Jeep Renegade EV, Honda battery leasing, 2025 VW ID.4, MPGe and EVs: Today’s Car News

Honda sets itself up for more affordable EVs with battery leasing. VW re-ups its ID.4 EV and expands its ChatGPT assistant. Jeep reveals more about its $25,000 model expected to arrive as soon as next year. And should we recalculate how EVs are figured into U.S. mpg rules? This and more, here at EV kind of cars. 

A $25,000 electric Jeep is arriving in the U.S. very soon, according to a Stellantis investor presentation, in the form of a 2027 Jeep Renegade EV. And according to CEO Carlos Tavares, the model will use LFP battery cells to help achieve that targeted price.

A group of Republican Senators are pushing back versus stricter emissions standards expected to lead to more EV sales—by questioning the way EVs are figured into fleet efficiency calculations. Currently they’re given an inflated value that motivates automakers as each EV effectively enables the sale of many gas-guzzlers. So between that and softer future targets introduced last week by the Biden administration, would automakers even want to give those calculations up?

Volkswagen has confirmed that the 2025 VW ID.4 will carry over with all of its changes given for 2024—including more power, more driving range, and a vastly improved interface—while more of the brand’s other models will gain its ChatGPT-based digital voice assistant. 

Battery leasing has been seen as one solution for making EVs more affordable, but nobody has tried it at scale in the U.S. Honda on Thursday announced a new joint venture with Mitsubishi Corporation that it says will result in more affordable Honda EVs. For now it’s only for Japan, but could a similar scheme lead to an affordable U.S.-bound Honda EV?

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