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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.
How Will a Global Business Like the Automotive Industry Deal With Different Car Solutions?
How Will a Global Business Like the Automotive Industry Deal With Different Car Solutions?

28 Feb 2023, 10:43 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / Sergio Marchionne once said that only a carmaker that was able to make more than six million vehicles per year would survive. This is why he tried so hard to merge FCA with another automaker while he lived. Stellantis only came into existence years...

 
Old and New Issues Show Tesla's Ethos of Disregard for Quality and Repairability
Old and New Issues Show Tesla's Ethos of Disregard for Quality and Repairability

24 Feb 2023, 11:20 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines ethos as “the distinguishing character, sentiment, moral nature, or guiding beliefs of a person, group, or institution.” If anyone were to establish Tesla’s ethos based on the EV maker’...

 
Potential Tesla Mule Exposes One of the EV Maker’s Main Problems: a Limited Lineup
Potential Tesla Mule Exposes One of the EV Maker’s Main Problems: a Limited Lineup

22 Feb 2023, 08:47 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / Automakers can test new vehicles under the bodies of entirely different models. These early prototypes are called mules. Most of them use “clothing” from older cars from the same manufacturer, but Tesla produces only four vehicles. That...

 
Lightyear Will Try a Comeback With a Group of 225 Investors and €8 Million
Lightyear Will Try a Comeback With a Group of 225 Investors and €8 Million

20 Feb 2023, 22:36 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / When Lightyear said its first vehicle was canceled and that it was going bankrupt, things seemed really hard for the startup. The Lightyear 0 was a limited-series vehicle with a price tag starting at €250,000 ($267,175 at the current exchange ...

 
Another Tesla Crashes Into an Emergency Vehicle, Kills Driver – Was It on Autopilot?
Another Tesla Crashes Into an Emergency Vehicle, Kills Driver – Was It on Autopilot?

19 Feb 2023, 23:31 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / Tesla fans and advocates were still complaining about the Full Self-Driving (FSD) recall when a Model S struck the back of a fire truck on I-680 at 3:54 AM on February 18. The driver died at the scene, and a passenger had to be extricated and taken...

 
People Forgot the Meaning of Journalism, Especially in the Automotive World
People Forgot the Meaning of Journalism, Especially in the Automotive World

18 Feb 2023, 23:52 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / When we discuss anything that bothers us, we frequently fall into the temptation to say things were once better. I will avoid that in this text because I have no idea when people forgot what journalism was supposed to do. It was probably before I s...

 
The Tesla Germany Paradox: Do They Last 130,488 Miles or 1 Million Miles?
The Tesla Germany Paradox: Do They Last 130,488 Miles or 1 Million Miles?

18 Feb 2023, 12:13 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / Germany is currently a country of paradoxical events for Tesla. While fighting in court with customers who wanted to return its electric cars, the EV maker’s lawyers said they do not last more than 210,000 kilometers (130,488 miles). However,...

 
What's Behind Tesla's Massive FSD Recall? The Answer is EA22-002
What's Behind Tesla's Massive FSD Recall? The Answer is EA22-002

16 Feb 2023, 23:43 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / Anyone checking the Part 573 Safety Recall Report 23V-085 or the letter Tesla sent the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will say the EV maker decided to make the recall they refer to. Talking to the safety agency, autoevolutio...

 
Sakuu Has Been Making Patterned 3D-Printed Cells Using Dry Cathode Process Since December
Sakuu Has Been Making Patterned 3D-Printed Cells Using Dry Cathode Process Since December

16 Feb 2023, 20:24 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / One of the breakthroughs the Tesla 4680 cells were supposed to have was dry battery electrode (DBE) coating. This process would eliminate N-Methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP), a highly toxic organic substance that most batteries have to use as a solvent in...

 
Tesla Lawyers Dismiss Elon Musk's Claim in Germany, State the Cars Last Only 130,488 Miles
Tesla Lawyers Dismiss Elon Musk's Claim in Germany, State the Cars Last Only 130,488 Miles

16 Feb 2023, 12:05 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / On Tesla Autonomy Day on April 22, 2019, Elon Musk stated that “the current battery pack is about maybe 300,000 to 500,000 miles.” That is equivalent to a mileage between 482,800 kilometers and more than 804,600 km. It was enough for Ge...

 
PHEVs Are No Climate Solution, But Neither Are BEVs or FCEVs
PHEVs Are No Climate Solution, But Neither Are BEVs or FCEVs

15 Feb 2023, 11:12 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / Several cultures tell a story of a little bird that tried to put out a fire carrying water in its even tinier beak. When asked what it was trying to do, the bird said it was doing its part. That represents taking action, which is how people should ...

 
Used Battery-Electric Cars May Bury EV Promises for the Environment
Used Battery-Electric Cars May Bury EV Promises for the Environment

14 Feb 2023, 10:18 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / I have been warning about battery pack prices and how difficult it will be for battery-electric cars to age, for quite some time. Their main component is so expensive that its failure will render the vehicle useless – even if everything else ...

 
Premature Electrification Is More Than a Funny Analogy With Sexual Problems
Premature Electrification Is More Than a Funny Analogy With Sexual Problems

13 Feb 2023, 19:36 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / Stellantis announced in its Super Bowl LVII ad that its first electric truck could already be reserved. However, it did so by making an interesting parallel between customers’ concerns with electrification and one of the most common sexual co...

 
Transport & Environment Accuses PHEVs of Performing Greenwashing Once Again
Transport & Environment Accuses PHEVs of Performing Greenwashing Once Again

11 Feb 2023, 22:20 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / In November 2020, Transport & Environment (T&E) analyzed three plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) to determine how much they truly helped prevent pollution and carbon emissions. The results were disappointing: the SUVs were 28% to 12 times dirtier tha...

 
BMS_u029 Is the Code Killing Several Tesla Model S Battery Packs
BMS_u029 Is the Code Killing Several Tesla Model S Battery Packs

7 Feb 2023, 17:10 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / Mario Zelaya helped us discover several unpleasant things about used Tesla Model S units. A few months after its battery pack warranty expired, his 2013 Tesla Model S Performance stopped, demanding a new battery pack to keep working. Zelaya also pr...

 
Aptera, Lightyear and Sono Motors' Main Link Is Not Being Solar, But Rather Being Startups
Aptera, Lightyear and Sono Motors' Main Link Is Not Being Solar, But Rather Being Startups

6 Feb 2023, 11:33 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / Lightyear was pretty confident about the future. It traveled to CES with the Lightyear 0 and the first prototype of the Lightyear 2. Production had started in November, and it was abruptly interrupted. Sono Motors is on the same path, and even Apte...

 
Elon Musk's Failed Promises on Autonomy Prove That Cars Should Not Be Computers on Wheels
Elon Musk's Failed Promises on Autonomy Prove That Cars Should Not Be Computers on Wheels

4 Feb 2023, 08:19 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / In October 2022, I wrote an editorial to discuss how the idea of “computers on wheels” can be a massive issue for cars. Most people crave over-the-air (OTA) updates and think they are an asset, forgetting about bugs and how often it is ...

 
Aptera Believes It Can Sell 600,000 Solar Trikes Per Year, But Does the Math Add Up?
Aptera Believes It Can Sell 600,000 Solar Trikes Per Year, But Does the Math Add Up?

2 Feb 2023, 15:04 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / When Aptera disclosed that it would try to raise more than $20 million by gamifying the process, it also pointed out its investment page. Apart from the leaderboard that reveals daily information on how many people have invested more than $10,000 i...

 
Toyota Got a New CEO But Still Thinks BEVs Are Not the Only Path to Carbon Neutrality
Toyota Got a New CEO But Still Thinks BEVs Are Not the Only Path to Carbon Neutrality

31 Jan 2023, 20:09 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / When Akio Toyoda stepped down and became Toyota’s chairman, people thought that Toyota was probably going to invest billions in developing battery electric vehicles (BEVs). However, the company has demonstrated that it will not change course ...

 
ZEEKR #3 Shows Geely Is Running Out of Ideas for New Car Names
ZEEKR #3 Shows Geely Is Running Out of Ideas for New Car Names

31 Jan 2023, 11:30 UTC · By: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo / Geely controls several brands: Volvo, Polestar, smart, Lynk & Co. The latest one is ZEEKR, but it was born as a spin-off of Lynk & Co, with its first production car being a badge-engineered Lynk & Co Zero Concept. Curiously, the company...

 

Stories by Gustavo Henrique Ruffo