EDITOR'S CHOICE

Nio Power Swap Station: Does It Work?

01 Jun 2022 | Synopsis

As part of "Nio's 'Battery as a Service' system...[owners] can buy the car with the battery pack installed at a normal price, and charge it in the normal way. Or you can buy the car for less and pay a monthly lease on the battery...

"Each station holds a maximum of 14 battery packs, kept between 18-25C, and can charge them at up to 100kW each. Each 'fresh' battery is at 90 per cent charge to maintain its long-term health."

"There are 867 such locations in China...[Besides the current two in Norway, Nio is planning on opening 19 more in the country by the end of the year."

Read Full Story

Rivian EV Battery Pack Catches Fire in Factory: All You Need To Know

01 Jun 2022 | Synopsis

"A battery pack caught on fire in the testing area of Rivian Automotive, Inc factory in Normal, Illinois, on May 28, marking Rivian's third mishap since production began last fall...

"The battery on fire was in thermal runaway, implying its cells were catching fire individually and causing a chain reaction throughout the pack..The only damage was to the battery pack, the carrier, and the test booth equipment

"The mishap occurred on the southwest side of the plant as Rivian attempted to ramp up production of its electric vehicles at the Normal factory."

Read Full Story

Ford F-150 Lightning Loses About Half Its Range When Towing a 23-foot Airstream Trailer

01 Jun 2022 | Synopsis

"The Ford towing system lets you add the specs of your trailer to calculate the range...

"When you plug in your trailer and set the weight, height, length, etc., the Ford system auto-calculates your mileage impact. I plugged in at 85 miles, and when I finished the calculation, it stated I had 54 miles of range with the Airstream...It turned out to be fairly accurate since he traveled 30 miles and the range prediction lost 31 miles."

Read Full Story

Aptera Has More Than 22,000 Reservations For Its Solar Electric Car with Up to 1,000 miles of Range

31 May 2022 | Synopsis

With a "drag coefficient (Cd) of only 0.13...it can achieve 250 miles of range on a fairly small battery pack, resulting in a vehicle starting at just $25,900." Additional range is available with larger battery capacity options.

"More than 22,000 people have already reserved an Aptera, representing a potential $800,000,000 in orders."

Read Full Story

Elon Musk on China's Renewable Energy and EV Leadership

31 May 2022 | Synopsis

China "is the world's largest market for automobiles running on electric batteries and hydrogen fuel cells, with almost three million units sold last year... By the end of last year, [its] installed solar generating capacity made up a third of the global total...

"China's fleet of wind farms accounted for 39 per cent of global installed capacity by last year's end... [It] also accounted for 58 per cent of global wind turbine manufacturing capacity, followed by Europe's 18.5 per cent, the USA's 10 per cent and India's 8.5 per cent.

Read Full Story

6 Ways to Make Electric Vehicles Affordable for the Rest of Us

31 May 2022 | Synopsis

Author Tamara Sheldon's research has shown that most of [US gov't] tax credits, as well as state subsidies, are paid out to consumers who would have bought the EV even without the extra benefit. And often, they go to people who treat them as additional cars rather than replacements for gas guzzlers, or who don't drive them often enough to make the gas savings outweigh the environmental cost of making the car in the first place.

"This is a waste of government money."

Read Full Story

The Next Generation of Small Nuclear Reactors Will Be Big on Producing Radioactive Waste

31 May 2022 | Synopsis

"...according to Lindsay Krall, a lot of important information is omitted in discussions around SMR waste streams...Krall’s project revealed that SMRs could produce up to 30 times the volume of radioactive waste as traditional reactors.

The UK "Office for Nuclear Regulation to begin the approval process for SMRs designed by Rolls Royce. SMRs are currently licensed or being built in Argentina, Canada, China, Russia, South Korea and the US. In May 2020, a floating nuclear power plant in Russia became the first to put SMRs into commercial operation."

Read Full Story

Great Scott! The All-Electric DeLorean DMC Is Here, and It's Beautiful

30 May 2022 | Synopsis

"Powered by a 100kWh battery pack, the Alpha5 will allegedly sport a range of more than 300 miles, which would nudge it slightly ahead of the comparable Porsche Taycan 4S and Audi e-tron GT in the endurance department.

"Company CEO Joost de Vries recently told Autocar(opens in new tab) that the Alpha5 will be sold in a limited run of 88 -- a reference to the speed required to time-travel in Robert Zemeckis' 1985 sci-fi classic - and be suitable for track use exclusively."

Read Full Story

Small Electric Cars Ready to Take Market by Storm

30 May 2022 | Synopsis

"The Rinco Aria has a lithium iron phosphate battery that is fixed under the car. When fully charged it does 200km in the economy or ‘eco mode’ where it won’t move at over 60km an hour, which is ideal for our city roads, and around 130km in the 'sports mode' at a higher speed.

"...importer of Rinco Aria, Razi Nayyer told Dawn that he had initially imported 20 vehicles to test the market here. Now with all those having been sold rather quickly, he has ordered 80 more."

Read Full Story

Bhutan Is Using Taxis to Jump-Start Its Transition to Electric Vehicles

30 May 2022 | Synopsis

"After a bumpy start in 2019, with COVID-19 lockdowns delaying car imports from countries like China, Japan and India, Bhutan's [ $3-million project] electric taxi rollout is finally kicking into gear...

"The 300 taxis will be the ambassadors...We expect them to showcase (the electric cars) and build a level of confidence and trust in EVs. Then we expect the rest to follow."

Read Full Story

Fiat to Stop Selling Non-Electrified Vehicles in the UK from July

30 May 2022 | Synopsis

"New Fiat 500 is the first fully-electric Fiat designed from the ground up. The car provides a raft of best-in-class features such as Level 2 Autonomous Driving technologies, a variety of battery options (24kWh or 42kWH) and a substantial driving range of up to 199 miles..."

"The line up also includes hybrid versions of the second-generation 500 and the Panda. Both see their basic 1.2-litre engines replaced by an all-new electrified 1.0-litre unit."

Read Full Story

Weaning Ourselves off Fossil Fuels Is Going to Hurt

30 May 2022 | Synopsis

"The researchers estimated that existing oil and gas projects worth $1.4 trillion would lose their value if the world moved decisively to cut carbon emissions and limit global heating to 2C. By tracking many thousands of projects through 1.8 million companies to their ultimate owners, the team found most of the losses would be borne by individual people through their pensions, investment funds, and shareholdings."

Read Full Story