Electric Vehiciles

2021 Audi E-Tron buyers can get an Arcadia renewable energy subscription with purchase

Eileen Falkenberg-Hull
Mar 6, 2021, 9:36 am

The Audi E-Tron is an all-electric SUV.

Photo courtesy of Audi AG

Customers who purchase or lease an all-electric Audi E-Tron or E-Tron Sportback between March 2 to April 30, 2021 may be eligible for a subscription to Arcadia to power their vehicles with renewable energy. Here's how it works.

Arcadia connects renters and homeowners across the U.S. to wind and solar energy through utility data and billing technology. Users utilize renewable energy certificates to purchase their power from those renewable energy sources. Audi describes the process:

"In select markets within Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode Island, Arcadia's platform connects qualifying customers to community solar projects in their area. These customers are allocated a portion of the energy output from their community solar projects and earn credits on their power bills as the projects generate power and add renewable energy to their local grid."

Based on customer polling by Audi, 85% of E-Tron customers and 90% of E-Tron Sportback customers state that environmental impact is either "important" or "very important" toward purchase considerations.

Qualified customers who get one of those two vehicles can get a complementary subscription for up to five years. Participating Audi E-Tron and E-Tron Sportback customers may also be eligible to receive up to a $750 credit toward their electricity bill through the Arcadia platform with a subscription.

This isn't the first partnership between Audi and Arcadia. The company collaborated in 2018 and 2020 with similar initiatives.

Audi's E-Tron and E-Tron Sportback are assembled in Brussels, Belgium in a plant that is certified as carbon neutral. The automaker has set the goal of reducing vehicle-specific carbon dioxide emissions by 30 percent by 2025 and is set to achieve carbon dioxide neutrality globally across the lifecycle of its vehicles by 2050.

Both E-Tron models are capable of charging from zero to 80 percent battery capacity in about 30 minutes using a public DC 150-kilowatt fast charger. The 2021 E-Tron and E-Tron Sportback have EPA-estimated full-charge ranges of 222 and 218 miles, respectively.

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Self-Driving

Self-driving Domino's pizza delivery vehicles go live in Houston

Domino's and Nuro announced their partnership in 2019 — and now the robots are hitting the roads.

Photo courtesy of Nuro

After announcing their partnership to work on pizza deliveries via self-driving robots in 2019, Dominos and Nuro have officially rolled out their technology to one part of town.

Beginning this week, if you place a prepaid order from Domino's in Woodland Heights (3209 Houston Ave.), you might have the option to have one of Nuro's R2 robot come to your door. This vehicle is the first do deliver completely autonomously without occupants with a regulatory approval by the U.S. Department of Transportation, according to a news release.

"We're excited to continue innovating the delivery experience for Domino's customers by testing autonomous delivery with Nuro in Houston," says Dennis Maloney, Domino's senior vice president and chief innovation officer, in the release. "There is still so much for our brand to learn about the autonomous delivery space. This program will allow us to better understand how customers respond to the deliveries, how they interact with the robot and how it affects store operations."

Orders placed at select dates and times will have the option to be delivered autonomously. Photo courtesy of Nuro

Nuro Domino's delivery vehicle

The Nuro deliveries will be available on select days and times, and users will be able to opt for the autonomous deliveries when they make their prepaid orders online. They will then receive a code via text message to use on the robot to open the hatch to retrieve their order.

"Nuro's mission is to better everyday life through robotics. Now, for the first time, we're launching real world, autonomous deliveries with R2 and Domino's," says Dave Ferguson, Nuro co-founder and president, in the release. "We're excited to introduce our autonomous delivery bots to a select set of Domino's customers in Houston. We can't wait to see what they think."

California-based Nuro has launched a few delivery pilots in Houston over the past few years, including the first Nuro pilot program with Kroger in March 2019, grocery delivery from Walmart that was revealed in December 2019, and pharmacy delivery that launched last summer.

From being located in a state open to rolling out new AV regulations to Houston's diversity — both in its inhabitants to its roadways, the Bayou City stood out to Nuro, says Sola Lawal, product operations manager at Nuro.

"As a company, we tried to find a city that would allow us to test a number of different things to figure out what really works and who it works for," Lawal says on an episode of the Houston Innovators Podcast. "It's hard to find cities that are better than Houston at enabling that level of testing."

You can find out which self-driving vehicles are being tested in your neck of the woods by clicking here.


This article first appeared on AutomotiveMap's sister site InnovationMap.

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Fuel Economy

New EPA testing confirms Volkswagen ID.4's 260-mile all-electric range

The 2021 Volkswagen ID.4 is on sale now.

Photo courtesy of Volkswagen AG
The all-electric range of the 2021 Volkswagen ID.4 has been confirmed. The model is the first modern electric Volkswagen to be sold in the U.S. and a model that the German automaker is resting a lot of hopes on for the future of sales in the country.

The 2021 Volkswagen ID.4 Pro with all-wheel drive will achieve an EPA-estimated 260 miles of all-electric range on a full charge. The ID.4 Pro S and 1st Edition, which have more features and equipment and therefore weigh more, achieve an estimated 250 miles of range.

The EPA-estimated fuel economy for ID.4 Pro RWD is 107 MPGe in the city; 91 MPGe on the highway, and 99 MPGe combined. The ID.4 Pro S and 1st Edition does slightly worse achieving 104 MPGe in the city, 89 MPGe on the highway, and 97 MPGe combined.

2021 Volkswagen ID.4: Exterior The "1st" badging denotes the vehicle as a first edition model. Photo courtesy of Volkswagen AG

These new numbers come as part of a second round of EPA testing. Original testing found that the model did not quite hit its target.

How does that compare to other EVs? The Nissan Leaf Plus offers 226 miles of all-electric power. The Hyundai Kona Electric delivers 258 miles. Volvo's XC40 Recharge has just 208 miles of all-electric range but the Tesla Model Y can go up to 326 miles on one full charge.

First out of the Volkswagen gate will be ID.4 models with an 82-kilowatt-hour battery and rear-mounted AC permanent-magnet synchronous motor. That system delivers 201 horsepower and 228 pound-feet of torque.

At a public DC fast-charging station with 125 kW charging, the ID.4 can go from five to 80 percent charged in about 38 minutes. With purchase, ID.4 owners receive three years of unlimited charging at Electrify America DC Fast Chargers at no additional cost.

The 2021 ID.4 is on sale now, with pricing for the rear-wheel-drive ID.4 Pro starting at $39,995 MSRP, before a potential Federal tax credit of up to $7,500. The Pro S carries an MSRP of $44,495. The limited-run ID.4 1st Edition, which sold out the day the vehicle was launched, carried an MSRP of $43,995.

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