The good news: EV sales are growing steadily. The bad news: They’ve now grown enough to attract the attention of Big Oil, which is planning a multi-million-dollar counterattack. Citing “refining industry sources,” the Huffington Post reports that a consortium of fossil fuel interests is making plans to form a new advocacy group that hopes to… Read more »
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Porsche to invest a billion euros at EV plant
As Porsche begins work on its first pure EV, it is embarking on a major program of capital investment. Reuters reported that the company will invest about 1 billion euros ($1.12 billion) at its Zuffenhausen plant, where the new EV is in development. Chief Executive Oliver Blume said that the company has “many new products… Read more »
Motorola invests in magnesium-ion battery startup Pellion
Motorola Solutions has invested an unspecified amount in Pellion Technologies, a startup that was founded by a team of MIT researchers. Pellion is focused on commercializing magnesium-ion battery technology. Because magnesium is divalent, it can displace double the charge per ion that lithium can, and the element is more abundant and more stable. Magnesium-ion batteries… Read more »
Volkswagen CEO: Europe needs to take the lead in electric mobility
Since the public humiliation of the diesel debacle, Volkswagen’s execs have had much to say about producing more electrified vehicles. Speaking at the company’s New Year’s party in Brussels, CEO Matthias Müller promised that the Volkswagen Group would concentrate on sustainability “more than ever before,” and confirmed plans to introduce about 20 new plug-in models… Read more »
New e-Golf will have improved batteries, 30% more range
An upcoming battery upgrade will increase the VW e-Golf’s range by almost 30 percent, Volkmar Tanneberger, the company’s head of electronic development, told Autoblog at the 2016 CES. The capacity of the e-Golf’s cells will be increased from 28 amp hours to 37 amp hours, and no physical changes to the pack design will be… Read more »
Tesla leads the pack as overall 2015 plug-in sales fall short
2015 was a year of retrenching and preparation for the future in the EV industry. US sales for the year were around 116,000, falling short of 2014’s figure of 123,000. The Tesla Model S grabbed and held the lead position, handily outselling all other plug-ins in the US with 25,700 deliveries. However, the big news… Read more »
Ford reveals ambitious electrification plans
For the past several months, we EV newshounds have suspected that Ford had plans for a new generation of plug-ins up its sleeve. Now the #2 US automaker is beginning to reveal its answer to electric rivals GM, Nissan, VW et al. Ford announced plans to invest a record $4.5 billion in electric tech over… Read more »
New York Times: Car dealers holding back EV sales
Car dealers are a conservative lot, and many have shown themselves to be highly skeptical about EVs. This topic, which the EV press has been discussing for some time (including a feature article in the June/July 2014 issue of Charged), has now broken through to the mainstream press, as the New York Times reports that… Read more »
Volkswagen Group to boost investments in EV tech by €100M
As the Volkswagen Group works to control the damage from its emissions cheating scam, it plans to cut planned investments in property, plant and equipment for next year by about €1 billion. One area, however, will see an increase. VW plans to boost spending on electrification technologies by €100 million, continuing its development of electric… Read more »
UCLA study: HOV access for plug-in cars drives sales
One of the goodies that many governments offer to encourage EV sales is access to special highway lanes. In California at least, it seems that such policies are very effective. A new study conducted by UCLA’s Luskin Center for Innovation, with funding from the California Air Resources Board, has found that state legislation that opened… Read more »