Electric Vehicles

For customers still unsure whether they’re ready to make the switch to an all-electric vehicle, Ford is sweetening the pot.

Today, the company launched a new initiative called the “Ford Power Promise,” in which it will provide a suite of benefits to customers who buy or lease a new EV. And chief among them is a complimentary home charger for all new customers, as well as the costs of standard installation.

The charger that’s being offered is the company’s Ford Charge Station Pro, a $1,310 Level 2 charger that comes with a standard CCS1 connector. Ford declined to put a monetary value on the installation but said it would cover costs up to 60 amps of power and 80 feet of wire run. Customers who need to upgrade their home electrical panel before the installation, however, will need to cover those costs themselves.

The electric vehicle market continues to grow around the world, despite what many would have you think. In fact, even in the United States, the large auto market with the weakest EV policies (well, compared to China and Europe), electric vehicles see their sales increasing year after year. In the second quarter of 2024, compared to the second quarter of 2023, sales of 100% electric vehicles increased by 16% in the US.

Yes, if you compare to Q2 2022, you can see that sales increased much more from 2022 to 2023, but BEV sales still grew by a notable 16% in 2024. The 86% growth from Q2 2022 to Q2 2024 should be looked at as a whole, too. That’s nearly a doubling of sales in two years.

In volume terms, you can see from the next chart that 46,000 more electric vehicles were sold in Q2 2024 than in Q2 2023. And going back to Q2 2022, you can see that the quarterly sales had increased by 156,000.

That’s growth. The issue raised by various automakers is the growth isn’t strong enough, but even that is a little deceiving. The biggest growth hit is at Tesla, which accounts for about half of the US EV market. As you can see in this third chart, below, Tesla sales dropped year over year in Q2, whereas non-Tesla BEV sales continued growing strongly. The narrative that EV sales are not growing fast basically breaks down if you take Tesla out of the equation.

Mazda officially opened the order books on its new Mazda EZ-6 EV and EREV versions of the car in China yesterday. And the starting price? It’s under $25,000.

Co-developed by Mazda and Chinese state-owned Changan Auto, the EZ-6 was one of two new electric offerings that debuted back in April. The other was a CX-5/0-sized crossover called the Arata, but the EZ-6 seemed closer to production, with a promised on-sale date later this year.

Hi all,

two month ago, i received my company car. I chose an i5, as i wanted an EV, need some space, and hate SUVs. I could fit nearly everything optional in the car (besides the air suspension), keep that in mind. Also it is "only" the M40, the rear drive only variant).

As i am from Germany, so no freedom units. Sorry to you over there on the other side of the pond.

I am living in the countryside, and we (my gf also drives the car) have to drive daily, either shopping, she to work, or i travel long distances across Germany.

My first impression on takeover of the car: This is a monster. Not only looks it mean as hell, it is wide and long. Dude. I instantly was glad about parking and lane assistance. I knew the dimensions before hand, but 2m width and over 5 meter of length are much bigger than i had in my mind. This is my only big issue with the car btw. I have a growing blacklist of parking garages and underground parking lots i am not comfortable to drive in.

That out of the way, the car is great. Interior, quality of life features, all well designed. I will only get into a few here, as this will be (mainly) focused on the EV aspect of the car.

Efficency

After using the car for a while, i was surprised by the efficiency of the car. Our regular trips into the neighboring towns, shopping, visting friends, are coming out with around 20KW/km. Autobahn tours with free flowing traffic and a target speed of 130km/h are between 17KW/km and 19KW/km.

With the 82KWh battery pack, ~330km distance in our mixed usage and 80%-10% SoC, are typical.

Charging

Charging was promoted with 205KW and that checks out. I even seen charging rates of 210KW, reported by the car. The maximum charge rate is reached usually between 15% and 55%. On most stations, i can forget to even reach 180KW, but that is more on the state of german charging infrastructure, then on the car.

Using the charge planning feature of the satnav is just a great experience. It keeps stops at a bearable amount of time and recommends target SoC with enough reserve to accounts for possible detours or other delays. Charging stations can be filtert by network, for all those network members. I didn't test this feature, as an all-network charging card is part of the car in my company.

If a charging stop takes longer, on board entertainment is great. Multiplayer games, TV streaming, or offline media, it does not get boring. I have the Bower&Wilkins system and ConnectedDrive. ConnectedDrive is required for the games and streaming features. The HiFi system just transforms your lokal slow charger to a mobile cinema.

Heated and vented seats

Vented and heated seats are great. For range! Instead of heating and cooling the space in the car, roughly equivalent to the space in a German student apartment, using those comfort features and lowering AC gives you a few hundreds Wh. I tested this on some very hot days. I was alone on the car, and set the temperatures to a comfortable value. Without seat venting, this was around 22°C, with seat vending, went up to 25°. This saved ~300Wh/km. I did multiple runs, and the that seemed pretty stable. I will report back after some real cold days, and lets see how the values look.

I have vented and heated seats in the front and heated seats in the back. Both features are optional.

Space

This is the only non-electric feature i will talk about, but if you got this far, you are most likely interested in it.

And the space is amazing, on all levels.

Driver and passenger seat have leg room, you can fit 3 crates of german beer in the room on the passenger side.

The back seats also have enough space. A 2,03 meter friend sits comfortable there, with enough head and leg space.

And then for the trunk. I moved a single household of a friend in 3 tours. Bed, kitchen appliances and his office. The backrest has 3 parts. It took me a while to recognize this. You can lay it flat, and it looks like two pieces, but the center piece as a separate latch. So if you fit in something long (like some cable conduits), you are covered.

Conclusion

I like this car. While it does clearly have not the longest range or the fastes charge reads on the market, i don't find this limiting. Never was i annoyed by a charge break (only by broken chargers...), and on long distances, charging breaks are refreshing.

The 340PS are fun, and sometimes, just pedal to the metal, is just amazing.

And all the comfort features, from vented seats over the gesture media control to the onboard AI voice assistant, are well thought out and implemented.

Hands free driving on the Autobahn is a nice idea, for those who like it, i don't. I use the full steering assistant, but i am not comfortable taking my hands of that round thing in front of me.

Lane Change assist and parking features keep this monster manageable in rush hour traffic on the Autobahn and squeezing into tight parking spots.

But: There is a price. Literally. The car as it is standing in my driveway, comes in with 94k€. I am in the privileged position to get this car as part of my salary. If you can afford this amount of money, and are looking for an EV, give it a look. You get a solid BMW station wagon that drives like an BMW station wagon. It just is fun to drive it. And you get a lot of space. More then in most SUVs out there.

If you have questions, AMA

Taxi driver Surendra Parajuli’s decision to buy an electric cab would have been unthinkable a decade ago, when chronic power cuts left Nepalis unable to light their homes at night.

But a dam-building spree has led to dirt-cheap energy prices in a landlocked Himalayan republic otherwise entirely dependent on fossil fuel imports, meaning the switch has put more money in his pocket.

“It has meant huge savings for me,” Parajuli, the proud new owner of a battery-powered and Chinese-made BYD Atto 3, said in the capital Kathmandu.

“It gives 300km in a single charge and costs me a tenth of what petrol does. And it’s environmentally friendly.”

Kathmandu is ground zero of an incipient transport revolution set to see the clapped out cars that clog its traffic-snarled streets make way for emissions-free alternatives.

More than 40,000 electric vehicles are on the roads around the mountainous country, according to official estimates – a small fraction of the 6.2 million motor vehicles currently in service.

But demand is insatiable: more than a quarter of those vehicles were imported in the 12 months to July, a near-threefold increase from the previous year.

Neighbouring China, now the dominant player in electric vehicles globally, is supplying nearly 70 per cent of the market.

“EVs are genuinely suitable for Nepalis,” Yajya Raj Bhatt, a prospective buyer at an electric vehicle motor show, said.

“Before, we had to rely on petrol cars, but now we can drive independently.”

More than four in five Nepalis did not have access to electricity at the turn of the century, according to the International Energy Agency.

But rapid investment in dams, which generate 99 per cent of Nepal’s baseload power, has transformed the energy grid since.

Hydropower output has increased fourfold in the past eight years, according to government figures, while 95 per cent of the population now has access to electricity.

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It has long been theorized that EV charging stations located in a business’s parking lot should help that business to earn more money. It’s not complicated, and on the surface, it just makes sense. If you attract more people to your parking lot, or if they are compelled to stay there longer than the average person while their car is charged, why would you not get more money out of them, get more spending in your shop?

This is something that has been argued by EV drivers and EV charging stations for several years. The good news is we’re now getting more research showing this is the case.

Interestingly, aside from businesses closer to charging stations earning more revenue, a new study found that charging stations located in lower-income areas especially benefited nearby businesses.

The MIT study, focused on California and now published in the journal Nature Communications, found that “opening a charging station boosted annual spending at each nearby business by an average of about $1,500 in 2019 and about $400 between January 2021 and June 2023.” Naturally, those kind of savings could easily cover the costs of installing a station. “These increases are equal to a significant chunk of the cost of installing an EV charger, and I hope this study sheds light on these economic benefits,” said Yunhan Zheng, a postdoc at the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) and lead author of the study. “The findings could also diversify the income stream for charger providers and site hosts, and lead to more informed business models for EV charging stations.”

Notably, whereas much research on this subject had previously relied on surveys (which is what we at CleanTechnica had conducted and also mostly seen) or were quite small scale, this MIT research team went further. “For their study, the researchers collected data from over 4,000 charging stations in California and 140,000 businesses, relying on anonymized credit and debit card transactions to measure changes in consumer spending. The researchers used data from 2019 through June of 2023, skipping the year 2020 to minimize the impact of the pandemic.” Now that’s data collection! “To judge whether charging stations caused customer spending increases, the researchers compared data from businesses within 500 meters of new charging stations before and after their installation. They also analyzed transactions from similar businesses in the same time frame that weren’t near charging stations.” Well done. There’s not much more you could do for better research on this topic.

The conclusion was that a new charging station boosted spending at a nearby business by 1.4% in 2019 and by 0.8% per year from January 2021 to June 2023. “While that might sound like a small amount per business, it amounts to thousands of dollars in overall consumer spending increases. Specifically, those percentages translate to almost $23,000 in cumulative spending increases in 2019 and about $3,400 per year from 2021 through June 2023,” MIT summarizes.

Again, this matches what we’d always found when surveying EV drivers — and simply living our lives as EV drivers. Charging stations pull you into places you wouldn’t normally go, can also cause you to hang out in that place for longer, and thus easily leads to you spending more money there than you would have otherwise.

Battery-electric vehicles accounted for 8 percent of new vehicle sales in June and July of this year and should be above 8 percent for September, according to estimates from S&P Global Mobility. While growth has slowed from the 50 percent year over year we experienced in 2023, the trend is still positive, with market share increasing from 7 percent in the first three months of the year. That also has to be seen in the wider context of overall new vehicle sales, which are expected to drop by 12 percent this month.

"New vehicle sales remain stuck in neutral," said Chris Hopson, principal analyst at S&P Global Mobility. "The overall tenor of the auto demand environment remains one of consistent, but unmotivated volume levels as consumers in the market continue to be pressured by high interest rates and slow-to-recede vehicle prices, which are translating to high monthly payments."

Kia said Friday it has completed building Hyundai Motor Group's first manufacturing facility dedicated solely to electric vehicles, which boasts an annual capacity of producing 150,000 units.

Kia held a ceremony for the Kia Gwangmyeong EVO Plant, located at Kia Autoland in Gwangmyeong, just south of Seoul, which is tasked with mass producing Kia's new EV3 model and the upcoming EV4 model.

Kia invested 401.6 billion won ($304.4 million) in the 60,000 square-meter facility, completely rebuilding it on an existing plant site to facilitate the company's next-generation vehicle production.

The event was attended by around 150 guests, including Choi Jun-Young, executive vice president and head of domestic production at Kia, and Gwangmyeong Mayor Park Seung-won.

The EVO Plant is characterized under the theme of pursuing maximum change through minimal expansion, taking into consideration its location in the city center and other environmental factors, such as the protection of green spaces.

In addition, the plant has been constructed with a full-scale conversion to electrification in mind, focusing on eco-friendly and worker-friendly elements.

Mass production of the EV3, the brand's compact all-electric SUV, began in the first half of this year. In the first half of 2025, Kia plans to introduce the EV4, the brand's upcoming mid-sized electric sedan.

Choi said in a welcoming speech that the completion of the plant "solidifies Kia's first step as an EV leader following the company's brand relaunch in 2021."

"With the goal of providing sustainable mobility solutions, we will lead innovation in the EV market and fulfill our responsibilities in helping to deliver a sustainable future," he added.

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Everyone knows that electric vehicles are supposed to be better for the planet than gas cars. That's the driving reason behind a global effort to transition toward batteries.

But what about the harms caused by mining for battery minerals? And coal-fired power plants for the electricity to charge the cars? And battery waste? Is it really true that EVs are better?

The answer is yes. But Americans are growing less convinced.

The net benefits of EVs have been frequently fact-checked, including by NPR. "No technology is perfect, but the electric vehicles are going to offer a significant benefit as compared to the internal combustion engine vehicles," Jessika Trancik, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told NPR this spring.

...

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The U.S. has been kicking government funding of electric vehicles and supporting infrastructure into high gear lately. From funding chargers to banning Chinese car tech to juicing parts suppliers, the moves have been quite clear. But there's something important to remember: Federal cash will eventually dry up. And in other countries, we're seeing what happens to the EV transition when it does.

Welcome back to Critical Materials, your daily roundup for all things EV and automotive tech. Today, we're chatting about countries considering ditching EV subsidies, Stellantis' supposed search for a new CEO, and Cruise firing its robotaxis backup (kind of). Let's jump in.

Government subsidies have always been a polarizing topic. Just ask Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who called for the end of all subsidies across all industries—even those for the EVs that his company sells. He might just get his wish.

There's growing talk among governments across the globe about ending the subsidies that have been powering the EV industry for years. The chatter comes at a crucial time when EVs have just started to become mainstream, partly thanks to the very tax credit that many want to do away with. But here's the thing—ending EV subsidies now could mean throwing a considerable wrench into adoption before the cars reach cost-parity to their outgoing ICE siblings.

Here's what the MIT Technology Review has to say on the matter, starting in Europe:

One of the main reasons traces back to mid-December 2023, when the German government gave less than one week’s notice before ending its subsidy program for electric vehicles. The program had given drivers small grants (up to around €6,000) toward the purchase of new battery-electric and plug-in hybrid cars.

The end of the subsidy program isn’t the only factor contributing to Germany’s EV slowdown, but the abrupt axing certainly had an effect: While many countries across Europe saw steady or growing sales of new EVs in the past year, Germany’s sales fell.

The review points out that Germany isn't the only country that has officially scraped its credit. Sweden and New Zealand have also done away with their own EV subsidy programs, and—surprise—both countries started to see a slowdown or outright decline in EV sales. Europe's auto industry is in a fairly apocalyptic place right now, but the lack of people buying electric (especially from their own automakers) is making the entire continent nervous.

Unsurprisingly, the main driver behind the lack of EV adoption comes down to the almighty dollar.

"Cost is the main driver," confirmed Robbie Orvis, senior director at policy research firm Energy Innovation. And to Orvis' point, cost parity isn't there yet, meaning EVs are still significantly more expensive than their gas-powered counterparts. That could change as early as next year. However, it could inadvertently delay mass-market adoption and climate goals if government support is pulled at a crucial time.

In case we forgot, the whole point of subsidies is to help push people away from fossil fuels and towards something that won't set the planet on fire in a few generations. But there's also a hidden agenda to ensure that the automotive industry stays competitive.

Governments know that if they don't push for change and accept a stalemate, the manufacturing sector could suffer. Other countries are more than willing to pick up the slack to gain new market share. We're seeing it happen with cheaper Chinese EVs threatening automakers in Europe right now. You can't just fight change with tariffs, so that makes the choice for carmakers simple: innovate or die.

The U.S. doesn't seem to be at risk—yet. The Biden administration just announced plans to safeguard against a "flood" of EVs in China, in part by banning certain software with links to the country (something that could affect domestic automakers, too). It also announced a new billion-dollar round of funding to help automakers retool for the EV future.

It turns out that new car buyers make their buying decisions based on getting a good deal. Who knew? Naturally, incentivizing buyers also incentivizes automakers. For governments, that means dusting off the old checkbook and spending some taxpayer cash to help prop up the new propulsion tech.

So, is the EV market ready to fly solo? Maybe. But pulling these subsidies too soon can also sabotage many future manufacturing and climate goals. It's a tough call to say "enough is enough"—and one day, enough will be enough. It might not just be today.

Xpeng will launch an all-new EV that replaces the P7i, which was the successor to the original P7. The new P7+ will grow in size compared to its predecessors, but it promises almost unbelievable electricity consumption numbers, which would make it one of the most efficient EVs in the world.

According to information published by the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the highly aerodynamic P7+ will use about 11 kWh/100 km, or 5.65 miles/kWh in its most efficient guise. That’s a truly remarkable number comparable to the most efficient current EVs, the Tesla Model 3, the Hyundai Ioniq 6 and the Lucid Air Pure.

The claimed efficiency number for the P7+ is based on the highly optimistic Chinese test cycle (CLTC), which yields figures that are around 35% higher than the EPA estimate. Taking this into account, the P7+ would have an EPA-rated efficiency of around 3.7 miles/kWh, which is almost as good as a Tesla Model 3 and about the same as a Hyundai Ioniq 6 with all-wheel drive. It doesn’t come anywhere near the Lucid Air Pure’s 5 miles/kWh EPA rating, though.

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If you’re a fan of Elon Musk’s automotive brainchild start-up turned innovative behemoth, this summer has its fair share of good news. In the month of July alone, Automotive News reported that Tesla managed to sell over 5,100 Cybertrucks, not to mention their other EVs. Tesla also managed to secure pre-orders for more than 5,500 of their angular trucks in the same period, about half of the total registrations of all EV trucks in the US. Put another way, out of everyone who wants an EV truck badly enough to pre-register, one out of every two of them are putting their money behind Tesla.

Notice something a little strange about the math, however? You’re not alone: there’s about a 400 unit shortage between the number of trucks Tesla can physically produce, and the number people want to buy. All told, Tesla has an estimated backlog of two million Cybertruck pre-orders, and month by month that number is only growing larger thanks to this deficit.

Sony's plans with Honda to field the uniquely styled Afeela brand are still on track, with the futuristic but somewhat anonymous sedan set for a 2026 launch. And Sony is not the only one that wants a slice of the EV pie, even given the recent slowdown in demand that has upended quite a few automaker's plans and balance sheets.

But electronics manufacturers are used to thinking a decade ahead. So perhaps it shouldn't come as a surprise to see yet another Japanese electronics giant has revealed plans to enter the EV market.

This month Sharp revealed the LDK+ concept at the Tokyo International Forum in Japan, developed in concert with Hon Hai Technology Group, better known as Foxconn, maker of the iPhone.

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A decade ago, Tesla was the electric car company that was leading the world forward into the battery powered future. Today, it has ceded its leadership role to BYD. Where Tesla has failed to introduce new mass market vehicles — it has two, the Model 3 and the Model Y — BYD has dozens. It manufactures a wide range of passenger cars, some of which sell for under $10,000 in China, but it also builds electric buses and commercial trucks for everything from tractor trailers to ambulances, street sweepers, and trash trucks. It also builds electric delivery vans to serve the needs of tradespeople, grocery stores, and anyone else who needs “last mile” trucks that bring stuff from distribution centers and deliver it to end uses.

This week at the IAA Transportation 2024 show in Hanover, Germany, BYD is introducing the E-Vali, a battery-powered electric delivery van designed to meet the needs of European customers. One delivery van looks very much like every other delivery van — a box on wheels. The issue is not style but efficiency. How quickly and easily can a driver load and unload the van? How easy is it to drive on narrow streets in congested European cities? What is the total cost of ownership including fuel, maintenance, repairs, insurance, depreciation, and all the other little bites that plagued businesses and reduce their net income?

The BYD E-Vali comes in two sizes — pretty big and even bigger. The first has a wheelbase of 3.9 meters (12.8 ft) and 13.9 cubic meters (500 cu. ft) of cargo space with a total weight of 3.5 metric tons (7700 lb). The larger van has a wheelbase of 4.55 meters (15 ft), room for 17.9 cubic meters (632 cubic feet) of cargo space, and a total weight of 4.25 metric tons (9,400 lb). Cargo capacity for the smaller van is 700 kg (1550 lb) and 1450 kg (3200 lb) for the larger van. In order to make the E-Vali appealing for last-mile and parcel delivery, it had been designed with wide-opening rear doors and a relatively tall roof to allow the driver to stand upright in the vehicle while loading and unloading.

In the what makes it go department, the BYD E-Vali has either a single motor driving the rear wheels with a maximum of 150 kW (200 hp) or an all-wheel-drive version with an additional 100 kW (135 hp) motor driving the front wheels. Both are equipped with a BYD-derived LFP blade battery with a nominal capacity of 80.6 kWh. Expected range is quoted as 220 to 250 kilometers (140 to 155 miles) in the WLTP cycle used in Europe.