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A pair of economists, one with the University of Calgary, the other, the University of California, along with a civil engineer from Carnegie Mellon University, is suggesting in a Comment piece in the journal Nature, that electric vehicles (EVs) need to be lighter if they are to replace gasoline-powered vehicles. In their paper, Blake Shaffer, Maximilian Auffhammer and Constantine Samaras suggest that the added weight of EVs makes them less safe and less efficient and therefore less economical. In their paper, the authors note that climate change has put EVs on a path to replace cars powered by gasoline. But...

No way in hell you are going to put a wok on an electric stove.”That was Steven Lee, a San Francisco official and restaurant investor, as quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle last year after the city’s Board of Supervisors voted to outlaw natural gas in new buildings.Nevertheless, they persisted. Per the Sierra Club, the quickening campaign to phase out natural gas recently notched its 50th city-level win in California alone. (Take a bow, Encinitas!) No. 50, as with some others, has “situational exemptions” for restaurants and the like, but the overall push to compel an all-electric design for homes...

Industry leaders called for 'urgent action' after the National Grid warned electricity supplies would be 'tight'.. ... Latest sign of a grim winter outlook for UK with economy clobbered by rising inflation and supply chain issues.. The supply of electricity to Britain this winter will be 'tight' and there is a greater risk of blackouts, the National Grid warned today - as soaring energy prices leave families facing sky- high bills. ... Gas is in high demand due to the reopening of the global economy, colder temperatures, and reduced wind and solar output due to unfavourable conditions. ... Omni Energy...

WARREN, Mich. (AP) — General Motors plans to cash in as the world switches from combustion engines to battery power, promising to double its annual revenue by 2030 with an array of new electric vehicles, profitable gas-powered cars and trucks, and services such as an electronic driving system that can handle most tasks on the road. In announcements Wednesday ahead of a two-day investor event in suburban Detroit, the company also pledged to unseat Tesla and become the electric vehicle market share leader in U.S., although no time frame was given. The company also teased upcoming new electric vehicles including...

A new Rasmussen Reports survey revealed that only 25% of American adults believe electric cars are practical. The survey also found that 52% of Americans think electric cars are not practical, and another 23% said they were not sure. Seven years ago, a similar survey found that only 19% of Americans believed electric cars are practical.

In the wake of a series of severe EV battery fires, one of the largest vehicle manufacturers in the world, General Motors has just issued safety recommendations for Bolt EV’s: Not to park your Chevy Bolt within 50 feet of other vehicles in case it catches fire. Highly recommends that Bolt EV owners not to park within 50 feet of anything you care about. Recommends parking on the top floor or on an open-air deck and park 50 feet or more away from another vehicle. Requests Bolt EV owners to not leave their vehicle charging unattended, even if they are...

No, not necessarily. Electric vehicles may be fine cars; Teslas certainly are (while Chevy Volts evidently are not). But the idea that our hundreds of millions of gasoline-powered cars are going to be replaced by EVs within the next century is ridiculous. Where will the electricity come from? There is no sane answer to that question, especially since the only plausible solution–an enormous amount of nuclear power–is off the table. And of course, greatly expanding the electrical grid to accommodate EVs, mining the lithium necessary for batteries that vastly exceed anything that now exists, and developing an infrastructure of charging...

Natural gas and electricity markets were already surging in Europe when a fresh catalyst emerged: The wind in the stormy North Sea stopped blowing. The sudden slowdown in wind-driven electricity production off the coast of the U.K. in recent weeks whipsawed through regional energy markets. Gas and coal-fired electricity plants were called in to make up the shortfall from wind. Natural-gas prices, already boosted by the pandemic recovery and a lack of fuel in storage caverns and tanks, hit all-time highs. Thermal coal, long shunned for its carbon emissions, has emerged from a long price slump as utilities are forced...

U.S. Democratic lawmakers on Friday proposed an expansion of tax credits for electric vehicles that includes significantly higher subsidies for union-made zero emission models assembled in the United States. The proposal, a key part of President Joe Biden's goal to ensure EVs comprise at least 50% of U.S. vehicle sales by 2030 and boost U.S. union jobs, will give Detroit's Big Three automakers a big competitive edge and has drawn criticism from foreign automakers like Honda Motor Co and Toyota Motor Corp. The tax credit for up to $12,500 per vehicle for U.S.-made union-made zero emission models compares with a...

Elon Musk has told Tesla employees that the automaker is aiming to release its previously announced $25,000 electric car in 2023. The CEO hinted that it might not even be equipped with a steering wheel. At Tesla Battery Day last year, CEO Elon Musk announced that Tesla will be making a $25,000 electric car. The CEO commented in the announcement: Tesla will make a compelling $25,000 electric vehicle that is also fully autonomous. He made it clear that this new price point is achieved through Tesla’s new battery cell and battery manufacturing effort, which could reduce battery costs by over...

GM announced that it has issued a recall on every single Chevy Bolt made to date due to the battery fire risk. The move comes after two previous recalls, which were aimed at specific models. The Bolt was first recalled in November after five cars that hadn’t been in crashes caught fire. After investigating the problem further, Chevy recalled a second batch in July. The problem was traced to two manufacturing defects that could occur simultaneously. The defects—a torn anode tab and a folded separator—created conditions that could lead to a short in affected cells. So far, the company has...

When President Joe Biden announced in the White House August 5 that he wants half of all cars and trucks sold in the United States to be Electric Vehicles (EV) by 2030, the loudest applause may well have been in Beijing. Biden told an assembly of labor and political leaders as well as top executives from General Motors, Ford and Stellantis N.V. — which owns Chrysler, Dodge and Ram — that he signed “an executive order setting out a target of 50 percent of all passenger vehicles sold by 2030 will be electric and set into motion an all-out effort.”...

President Joe Biden will sign an executive order on Thursday encouraging 50 percent of all auto sales by 2030 to be electric vehicles, according to Biden administration officials. The executive order will rely on commitments made by two of the nation's largest auto manufacturers, General Motors and Ford, as well as Chrysler parent company Stellantis N.V., according to the Wall Street Journal. Executives at the companies have tied the 50 percent voluntary target to the fate of the Senate's more than $1 trillion infrastructure bill, which will provide federal funding for manufacturing and research as well as a network of...

DETROIT - The Biden administration wants automakers to raise gas mileage and cut tailpipe pollution between now and model year 2026, and it has won a voluntary commitment Thursday from the industry that electric vehicles will comprise up to half of U.S. sales by the end of the decade. The moves are big steps toward President Joe Biden’s pledge to cut emissions and battle climate change as he pushes a history-making shift in the U.S. from internal combustion engines to battery-powered vehicles. They also reflect a delicate balance to gain both industry and union support for the environmental effort, with...

WASHINGTON—Roughly half of all cars and light trucks sold in the U.S. by 2030 would be electric, hydrogen-fuel cell and plug-in hybrid vehicles under voluntary targets set to be announced Thursday by the Biden administration and backed by auto makers, contingent on government support. In a joint statement, General Motors Co. , Ford Motor Co. , and Chrysler maker Stellantis NV said their commitment hinges on federal funding for manufacturing and supply-chain research and development, purchase incentives and an EV-charging network. The auto makers said the voluntary targets for EV sales “can be achieved only with the timely deployment of...

If the Public Utilities Commission OK's Xcel’s largest ever rate increase, electric bills for Colorado customers will have increased 20% since the start of the year.. Xcel Energy has proposed a massive transmission project to help move power from rural areas to the urban Front Range. Xcel Energy is pushing for a record $344 million rate increase it says it needs to build a smarter, greener electric grid. But consumer advocates and state regulators are pushing back over the price tag. A major concern is that along with an earlier rate increase and other pending requests since the start of...

And then there’s the issue of those pesky car batteries. While you can cut down your carbon footprint by a massive margin by switching over to an EV, you just can’t get away from using finite resources completely. EV batteries contain a litany of expensive and finite rare earth metals and minerals, most notably cobalt and lithium, which cause tricky negotiations with global supply chains and which are not without their negative environmental externalities thanks to sometimes messy mining operations. The energy revolution’s dependence on rare earth metals, which is only set to intensify, has inadvertently put a huge amount...

An electric bus made by Proterra went up in flames while charging in a California city that is reportedly thinking about removing the electric buses from the road. The Foothill Transit agency, which serves the valleys surrounding Los Angeles, will decide on Friday whether costly Proterra buses purchased in the last decade are still operable. Problems cited by the agency include not only the bus that caught fire in what’s described as a “thermal event,” but also buses that melt in the California heat and have transmission failures. Roland Cordero, the agency’s director of maintenance and vehicle technology, says the...

A newly conducted analysis predicts that sales of electric vehicles will outpace combustion vehicles by 2036 in the United States. Ernst & Young (EY) released an analysis stating that Europe will sell more zero emission vehicles than combustion vehicles by 2028 and that threshold is expected to be reached in China in 2033 and in the U.S. in 2036. According to EY's predictions, within the next 10 years, electric vehicles are expected to outsell combustion vehicles in the main global markets. In the next 25 years, combustion vehicles or non-electric cars are expected to only make up one percent of...

Many observers are forecasting that the world’s transition to electric cars will take place much sooner than expected. Now, BBC is also joining the fray. “What makes the end of the internal combustion engine inevitable is a technological revolution. And technological revolutions tend to happen very quickly … [and] this revolution will be electric,” reports BBC‘s Justin Rowlett. Rowlett points to the late ’90s internet revolution as an example. “For those who hadn’t yet logged on [to the internet] it all seemed exciting and interesting but irrelevant — how useful could communicating by computer be? After all, we’ve got phones!...