At the Paris auto show this week, Renault unveiled its latest all-electric offering, the Renault 4 E-Tech, a nod to the brand’s 1960’s Renault 4L hatchback – one of its greatest bestsellers.
The new city-sized SUV, which should reach dealerships next year, shares more than two-thirds of its parts with the low-slung R5, including the AmpR small platform to cut costs.
Prices are expected to be under €30,000, compared to the Renault 5, which starts from around €25,000. The entry-level Renault 4 E-Tech is powered by a 90kW/225Nm electric motor and 40kWh battery for a 300km range. Top-of-the-line versions upgrade to a 110kW/245Nm front electric motor and 52kWh battery for 400km of WLTP range, 150km/h top speed, and zero to 100km/h acceleration in 8.5 seconds.
A slew of affordably priced BEVs are in the spotlight at the Paris auto show this week, with automakers pointing to low prices as the key to EV demand “recovery.”
“We may be getting close to a tipping point” for EV demand, Thierry Koskas, Stellantis’s Citroen brand exec, told reporters this week, according to Automotive News Europe. Meanwhile, European automakers are facing stiff competition from Chinese automakers rapidly expanding their reach amid tough subsidy cuts.
Other models on display at the show include Citreon’s delayed e-C3, priced at €23,300 ($25,472) – a huge success in Europe and a car accounts for nearly 30% of the company’s European sales. A €19,999 version will be launched in the first half of next year, Koskas said.
Renault CEO Luca de Meo told reporters that at an “open door” event in France this weekend, the company’s EV sales were at 35 percent to 40 percent of the total product mix, without offering up more details.
Photos: Renault
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Stand With Crypto’s bus tour through five battleground states kicked off last week in Phoenix and Las Vegas.
Logan Dobson/Stand With Crypto Alliance
LAS VEGAS — In Nevada’s 4th Congressional District, a crypto PAC spent nearly $2 million on ads this cycle to support the reelection of Steven Horsford, a Democratic congressman who’s voted in favor of some major pro-crypto bills.
But watching the ads, you’d learn nothing about that agenda.
“He’s leading on jobs, bringing good paying union jobs to Nevada and rebuilding our infrastructure,” one 30-second commercial says. “He capped insulin prices at $35 a month” and “worked multiple jobs to support his hard-working single mother and siblings.”
The ad wraps up with the disclosure, “Fairshake is responsible for the content of this ad.”
Fairshake was the largest crypto-aligned super PAC in the 2024 election cycle, spending piles of cash to support crypto allies and vote out antagonists across the country. The group brought in $170 million, accounting for a huge chunk of the amount raised by crypto-related PACs and other groups, which totaled more than $245 million, according to Federal Election Commission data.
Crypto has accounted for nearly half of all corporate money flowing into the election, according to a report from nonprofit watchdog Public Citizen. No other sector is close. That includes oil companies and banks, which have historically been big political contributors. Crypto even outpaced Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, who spent tens of millions of dollars to try to get Republican nominee former President Donald Trump back in the White House in his contest against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
A big part of the crypto industry’s strategy when it came to distributing cash was to identify key races and then flood the zone.
Horsford received an A grade based on his public comments and his voting history while in office. His campaign received money from Fairshake as well as individual donations from Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen, venture capitalist and longtime crypto investor Reid Hoffman, and billionaire twins Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss.
Nevada is home to two of the thirteen “critical elections” singled out by Stand with Crypto, a designation the group defines as races that are “critical to the future of crypto in America.” In addition to Horsford’s election, the other Nevada race is the Senate contest between Democratic incumbent Jackie Rosen and Republican challenger Sam Brown. Both candidates received an A grade.
According to data shared by Stand with Crypto, 385,000 Nevadans are crypto owners, and more than 16,000 people in the state have signed up to be advocates for the group, which made a stop in Las Vegas in September as part of a multi-state tour.
The other races deemed critical were for Senate in Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Massachusetts, Michigan, Wisconsin and Maryland, and for specific House contests in Colorado, Iowa and Oregon.
To reach potential voters, Fairshake isn’t talking a lot about crypto. Nor are its affiliate PACs, which have names like Defend American Jobs and Protect Progress. They’ve collectively spent more than $135 million this cycle, mostly on ads.
“Not mentioning crypto assets explicitly is probably a savvy move to avoid alienating voters who prefer traditional currencies and might be put off by connections to crypto,” said David Nickerson, an associate professor of political science at Temple University who worked in the analytics department for President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign in 2012.
The biggest single target of crypto money this cycle was Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Democratic chair of the Senate Banking Committee. Brown backed Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., in holding hearings on whether digital tokens were tied to terrorism.
In December, Brown told journalists that he wasn’t concerned about the crypto industry’s rumblings against him.
“Bring ’em on,” Politico quoted Brown as saying to a crowd of reporters.
Some $40 million of crypto money has been directed at defeating Brown, and one PAC has paid for five ads designed to boost awareness of Republican rival Bernie Moreno, a blockchain entrepreneur. The race is crucial in determining which party will control the Senate.
Protect Progress, a PAC affiliated with Fairshake, has given more than $10 million apiece to Senate candidates in Arizona and Michigan. In Arizona, the group favors Democrat Ruben Gallego, who is vying for the seat being vacated by Kyrsten Sinema. In Michigan, the preferred choice is Elissa Slotkin, who is currently a Democratic House member.
Democratic Rep. Katie Porter of California lost in the primary for Senate after Fairshake spent over $10 million in ads against her. Defend American Jobs spent more than $3 million to support Republican Jim Justice in West Virginia, who has been declared the winner, replacing exiting Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.
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Tesla appears to be doubling down on its new “Oasis” Supercharger station concept, which consists of larger stations powered by solar and a microgrid battery system.
Although, this new one is a bit less ambitious.
Last month, Tesla announced its “project Oasis” (pictured above), which should become one of Tesla’s largest Supercharger stations with several pull-through stalls for trucks and trailers, but the real differentiating factor is a large solar array and battery system that enables the charging station to operate off-grid mostly.
CEO Elon Musk has been saying that the goal of the Supercharger network is to be powered by solar and batteries and mostly off-grid since 2016, but Tesla has yet to make this common.
The announcement of the Project Oasis gave us some hope that it might finally happen, and now it looks like Tesla is planning a mini Oasis.
Marco RP, who tracks Supercharger projects, reported on the new construction plans submitted for the Coalinga, California station:
The project is about 50 miles north of Project Oasis – also on Interstate 5 between Los Angeles and the Bay Area.
We call it a “mini Oasis” not because it has fewer charging stations than Oasis; it actually has the same number of planned stalls, 168 stalls, but because it doesn’t have as much solar and batteries to enable off-grid use.
Oasis has 11 MW of planned solar power and 39 MWh of energy storage.
This new project in Coalinga has less than 1 MW of solar and 15.5 MWh of energy storage. In the case of Oasis, the grid complements Tesla’s microgrid, and in this new project, it’s Tesla’s microgrid that complements the grid connection.
But Tesla could eventually expand its solar array and battery storage system at the new station.
This new station also includes restrooms, which Tesla has sometimes deployed at bigger stations.
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