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Gustavo Henrique Ruffo

EV Expert
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Motoring writer since 1998, Gustavo wants to write relevant stories about cars and their shift to a sustainable future.

Got any tips? Feel free to contact him through his LinkedIn profile or Threema: R6F4J872.

Gustavo knew he would make a living with writing. The options were a career in law and journalism. After a quick research, he learned that law professions would help him earn ten times more than a reporter. Knowing how it feels to be broke, he took no effort in going to law school.

Having grown up reading anything about cars his father would put in his hands, he started driving late: Gustavo wanted to buy his first car before learning to drive. But life is funny, and his law internships demanded him to have a driver’s license so that he could go to courts driving company cars. That was the only fun he had in the world of legal affairs.

In the third year of college, dying of boredom, he took part in a journalism training course. Loving cars was what landed him his first job as a motoring writer. But he also fell in love with journalism and how powerful it can be when things are not right in the world.

The profession was as unstable and low-paying as predicted, which eventually became a problem. That made him try to go back to the legal world working as a trainee. Ironically, it was at Ford, where he missed his days as an automotive journalist. That drove him back to newsrooms and made journalism turn into a professional refuge: he could always count on it.

Accepting that the life of a reporter is full of ups and downs – aren’t them all? – Gustavo fully accepted he was a journalist. That helped him earn a few prizes, work in multiple places, visit almost every major auto show in the world, meet a bunch of nice people, and feed his family while working with what he loves. He thanks for that privilege every single day.

At autoevolution, he found the right environment for journalism at its best: it can be fun to have a purpose.
NIO Scores a Major Goal With Deal to Become Oslo Taxi's First-Choice Supplier
NIO Scores a Major Goal With Deal to Become Oslo Taxi's First-Choice Supplier

24 Aug 2023, 20:49 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / Matthias Schmidt recently published that Chinese companies have not managed to obtain more than 3% of the new car market in Europe. In a way, they are still establishing their dealership networks and trying to gain buyers' trust, which takes a...

 
Giga Gruenheide Is Making Fewer Cars Than It Should – What's Tesla's Excuse?
Giga Gruenheide Is Making Fewer Cars Than It Should – What's Tesla's Excuse?

23 Aug 2023, 21:20 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / Tesla insists it has enough demand for its cars despite constantly reducing their prices. It even created a new derivative for the Model S and Model X that allows it to sell them for $10,000 less so that it does not look like a discount. Yet, its i...

 
What's the Battery Pack Buffer's Role When It Comes to EV Range? Does It Even Have One?
What's the Battery Pack Buffer's Role When It Comes to EV Range? Does It Even Have One?

22 Aug 2023, 20:41 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / On August 12, I proposed a deeper discussion about how automakers establish the range of their vehicles. Although that is a much more predictable process in Europe than it is in the US, the truth is that WLTP ranges are also difficult to match in c...

 
Tesla Sues Two Former Employees for 'Tesla Files' Episode, Tries to Shift the Blame
Tesla Sues Two Former Employees for 'Tesla Files' Episode, Tries to Shift the Blame

22 Aug 2023, 11:32 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / It took Tesla quite a while to address the episode known as Tesla Files. If that does not ring a bell to you, the German newspaper Handelsblatt gave the world a demonstration of journalism at its finest: it exposed how the battery electric vehicle ...

 
Amprius Clarifies Everything We Wanted to Know About Its Batteries
Amprius Clarifies Everything We Wanted to Know About Its Batteries

20 Aug 2023, 22:28 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / It took a while to clarify why Amprius had different performance numbers for what appeared to be the same cell, but it was worth the wait. The company's chief technical officer (CTO) answered all the questions we had and presented a more preci...

 
Circular Economy Principles Would Break the Legs of the Traditional Automotive Industry
Circular Economy Principles Would Break the Legs of the Traditional Automotive Industry

20 Aug 2023, 16:44 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / This year's Earth Overshoot Day fell on August 2. Since 2011, it has been happening in the early days of this month, which may give the impression that things have been more or less stable in the past 12 years. However, when you think about wh...

 
New Model S and Model X Standard Range Units Tell a Concerning Story About Tesla
New Model S and Model X Standard Range Units Tell a Concerning Story About Tesla

19 Aug 2023, 07:31 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / When Tesla started reducing prices, its usual advocates thought it was a fantastic move to increase sales. Some even parrotted Elon Musk's surreal excuse for that: that "demand at scale is limited by affordability," so Tesla had to s...

 
ONE States Aries II LFP Battery Pack Matches NMC Competitors, Surprises No One
ONE States Aries II LFP Battery Pack Matches NMC Competitors, Surprises No One

17 Aug 2023, 21:12 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / Ternary cells – such as NMC or NCA – have a higher energy density than those made with lithium iron phosphate (LFP). That does not mean that a battery pack with ternary batteries will have a higher energy density at the pack level than ...

 
VinFast Now Worth More Than Ford or GM Shows Market Caps Have Gone Crazy
VinFast Now Worth More Than Ford or GM Shows Market Caps Have Gone Crazy

17 Aug 2023, 15:04 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / Ask anyone why Tesla has the world's highest market cap among automakers, and nobody will offer you a sensible answer. That's because there isn't one: Tesla sells a fraction of what Volkswagen and Toyota can deliver every year, its p...

 
Leaked Images Show the Damage Inside the Fremantle Highway RoRo Ship
Leaked Images Show the Damage Inside the Fremantle Highway RoRo Ship

16 Aug 2023, 19:28 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / The Fremantle Highway may have raised the same questions as the Felicity Ace, but the roll-on/roll-off (RoRo) cargo ship faced a different fate – so far. After departing the Bremerhaven port in Germany toward Singapore with 3,783 cars, it cau...

 
CATL ShenXing Superfast Charging Battery Recovers 400 Km (249 Mi) of Range in 10 Minutes
CATL ShenXing Superfast Charging Battery Recovers 400 Km (249 Mi) of Range in 10 Minutes

16 Aug 2023, 14:21 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / A while ago, Tesla owners would fear or even mock those with lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery packs. After the company adopted the chemistry and started selling vehicles with it, these customers now brag about having it. They can charge to 100%...

 
Hyundai Charges €103,764.17 ($113,139) to Replace Fuel Cells in 2016 ix35 FCEV
Hyundai Charges €103,764.17 ($113,139) to Replace Fuel Cells in 2016 ix35 FCEV

15 Aug 2023, 23:20 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / Early adopters are necessary to test new technology and eventually see it go mainstream. At the same time, these guys sacrifice themselves for the privilege of being the first ones to try that tech. Till Westberg's story is a cautionary tale a...

 
BEV Range Discussion: Two Recent Episodes Show How Urgent It Is
BEV Range Discussion: Two Recent Episodes Show How Urgent It Is

15 Aug 2023, 09:09 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / Some people marvel at coincidences, while others believe they do not exist: these events would be God's way of calling your attention to something important, which would eliminate the random effect that defines them as coincidences. Whatever y...

 
Nikola Will Recall All Tre BEV Trucks It Ever Sold Due to Coolant Leak
Nikola Will Recall All Tre BEV Trucks It Ever Sold Due to Coolant Leak

12 Aug 2023, 18:43 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / A blaze on June 23 destroyed five Tre BEV trucks at Nikola's headquarters in Phoenix. At first, the company said it suspected foul play because of a vehicle parked nearby that left soon after the fire started. However, Electrek revealed that R...

 
BEV Range Discussion – We Need to Talk About the Way Automakers Establish Them
BEV Range Discussion – We Need to Talk About the Way Automakers Establish Them

12 Aug 2023, 09:54 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / Internal combustion engine (ICE) cars have fuel tanks and their reserves. The latter is the bottom 10% to 15% main reservoir capacity. Older vehicles warn about reaching the reserve by turning a warning light on, while onboard computers inform the ...

 
High Weight Will Make You Bid Farewell to a VW ID. Buzz California – At Least for Now
High Weight Will Make You Bid Farewell to a VW ID. Buzz California – At Least for Now

11 Aug 2023, 20:36 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / When Volkswagen revealed the ID. Buzz, people saw it as the successor of the VW Bus (the T1 and T2). However, the electric MPV only shares the nostalgic styling and being an RWD with the first Transporter. Fans of the new vehicle who were hoping to...

 
BYD's Path Toward 5 Million NEVs Relies Heavily on LFP, Blade Batteries, and Planning
BYD's Path Toward 5 Million NEVs Relies Heavily on LFP, Blade Batteries, and Planning

11 Aug 2023, 11:47 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / I have written more than once about how Tesla established the battery electric vehicle (BEV) model that all automakers follow nowadays and how that standard may be flawed. The company was the first one to use thousands of ternary cells to create a ...

 
BMW i7 Protection Proves Current BEVs Are Not Meant to Receive Armor
BMW i7 Protection Proves Current BEVs Are Not Meant to Receive Armor

10 Aug 2023, 11:35 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / On May 19, I published an article about companies that armor Tesla vehicles. Clearly, being bullet-proof was not all these battery electric vehicles (BEVs) needed to offer. The added weight significantly reduced their ranges, which is also a safety...

 
Buy a $25,000 Tesla to Get the $4,000 Used BEV Incentive, Risk Spending $20,000 More
Buy a $25,000 Tesla to Get the $4,000 Used BEV Incentive, Risk Spending $20,000 More

8 Aug 2023, 14:36 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) had more than just the $7,500 tax credit for new battery electric vehicles (BEVs). Advocates of these cars also celebrated the $4,000 tax credit for used BEVs that cost up to $25,000: it would promote clean mobilit...

 
Are Amprius Silicon Anode Cells Getting Less Energy-Dense? Find the Answer Here
Are Amprius Silicon Anode Cells Getting Less Energy-Dense? Find the Answer Here

7 Aug 2023, 18:00 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / In March, I used Amprius silicon anode cells as an example of how far lithium-ion cells were from mature battery technologies. In other words, a cell with twice as much gravimetric energy density as the most used ones in battery electric vehicles (...

 

Stories by Gustavo Henrique Ruffo