Home - AFV Events - Auto Shows - 2019 L.A. Auto Show
The Los Angeles Auto Show has long been a major venue for rollouts of new alternative-fueled vehicles, and lately it has just been getting better every year. This year I was able to schedule a business trip to Los Angeles so that I could go a day early and catch the show on its first Sunday, November 24. I was also going to go to the Petersen Automotive Museum to see the new exhibits that have replaced their long-standing Propulsion After Petroleum display, but I spent so long at the auto show that I ran out of time and will have to put that off until my next trip! There was lots to see, and to talk with automaker reps about; below are some of the many interesting vehicles that I encountered.
There were a couple of especially eagerly awaited rollouts of battery-electric vehicles in the days leading up to the show. One was the Tesla Cybertruck, a.k.a. CYBRTRK; Tesla had its current models (S, X, and 3) available for test drives outside, but to my regret they didn't bring their newest prototype even for static display indoors. However, my disappointment was short-lived, as I found that the equally new and anticipated Mustang Mach-E electric SUV was very prominently displayed in the Ford area! This is so newly announced that the printed brochure of debuts that I picked up at the show didn't have the name, just "Ford All-Electric Mustang-Inspired SUV." There was a sign nearby saying that the First Edition, to be delivered in late 2020 as a 2021 model, was nearly all spoken for (with a refundable $500 deposit), and in the couple of days since I was at the show that list has filled up. I understand that Ford plans to make 50,000 (of all versions) of the Mach-E in the first year of production; that is for worldwide deployment, but if you look at the cumulative sales figures for the USA that I track here, it looks like the Mustang Mach-E is planned to jump immediately into the top tier of truly mass-market plug-in vehicles that the Tesla Model 3 now has to itself.
Also on those sales charts, you can see that Ford was a very early leader in the modern era of electric-powered transportation, with two plug-in hybrid (PHEV) models offered under the "Energi" label. They were also an early entrant in the non-plug-in hybrid market, introducing a hybrid version of their Escape SUV a decade and a half ago. They stopped making the hybrid several years back, but with the redesign of the vehicle for the 2020 model year they will offer a hybrid again, and for the first time they will introduce a PHEV version, which was prominently displayed at the show though a production date has not been announced yet. I didn't see any "Energi" badges, so they seem to have retired that name.
Toyota also has had a special name for their PHEV vehicles, "Prime," which has heretofore only been applied to the Prius Prime. The next entrant in the series will be this RAV4 Prime, which is making its worldwide debut at this show and which will be available next summer as a 2021 model. Electric propulsion in a vehicle, whether with or without a plug, can be used to increase efficiency or to increase power, or some combination of both; the RAV4 Prime has 39 miles of all-electric range, which is enough that most driving can be accomplished without starting the gasoline engine, but when the two are operating together the vehicle definitely has "muscle hybrid" traits. The combined 302 HP is more power than was available from the V6 version that was made through 2012, and its 0-60 MPH time of 5.8 seconds will be faster than that of any other current Toyota model except the Supra!
Toyota Product Specialist Maggie Clark has been keeping me up to speed on the Mirai fuel-cell vehicle (FCV) at the Honolulu and Los Angeles Auto Shows for over three years, so I was particularly hoping to quiz her at this one after I saw the vehicle pictured here! (She also briefed me on the RAV4 Prime.) This is the new second-generation Mirai, making its North American debut at this show; it will become available next summer as a 2021 model. It is different from the current model in many ways, apart from its more luxurious, "coupe-inspired" styling, optional 20" wheels, and the Mirai-only Hydro Blue color. In particular, it seats five rather than four, and has rear-wheel rather than front-wheel drive. Range per fill-up is boosted by 30%, to about 400 miles, though it was not yet clear how much of this is due to increased efficiency vs. simply larger tank capacity. Also not clear is whether the vehicle has Toyota Connected technology. At the Honolulu Auto Show earlier this year (I'm sorry I never had time to write it up), the Hui car-sharing folks told me that they relied on it to provide their service, which is why they haven't made the first-generation Mirai available in their fleet. This new model should have it, though, right? I hope I can borrow one from them in a year or so!
Continuing with the premieres, this was also the global debut of the Audi e-tron Sportback, which shares a powertrain with the e-tron SUV introduced last year. When I saw that vehicle at last year's L.A. Auto Show, I noted that instead of the typical phrase "[manufacturer] has gone electric," they phrased their slogan as "Electric has gone Audi"; you can see that they have a new variant this time.
The Porsche Taycan all-electric supercar was revealed in September. As is their wont, Porsche will start selling the highest-performance variant, the Taycan Turbo S, first, with the ... hrm, "lower performance" or "base" don't sound right, maybe "less high-performance"? ... Taycan 4S becoming available in Spring 2020. The Turbo S is the white car in the foreground, and this show was the world premiere of the 4S versions in light and dark blue. The name "Taycan" (rhymes with "icon") is an equestrian term, of Turkic origin; Porsche translates it as "the soul of a spirited young horse." A lot of people interested in electric vehicles rolled their eyes at the "Turbo" part of the name, though; a turbo, short for turbocharger or turbo-supercharger, uses exhaust gas flow to drive a compressor that forces more air and fuel into an internal-combustion engine, none of which has anything to do with an electric powertrain (especially the "exhaust" part)! Presumably their branding folks just liked the association of the word with power and speed, and were willing to overlook the technical contradiction. Oh well, I'd still want one if I had the money and garage space.
Also at the high end of the market were the Karma Revero GT (red) and GTS (blue) PHEV cars, and the all-electric SC1 and SC2 concept vehicles. The white car with gull-wing door open is the SC1, making its auto show debut; the Revero GTS and SC2 (not in the photo) were world premieres. The Revero GT and GTS are "range-extended electric vehicles," to borrow a term from the late Chevy Volt, meaning that all power goes to the wheels from the electric motor (or in this case motors), and the gasoline engine on board is simply a generator to top of the battery as it is depleted with extended driving. The SC2 is "production intent," unlike the SC1, but only in very limited numbers, around twenty.
Turning back to the trucks that are increasingly making news in electric propulsion, after their big splash at last year's L.A. Auto Show the Rivian pickup and SUV were not present this year, but Bollinger had theirs on display as they near production. Both the B1 SUV and the B2 pickup in the foreground have a "gear tunnel" that goes the entire length of the body, from "frunk" to trunk so to speak. Think of carrying some very long 2x4s rather than the customary truck benchmark of a 4'x8' sheet of plywood. They plan to start production in the fourth quarter of 2020, but the waiting list is already long enough that they estimate you'll have to wait two years to take delivery if you put down a deposit and get on it now!
Lincoln brought PHEV versions of their Corsair (left) and Aviator (right) SUVs. The Aviator is out now, with the Corsair available next summer as a 2021 model. The Corsair in particular has two electric motors, providing electric all-wheel drive for the first time in a Lincoln.
BMW will introduce a new version of their X5 PHEV in early 2020, and also this PHEV X3. The new X3 xDrive30e, to give its full name, was a North American premiere at this show.
Like the Mustang Mach-E at the top of this page, the world premiere of the Volkswagen ID. Space Vizzion was newly enough announced that only the generic name "Volkswagen ID. Electric Concept" had made it into the printed brochure I picked up. "ID." is their new series of electric vehicles, built on the "MEB" platform (from the German for "Modular E-Drive Matrix"); this is the topic of the new "Building an Electric Future" exhibit at the Petersen that I mentioned I had planned to visit after this show. (Their older e-Golf is the blue car in the background.) The ID. Vizzion sedan, as well as this Space Vizzion wagon, are planned to be produced in 2022; the much-loved Buzz update of the classic Microbus will follow in 2023, and the former Crozz SUV (notizze a pattern here?) will lead both in 2021 as the ID.4, following the ID.3 that is currently available only in Europe.
Continuing with the Volkswagen contribution, the company created the Electrify America program to build out fast charging stations across the country, as part of their settlement of the diesel emissions-testing fraud scandal. This is far from a token effort as evidenced by their deployments, and they co-sponsored an EV|LA Lounge with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power on the show's weekends, to inform prospective electric-vehicle buyers about model choices, driving and charging the vehicles, etc. It was pretty busy when I went by on the first Sunday of the show.
Inside the lounge was a vehicle that I'd dearly love to own, the Harley-Davidson LiveWire electric motorcycle, making its auto show debut here. Unfortunately, for financial and practical reasons I'm a "cager" (four-wheel vehicles only) now and for the foreseeable future; but the sound of the LiveWire is so much like that of the GM EV1 electric car from twenty years ago that it brought tears to my eyes when I first heard the prototype a few years back. That straight-cut gear whine should define the electric-motorcycle sound the same way Harley's much-imitated V-twin sound defines that of big gasoline bikes!
And finally, I couldn't resist including this beat-up ol' van on display out in the lobby, from Pixar's upcoming animated movie "Onward." The manufacturer, "Valor," is fictional, but the vehicle was built up as a very realistic reference for the animators. Pet name given by the owner ("Guinevere"), check; components held together with rope and duct tape, check; mismatched wheels and/or hubcaps, check; rust spots everywhere, check; oil drip pan under engine, check. Yeah, I been there, man. I wonder what kind of "alternative fuel" this vehicle runs on, though, given the backstory of the movie's world...?
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All content copyright 1998-2024 by Mark Looper, except as noted. Reuse of my copyrighted material is authorized under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0).
new 8 December 2019