August 28, 2023
The first batch of Zeekr 001s, one of the two models available yet for Europe, has set sail for the Netherlands from the port of Taicang, China, to be delivered to customers in Q4 of this year. The new Swedish-Chinese Zeekr, a sister brand of Lynk & Co and Volvo, can already be ordered in […]
August 28, 2023
Belgium’s fourth biggest insurer, Ethias, announced in June it is entering the volatile market of leasing electric cars with a helping hand from Spanish specialist Banco Santander. The European Competition Authority now gives the green light for the merger with the Dutch daughter of the Spanish bank, Santander Consumer Leasing BV, as it sees no […]
August 26, 2023
German carmaker BMW further invests in its production of electric vehicles and adds a new logistics center for handling high-voltage battery packs to its Leipzig factory, where its first electric vehicle, the BMW i3 is phased out in July 2022. The MINI Countryman crossover is the following fully electric model to be built there. Today, […]
August 25, 2023
Volkswagen announced on Friday it opened pre-sales for its new flagship EV, the ID.7, at a price under 60k, that is €56 995 for the model in the Pro specification package with a range of up to 621 kilometers (WLTP). The first deliveries are expected before the end of the year. The ID.7 sedan is […]
August 24, 2023
Following sister-brand Lynk & Co’s wake, Volvo Car Belux and ALD/LeasePlan are giving the subscription model a tryout in Belgium by offering private individuals a personal lease contract for a popular Volvo XC40 – and only that one – which can be canceled after one month. More details are released after inquiry while Volvo Cars […]
August 23, 2023
In China, a car blogger has posted on microblogging website Weibo a series of pictures of a new heavily camouflaged NIO model that allegedly would be the first of the pristine sub-brand Alps. That brand is one of two – the other being Firefly – NIO wants to position in a price range under its […]
August 21, 2023
Cruise, the daughter of General Motors specializing in autonomous vehicles, started offering a paid robotaxi service in San Francisco but now agreed to reduce its fleet by 50% while the California Department of Motor Vehicles (CDMV) is investigating some bizarre and dangerous incidents. Just a few days ago, after months of debate, California’s Public Utilities […]
August 18, 2023
Dutch fast-charging company Fastned begins to see its vast investment efforts bear fruit, saying it hit a significant financial milestone during the first half of 2023, with the underlying company EBITDA reaching €2,8 million. By the end of June, it opened 28 new stations this year alone, adding to its network of 272 spread over […]
August 17, 2023
On Wednesday, the world’s biggest EV battery maker, Chinese CATL, presented its newest LFP battery named ‘Shenxing’, offering economical fast charging of 400 kilometers of extra range in only ten minutes and a total range of 700 km. CATL says it found the perfect balance of long-range and easy refueling, with EV charging taking no […]
August 16, 2023
After completing their previously announced ‘business combination’, the SPAC merger between Vietnamese VinFast and the already listed shell company Black Spade Acquisition, shares peaked at $37 on Tuesday after being $22 initially. This instantly made VinFast leapfrogging Ford and General Motors for the time being. These high share prices would value the Vietnamese carmaker around […]
August 15, 2023
Californian electric air taxi developer Archer Aviation has secured airworthiness certification from the FAA to start the homologation testing for its Midnight eVTOL air taxi. It got another $210 million fresh capital boost from big fellows like United Airlines, Boeing, and carmaker Stellantis, with the latter actually helping to build it, in a brand-new factory […]
August 11, 2023
Christian Koenigsegg, the founder, and CEO of the Swedish hypercar manufacturer bearing his name, producing some of the world’s most expensive sportscars, recently admitted he’s constantly looking for “a reason for electric hypercars to exist” as EVs are closing in on performances. And now Zeekr gives him and the whole hypercar-elite another reason to worry. […]
August 11, 2023
New global safety regulations that will soon come into effect reportedly force Ford to postpone its European-built all-electric Explorer SUV by about six months into 2024. Production of the new Explorer, unveiled in March 2023, was initially planned to start at the newly opened Electric Vehicle Center in Cologne (Germany) after the summer holidays. According […]
August 10, 2023
Dutch fast-charging company Fastned is tempting EV drivers heading on vacation to the South of France with free ice cream at its Belgian Ardennes station at Baraque de Fraiture in Vielsalm. Be there between 12 to 4 p.m. on ‘Red Saturday’ August 12th, to lick the free sweets. The Fastnet charging station is located at […]
August 10, 2023
There were 322 automobile assembly, engine, and battery production plants in Europe, up from 301 in 2021, according to the latest figures from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA). Of these, 213 are in the EU, an increase of 19 from 194 in 2021. These totals comprise 127 car factories, 44 for vans, 56 for […]
August 09, 2023
A new Spanish operator, Surcar Airlines Hidroaviones, is planning to retrofit Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter seaplanes with ZeroAvia’s 600kW ZA600 fuel cell engines to enable zero-emission sightseeing flights in the Canary Islands. It signed an agreement for this with British-American start-up ZeroAvia. ZeroAvia just announced the completion of its initial prototype ZA600 flight testing […]
August 07, 2023
American electric and fuel cell truckmaker Nikola keeps on sailing through stormy waters. Its third CEO in a row, Michael Lohscheller, the ex-boss of Opel in a former life, is stepping down immediately ‘for family reasons’ and returning to Europe. From there, he will stay on as an ‘advisor’ to assist CEO number four, until […]
August 04, 2023
At Zeekr’s plant in Ningbo, Zhejiang province in China, the first model of the shooting brake 001 destined for Europe has rolled off the assembly lines. The first batch is expected to be shipped to Europe from the port of Taicang in mid-August, with first deliveries this year. The new Swedish-Chinese Zeekr, a sister brand […]
August 03, 2023
Leasys, the new pan-European operational leasing company created by French Crédit Agricole’s daughter CA Consumer Finance and car manufacturer Stellantis has finalized the takeover of the operations of ALD Automotive and LeasePlan in Luxembourg and Portugal. This way, an additional 30 000 vehicles are added to their jointly managed fleet, now totaling 828 000. The […]
August 02, 2023
Italian design house Pininfarina Automobili shows its latest design study, the PURA Vision, as a guideline for a so-called electric Luxury Utility Vehicle (LUV) of the future. It will be shown at the Monterey Car Week later in August, next to the Battista Edizione Nino Farina hyper GT. Still, any technical specifications or a commitment […]
August 01, 2023
Stellantis Group has completed its 33,3% purchase in entering the capital of French fuel cell specialist Symbio, already a supplier of hydrogen systems for the group’s utility vehicles. The current shareholders, automotive supplier Faurecia and tire giant Michelin announced in December last year the start of negotiations with Stellantis. “Acquiring an equal stake in Symbio […]
July 31, 2023
Last Friday, the Vietnamese car manufacturer held the groundbreaking ceremony of its electric vehicle factory in Chatham County, North Carolina, its first car plant in the US. It should produce 150 000 cars annually in phase 1 and employ some 7 500 workers by 2025. The planned $4 billion investment was reeled in by North […]
July 31, 2023
Five years after 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg was killed, hit by a Uber self-driving car in Tempe, Arizona, the human driver, Rafaela Vasquez, was convicted by a court and sentenced to three years of supervised probation without imprisonment. Eventually, Vasques pleaded guilty to endangerment, avoiding the prison she feared most. Initially, Vasquez was charged with ‘negligent […]
July 28, 2023
Chinese premium carmaker NIO is to open on August 8th its first ‘NIO HUB’ in the Netherlands, at a central point in Breukelen (Utrecht) near the A2 highway where all sales, delivery & return services are bundled. As an attention-seeker, NIO is showing exclusively for Europe the EP9 sportscar that established the track record for […]
July 27, 2023
BMW has launched a new test site for highly automated driving up to level 4 and self-parking in Sokolov, in the former mining region of Karlovarský in Czechia. The ‘Future Mobility Development Center’ (FMDC) was built on 600 hectares of a former surface mine site with 2.2 million cubic meters of recycled soil previously excavated. The […]
July 26, 2023
One of British best-known climate activists and industrialists and founder of Ecotricity, the ‘world’s first green energy company’, unveiled plans to launch by 2024 the ‘first electric airline powered by renewable energy’. Ecojet, as the new airline is called, will operate planes converted to hydrogen fuel cells by 2025 from Edinburgh to start, expanding through […]
July 25, 2023
The spoiled rich kid’s ultimate toy car, a fully electric 75% scaled replica of the famous Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa, now has its grown-up configurator in 3D augmented reality. The Little Car Company offers your son or daughter “complete creative freedom to design their very own specification, from choosing a livery to their taste to […]
July 24, 2023
It’s going further downhill with the French hydrogen car fairy tale of racing pilot Olivier Lombard, the Hopium Māchina that once was called the ‘French Tesla of hydrogen’ by the former Transport Minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari. The Paris court granted the start-up a judicial recovery procedure for six months, eventually to be extended to twelve. In […]
July 21, 2023
The Dutch geodata specialist Cyclomedia has finished digitizing the whole of Belgium in 360° ‘street view’ high-definition images. It enables one to visit any street in the country virtually and measure distances and building dimensions without physically going there – an asset they sell to public instances and private companies. Using a fleet of nine […]
July 19, 2023
The Flemish government decided to slack off the future ban on Euro 2 gasoline cars and Euro 5 diesel cars in the Low-Emission Zones of Antwerp and Gent, the sole cities in Flanders that actually have a LEZ besides Brussels. Initially due to be effective from January 1st, 2025, the ban will be postponed by […]
July 18, 2023
According to an official Tesla tweet, the ‘first Cybertruck’ electric pickup was built at the Texas gigafactory this week. Whether that means the company is ahead of production schedule or this is, just a first unit to fine-tune upcoming volume production isn’t clear. Normally, the first deliveries were scheduled for ‘around the end of the […]
July 17, 2023
British Ineos Automotive, the global chemical giant’s daughter, debuted at the Goodwood Festival of Speed (GFS), the hydrogen demonstration version of its Landrover Defender-clone, the Grenadier. The Grenadier Demonstrator got BMW’s latest fuel cell technology as used for the iX5 Hydrogen. After ‘rigorous offroad testing’ in the Austrian mountains, the Grenadier Demonstrator proved capable of […]
July 14, 2023
German automotive supplier Robert Bosch GmbH has started mass production of fuel cell engines at its Stuttgart-Feuerbach factory, one of the ‘oldest’ of the group’s numerous factories worldwide. The first fuel power modules are going to American electric truck startup Nikola, whose Class 8 hydrogen truck should come to the US market in the third […]
July 13, 2023
The Dutch ‘flying car’ PAL-V Liberty, currently undergoing an extensive test program to prepare for serial production and homologation for Europe next year, has seduced Austrian aviation specialist Primus Aero to buy the first five of a whole fleet of them for its mobile service teams. At what price wasn’t unveiled. The PAL-V Liberty can […]
July 13, 2023
Eventually, it was to become Lynk & Co’s first fully electric model. Still, after reconsideration, it was labeled ‘too good’ to resist the temptation to put it on the market as a new premium brand: the Zeekr 001. Not to be expected this year in Belgium, but ready for Sweden and the Netherlands, we got […]
July 10, 2023
Dutch contract car manufacturer Nedcar says it has signed a new declaration of intent with a new non-disclosed client to assemble or build cars again in Born near the Belgian border from 2026 on. That would provide 3 000 jobs in the de long term. But het 1 800 lay-offs scheduled in November this year […]
July 10, 2023
Two years after the full-electric CE 04 ‘kicked off BMW Motorrad’s electric urban mobility future, there is a new full-electric sibling on two wheels: the CE 02 eParkourer. The bike, with its chassis with a double-loop tube frame, telescopic forks, single-sided swingarm, and cast light alloy wheels, looks somewhat like an oversized fat bike. Created […]
July 06, 2023
Nissan has launched in the United Kingdom a flexible subscription service featuring a simple all-in-one monthly payment for its EVs, Leaf, and Ariya, and the hybrid Qashqai e-POWER, with 800 miles (1 287 km) per month included. But it doesn’t always come as a bargain. Prices start as ‘low’ as £645/mth (€755) for the Leaf […]
July 05, 2023
Imagine Brussels a decade further in the future with electric flying VTOL taxis taking off and landing vertically on ‘vertidromes’ at several places in the inner city, picking up passengers to fly them in no time to the national airport high above a congested city. An airborne ride that would cost you four to eight […]
July 04, 2023
How do you grab a parking ticket through the passenger window from the boxes at the parking entrance or toll booths when driving a left-hand-drive (LHD) car in the United Kingdom? Tesla drivers get a mechanic grabbing arm called ‘The Reacher’ with their left-hand-drive-only Model S or X these days to solve the problem. In […]
June 30, 2023
On its ‘tech days 2023’, state-owned Chinese carmaker GAC (Guangzhou Automobile Group Co.) showed several technical ‘tour de forces’, including the world’s first passenger car engine running on ammonia. GAC developed a 2.0-liter engine that can burn liquid ammonia, delivering 120 kilowatts of power and a 90% reduction in carbon emissions compared to conventional fuels. […]
June 28, 2023
Chinese luxury brand Zeekr, daughter of Geely Holding Group and sister brand to Volvo and Lynk & Co, among others, is starting its European offensive by opening preordering for the Zeekr 001 and Zeekr X in the Netherlands and Sweden. The latter is Zeekr’s second ‘homeland’, where the Global Design Center and European R&D are […]
June 27, 2023
With its 5,27-meter length and full two meters width, the Chinese Maxus’ MIFA9 is quite a giant-looking full electric people mover for seven or eight persons. A challenge to test drive on narrow roads in the hinterland of Namur. But that proved surprisingly pleasant: a rather pussyfooting elephant, we would say. The price of its […]
June 26, 2023
According to Shell Recharge’s annual EV Driver Survey, Europe is at the tipping point of mass adoption of electric cars. Real-world experiences make EV drivers slowly swallow their range anxiety, the ones still seeing a problem dropping from 60 to 50%. 47% don’t feel the need to recharge daily, and there is no turning back […]
June 21, 2023
The ‘tsunami’ of Chinese EVs is reaching European shores with yet another brand, Human Horizon’s flagships HiPhi X and Z, available now in Norway and Germany. With prices above €100 000 euros, these are not your average budget cars, and they’re bluntly targeting the heart of Europe’s premium car market, armed with luxury and high-tech. […]
June 20, 2023
Ark, a London-based EV start-up, has launched its first electric car, a quadricycle called the Ark Zero, claiming it’s the most affordable EV in the United Kingdom, where it is offered exclusively. With a price tag of £5 995 (€7 012), this microcar is a competitor to Citroen’s Ami (£7 695) on the other side […]
June 19, 2023
The fight of Dutch fast-charger company Fastned and Tesla with its Superchargers against the charging station monopoly for Tank & Rast, owning 95% of all fuel stations along German highways, is moving to a higher level; the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Both companies were challenging the decision of the German Federal Anti-Cartel Office, which […]
June 19, 2023
Three manufacturers of so-called L7e microcars, Microlino, City Transformer, and Circle Mobility, are forging a coalition to convince policymakers to push their products as a viable alternative for full-size cars, especially in cities. They’re considering specific taxation, subsidies, and exemptions for microcars in urban traffic and parking areas. The coalition that welcomes all other microcar […]
June 16, 2023
Chinese premium carmaker NIO is pushing two more models – the EL6 and ET5 Touring – to Europe, at least in those countries where it is already present: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands. The EL6 – called ES6 in China – is a slightly smaller SUV than its EL7 sibling at a somewhat […]
June 16, 2023
It looks like VDL Nedcar management in Born and the unions buried the hatchet after they reached an agreement on Tuesday evening on a substantially better social plan for the 3 950 people in the car factory who will probably lose their job. The employees, who struck for eight days, voted on Thursday in favor […]
June 15, 2023
Chinese battery giant CATL has launched in its homeland ‘Qiji Energy ‘, a battery swap solution for heavy-duty trucks. These can be equipped with up to three ‘battery blocks’ with a capacity of 171 kWh each, up to 513 kWh. The blocks offered come with specific swapping stations and a cloud platform to make battery […]
June 15, 2023
Belgian start-up SOLiTHOR, a spin-off from research company Imec, which is developing its own promising solid-state battery technology, is expanding its scientific staff to move toward the final commercialization, aiming at vehicles and aviation, defense, and maritime applications. Among them, Belgian Dr. Matthieu Moors, returning from Tesla Giga Berlin, where he was Senior Staff Engineer […]
June 13, 2023
Japanese carmaker Toyota finally seems to embrace the all-electric car and aims at several improved BEV batteries shortly, with an all-solid-state battery announced as soon as 2027. That one should allow a 1 200 km range, later up to 1 500 km, and fast charging from 10-80% in 10 minutes or less. Toyota sold only […]
June 09, 2023
The Nedcar works council has postponed its application for a temporary injunction to force VDL management to grant insight into the documents about BMW’s unilateral breaking of the contract to build the successor of the MINI Countryman in Born. VDL will allow access to the papers ‘under strict conditions’. But these conditions are not to […]
June 08, 2023
The Antwerp car servicing group Beerens breathes new life into the former Opel plant at the Noorderlaan with a new site for its Belcar daughter to prepare some 100 000 new and second-hand leased cars a year for the market. Announced in February 2021, the site is reopening on Thursday after renovation, which included 20 […]
June 07, 2023
Smart Automobile, Geely’s joint venture with Mercedes-Benz, launched last week its second model, the Smart #3, in China at prices ranging from 209 900 to 289 900 yuan. In euros, that would be between 27 560 and 38.060. That highest price tag is for the Brabus Performance version, of which only 1 999 will be […]
June 06, 2023
In May 2023, there were 57 807 second-hand cars registered in Belgium, meaning the market is dominated by 88% by private buyers and is keeping a steadily growing pace of 4,4%, says the automotive services federation Traxio. According to spokesperson Filip Rylant, this is due to more recent second-hand cars reaching the market as deliveries […]
May 24, 2023
American EV manufacturer Lucid has taken another step in exporting variants of its electric car to Europe by announcing prices for the Air Pure, the basic Air model, becoming available in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Norway. In Germany, the Lucid Air Pure AWD will retail for €109 000, and the Lucid Air Touring for […]
May 22, 2023
After France created a legal framework for retrofitting vehicles with an internal combustion engine (ICE) into an electrical (or hydrogen) EV, Belgium is also ready from June 1st, 2023. Federal Mobility Minister Georges Gilkinet (Ecolo) drafted a new Royal decree by mutual agreement with the Regions, which now have their homologation services to publish updated […]
May 17, 2023
Steel giant ArcelorMittal announced it will build a new unit at its existing site in Mardyck (North of France) to produce 220 000 tons of steel for EV motors starting in 2024. With this 300 million euros investment, ArcelorMittal will triple the production of this type of electrical steel with specific magnetic properties due to […]
