August 05, 2022
Has the famous VW Golf reached a dead-end? In an interview with German newspaper Welt Volkswagen brand CEO Thomas Schäfer admitted that the future existence of its core model no longer is to be considered a certainty, unlike in the past. The German automaker’s new CEO, Thomas Schäfer, expressed strong caution about the Golf’s future, […]
August 04, 2022
The Brussels region has issued the building permit for the renovation and extension of the former postal sorting office at Brussels-Midi station. This was announced by Pascal Smet (one.brussels-Vooruit), State Secretary for Town Planning in Brussels. The Belgian rail company NMBS/SNCB will accommodate its headquarters and many other activities in the future building. A consortium […]
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 04, 2022
The German shared mobility platform Tier plans to introduce 1 500 shared e-bicycles in Brussels. The first vehicles are available since Wednesday, and the vehicle fleet will expand further in the coming weeks. Mid-February, micro-mobility provider Tier launched hundreds of new shared e-scooters in Brussels. In the meantime, the company has more than 4 000 […]
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
In June, the Peugeot 208 was Europe’s most popular car. And while the Model Y managed to secure the number one spot in the BEV category with relative ease, Tesla has to account for slowing growth, not matching the overall pace of electric car uptake. Last month, the Peugeot 208 beat the Dacia Sandero as […]
August 01, 2022
The challenging context of semi-conductor shortage hasn’t affected profitability for German luxury car maker Audi. Together with its various subsidiaries, the brand has beaten its previous record and posted an operating profit of 4,9 billion for the first half of 2022, despite a significant decline in sales. Audi joins the long list of car manufacturers […]
August 01, 2022
The Flemish government has a design ready to reconstruct the northern part of the Brussels Ring Road. In Zaventem, the Ring Road will be given a parallel structure, where through traffic will be separated from local traffic. In Wemmel, a fourth lane will be added. In addition, the slip roads and exits will be relocated […]
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
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 car manufacturing group Stellantis (14 brands) has registered a record operating margin of 14,1% for the first six months of 2022. It reported a net profit of €8 billion (+34%) and a total turnover of €88 billion (+17%) despite lower sales, at 2,9 billion units (-7%), in a declining market. The reasons are the […]
July 28, 2022
Young people, especially those between 18 and 34 years old, drive less by car. As a result, the share of kilometers they traveled as car drivers has decreased from 55% in 2019 to 45% in 2022. This is evident from the mobility barometer of safety institute Vias, based on an online survey of a representative […]
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 27, 2022
The Brussels government is to launch the procedure to protect the D’Ieteren Group’s building in the Rue du Mail/Maliestraat in Ixelles. D’Ieteren recently announced plans to renovate its headquarters and prepare them for the future. The Ixelles site covers 67 000 m² and has been owned by the D’Ieteren family since 1906. It has been […]
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 26, 2022
The German supermarket chain Lidl will offer the Elaris Finn two-seater in Germany and Austria at a lease price of €222 per month. It’s a pilot project; other countries will follow later, eventually. The German supermarket giant is an electric believer. Earlier, it proposed free (fast) charging on its parking premises for its clients. But, […]
July 26, 2022
After the stock market’s closing, Volkswagen announced a complete surprise on Friday evening. CEO Herbert Diess is leaving the company at the end of August. On 1 September, Porsche boss Oliver Blume will take over and lead both companies in parallel. The market reacted negatively on Monday, questions arise everywhere if the new CEO will […]
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
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
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
The number of low-emission zones (LEZs) in Europe has increased by 40% over the past three years. The statement comes from the European Clean Cities Campaign, a coalition of NGOs whose goal is to achieve emission-free mobility in major European cities by 2030. In Belgium, only Brussels has announced a complete phase-out of fossil fuels […]
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 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 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
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
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
Volkswagen adapted its software to limit the consequences of the so-called dieselgate scandal. The problem is now that the new software is as illegal as the previous one. This has been confirmed by the European Court of Justice, which has been asked for advice by the Austrian Court of Justice. Dieselgate concerns a software fraud […]
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 15, 2022
The sales of new cars in Belgium and Luxembourg decreased by almost 16% in the first half of 2022 compared to 2021. June showed virtually the same tendency with a 15,3% decrease. Due to the importance of the company car market, one car out of four sold from January to June 2022 was a premium […]
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
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 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 12, 2022
Also in Belgium, Uber used dubious practices to gain a foothold, for example by exerting pressure on governments. This is evident from the revelations of the Uber Files by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), of which Belgian media such as Knack, De Tijd, and Le Soir are members. In France, it is the […]
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
The Brussels government has validated the first version of Good Living, the future bible of urban planning in the Brussels Region. Open spaces, urbanity, and liability are the three principles of Good Living, which will be the guiding principle for the transition of Brussels to a future-oriented city on a human scale. It foresees a […]
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
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 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
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 07, 2022
Chinese car manufacturer BYD is tackling the following countries after Norway with its aim to conquer Europe: the Benelux. In the Netherlands, the Chinese manufacturer has selected the car dealer group Louwman as its national sales partner. In Belgium and Luxembourg, it partners with Inchcape. Both are also Toyota importers in their respective countries. Louwman […]
July 06, 2022
Renault is preparing its Cléon engine plant (near Rouen, north-west of France) for the electric era. When one enters the plant, you’re welcomed by the slogan “Bievenue dans la megafactory”, an unequivocal wink at Tesla. Cléon has produced engines and gearboxes for 60 years and will soon be the electromotor specialist of the group, making […]
July 06, 2022
The multi-brand seller Dex (West-Flanders) is expanding its business into the north of France. In a time when car distribution is under pressure, and there is an ongoing consolidation of dealer groups, the 17-year-old multi-brander chooses the flight ahead and expands its Belgian 17 branches business into French territory. Dex was founded in 2005 by […]
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
Jaguar seems to be planning three electric SUV crossover models in the course of transforming into an all-electric brand by 2025, local media reports. The new models will utilize Jaguar’s own BEV platform Panthera and are designed to break the £ 100 000 (± € 115 000) barrier in pricing. In its new ‘Reimagine’ scheme, […]
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 04, 2022
As in the rest of Europe, the Netherlands has long debated switching to pay-per-kilometer taxation to discourage car usage. Finally, the government of Rutte IV decided in favor of the new charge and sets an example for other European countries. A single rate for all drivelines will be deployed, and crossborder mileage will also be […]
July 04, 2022
The first production models of the new 7 Series have now rolled off the production lines at the BMW plant in Dingolfing, including the all-electric i7 offshoot. Meanwhile, BMW seems also to consider producing the future ‘New Class’ models in its plant in Mexico for the American market. The BMW Group has invested more than […]
July 01, 2022
Volvo Cars announced today it will establish a third manufacturing plant in Europe. The new state-of-the-art plant in Kosice, Slovakia, will be climate neutral and build only electric cars, underpinning the company’s ambition to become fully electric by 2030 and climate-neutral by 2040. By picking Slovakia as the location for its new plant, Volvo Cars […]
July 01, 2022
Tesla’s share of the EV market is projected to collapse from 70% today to 11% in 2025. Bank of America analyst John Murphy announced the number one EV maker’s shrinking market share in his annual Car Wars forecast. Does losing dominance in its home country mean Tesla is going to march backwards? According to Murphy, […]
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. […]
July 01, 2022
The ‘i’conic BMW i3 ends its production with just over 250 000 units produced in the eight and a half years of its existence. It has never been as popular as now, but BMW has other plans with its Leipzig factory, and, more importantly, the model didn’t make money. The small i3, BMW’s first fully […]
June 30, 2022
The Belgian gas net manager Fluxys and the Norwegian energy company Equinox are analyzing the feasibility of an undersea pipeline for the transport and storage of CO2 in the Norwegian gas fields. The pipeline would connect Zeebrugge and Norway and cover a distance of 1 000 km. Industrial CO2, captured in Zeebrugge, could then be […]
June 30, 2022
Carlos Tavares, CEO of Stellantis, says being worried about the soaring energy tariffs. Add to that the steeply rising prices for raw materials, and you have a perfect storm that the car boss wants to counter with a 360° vision of mastering its total energy consumption and production. We have had the coronavirus, we still […]
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 […]
