August 17, 2022
Today, XPeng Motors showcased a new ultra-fast supercharger that offers up to 480 kW of charging power so that in ideal conditions, you can recharge up to 210 km in five minutes. With the S4 ultra-fast charger, XPeng Motors has just developed the most powerful fast charger to date. The Chinese manufacturer has successfully recharged […]
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
Not GigaShanghai, but GigaBerlin is reportedly Tesla’s first factory to start equipping Model Y cars with the advanced Blade battery from Chinese automotive group BYD. The collaboration between both companies hasn’t been a secret, but while everybody assumed it would favor the Chinese market, Europe now seems to come first. Neither company acknowledges the technical […]
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 11, 2022
Ford’s all-electric vehicle sales reached a new record. In July, the company sold 7 669 BEVs, 169% more than a year ago and 4,9% of the total volume (also a new record). The company says that its BEV growth rate is outpacing the market’s average and that the brand is now the 2nd biggest player […]
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 10, 2022
Chevrolet has reduced the price of its Bolt EV by up to $6 000 in the US this summer. Owners of previously bought Bolt vehicles are apparently offered the same credit… if they waive all rights to sue GM over the vehicle. The website Jalopnik reported that owners who bought their Bolt before the price […]
August 08, 2022
The Democrats in the US Senate have presented a new bill on the tax credit for electric cars. This bill still foresees the amount of a $ 7 500 reduction, but the upper limit of 200 000 electric cars per manufacturer is removed. This would make Tesla and GM eligible again. The law has now […]
August 05, 2022
Nancy Pelosi’s cumbersome visit to Taiwan is already affecting the supply chain strategy for Ford, BMW, and Tesla. Chinese battery manufacturer CATL has postponed its decision on a US plant that is supposed to manufacture battery cells and packs for those brands. The company doesn’t want to raise geopolitical tensions any further by announcing an […]
August 05, 2022
In a statement commenting on the half-year results of the BMW Group, CEO Oliver Zipse also talked about the future new class, the ‘Neue Klasse’. He has confirmed that the first two models to be launched are an all-electric sedan and an SUV. So there will also be a “sporty SUV” at the launch alongside […]
August 03, 2022
The Italian high-end sports car manufacturer Ferrari has adapted its financial forecasts due to record earnings in the second quarter of 2022. From April to June 2022, it sold 3 455 sports cars, 28,7% more than the year before, while turnover jumped to €1,29 billion (+24,9%). “The results of the first six months of 2022 […]
August 03, 2022
The German airline group Lufthansa and its Belgian subsidiary Brussels Airlines are testing a new environmentally-friendly ticket fare on the Scandinavian market. In addition to the classic Light, Classic, and Flex fares, a so-called ‘green fare’ has also been available since Tuesday in the booking process for European flights from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. With […]
August 03, 2022
French Forsee Power and German Vitesco are joining the motorbike battery swap consortium formed by the major players in the motorbike sector. The consortium includes motorbike manufacturers and technology suppliers and now counts 21 members willing to jointly develop a new business model. The Japanese and Italian motorbike manufacturers have joined forces through the Swappable […]
August 03, 2022
“In a highly volatile environment, the BMW Group remained on course in the first half of 2022,” says the German premium manufacturer. The company emphasizes that this was achieved despite severe challenges, including continued supply chain disruptions and bottlenecks for semiconductors and specific supplier parts. Meanwhile, the company introduces an entry-level i4 eDrive35 in North […]
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
Turkey’s EV manufacturer Togg has taken a critical step toward series production. It released the first test cars straight off the lines in the Gemlik industrial center, southeast of Istanbul. CEO Gürcan Karakas told some German media more about the ambitious schedule. “At the beginning of November, we will have perfected the processes and then […]
August 02, 2022
Next to a fuel station from its sister brand Aral, BP has inaugurated its first charging station for battery-powered heavy trucks. The chargers are located in Schwegenheim, Germany, and are the first step toward more powerful stations. Electric trucks can only become viable if the charging stalls are powerful enough to reduce downtime to a […]
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
Germany’s largest nuclear power plant in Bavaria, the Isar 2 in Munich, might remain operational next year, if necessary. That is what the German Minister for the Environment, Steffi Lemke (Die Grünen), told the Frankfurter Allgemeine. Germany decided to exit atomic energy following the accident in Fukushima, Japan, in 2011. But since the Russian invasion […]
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
BMW has scaled up battery production at its Leipzig plant. The additional battery production line will enable the Leipzig plant to assemble battery units for the i4, after it had previously mainly produced batteries for the iX. The second production line for battery modules has just started up at the Leipzig production site, which began […]
August 01, 2022
Energy provider Eneco Belgium has been refused a permit to build a battery storage site in an industrial park in Ville-sur-Haine. The municipal council of the Roeulx commune has blocked the demand. This seems to be the newest example of the growing straddle between local and regional or national authorities. According to Eneco, the council’s […]
July 29, 2022
For the first quarter of its new fiscal year, Nissan has registered a regress in benefits but stays prudently optimistic about the year to come and hopes to sell 4 million cars. Partner Renault Group upgrades its 2022 financial outlook and accelerates its transformation. Both companies, the largest partners in the Alliance, are finally crawling […]
July 29, 2022
Rolls-Royce Motor Cars is entering the second phase of testing its all-important next vehicle, the fully electric Spectre coupé. All-in-all, 2,5 million test kilometers have to be run before the company gives the green light for production and commercialization of the car at the end of next year. The next location is the French Riviera. […]
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
The British brand Mini, part of the BMW Group, presents the Concept Aceman, an initial preview of its future model generation’s new design. In this concept car, Mini wants to show design-based and technological innovations that outline the brand-typical driving pleasure of the future. “The Mini Concept Aceman provides an initial glimpse of a completely […]
July 26, 2022
Belgian wind park company Storm has applied for a building and operating permit for a large-scale battery park in Genk (Limburg), on the former site of the power station in Langerlo, the last coal-fired power generating plant in Belgium that shut down in 2016. The latter was revealed by Het Belang van Limburg on Tuesday. […]
July 25, 2022
The Vivaldi government has finally come to ‘an agreement in principle’ with energy provider Engie to keep Belgium’s two youngest nuclear power plants – Doel 4 and Tihange 3 – open for ten more years. Both plants will restart their activities in November 2026. That is what Prime Minister Alexander De Croo (Open Vld), and […]
July 25, 2022
Renault’s sports car subsidiary Alpine gives a glimpse at its electric future with a concept car. The Alpine A110 E-ternité is based on the brand’s combustion sports car but has been rebuilt for the study as an all-electric open sports car with 178 kW of power. The cells of the 60 kWh battery for a […]
July 22, 2022
Last year, more than one-third (36,08%) of Flanders’s electricity came from renewable energy sources. That was slightly more than one year earlier (35,8%), the Flemish energy regulator VREG calculated. The VREG report shows that about 45% of all green electricity in Flanders is produced locally (in Belgium), and more than half (55%) abroad. In Norwegian […]
July 22, 2022
Ford Motor Co. is preparing to cut as many as 8 000 jobs in the coming months to boost profits and help to fund its push into the electrified vehicle market. That’s what news agency Bloomberg has heard; other sources (like the Wall Street Journal) talk of at least 4 000 job cuts. The job […]
July 22, 2022
In Belgium and Europe, the sales of electrified cars represented almost one-third of total sales for the second quarter of 2022. The European association of car manufacturers has just published the Q2 results. The electrified models continue their growth path in a general car market that is still regressing compared to last year due to […]
July 20, 2022
The English sports car producer Lotus, now part of the Chinese Geely automotive group, has completed the construction of its vehicle plant in the Chinese city of Wuhan. It has just produced the first example of its all-electric Eletre SUV model, the first to be built there. The Wuhan factory is designed for an annual […]
July 20, 2022
In Camargue, in the delta of the Rhone, an osmotic power plant will be implanted in 2023. The National Company of the Rhone (CNR), the leading French producer of 100% renewable energy, announced this on Tuesday. Osmotic energy is generated naturally by the difference in salinity between the freshwater of rivers and the salt water […]
July 20, 2022
The GM subsidiary Chevrolet has unveiled the Blazer EV. Based on parent company General Motors’ Ultium platform, the all-electric SUV will be available with a choice of front, rear, or all-wheel drive. Meanwhile, GM CEO Mary Barra sees a great future for an electric GM in the future, also in Europe. Even though the Blazer […]
July 20, 2022
Porsche has postponed the market launch of the all-electric Macan until 2024. That has been confirmed by Porsche boss Oliver Blume himself. Also noticeable: in addition to the E-Macan, a new electric luxury SUV will roll off the production line in Leipzig in the future. “The market launch is in 2024,” Blume said in an […]
July 19, 2022
Bilmo and Octave, two Brussels start-ups, have launched two innovative projects. Both companies were winners of the competition project organized by Bebat and Leefmilieu Brussel. Octave’s first circular stationary battery was commissioned on Tuesday at Terranova Solar, one of the biggest solar parks in the Benelux. Bilmo provides cargo bikes with energy using recycled bicycle […]
July 19, 2022
There are rumors that BMW has decided that the next generation of models based on the ‘New Class’ platform (‘die Neue Klasse’) planned for 2025 will be built exclusively with purely electric drive systems. In addition, another rumor about the battery cells for the new architecture is confirmed. On the other hand, there’s a growing […]
July 18, 2022
Hyundai has unveiled the RN22e and the N Vision 74, two very different electric car studies from its N performance sub-brand. In addition, the Korean company has also confirmed that the Ioniq 5 N will debut in 2023. The compact electric car is the brand’s first fully electric high-performance model. Although the Ioniq 5 N […]
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 17, 2022
The Chinese car company Geely has created ‘Radar Auto’, a new brand of electric ‘lifestyle vehicles’ such as pickup trucks, SUVs, and all-terrain vehicles (ATVs). The first product is the Radar RD6 pickup truck, scheduled to go into production in the fourth quarter of 2022. Details are to follow at a later date. According to […]
July 15, 2022
Despite Flemish Minister of Energy Zuhal Demir’s call to postpone the closure until spring, the nuclear power plants of Doel 3 is closing end of September. Thihange 2 will follow a few months later. According to energy provider Engie, keeping both plants operational for a longer time is impossible for technical and safety reasons. The […]
July 15, 2022
After the F-150 Lightning, Ford’s first fully electric pickup, North America’s number two car manufacturer is also planning electric variants for its smaller pickup trucks, Maverick and Ranger, in Europe. Ford has registered the model names ‘Maverick Lightning’ and ‘Ranger Lightning’ with the European Trademark Office. When Ford launched the F-150 Lightning, an all-electric version […]
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
A bill currently under study in the North Carolina legislature would allocate $50 000 to get rid of free public EV chargers unless free gas pumps are built alongside. That’s what a Car&Driver magazine contributor has noticed in its state and neighborhood, District 52 of that same US state. “Politicians have to run on some […]
July 14, 2022
A new report, titled ‘Renewable Power Generation Costs 2021’, published by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), shows that almost two-thirds of newly installed renewable energy in 2021 had lower costs than the world’s cheapest coal-fired option in G20 countries. In 2021, costs for renewables continued to fall. For example, the cost of electricity from […]
July 14, 2022
Can an electric vehicle (EV) be powered solely by solar energy in the form of carried-on solar panels? The results of a Chinese team of 42 companies and three universities joining forces may show that it’s possible. A team from Tianjin has developed an EV – called the ‘Tianjin’– that is powered entirely by solar […]
July 13, 2022
In a few years, the largest green hydrogen plant in Europe may be built in the port area of Amsterdam. Together with the Port of Amsterdam, the young company HyCC wants to develop a plant with a capacity of 500 megawatts in operation by 2027. An initial feasibility study has been completed. The project, which […]
July 13, 2022
Belgian Energy Minister Tinne Van der Straeten (Groen) proposes to ask for a one-off crisis contribution from the energy sector amounting to 25% of excess profits. The details are now being worked out with Finance Minister Vincent Van Peteghem (CD&V) and will end up on the government table in the autumn as part of the […]
July 13, 2022
Fuel prices are skyrocketing and many Belgian drivers adapt their driving habits. One out of three drivers reduces his speed on the highway, and one out of five even postpones his next refueling stop. That is what Vias, the traffic safety institute, discovered. Vias conducted two surveys and interrogated about 2 000 drivers to analyze […]
July 12, 2022
Flemish public transport company De Lijn has decided to opt for the PSI eBus charging and depot management system from the German PSI Transcom. The PSI software package will control the charging processes of the electric buses and monitor all movements of the buses in De Lijn’s depots. The contract represents an amount of € […]
July 12, 2022
The Belgian materials technology and recycling group Umicore is investing in a Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cell catalyst production facility in China. Located in Changshu, northwest of Shanghai, the plant is expected to be operational by the end of 2024. It will be scalable to adapt to the growth of the H2 commercial vehicle […]
July 12, 2022
Scania has delivered an all-electric truck specially designed for transporting timber to Swedish timber processor SCA, offering a gross vehicle weight of up to 64 tons on public roads and up to 80 tons on private roads. The vehicle will transport timber to SCA’s terminal in Gimonäs and the paper mill in Obbola near Umeå […]
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
Car branch organizations RAI and Bovag have reported that one car out of five sold in the first six months in the Netherlands was a fully electric one. In this first semester of 2022, 29 531 BEVs were registered, an 82,9% increase compared to last year’s same period. According to both associations, this sharp increase […]
July 08, 2022
In the first six months of 2022, BMW Group sold 1 160 443 vehicles, 13,3% less than the same period in 2021 (when a record number was registered). Nevertheless, it increased its lead in the premium automotive segment and more than doubled its sales of fully electric vehicles. “Despite a very challenging environment, we were […]
July 08, 2022
Six years after Tesla completed its first Gigafactory, Volkswagen has begun building its own in Salzgitter, Lower Saxony. The construction start marks the roll-out of no less than six battery cell factories for Europe under Volkswagen’s PowerCo umbrella. “Today is a good day for the automotive industry and Europe.” Those were the words of German […]
July 08, 2022
The Itzehoe-based German manufacturer ElectricBrands presented a camper van based on its electric light vehicle XBUS. There is also news about the Microlino clone Karo, which ElectricBrands plans to launch later this year as the ‘Evetta’. ElectricBrands does not give many details about the new ‘Camper’ in the press release, except that it is “at […]
July 08, 2022
DATS 24, Colruyt Group’s energy and fuel supplier, is opening its third H2 filling station at the Researchpark in Haasrode (near Louvain). With this opening, “DATS 24 emphasizes its belief in hydrogen as a fuel for electric vehicles”, says a press release. “Besides industrial and logistics applications, hydrogen also has a role to play in […]
July 07, 2022
The Members of the European Parliament (MEP) no longer object to the controversial proposition of the European Commission to give some investments in nuclear energy and natural gas a green and sustainable label. From now on, they will get a green label in the classification system for investors. According to the European Commission, gas and […]
