August 17, 2022
Nothing is officially confirmed yet, but the rumors circulating for some time now are pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that’s beginning to take shape: Hyundai is working on two small electric cars under €20 000 to replace the current i10 with a combustion engine in the A-(mini) segment. The intention to launch a small electric […]
August 17, 2022
Swedish-Chinese sister brand of Volvo, Polestar, has confirmed that the Polestar O2 roadster study model unveiled in March in Los Angeles will become a reality by 2026 as a production model designated as the Polestar 6. The hard-top convertible will inherit the power base of the Polestar 5, meaning an 800 Volt architecture, dual motors […]
August 16, 2022
A remarkable incident occurred Sunday morning on a Belgian highway past weekend. A man, sitting unconscious behind the wheel of his Renault Clio, was stopped after several fruitless attempts by a police car, only after 25 kilometers, all the time driving steadily at 80 km/h on adaptive cruise control and lane keeping assistant. On Sunday […]
August 16, 2022
After a first German plant, Chinese battery giant CATL is building a second, 100 GWh battery plant in Debrecen in the eastern part of Hungary to supply its European customers such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Stellantis, and Volkswagen. Mercedes-Benz has an alliance with CATL initiated in 2020 and will be the first to use the cells […]
August 12, 2022
Dutch fast-charger network company Fastned has tripled its turnover in the first two quarters of this year to €12,6 million, a 188% increase compared to the same period in 2021. This is due to the fast expansion of its European network and the growing fleet of electric cars. In Belgium, Fastned opened four new fast-charging […]
August 12, 2022
German automotive veteran Michael Lohscheller who joined American electric truck maker Nikola in February of this year, will succeed Mark Russell as CEO and President of Nikola Corporation when he retires on January 1st, 2023. Before joining the truckmaker, Lohscheller briefly was the CEO of Vietnamese VinFast but decided to return to Europe for personal […]
August 11, 2022
Nippon Express (NX) Italia has launched an ‘eco-friendly’ last-mile delivery service in Venice, Italy, using hydrogen-powered boats to navigate the canals. Venice just got its first public hydrogen filling station in June 2022, only the second in the whole of Italy, one of the laggards in Europe regarding this alternative zero-emission fuel. Nippon Express Group […]
August 11, 2022
Electric carmaker Tesla will finally deliver the first fully battery-electric class-8 Semi trucks with a 500-mile (800 km) range by the end of 2022. At least, this is what Elon Musk promised on Twitter. And PepsiCo, which ordered 100 of them years ago, is probably the lucky one to get them first. Tesla unveiled the […]
August 10, 2022
According to American strategic research company BloombergNEV, passenger car sales will keep on growing in the next decade, from 1,2 billion today to 1,5 billion in 2039. They see the tipping point after a century of uninterrupted annual car sales growth, the so-called ‘car peak’, in 2036. And it’s going to be more and more […]
August 10, 2022
Volvo Car Gent has started end June construction works to extend its on-site EV battery pack assembly production from 150 000 today to over 300 000 by mid-2023. In 2020, this brand new battery assembly plant in Ghent was the first for Volvo. Currently, 240 people are working on these assembly lines. Two models In […]
August 08, 2022
Lucid Motors, the electric carmaker of ex-Tesla engineer Peter Rawlinson, will build only 6 000 to 7 000 cars this year due to production headaches and shortages. Initially, Lucid had forecasted 20 000 Lucid Air sedans for 2022. In February, this was adjusted to 12 to 14 000 and halved again now. When Lucid had […]
August 05, 2022
Three years after flying over the Channel with a self-developed ‘Flyboard’, French former jet-ski world champion Franky Zapata has demonstrated his ‘flying car’, the JetRacer. The drone-like VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) aircraft with one seat is propelled by ten micro turbo-jet engines. It can reach an altitude of 3 000 meters and a top […]
August 05, 2022
Austrian automotive contract manufacturer Magna has finished 55 prototypes of the Fisker Ocean EV for final testing to prepare for the production kickoff on November 17th, 2022. Fiskers says all 5 000 limited edition Oceans are sold, outspread over Austria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States, where the car […]
August 04, 2022
The European Commission has given the green light for Belgian D’Ieteren Group to take over French Parts Holding Europe (PHE) on the condition it sells the car glass division of the parts distributor. D’Ieteren had proposed to put up for sale PHE’s Mondial Pare-Brise and Glass Auto Service in France to avoid a monopoly as […]
August 03, 2022
Hyundai is expanding its hydrogen truck fleet in Europe by delivering 27 XCIENT fuel cell trucks to seven German logistics, manufacturing, and retail companies. They applied and got approval for the funding of eco-friendly commercial vehicles from Germany’s Federal Ministry for Digital and Transport (BMDV). BMDV has a budget of 1,6 billion euros available until […]
August 02, 2022
Chinese Ganfeng Lithium Group has started constructing what it claims to become China’s biggest solid-state battery factory, with a capacity of 10 GW of battery cells and 10 GW of EV battery packs. The group specializes in a wide array of the lithium battery supply chain, from lithium resource development, refining, and processing to battery […]
August 02, 2022
Dutch fast-charging network manager Fastned is raising prices from Monday on by 10% on average to cope with higher energy prices on the market. “As we expect energy prices to remain volatile, we will review our prices monthly and adjust when appropriate,” the company says. In November 2021, Dutch Fastned raised prices for the first […]
August 01, 2022
Chinese premium electric carmaker NIO has reconfirmed its intentions to deliver a 150 kWh battery in Q4 of this year. This battery, which Beijing-based WeLion develops, is a hybrid solid-liquid electrolyte battery that would boost the range of the NIO ET7 sedan above 1 000 km (NEDC). For a heavy SUV like the ES8, a […]
August 01, 2022
Dutch contract manufacturer VDL Nedcar in Born will build MINIs for BMW for four months longer than initially agreed, until the 1st of March 2024. The province of Limburg broke the news BMW signed a new contract with VDL to postpone the originally fixed end date of November 2023. Meanwhile, according to the same source, […]
July 29, 2022
The roll-out of 10 000 extra charging points in the public domain in Flanders – on demand for those who don’t have the means to charge an EV at home – will be realized in the next two years by French energy giants Engie and TotalEnergies. They won the public tender, which divides Flanders into […]
July 28, 2022
Mercedes-Benz Group AG reported on Wednesday good Q2 results due to ‘strong demand and a favorable model mix’. That reads like more high-margin cars sold in their ‘core luxury segment’, despite an overall sales decrease of 7%. The latter is caused by uncertainties like the Ukraine war, growing inflation, and shortages of semiconductors. With EQE […]
July 28, 2022
Swedish high-performance sports car manufacturer Koenigsegg is investing an undisclosed amount of money in the Dutch solar car start-up Lightyear. The partnership goes further than finances alone, including exchanging technical expertise, both parties announced on Thursday. The Lightyear 0, the first solar car of the Dutch start-up, is to go into a limited production of […]
July 27, 2022
Making ‘green hydrogen’ with a sort of coffee machine at home? A Hong Kong-based renewable energy company called EPRO Advance Technologies (EAT) claims a breakthrough in using metallurgical silicon powder to do so. “Imagine vacuum-packed Si+ cartridges comparable to coffee machine pods and capsules; only add water to generate hydrogen anywhere.” It’s no science fiction, […]
July 27, 2022
In America, van body manufacturers EAVX and Morgan Olson have launched the first drive-by-wire fully electric walk-in step van, based on the P7 platform of Israeli REE Automotive. REE’s fully flat and low platform, unveiled in January 2022, is intended to underpin Class 3-5 fully electric vehicles with payloads up to 3 600 kg, offering […]
July 26, 2022
Mercedes-Benz Trucks started at its Wörth am Rhein plant in Germany, producing the eEconic, its second fully battery-electric truck next to the eActros. The key technical specifications of the eEconic are mainly identical to those of the eActros, but aimed at municipal use or last-mile delivery, in particular, the truck builder says. The eEconic was […]
July 25, 2022
Together with the fully electric Ariya, Nissan let us take a taste in Sweden of the new Qashqai e-Power, a totally different kind of hybrid. Not the HEV we’re used to knowing from pioneers like Toyota, not a plug-in hybrid you can charge at home, but an electric car with a nearly permanently running generator […]
July 25, 2022
General Motors has finally unwrapped its fully electric flagship, a possible answer to the Mercedes EQS and the BMW i7. The Cadillac Celestiq show car might become the most expensive Cadillac ever, at over $300 000. And it will be the second electric model of the luxury brand after the Lyriq, which is just starting […]
July 25, 2022
Scott Keogh, CEO of Volkswagen Group America, is stepping down to take the wheel at Scout, the brand VW is setting up in the United States for all-electric pickups and rugged SUVs. He will become Scout’s CEO on September 1st. The EV brand is named after the International Harvester Scout, an early precursor to the […]
July 22, 2022
Stellantis Group has launched an offer in France to rent a B-segment full electric car for 24 months for a fee starting as low as €150, after an initial downpayment of around €2 000 and targeted at people trading in an old ICE car. The ‘Electric As You Go’ program will likely be extended to […]
July 20, 2022
Europe’s second biggest low-budget airline, British-based Easyjet, will work with British aerospace giant Rolls Royce (not the carmaker) in developing jet engines running on hydrogen. Both parties announced at the Farnborough aerospace fair that they will start ground tests this year, aiming to get the technology airborne by 2030. H2ZERO, as the cooperation is baptized, […]
July 19, 2022
The electric Polestar 3 that will debut in October of this year will be sold at prices between €75 000 and €110 000, CEO Thomas Ingenlath confirmed at the Automotive News Europe Congress. Ingenlath mentioned the base price for its large SUV earlier in December 2021 and added that a compacter crossover version, the Polestar […]
July 18, 2022
Belgian telecom operator Proximus is planning to roll out 15 000 new EV charging points in total, of which 8 000 at 4 000 existing cable distribution boxes in the public domain and the remaining 7 000 at semi-public parking lots with selected partners. EV charging-as-a-service will now become part of its business model. The […]
July 18, 2022
Olivier Sermeus, Chief Operation Officer (COO) at Astara Western Europe since September 2020, moves officially further up to take the wheel as Managing Director of the car distribution group that counts more than 700 selling points and some 375 dealers. As expected, Damien Heymans, the current company’s CEO and MD of Alcomotive, the last member […]
July 15, 2022
When Nissan, one of the pioneers of electric driving with the Leaf, says that the new Ariya is the stepping stone to a whole new range of EVs, we are all ears. Driving it on Swedish roads around Stockholm, it reveals itself as a better version – roomier, sharper, quieter, more efficient, and even more […]
July 15, 2022
Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Wednesday that Belgian battery material giant Umicore will build a new battery materials plant in the capital Ottawa in the Ontario province. It will produce cathode materials to equip about one million electric vehicles with lithium-ion batteries a year and create hundreds of jobs. According to Ontario’s Economic […]
July 14, 2022
Boxier SUVs and crossovers are wind scoops compared to sleek sedans costing more energy. Hyundai is proving this once again as it released the specs of its newest fully electric sedan, the Ioniq 6. The latter easily gets 100 km further with the same 77,4 kWh battery as the Ioniq 5 crossover, 610 km compared […]
July 11, 2022
By 2050, about one-quarter or about 150 megatons (Mt] of hydrogen per year of the total global hydrogen demand could be traded worldwide through retrofitted gas pipelines or converted to ammonia for shipping. This would drastically reduce the transport costs and the bulk; 75% would be produced and consumed locally. The latter is projected by […]
July 11, 2022
For a few weeks now, an e-ATAK eight-meter-long midibus of Turkish light commercial vehicle builder and bus manufacturer Karsan has been running autonomously on a daily service from Stavanger’s bus operator Kolumbus in Norway. It’s equipped with autonomous Level 4 driving hardware and software supplied by Californian company Adastec and is claimed to be the […]
July 08, 2022
On Thursday, the European Parliament agreed to set a roadmap for the sector to fly on sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) made from food waste, animal fat, or hydrogen, and CO2 instead of pure fossil kerosine. The MEPs went further than the EU Commission, setting the bar to 85% added SAF by 2050 instead of the […]
July 07, 2022
With a market share of 18% or 1 744 520 newly registered cars in Europe, the ‘electrically chargeable’ car uptake has multiplied tenfold in the last five years. That means almost one in five cars sold has a plug (BEVs and PHEVs), compared to one in ten (10,5%) the year before. It’s one of the […]
July 06, 2022
On Tueday, the EU agreed on the Commission’s updated proposal to toughen emission ratings for plug-in hybrids (PHEV) by 2025 to mimic better the actual amount of CO2 they emit on the road, being sometimes three times higher than assumed. The so-called ‘utility factor’, used to calculate the share of electric driving in estimating CO2 […]
July 05, 2022
German automotive supplier Mahle has developed a new breed of electromotor with an integrated oil cooling that can run almost endlessly at 90% of its peak power as long as the battery can hold. That’s quite unique as today’s e-motors on the market generally can deliver their peak power only for 50-60 seconds because of […]
July 01, 2022
Mercedes-Benz is injecting an extra two billion euros to prepare its network of European production plants for the brand to go all-electric by the end of the decade – ‘wherever market conditions allow.’ The German carmaker reshuffles production of the future product portfolio focusing on three categories: Top End Luxury, Core Luxury, and Entry Luxury. […]
June 29, 2022
Early in the morning on Wednesday, the 27 member states of the European Council approved the ‘Fit for 55’ climate plan of the Commission, reducing CO2 emissions for cars by 55% by 2030 and 100% by 2035. Despite the last-minute maneuvers of car-producing countries like Italy to postpone the date, the 27 stick to 2035 […]
June 29, 2022
Ahead of the final launch in July, Hyundai has lifted the veils on the design of the new Ioniq 6 sedan, which it calls an ‘Electrified Streamliner’. With a drag coefficient of 0.21, a mix of classic and modern car designs, and a curvature like a banana, it looks pretty different from the boxy Ioniq […]
June 28, 2022
After showing the Chinese Mulan earlier this month, SAIC has unveiled more details of its next MG model, the MG 4 Electric, for Europe and the rest of the world. The compact four-door sedan features a very slim battery – only 110 mm high – allowing 51 kWh to 64 kWh packs and even swapping […]
June 28, 2022
On Monday, Volkswagen unwrapped its next electric vehicle in the line-up in China, the ID. Aero. A four-doors sedan with a 77 kWh battery that will offer an estimated WLTP range of 620 km. After the ID.4, this model will be the carmaker’s next global car for Europe, China, and the US, Ralf Brandstätter, CEO […]
June 27, 2022
The European Commission calls on all partners in the aviation sector to join forces in an alliance on zero-emission aviation. Over the next two decades, the Commission says, more than 44,000 new aircraft are expected to be on the market. It estimates the potential market volume for zero-emission aircraft at 26 000 by 2050, with […]
June 24, 2022
The Esso fuel station at the Antwerp Noorderlaan, run by Belgian family-owned G&V Energy Group, is the first in the country where the fuel pumps have been replaced by High Power Chargers (HPC) with 300kW capacity. A sign of the times coming, as G&V and Dutch Allego plan to do the same on 12 other […]
June 24, 2022
BMW has inaugurated its state-of-the-art new EV plant in Shenyang, China. Plant Lydia, as it is called, produces for BMW Brilliance Automotive Ltd an extended, fully electric version of the classic 3-Series we know, but exclusively for China. Plant Lydia is the first BMW Group plant fully planned and simulated in the virtual world from […]
June 23, 2022
Belgian Umicore will invest half a billion euros in a new EV battery recycling plant in Europe, the biggest in the world. The location is yet to be decided, defined by good logistics and the availability of schooled personnel. It should be operational by 2026 and recycle 150 000 tons per year. The investment is […]
June 22, 2022
Volkswagen is going to unveil its first fully-electric sedan, the ID. Aero on June 27th, but teases further with a new glimpse and new design sketches of the reproduction model. The ID.Aero – called an answer to Tesla’s Model 3 by some – will be released first in its Chinese livery, where it goes on […]
June 21, 2022
Sevic? Never heard of it? Well, that might change as the German EV engineering start-up has its first V500e vehicles delivered by Bulgarian contract EV manufacturer Milara International to Bochum for internal testing and client approval. And it’s ready to take the European cities. The compact light utility EV with a unique cargo swap system […]
June 21, 2022
Swedish truck builder Volvo Trucks has unveiled its first heavy-weight fuel cell electric truck with a range of more than 1 000 km and two 300 kW generating fuel cells on board to handle up to 65 tons of weight. Refueling takes only 15 minutes as a regular diesel truck. Cellcentric will provide the fuel […]
June 20, 2022
Tesla has opened up more of its Supercharger network in Europe for EVs of other brands by adding Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Denmark, and Finland to the list at the beginning of the holiday season. After a pilot project in the Netherlands, Norway, France, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Sweden, and the UK were already released. Tesla announced […]
June 17, 2022
Chinese premium EV maker NIO has unveiled its newest ‘mid-large’ SUV, the ES7, a five-seater nearly five meters long that it sees as an answer to the upcoming long-wheel-based BMW X5. Like all NIOs, it features swappable battery packs of 75 kW, 100 kW, and an ‘Ultralong Range Battery’ offering up to 850 km range. […]
June 16, 2022
The facelift of the Chinese Lynk & Co 01 SUV with its prominent redesigned tail lights won’t make it to Europe. The latter was confirmed by the new Benelux PR manager. So for the 120 000 ‘members’ the Volvo-Geely car brand has today in seven European countries and the 16 000 cars delivered, nothing will […]
June 16, 2022
On Tuesday, Hyundai Belux officially delivered ten units of its hydrogen-driven Nexo to the European Parliament’s professional drivers. Within the framework of the EU Research and Technology Development Project, there is already a fleet of ten Nexos operational since May last year. That fleet is now doubled. MP’s can use the hydrogen cars when they […]
June 15, 2022
American fuel cell specialist Hyzon is buying itself an entry into the German zero-emission truck market by acquiring the Orten Group, one of the pioneers in Germany for the electrification of new and used commercial diesel vehicles. “The acquisition brings three fully-operational production facilities and a team of over 80 employees under the Hyzon umbrella. […]
June 15, 2022
Dutch fast-charging company Fastned has ambitious plans to double its network in Europe from 207 today to 400 by 2024 and round the cape of 1 000 before 2030. That would require 100 new stations a year, compared to 60 now. And an extra 50 to 75 million euros to invest in the first step. […]
