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After Hurricane Milton made landfall in Florida on Wednesday, Sunshine State residents who own electric vehicles have been urged to be cautious. Ahead of Milton, one county that was in the hurricane’s path, Hillsborough County, said Monday EV owners in flood zones “should move their vehicles away from flood areas and storm surge” and noted storm surge and flooding can “pose a potential risk to lithium-ion batteries and could lead to fires.” It shared a county webpage about electric vehicle hurricane safety. EVs left behind during hurricanes should not be plugged into charging stations or parked in garages because of...

Ford Motor Company is hoping to boost sales of its electric vehicles (EVs) by giving away free at-home charging stations, executives announced this week. “Auto shoppers say they’re more likely to buy an electric vehicle if they could fill up at home. So we’re going to make it easy for our customers,” Ford CEO Jim Farley wrote on X: If you buy or lease a new [Ford] electric vehicle, we’ll include a complimentary home charger. This is part of something we’re calling the Ford Power Promise, which is about giving our electric vehicle customers convenience, peace of mind and expert...

Electric cars are up to twice as expensive as petrol or diesel vehicles to run... Running an electric vehicle (EV) can cost more than 24p per mile, while a diesel vehicle is 12.5p .. 80p per kilowatt hour ... A typical electric car will travel 3.3 miles for every kWh of electricity used, meaning rapid and ultra-rapid chargers currently cost the equivalent of 24.1p per mile. ... This is about double the average diesel car, which will do 43 miles per gallon, resulting in a cost of 12.5p per mile at current prices. A typical petrol car costs 14.5p per...

A consumer research group surveyed electric vehicle (EV) owners all around the world and found 46 percent of American EV owners regret their purchase and are “very likely” to switch back to the internal combustion engine (ICE). Around the world, 29 percent of EV owners said they will go back to the ICE. The top concerns are the lack of a reliable charging infrastructure, the costs involved in owning an EV, and anxiety about long-distance trips. Philipp Kampshoff, leader of the consulting firm Center for Future Mobility, told Automotive News he was surprised by the 49 percent number in the...

Millions of middle-class California households are poised to pay an extra $24 per month for electricity, regardless of how much electricity they use. Regulators are hoping this utility billing policy will rescue their agenda to move everyone to electric cars and appliances by redistributing the massive costs of the state’s electric grid so utilities can lower their usage rates. But critics say the income-based premium will likely further hike utility costs for millions of Californians—nearly one-fifth of whom are already behind in paying their bills after household electricity rates almost doubled in the last decade—and likely won’t do much to...

Due to China's overcapacity in production – as it aims to capture a quarter of the European electric vehicle market – the ports of Antwerp and Zeebrugge are inundated. You can share an article by clicking on the share icons at the top right of it. The total or partial reproduction of an article, without the prior written authorization of Le Monde, is strictly forbidden. For more information, see our Terms and Conditions. For all authorization requests, contact syndication@lemonde.fr. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2024/05/04/belgium-s-ports-drowning-under-glut-of-chinese-electric-cars-some-are-parked-here-for-a-year-sometimes-a-year-and-a-half_6670373_19.html A large number of Chinese-made cars are being gathered at Yantai Port for shipment for export in Yantai, Shandong Province,...

Hertz raised the number of electric vehicles it plans to sell this year as it is cutting its EV fleet to reduce losses that have weighed on the car rental giant’s earnings. In the first quarter, Hertz upsized its EV disposition plan by 10,000 vehicles, for a total of 30,000 EVs intended for sale in 2024. Most of these EVs will be Teslas. The company incurred a $195 million charge to vehicle depreciation to write down the EVs held for sale which were remaining in inventory at quarter-end to fair value and recognize the disposition losses on EVs sold in...

The startup electric car company Fisker said this week that it is halting the production of its vehicles to raise $150 million in emergency funds as it grapples with a cash crunch spurred by a low demand for electric vehicles. The California-based company, which says its mission is to “create the world’s most emotional and sustainable electric vehicles,” has barely produced over a thousand electric vehicles worldwide for the year. “The company has approximately 4,700 vehicles in its currently inventory, carried over from 2023 and including 2024 production,” the company said. “While it has not completed an NRV analysis for...

Officials say a low-voltage, lithium-ion battery from a Tesla exploded, sending heavy smoke through a North Carolina home. Cary Police say the owners of the Tesla removed one of the batteries from the car and took it in their house to charge it Saturday. While it was being charged, the battery short-circuited, and heavy smoke was released. Four people suffering from smoke inhalation were evacuated from the home. The battery involved in the accident was not a large, high-voltage battery that serves as a motor for an electric vehicle, according to firefighters. It was a 12-voltage battery similar to what...

Cities coast-to-coast grappling with broken-down e-buses that cannot be fixed .. Between the federal government, states and municipalities, untold billions in taxpayer dollars have been spent adding electric buses to transit fleets across the U.S. in an effort to reduce carbon emissions. However, cities from coast-to-coast are grappling with broken-down e-buses that cannot be fixed, are too expensive to fix, or they have scrapped their electric fleets altogether. Officials in Asheville, North Carolina, recently expressed frustration that three of the five e-buses the city purchased for millions in 2018 are now sitting idle due to a combination of software issues,...

Several cars had to be towed from a charging line in Evergreen Park on Monday as temperatures struggled to rise above freezing. Tests found that electric vehicles lose between 20% and 30% of their range when temperatures dip below freezing... Ice causing flooding concerns The frigid temperatures in Illinois are causing flooding concerns. Chunks of ice have built up along the Kankakee River near Wilmington, causing the water to rise in some areas. A flood warning was issued for the area for the remainder of the week. Flood waters have surrounded homes as river waters continue to flow beneath the...

Electric vehicle owners in the Chicago area have not been able to charge their overpriced method of transportation in the bitter cold this week, leaving scenes of dead electric cars littered across public charging stations. It turns out buying a worthless car to virtue-signal for the environment has unintended consequences. Fox Chicago reported Monday the charging stations have turned into electric car graveyards over the past two days as temperatures in the Windy City and its suburbs have dipped to the negative double digits. One man, Tyler Beard, to the outlet he had been trying to recharge his Tesla at...

Seems that Tesla Superchargers don't do all that well in cold weather.

Actor and director Sean Penn rescued Variety’s Marc Malkin, the pre-show host of the Golden Globes, after he was left stranded with an electric car that wouldn’t charge .. Penn ran into Malkin when he was left stranded on the way to Los Angeles from the Palm Springs Film Festival... Malkin’s electric car ran out of juice and needed a recharge, so he called a tow truck to get him to a charging station in Cabazon, California... Unfortunately, he ran into even more trouble when it failed to charge properly and he was officially stranded. That’s when Penn swooped in...

There are a lot of reasons to buy an electric car, but there are also many reasons not to. Today I'm going to explain why it's not quite the time to buy an electric car. When you compare electric vs petrol or ICE cars (internal combustion engine) then you might think you're getting a big improvement when you go electric, but you might just regret buying that car.

Hertz is slowing down plans to include more electric cars in its fleet. The firm said EVs have higher repair costs and have depreciated significantly. Hertz said it would buy 100,000 Teslas in 2021. Embracing electric cars is proving much more complicated than Hertz anticipated. The car-rental giant is hitting the brakes on a wide-ranging plan to integrate more electric vehicles into its fleet as it runs into challenges, such as high repair costs and depreciation. Hertz isn't giving up on EVs entirely, but it's starting to take a more measured approach. "Our in-fleeting of EVs will be slower than...

he veteran mechanic Scotty Kilmer has warned motorists thinking of buying an electric car to be careful not to damage the battery or face expensive repair bills. The popular YouTuber has worked on cars for over 55 years, and regularly posts videos helping viewers buy the right car for them and avoid issues. In one of his latest videos, Scotty warns that a lot of car insurance companies are scrapping electric vehicles with damaged batteries. He advised: "Here's yet another reason not to buy an electric car, because many insurance companies are now totalling electric cars with even minor damage...

lectric cars risk becoming effectively uninsurable as analysts struggle to put a price on battery repairs, the researcher for the car insurance industry has said. Jonathan Hewett, chief executive of Thatcham Research, the motor insurers’ automotive research centre, said a lack of “insight and understanding” about the cost of repairing damaged electric car batteries was pushing up premiums and resulting in some providers declining to provide cover altogether.

A BOY of 15 has been killed in a giant explosion feared to have been triggered by detonating electric car batteries. At least 163 were also injured following the huge blast in a customs warehouse near Tashkent Airport in Uzbekistan in the early hours, which was felt up to 20 miles away. Shocking footage shows the explosion at 2.43am local time, which caused damage to hundreds of houses and other buildings over a vast area. Batteries for electric cars exploded at the airport warehouse, it is understood. Dozens of ambulances ferried the wounded to hospitals and at least five children...

The race is on to prevent the sinking of a cargo ship off the Dutch coast which is carrying almost 3,000 vehicles, including 350 Mercedes-Benz, as it burns out of control with an electric car believed to be behind the deadly fire. At least one crew member died and others were injured after fire ripped through the Fremantle Highway, a 18,500-ton car-carrying vessel. Rescue helicopters and boats evacuated 23 crew members from the Panamanian-registered ship. Officials have said there are 'many' wounded. Some suffered broken bones, burns and breathing problems and were taken to hospitals in the northern Netherlands, emergency...