⚡ NIO’s opportunity to integrate phones and cars 🚗📲

Happy Monday. This is Electric Avenue. The only e-Mobility newsletter that hits harder than a 5:00 AM beer at the airport bar. 🍺🛫

Here’s what we have for you today:

• 1 Pic 🖼️

• NIO Phone - Does it provide top-notch integration with the car?

• 3 Links 🔗

• Meme of the week 🤡

Ready for take-off? Let's get into it!

1 Pic

This is the FIAT Topolino. And it’s starting at 9,890 EUR in Italy. Who says only the Chinese can do small, affordable electric cars?

While Americans are excitedly talking about multi-ton electric trucks and SUVs like the Chevy Silverado EV, the Dodge Ram EV and Cadillac’s Escalade IQ EV, the Italians need small cars like the Topolino to navigate tight alleys and bumpy cobble stone streets 🇮🇹

For the price, the Topolino specs are expectedly modest: 6kW motor, up to 45km/h, 5.4kWh battery and up to 75km range.

But nevertheless, Stellantis expects electric cars of this class to be so popular that it’s releasing sibling versions of the Topoline via its other European brands:

The Opel Rocks-e for Germany

and the Citroën Ami for France

To be fair, these vehicle types are gaining popularity in the US too - albeit in the form of electric golf carts around US retirement communities in warmer climates.

1 Nio’s Phone - Does it provide top-notch integration with the car?

Apple, Sony, Xiaomi, Huawei, and other phone makers have announced or are rumored to develop electric cars. However, none of them have released an EV into production so far. It is all the more astonishing that Nio, as the first car manufacturer ever, succeeded in presenting their first flagship Nio phone last week which can be ordered in China as of now and is ready for delivery in September. The Android-based smartphone comes with state-of-the-art hardware, the Nio app pre-installed, and is available at a price between RMB 6,499 ($889) to RMB 7,499 ($1,026).

Of course, we are more curious about the integration with the electric vehicle. Let’s check out what features we were able to uncover from Nio’s opportunity to integrate the Nio phone and car. (Source - official video recording is not available yet)

• Design: Nio’s Design is brought to the smartphone and the phone’s color palette follows the existing colors of the vehicle. And of course, the Nio phone fits perfectly into the center console (on the ES8 model), where it serves as an additional screen to control settings when placed in landscape mode while the phone is charging.

• Unlock the car with an empty phone battery 🪫 or no network 🛜: Nio uses Near-Field-Control (NFC) to unlock the car. Via NFC technology the phone can be used to unlock a NIO car up to 48 hours after the phone has run out of battery or when there is no network available (e.g. in an underground car park).

• Dedicated button for remote car control on the phone 📲: The Nio phone has a dedicated action-button to remotely control the car. There are 30 configurable car features available for the button (e.g. opening the car’s trunk).

• Personal In-Car Control ⚙️: The car will automatically detect where you sit inside the vehicle and let you control your personal seat and climate settings via the phone (e.g. seat positioning, air-conditioning).

• Nomi as voice assistant on the phone 🗣️: Nio’s Nomi will allow you to remotely control the car, search for a power swap station, or do trip planning via the phone and send it to the car.

• Navigation Route Relay 📱→ 🚗: Configure a route on the phone and the route is automatically transferred to the car when entering the car.

• Copy and Navigate 🤳: Copy the address on the phone and the address will automatically be copied as destination input into the vehicle’s navigation to start routing in the car.

• Nio Link Apps 🔗: Nio wants to gradually enable more apps to run seamlessly on the car utilizing the car’s sensors. Within the presentation, two apps were highlighted. Firstly, Nio drivers have access to the car’s cameras and can view those from the phone remotely. Secondly, it is possible to automatically switch from the phone to the car while being in a meeting utilizing the car’s microphone and camera for video-conferencing.

• Sky Window to mirror the phone into the car’s screen 🔛: Duplicating the phone’s screen to the car’s center screen allows you to access any phone apps via the vehicle’s larger center screen.

  

3 Links 🔗

• Amazon ❤️ Open Source: Amazon has published a new, open-source tool called Charging Location for Electric Trucks (CHALET). Tt allows fleet operators to input specific locations and routes for their fulfilment network, and specific factors such as vehicle battery, range, and transit time, before generating a list of optimum charger locations, ranked by priority. Amazon developed CHALET over 18 months and is now open-sourcing the code so all industry stakeholders can benefit from the tool.

• Rent a Tesla 🚗, feel like an owner 💪: Hertz’s huge order of 100,000+ Tesla Model 3s has been a game-changer for the rental giant: Hertz calculated that its EVs are between 50-60% cheaper to maintain than gasoline-powered cars. In addition, the cars don't need to be maintained or repaired as often, which means more time in service. For renters the experience has been great already with Tesla Supercharging costs automatically being added to the bill - now separate payments were needed! But now it’s getting even better: All Hertz rentals in the US now allow renters full Tesla app access - this means you can use keyless lock/unlock via phone key, remotely precondition the cabin, track charge status & more. AND: If you enabled cloud profiles in your own Tesla, your settings will automatically transfer to the rental.

• $100M for broken chargers 💸: The US government is making $100M in funding available to repair and/or replace broken EV charging stations. The government asks charging networks to report station availability status via API to the AFDC database. Projects must support repair or replacement of existing broken or non-operational publicly accessible Level 2 or Direct Current Fast Charging (DCFC) EV chargers, as listed by the AFDC, as of October 11, 2023. Only the the State or local government in which the broken or nonoperational charger is located may apply.

Most-clicked link last week: Video of the interview with Alpitronic CEO (Link)

Meme of the Week 🤡

🤣🤣🤣

That's a wrap for this week! Let us know how you feel and leave some feedback (We read every single one of these 🙂 ):

Reader Review of the Week

Selected ⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️⚡️ Freakin´ awesome on ⚡ How is the Plug & Charge Rollout going so far? and wrote:

“LOVE IT GUYS <3"

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DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. The Electric Avenue team may hold investments in or may otherwise be affiliated with the companies discussed.