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Much money and time has been spent recently persuading people not to be so reliant on cars. And there are certainly good reasons – for our health and the environment – to move about more on foot, by bike or on trains. Yet cars are still an essential form of transport across the world. In many countries, including the UK, outside of the few metropolitan areas with decent public transport, people depend on them. But car owners face an increasingly difficult choice. For many, electric vehicles are still too expensive and considered too risky in terms of driving range, battery costs and charging infrastructure. Private customers are ...... Read Full article on HadNews

In retrospect, the turnaround — and just how fast it happened — is difficult to believe. In 2010, Ontario’s economic future looked grim. Tied as it had been for more than a century to the automobile industry, the provincial economy was in freefall. General Motors and Chrysler went bankrupt, dozens of plants were shuttered, and tens of thousands of well-paying auto jobs were lost along Ontario’s automotive-producing zone from Windsor to Oshawa. Ontario’s auto sector, once the wellspring of the province’s prosperity, looked to be in the process of an inevitable decline. It was, quite literally, a dinosaur industry seemingly destined to...... Read Full article on HadNews

Electric vehicles are often seen as the panacea to cutting emissions – and air pollution – from transport. Is this view correct? Yes – but only once uptake accelerates. Despite the recent boom in EV purchases, they’re still a tiny minority of the cars on the road. We would get more immediate benefit by focusing on electrifying buses, which are a surprisingly large source of air pollution, and finding ways to cut rapidly growing emissions from diesel trucks. While the electricity sector still produces the largest share of emissions in Australia (32.3%), emissions are falling. But emissions from transport (21.1%) are already the third...... Read Full article on HadNews

The future of automobiles is electric, but many people worry about the safety of today’s electric vehicles. Public opinion about EV crash safety often hinges on a few high-profile fire incidents. Those safety concerns are arguably misplaced, and the actual safety of EVs is more nuanced. I’ve researched vehicle safety for more than two decades, focusing on the biomechanics of impact injuries in motor vehicle crashes. Here’s my take on how well the current crop of EVs protects people: The burning question EVs and internal combustion vehicles undergo the same crash-testing procedures to evaluate their crashworthiness and occupant prot...... Read Full article on HadNews

China’s automotive industry has revolutionised over the past decade, from producing basic western clones to making cars that equal the world’s best. As the manufacturing powerhouse of the world, China is also producing them in huge volumes. However, Chinese cars are facing difficulties in finding buyers in Europe. Imported cars, many of which are Chinese electric vehicles, are piling up at European ports, with some spending up to 18 months in port car parks as manufacturers struggle to get them onto people’s driveways. Why is this, though? Chinese electric vehicles in particular are getting positive reviews. Having driven them myself...... Read Full article on HadNews

Panasonic’s new US$4 billion battery factory in De Soto, Kansas, is designed to be a model of sustainability – it’s an all-electric factory with no need for a smokestack. When finished, it will cover the size of 48 football fields, employ 4,000 people and produce enough advanced batteries to supply half a million electric cars per year. But there’s a catch, and it’s a big one. While the factory will run on wind and solar power much of the time, renewables supplied only 34% of the local utility Evergy’s electricity in 2023. In much of the U.S., fossil fuels still play a key role in meeting power demand. In fact, Evergy has asked permi...... Read Full article on HadNews

Until now, you might have thought of electric vehicles as inner suburban toys. Teslas and Polestars are expensive, leaving them as playthings for wealthier Australians and out of reach for the mortgage belt. But that’s no longer the case. As residents in the outer suburbs reel from price rises seemingly everywhere, more and more are turning to electric vehicles (EVs) to slash their fuel bill. Last year, EV orders for outer suburban residents (43%) overtook inner suburban residents (39%) for the first time. Rural and regional residents accounted for 18% of orders. Avoiding petrol costs is one reason. But there are other good reason...... Read Full article on HadNews

Rechargeable batteries are great for storing energy and powering electronics from smartphones to electric vehicles. In cold environments, however, they can be more difficult to charge and may even catch on fire. I’m a mechanical engineering professor who’s been interested in batteries since college. I now lead a battery research group at Drexel University. In just this past decade, I have watched the price of lithium-ion batteries drop as the production market has grown much larger. Future projections predict the market could reach thousands of GWh per year by 2030, a significant increase. But, lithium-ion batteries aren’t perfect...... Read Full article on HadNews

In 2023, more than 7% of cars sold in the United States were electric vehicles. In some parts of the world, such as Norway, the percentage was a whopping 20%. In California, where I live, almost 60% of people looking for a car in 2021 said they would at least consider getting an EV. This upswing in demand comes after years of flagging sales. As recently as 2010, fewer than 100,000 cars on U.S. roads were EVs. That number crossed the 1 million mark in 2018, up more than 80% over the prior year. What explains this seemingly unexpected surge over the past few years? The key word here is “seemingly.” And the answer reveals an interestin...... Read Full article on HadNews