EVwire newsletter #164: an EV driving upside down?

Let's open with the most outrageous EV of the week here. I’ve written about it to you here before, back when it was in various development phases.

This is the one piece of EV innovation I’m really happy that has actually pulled through.

McMurtry revealed the production version the Spéirling PURE, a single-seat electric track car, rebuilt with 95% new parts versus the prototype. (EVwire article link)

It hits 60 mph in 1.55 seconds.

Read that again.

… also tops out at 190 mph, and pulls 3g in the corners and 3g under braking.

The party trick here is Downforce-on-Demand: a pair of fans that suck the car onto the track for up to 2,000 kg of downforce, available from a dead stop. A 100 kWh battery feeds 1,000 bhp to the rear wheels through twin motors.

The crazy part about this downforce is also how ridiculously fast it stops. I saw someone in a closed group post a 1.16s time from 60mph-0.

It is also the only EV we would probably cover here seriously that has 40 to 50 km (25 to 31 miles) of range. That’s on full send through the track though.

And it’s not one of those renders-only hype type of cars either; I’ve seen it rip on the track through the years. It's on display at Goodwood July 9-12 in case you’re around this weekend, makes its full production debut at The Quail in Monterey on August 14, and deliveries begin later this year. Only 100 will be built.

The key specs:

Some context: McMurtry was founded in 2016 by late Sir David McMurtry, the metrology pioneer behind Renishaw, and Thomas Yates, an engineer he poached from Mercedes' F1 powertrain division.

The fan-car downforce, which the Spéirling revived and perfected, is the 1970s Can-Am and F1 trick that got banned from racing back then. Now, they’ve built a whole track car around it.

The prototype already holds the hardware: it broke Goodwood's outright hillclimb record in 2022, took the Top Gear Test Track record in 2025, and became the first car ever to drive upside down, sticking to a ceiling on downforce alone.
Watch the ridiculous display of this here: (video).

And for more, take a look at the Stig's Top Gear lap here.

Insider Reports incoming ⚡

Next week I'm dropping our next EVwire Insider report, focusing on one of those big technology shifts that is just around the corner.

You see, we tend to see ahead of the curve quite a bit here. Remember me talking, perhaps a bit too much, about Chinese EVs incoming, a long time before they actually got outside of China?

The next Insider Report will be my full breakdown of BYD's 1,500 kW Flash Charging (and its counterparts), the one they charge the passenger cars with.

We’ll look at what it actually does to Europe's charging business (and eventually in the US), the major category jump incoming for EV charging power worldwide, the economics nobody is modeling, who wins, and who's exposed.

This report, as the next ones incoming, is available to EVwire Insiders. So you can get the alpha and support EVwire at the same time by becoming a member:

Quick reminder: EVwire now puts out around 7 new EV articles every day on our website (yes, our EVwire.com site), so if you want more from us daily, make it a habit to drop by. Nearly all the links in this newsletter lead to our own deeper articles, so you can share the concise, context-rich version with friends.

We’ve yet to get the definitive number for EV sales globally for the whole first half of the year (ACEA’s European numbers due in two weeks, Kbb’s US numbers late this week or early next, we’ll report), but everything so far points to a very strong first half of the year for most of the globe in EV numbers.

We recently covered that Tesla delivered 480,126 vehicles in Q2 2026, blowing past the ~406K analyst consensus by roughly 74,000 units, up about 25% year over year.

We’ve seen Tesla (back) at the top of the game in a lot of markets, like

I suspect I’ll put together a wider picture into EV sales (beyond Tesla) next week as more automaker and country info rolls in.

By the way, Tesla is about to officially enter 🇺🇾 Uruguay, its latest South American market after Chile and Colombia. (link)

We mapped out Rivian’s largest shareholders as VW Group took the top spot from Amazon. (link) Here’s how it looks like:

With the next tranches of the Rivian <> VW deal, it’s ownership will be over 20%. Given the rest of the reasons I laid out to you a few newsletters ago… I’m expecting a VW Group acquisition has come across the table. Rivian might be hard to get, though.

And Rivian is giving VW reason to keep leaning in. On the back of a Q2 beat, Rivian raised its 2026 delivery forecast to 65,000 to 70,000 vehicles, with the R2 effect starting to show up in the guidance. (link)

On the fleet side, Rivian quietly grew its Caltrans deal to 977 vehicles, its biggest known fleet customer outside Amazon. (link)

As for the other connected (officially not that connected… yet?) side, Scout Motors, keeps inching forward: VW's Scout Motors just welded its first Traveler body in South Carolina, still aiming for 2028 deliveries. (link)

You can now buy a used Tesla on Amazon, as EV Auto launches on Amazon Autos. (link)

EV Auto has become one of the first non-franchise dealerships to sell cars on Amazon Autos, which means customers can now buy a used Tesla, or a Rivian, Ford, or Chevy for that matter, straight from the EV retailer on Amazon.

CEO and co-founder Alex Lawrence framed the move as a natural fit in comments to EVwire:

"Amazon built the most trusted shopping experience on the planet. EV Auto has built the most trusted EV buying experience in America. So it just makes sense that we'd be their first used electric car dealership on the platform."
—Alex Lawrence, CEO and co-founder of EV Auto, to EVwire

We’ve recently covered their other big news too: EV Auto is rolling out branded Tesla Superchargers across 20 locations that are already in development and with 1,000+ stalls planned nationwide over 125-150 locations. (link) Read that again. It’ll be the largest non-Tesla Supercharger deployment in the world.

🇪🇺 The EU reportedly plans to extend its anti-subsidy tariffs to Chinese plug-in hybrids, closing the PHEV loophole BYD and MG had been using to sidestep the EV duties. (link)

We’ve been calling for this level playing field from the start, glad that loophole incentivizing the China→EU PHEV import over BEV is now closing.

The busiest corner of the map right now is what I’d call China's budget-but-tech competition, where flagship hardware (and software) keeps landing in cars that cost so little it makes our mouth water this side of the world. Digitalization of the auto industry at its best.

There’s an interesting distinction here.

While we in the EU and US see a cheaper EV model only become cheap by stripping away almost everything imaginable (Slate is an extreme example; some Euro EVs are doing the same), the Chinese market managed to arrive at the opposite corner of that — as cheap as possible, while with as many convenience and innovative tech as possible.

They are essentially commoditizing high-end EV tech for cheap, something they couldn’t really do in ICE cars, which is exactly the way the world should be moving today.

Xpeng's Mona L03 crossover SUV debuted with 1,500-TOPS smart-driving hardware and 525 km or 625 km (326mi - 388mi) CLTC range for about $21,200. (link) And Xpeng isn't stopping there: it is reportedly readying two more Mona models, including its first station wagon, with pricing said to start as low as ~$14,700. (link)

Not to be outdone, the MG 07 fastback starts at $22,100, and almost as an afterthought it packs a liquid-solid-state battery, 610 km (379 mi) of range, and an 800V fast-charging flagship trim (plus a trunk freezer and a vanity mirror). (link)

The China-to-Europe pipeline is widening, too: Leapmotor, the Stellantis-backed brand, opened European order books for its B03X crossover from €24,900. (link)

Škoda unveiled the Peaq, a three-row, seven-seat electric flagship that doubles the brand's EV lineup. (link) Peak Škoda EV, I would say.

Tesla launched the Model Y L in the US: a $61,990 Launch Series, six seats, deliveries starting September to October. (link)

And Europe looks next: the Model Y L was just spotted testing at the Nürburgring, nearly a year after its first European sighting, hinting at an European launch. (link)

Ferrari's first EV, the Jony Ive-designed Luce, that really made a buzz but not ina good way, launched in China at ~$586,600, and all 88 units sold out instantly. Local market gave it a ~7% discount to European pricing. (link)

Fiat opened US orders for the Topolino, its $13,995 electric quadricycle. (link)

Polestar had a split week. It confirmed the Polestar 4 SUV, arriving September 2 with up to 391 miles of WLTP range. (link) But then, the…

US denied Polestar authorization to sell new cars from 2027 under the Connected Vehicle Rule, over Geely ties, catching even the South Carolina-built Polestar 3. Sister brand Volvo, same parent, was cleared in May. Polestar is reportedly offering large discounts to clear inventory, and is now leaning into Europe, where 80% of its sales already live anyway. (link)

Back in the US, Slate Auto opened preorders: $24,950 for its electric pickup and $29,950 for the SUV build. No paint, no touchscreen, no dealership, that's the whole pitch. (link)

Lots of people I’ve seen make an order have added quite a few $$$$ in the customizations, though. Perhaps it isn’t even important to be cheapest here, but rather a cheap base for a DIY feel of a project.

Aptera received its EPA Certificate of Conformity for the 2026 Launch Edition, a step closer to customer deliveries. (link)

Not everyone is riding the wave.

Lucid missed Q2 delivery estimates with 3,953 vehicles and named a new CFO as CEO Silvio Napoli rebuilds the C-suite from scratch.

Then, the more worrying signal: Lucid has reportedly hired restructuring firm AlixPartners, known for turnaround and bankruptcy work (GM, Kmart, Enron), alongside an 18% workforce cut. (link)

Tesla's Supercharger network had its own record quarter: 2.0 TWh delivered in Q2, 2,700 stalls added, and 60 million sessions, busier per stall yet with fewer drivers waiting. (link) My favorite graph every time, Utilization vs Waiters:

I found this an interesting move from IONITY:

IONITY has started paying drivers to charge better.

Its new in-app Fast Lane Reward drops 5 kWh of free credit if you unplug at 80% during daytime hours (9-to-5), and an Off-Peak Reward gives the same for charging between 10pm and 6am, both needing at least 40 kWh in the session.

The benefits for the CPO are obvious: thanks to the charging slowing down after ~80% and thus earning them less revenue per time unit since the chargers cost per-kWh, getting drivers to unplug early frees up stalls, especially during the summer-travel crush. It's live now across IONITY's >6,000 points in 24 European countries. (link)

And the thread we'll go deep on for Insiders soon: BYD is stitching together a Flash Charging corridor from Europe toward China, 11 countries and roughly 15,000 km, enough to run a Denza Z9 GT from Rome to Hong Kong on those 5-to-9-minute stops. (link)

Something with a bit of history if you’ve been reading our newsletter for a while: 196 Foxconn-built Monarch electric tractors are going up for auction in Ohio, at the former GM Lordstown plant, after the startup collapsed. (link)

Anyone here remember our coverage of the downfall of the Lordstown Endurance?

After, Foxconn took over and had quite a few niche EV guests involved. If you even remember IndiEV, we can be friends.

With Monarch tractors, things got really quiet for a while. And Monarch, sadly, didn't make it either. Assets were acquired by Caterpillar in April, and the last we'll likely hear of it is in front of you:

Thanks, Reilly Brennan from Trucks VC, for surfacing this one.