Metaplant America in Georgia this month. The upgraded 2025 IONIQ 5 is now rolling off the assembly line ahead of deliveries later this year. It features more range, sleek new styling, and an NACS port to charge at Tesla’s Supercharger network.

Elon Musk has snapped at Zoox co-founder and CTO Jesse Levinson over his critical comments about Tesla’s Full Self-Driving program.

Zoox is an autonomous driving company that is now part of Amazon.

It has made some impressive progress as of late – leading miles per disengagement data by a wide margin:

It looks like this recent success has given confidence in the CTO, Jesse Levinson, to comment on Tesla’s own self-driving effort, which grabs most headlines.

He said at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 this week:

The fundamental issue is they don’t have technology that works. And by works, I want to differentiate between a driver assistance system that drives most of the time — except when it doesn’t, and then you have to take over — versus a system that’s so reliable and robust that you don’t need a person in it.

Levinson says that he uses Tesla FSD regularly and he is impressed by what it can do, but he is afraid that it can create complacency:

Usually it does the right thing, and then it sort of lulls you into this false sense of complacency, and then it does the wrong thing. ‘You’re like, Oh, my God!’

That’s fair. Tesla’s FSD has a failure rate nowhere near where it needs to be in order to be operated unsupervised.

Tesla hopes that it can keep improving its software to reach a level of safety better than human on the current hardware.

Levinson disagrees. he believes that Tesla’s hardware is no enough:

Our perspective is you really do need significantly more hardware than Tesla is putting in their vehicles to build a robotaxi that is not just as safe, but as especially safer than a human.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk didn’t like that comment and responded with this:

If he hadn’t gotten bailed out by Amazon, his company would be dead already.

The CEO didn’t actually address Levinson’s specific concerns with Tesla FSD.

Electrek’s Take

It’s strange anti-startup thing to say for Musk, especially considering that Tesla was also bailed out by Daimler back in 2009:

Tesla also bailed out SolarCity, which was under Musk’s control. It’s a disappointing attack vector for Elon to use.

He should focus on Tesla’s own FSD effort because if it was on this chart:

It would be sitting between Ghost Autonomy and Motional at about 30 miles between disengagement. 150 miles if you only account for “critical disengagement”, which would put them ahead of Apple, but behind Nissan.

There’s still work to do.

It’s official. BYD’s new luxury electric sedan, the Denza Z9, will hit the market next month. Ahead of its November 15 debut, BYD released the first look at the interior of its new luxury EV. Check out the images below.

BYD teases new luxury EV interior ahead of its debut

The company’s head of brand sales, Zhao Changjiang, confirmed Denza would launch the Z9 at the 2024 Guangzhou Auto Show on November 15.

The new luxury EV will follow the Denza Z9 GT, which opened pre-sales in August, starting at $47,700 (339,800 yuan). On the same day, Denza opened pre-sales for the regular Z9 model at the same price.

Denza officially launched the GT model last month. Prices start slightly lower at around $47,000 (334,800 yuan). It’s available in plug-in hybrid (PHEV) and all-electric (EV) options.

At 5,180 mm long, 1,990 mm wide, and 1,500 mm tall, Denza’s new Z9 GT is a direct rival to the Porsche Panamera GTS (5,053 mm long, 1,937 mm wide, 1,417 mm tall). The regular Z9 is expected to be slightly smaller.

Ahead of its debut next month, BYD’s Denza released official images of the interior of its new luxury EV on social media.

The Z9’s interior closely resembles the GT’s with a three-screen layout, similar to other Denza models like the N7. It also features entertainment screens, fold-out tables, and leg rests for rear passengers.

BYD’s new luxury EV will be offered in all-electric and PHEV variants. Like the GT model, the regular EV sedan is expected to feature three electric motors packing nearly 1,000 hp (710 kW) combined.

Electrek’s Take

Most people know BYD because of its ultra-affordable EVs, like the Seagull, which starts at under $10,000 (69,800 yuan) in China.

However, the EV giant is quickly expanding into new segments. BYD launched its first pickup truck, the Shark PHEV, this summer. The company is also expanding its lineup of smart electric SUVs, electric supercars, and luxury models.

After topping 1 million new energy vehicle (EVs and PHEVs) sales in the third quarter, BYD posted record net income ($1.6 billion) and revenue ($28.2 billion). It was BYD’s first time surpassing Tesla’s revenue in a quarter ($25.47 billion). However, BYD’s figures do include PHEVs.

BYD is rapidly expanding into new overseas markets to continue its growth. The company opened or plans to open new plants in Thailand, Turkey, Brazil, Mexico, and Hungary to expand its global footprint.

Meanwhile, legacy automakers like Toyota and Volkswagen are struggling at home and abroad due to a new wave of low-cost competition entering the market.

Source: CnEVPost, Denza