Jacob Hunka May 19, 2026 · 5 min read
Five stories this week and four of them come down to the same thing: a piece of hardware doing something the previous version could not. A motor with no resistance loss. A battery cell at $19 per kilowatt-hour. A suspension that reacts before the wheel lands. An AI assistant that actually changes your drive mode when you ask. The fifth is Volkswagen trying to put fifty years of GTI credibility on an electric car, and whether that works depends entirely on how the chassis feels in the final production version. Hardware week.
THE WEEK'S BEST STORIES
Hinetics, backed by ARPA-E, has built a working superconducting motor prototype that achieves 40 kW per kilogram at 99.5% efficiency. High-performance permanent magnet motors in aviation typically land between 5 and 10 kW per kilogram, so this is not an incremental step. The engineering problem that stopped superconducting motors from being practical has always been cooling: previous designs required cryogenic liquids pumped continuously into a spinning rotor, which is mechanically close to impossible at scale. Hinetics solved it by embedding a Stirling cycle thermodynamic engine directly inside the rotor, spinning with it, drawing around 250 watts, and using high-temperature superconductors made from yttrium barium copper oxide tape that operate at around negative 220 degrees Celsius. Thermal isolation between the cold rotor and the warm stator uses a vacuum gap and Kevlar spokes, which transfer torque without transferring heat. The prototype, internally called Baby Yoda, has run hundreds of hours of testing and reached over 500 RPM. The first commercial target is generators for large data center turbines, where constant load makes the cool-down time practical and every hour of operation builds the reliability record aviation will eventually require.
CATL's Sodium Battery Is 65% Cheaper Than LFP at Cell Level. The Pack Math Is More Complicated. Ben Alexander
CATL has released the full specification for its next-generation sodium-ion cell with a headline price of $19 per kilowatt-hour at the cell level, against LFP's current $55 to $65 per kilowatt-hour at comparable production scale. The lifespan figure is the more consequential number: CATL claims the cell degrades to 85% of original capacity only after 3.6 million miles, several times longer than the best LFP packs currently available. Energy density has reached 175 watt-hours per kilogram, which the company says surpasses BYD's current blade battery, and the chemistry operates from negative 40 to positive 70 degrees Celsius with full charging performance. The honest complication is the gap between cell and pack cost: once you add thermal management, electronics, casing, and structural components, the $19 cell becomes a $40 to $45 per kilowatt-hour pack. Still dramatically cheaper than most batteries on the market, but not the overnight disruption some headlines suggested. CATL has also announced a hybrid design mixing sodium-ion and lithium-ion cells in a single pack, which can be manufactured on existing LFP production lines with minor modifications. Analysts estimate sodium chemistry could be scaling on those lines within 12 to 24 months.
Volkswagen has applied the GTI name to an electric car for the first time. The ID. Polo GTI shares its body with the standard ID. Polo but adds 226 horsepower through the front wheels, an electronic differential lock, DCC adaptive suspension exclusive to this trim, and a 52 kWh NMC battery that supports 105 kW DC fast charging, bringing the pack from 10 to 80 percent in 24 minutes. Starting price is approximately €40,000, against the base ID. Polo in Style trim from around €37,000. The GTI button on the lower steering spoke is a physical control that switches the instrument display to a honeycomb racetrack layout, activates red ambient lighting, and triggers a combustion-engine sound emulation through the speakers. Physical climate dials and a volume knob are present, the Clark tartan seat pattern carries over from the combustion generation, and the 440-liter trunk is a practical number for the class. The competitive pressure is real: the CUPRA Born VZ sits in the same price range with 231 kW, and BYD's Atto 3 Evo is expected in European markets by mid-2026 with rear-wheel drive, 220 kW DC charging, and WLTP range beyond 500 km, likely at a lower price. Volkswagen's case is the nameplate, the suspension calibration, and the interior quality. Whether the chassis delivers a genuinely involving drive in the final production version is the only question that matters for that argument.
Rivian's In-Car AI Can Control Your Vehicle, Read Your Texts, and Answer Almost Everything RivianTrackr
Rivian's 2026.15 software update brings Rivian Assistant, an AI agent built on Google Gemini. Where most in-car AI handles questions and navigation suggestions, Rivian's version actually controls the vehicle: drive mode changes, ride height, ride feel, individual seat heating, app switching, audio source selection, and bug reporting by voice all respond to "Hey Rivian" or "Ok Rivian" wake words. The system integrates with Google Calendar and can read and reply to SMS messages through a connected phone, though RCS, group texts, and voice punctuation are not yet supported. A live 25-minute demo on an R1S from RivianTrackr shows vehicle commands working largely on the first try. Navigation with charging stops surfaced a quirk where the assistant selected a slow Level 2 charger beyond the vehicle's current range, resolved by separating the navigation and trip planning requests. Charge limit adjustment and active safety features are deliberately locked out by voice. The full version, covering all vehicle commands and location services, requires a Connect Plus subscription at $15 per month. Rivian has confirmed a lighter version with messaging capability is in development as a no-cost tier.
Richard Hammond Drives the NIO ES9 in Shanghai. The Suspension Is the Story. Everything Electric APAC
At a proving ground in Shanghai, Richard Hammond drove a nearly three-ton SUV through a slalom at 75 km/h with almost no steering input. The NIO ES9 runs SkyRide active hydraulic suspension taken a generation further than the system in the ET9 flagship sedan. Most active suspension systems use a central pump distributing hydraulic pressure to each corner. The ES9 places individual pumps directly at each wheel, eliminating the lag from fluid traveling through a central manifold so the system reacts to what the wheel is encountering in real time. NIO has also built a crowdsourced pothole database: when four or more NIO vehicles log the same road defect, that location is shared across the fleet, and approaching vehicles prepare the suspension before they reach it. On the Belgian paving section of the proving ground, Hammond said the only way you knew you were on cobblestones was the sound. The ES9 also features steer-by-wire that NIO says is the first certified implementation in China, a claimed range of around 600 km, camera-monitored adaptive air conditioning that tracks sunlight position, and rear seat foot massage with fold-down airline-style tables. The ES9 is currently a China-market vehicle. Whether it reaches Europe is still being assessed, though Hammond and his interviewer noted its size would be a challenge on UK B-roads regardless.
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The week is yours. See you next Monday.
Jacob Hunka, Founder nexusEVnews.com
P.S. Know someone who follows the auto industry and ignores the electric side of it? Now is a good time to fix that.