April 24, 2025
Despite disappointing sales in the Old Continent, Chinese premium EV startup NIO stays committed to Europe. It now opens a second offensive with its Firefly sub-brand, a more affordable range of models. It will start with a compact full-electric city car launched in the Netherlands at €29,900. Belgium will be next. NIO’s founder and CEO […]
April 23, 2025
At the Shanghai Auto Show, currently the world’s biggest car exhibition, with over 1,000 exhibitors spread over 12 giant halls, more than a hundred world premieres are presented these days. One of the many remarkable is SAIC’s MG brand with a second car in the Cyber series after the Cyberster roadster: a boxy all-electric SUV […]
April 22, 2025
The world leader in EV batteries, Chinese CATL, which provides more than a third of the global needs, announced three innovations for the following months, with one that could change the industry drastically: it will be the first to start mass production of sodium-ion (Na+) batteries by the end of this year. Sodium is abundant […]
April 17, 2025
China, a long time forerunner in autonomous driving features tested on public roads, is tightening the screws on that technology after an accident that shocked the nation. A dramatic accident in which three young female students were killed in a Xiaomi SU7 sedan that caught fire in March, apparently, was the last straw. Carmakers are […]
April 16, 2025
As we wrote yesterday, the Zeekr 7X is launched in Europe as a trump card in the mid-size SUV segment. In China, the Geely daughter will also deliver this car’s shooting brake variant on the same 800V platform, the 007 GT, starting April 20th. In Europe, that one will be named simply Zeekr 7GT. Geely […]
April 15, 2025
It’s compact at 4,7 meters in length and sizeable, especially on the inside. It’s heavy with its 2.5 tonnes and yet still lightfooted, with its two electric motors offering 470 kW or 630 hp and acceleration from 0 to 100 km/h in 3.8 seconds. Just what the average European family man needs for his weekday […]
April 14, 2025
Californian EV maker Lucid Motors announced last Friday it has “reached an agreement to acquire select facilities and assets in Arizona previously belonging to Nikola Corporation, subject to approval by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.” But that doesn’t mean it takes over the business: “The transaction does not include the acquisition […]
April 10, 2025
CATL, the world’s biggest battery maker for the last decade, is looking to take a controlling stake in NIO Power, the battery swapping and fast-charging business of Chinese premium EV maker NIO. CATL will not comment, but Reuters quotes four anonymous sources to back up the story. Last month, news broke that NIO, known for […]
April 09, 2025
What kind of drivetrain will we choose for our next car? Plain-old gasoline, hybrid, or electric? It’s often a question about actual needs, economics, and practicality, which most families wrestle with. In reality, 44% of family drivers have no idea of their mobility profile, and a third don’t even know how much their current car […]
April 07, 2025
Two years after introducing the brand in its homeland, Sweden, and EV forerunner The Netherlands, and one year later in Norway, Chinese-Swedish Zeekr is targeting Belgium as the next European country for its expansion. In summer, together with the official launch of its luxury SUV 7X in Europe, the third model to come to the […]
April 02, 2025
More or less a week after BYD lashed out with the news of its ts new electric car platform, called ‘Super e,’ which promises charging at one megawatt, Chinese-Swedish Geely daughter Zeekr parries with the announcement of a 1.2-megawatt charger. Just to be overtaken by Huawei bragging about a 1.5-megawatt charger. This battle of the […]
April 01, 2025
Imagine a hipster fun car that materializes right from your gaming screen. Hyundai Motor’s European design team secretly crafted those thoughts to become a reality when it pumped up the brand’s latest cuddly city car, the Inster, with steroids. Meet the Insteroid concept car. After some sneak teaser images, it was finally shown to its […]
March 31, 2025
China’s fourth-largest carmaker, state-owned Changan, set foot ashore in Mainz, Germany, last week for the debut of its European introduction. In its homeland, it has launched presales for a fourth model of its Avatr car brand, the 06 sedans. Avatr is backed by two other Chinese tech giants: CATL and Huawei. The Avatr 06 is […]
March 28, 2025
A new plant for a new class of BMW cars is coming to life in Debrecen, Hungary. The assembly line is ramping up to start full production of the Neue Klasse by the end of this year. New vehicle architecture means new possibilities for assembly: greater efficiency thanks to modularisation, fewer different connecting elements, a […]
March 27, 2025
SAIC, the mother company of the now Chinese MG brand, unwrapped last October in China the fully electric MG ES5, a compact SUV, to succeed in the currently still popular MG ZS EV in Europe. And it’s ready to wash ashore on the Old Continent in the UK first, in April, for a base price […]
March 26, 2025
Geely brand and former Volvo sibling Lynk & Co, known in Europe for its monthly subscription model, is launching a new global flagship PHEV model: the six-seater SUV ‘009’. It’s opening for pre-sales now in China, with four trim levels offered and prices ranging from 330,000 to 435,000 yuan (42,105 – 55,500 euros). It is […]
March 25, 2025
China’s fourth-largest carmaker, state-owned Changan, has set foot ashore in Mainz, Germany, last Friday as the first step in its ‘European invasion’ in ten markets to start on the Old Continent in the following years. Its EU parts headquarters will be in the Netherlands. The group showed its electric SUV, Deepal S07, as its first […]
March 24, 2025
In January, BMW Group announced it continued its growth path in 2024, delivering 426,594 fully electric vehicles to customers and achieving BEV-sales growth of +13.5 %. Now that more figures are available of its all-time competitors at the premium home front, Mercedes and Audi, it’s clear that they sold more EVs than those two combined. […]
March 22, 2025
With the next one—the #5—hitting the market in a few weeks, Smart has grown up. With its 4,695 mm length, width of 1,920 mm, height of 1,705 mm, and wheelbase of 2,900 mm, it is almost double the size of the original Smart ForTwo, which saw the light of day in 1998. Mercedes’ little brother, […]
March 21, 2025
Contract builder Magna Steyr, which today still builds cars like the Mercedes G-Class, Toyota GR Supra, and BMW Z4 that share the same platform at its plant in Graz, Austria, is, according to a new report, closing a deal with Chinese Xpeng and GAC to build EVs for the European market. It would work on […]
March 21, 2025
A few days before first deliveries on March 29th, Chinese premium EV maker NIO started customers tests in China with its new flagship ET9 sedan that is to take on the ‘crème de la crème’ of the German premium competition. With a starting price of 788,000 yuan (€100,340), including the battery pack, it is Nio’s […]
March 18, 2025
Chinese EV maker NIO, known for its pioneering role in battery swapping, is joining forces with CATL, its major supplier, to set up a worldwide car-swapping network. CATL, the world’s biggest battery maker, puts its money where its mouth is by investing 2.5 billion yuan (€316 million) in Nio Power. Both parties signed an agreement […]
March 11, 2025
It mimics its predecessor, one of the first bikes with an auxiliary motor from 120 years ago, but it’s brand-new: the Belgian iconic motorcycle brand Saroléa’s first speed pedelec. It is fast, although legally limited to 45 km/hour, with two motors with 1,200 Watt peak output combined and a range of up to 130 kilometers. […]
March 10, 2025
The BMW iX has been the German carmaker’s longest-running fully electric model since 2021 and has sold over 130,000 units worldwide. It’s time for an update and the start of production at the BMW Group plant in Dingolfing. BMW promises 25% more drive power and improved efficiency, resulting in a 701 km (WLTP) range for […]
March 07, 2025
The world’s number one automaker, Japanese Toyota, is aiming its arrows on the world’s biggest auto market with the bZ3X electric SUV, introduced in China at 109,800 yuan or some 14,000 euros. The Chinese elbowed each other out of the way, crashing the server with more than 10,000 orders in an hour. It’s Toyota’s cheapest […]
March 06, 2025
Chinese battery and car giant BYD is adding a pair of extra ‘drone-eyes in the sky’ to its luxury off-roader Fang Cheng Bao Bao 8 to make venturing beyond the asphalt even more fun. The drone has a docking station on the car’s roof and can follow the vehicle at a speed of up to […]
March 05, 2025
Chinese tech giant Xiaomi’s CEO, William Lu, is currently in Spain, where he told the Chinese press Jiemian that he will tour Europe’s car markets in the coming days to prepare for the launch of its EVs on the Old Continent starting in 2027. He wants to see firsthand how Chinese EV makers are doing […]
March 03, 2025
Dutch fast-charging provider Fastned has opened its 37th station in Belgium in Hoeselt, midway between Hasselt and Liège along the E313 highway. It has two chargers, suitable for four charging bays, each with a maximum capacity of 400 kW. Fastned says electric drivers can charge their cars here with green electricity from the sun and […]
February 28, 2025
While European carmakers one after another slink off with their tail between their legs, abandoning their fully electric goals and pushing hybrid ICE instead, South Korean Kia goes straight ahead with its electric flagging zeal. At the brand’s 2025 Kia EV Day in Tarragona, Spain, it unveiled its latest weapons to conquer that part of […]
February 27, 2025
Peter Rawlinson, CEO and CTO of American electric carmaker Lucid and the ex-engineer who once stood at the cradle of the Tesla Model S, is stepping down after more than a decade to pass the baton to a new, yet-to-be-found manager. Rawlingson remains a strategic technical advisor to Turqi Alnowaiser, the board chairman representing Lucid’s […]
February 26, 2025
Lynk & Co, the Chinese-Swedish brand now majority-owned by Geely’s daughter Zeekr, is launching the 08 plugin-hybrid compact SUV in selected European markets in June, a year and a half after its release in China. The company says this version will have a 200 km WLTP pure electric range, the first to accomplish that in […]
February 25, 2025
CALB, after CATL and BYD, is China’s third-biggest battery maker. It has broken ground for a brand new factory in the Portuguese deepwater port of Sines, halfway on the Atlantic coast between Lisbon and Lagos. All three invest heavily in European battery factories, while the old continent is lagging with its own trumpeted ‘Airbus of […]
February 20, 2025
It‘s a bit like the butcher who asks, can it be a little more? The Black Badge Specter might be tempting if you’re in for a fully electric Rolls Royce: a four-figure torque output (1075 Nm), with a record 485 kW (659 hp) of power, makes it the most powerful Rolls-Royce in history. Unlike the […]
February 18, 2025
In China, new car specs tend to go public before the official release, as all have to be approved by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), which publishes the regulatory filing in advance. So it’s clear now that NIO’s Firefly subbrand will get a 42.1 kWh (swappable) battery pack and offer a CLTC […]
February 18, 2025
French carmaker Renault has decided to make its ‘Fireman Access’ patents, developed with professional rescue services to extinguish an EV’s battery on fire in a few minutes, freely available to the entire automotive industry. A process that otherwise can take hours by immersion of the whole vehicle in a container with water. Renault says car […]
February 13, 2025
A University of Cambridge scientists team, led by professor Erwin Reisner, has created a solar-powered flow reactor that can capture C02 from the air at night and convert it into fuels like diesel, methanol, or ammonia during the day with the help of the sun. If scaled up, it would theoretically allow people to generate […]
February 12, 2025
China and, by extension, the world’s largest battery maker, CATL, is lodging its filings with regulators to go public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Reuters says. The company aims to raise some 5 billion dollars (€4.82 billion). It will be CATL’s secondary listing, as it has been on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange since June […]
February 11, 2025
China’s most significant EV carmaker, BYD, has launched its newest advanced driver system, ‘God’s Eye’. It will be available in all its models in China, top-down, from the luxury Yangwang U9 supercar to the modest cars under 100,000 yuan (€13,278) like Dolphin or Seagull. It comes in three flavors, À-B-C, with or without LiDAR, to […]
February 10, 2025
It looks like it is further going downhill with American hydrogen truckmaker Nicola, following a The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg report that the company is considering Chapter 11 to propose a plan of reorganization to keep its business alive and pay creditors over time. Last week, Nicola (NASDAQ: NKLA) shares tumbled as much as […]
February 07, 2025
Chinese premium EV brand NIO has set a new battery-swapping record by performing 136,748 swaps in a single day in its 3,106 swap stations in China, an average of 44 changed battery packs per station. The brand, a clear leader in swapping technology, has already performed over 65 million of these swaps. As travel peaked, […]
February 05, 2025
It sounds like a ‘contradictio in terminis,’ an exhaust system for fully electric vehicles that are supposed to have no emissions at all. Still, Stellantis Group, parent company to Peugeot, Jeep, and Fiat, among others, has filed a patent with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for a system that would evacuate dangerous […]
February 04, 2025
The year 2024 wasn’t the best for the European car market, with a slowdown in growth that the industry began to see signs of in 2022, resulting in only a 0.9% growth, where this still was 28% in 2023. New detailed figures from JATO Dynamics show a clear trend toward ‘cheaper’ hybrids driven by Toyota’s […]
February 03, 2025
Looser Low Emission Zone (LEZ) in Flanders allows the Antwerp Classic Car Event (ACCE) to return to its roots at the Cockerill Quay on the borders of the Scheldt River in the Antwerp city center on 3 and 4 May of this year. Some 15,000 car enthusiasts are expected to come and see some 1,000 […]
January 29, 2025
While 2,900 employees will lose their jobs on February 28th, 2025, when the last Audi Q8 e-tron will be made at Audi Brussels, Belgium’s only remaining car factory, Volvo Car Gent is looking for 350 new people to start building the EX30 in Europe. Volvo announced in October last year its intention to build the […]
January 27, 2025
A day before the deadline, three Chinese EV makers, BYD, Geely, and SAIC, and the China Chamber of Commerce (CME), filed challenges at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in Luxembourg against the tariffs the EU is imposing on electric cars made in China. At the last minute, BMW and Tesla joined […]
January 24, 2025
Dutch U-Boat Worx launched its upgraded ‘Super Sub,’ a luxury three-passenger electric submarine water toy it claims is now faster than a dolphin. According to Wikipedia, the company, based in Breda (Netherlands), is recognized as the foremost manufacturer of private submersibles globally, with over 60 submarines in operation. The Super Sub resembles an ultra-streamlined, suppository-like […]
January 20, 2025
Yet another EV startup that has to throw in the towel: American ‘lifestyle’ EV-maker Canoo. Once hopefully mentioned as the potential savior of Dutch VDL Nedcar in Born, it announced last week it had filed a voluntary petition for relief under Chapter 7 of the US Bankruptcy Code and stopped all activities on the fly. […]
January 17, 2025
Dutch fast-charging provider Fastned temporarily slows down in its expansion push as EV acceptance sputters in some parts of Europe. It forecasts “that development time lags will be longer than previously anticipated.” In its updated 2025 guidance, Fastned aims to have 400 to 425 stations operational by year-end, more than €325,000 in revenues per station, […]
January 16, 2025
Volvo has set a new sales record in Belgium, selling 24.221 cars, a growth of 13.6% compared with 2023, and lifting the brand to sixth position in the top ten most popular brands. That growth was ‘fueled’ primarily by its electric cars, with fully electric BEVs accounting for 69%. Adding the plug-in hybrids, the figure […]
January 15, 2025
Even though electric cars are omnipresent at the popular Brussels Motor Show (BMS), one of the few remaining in Europe, Belgians are getting more cold feet about buying an EV. Deloitte’s Global Automotive Consumer Study, which is to be published on February 6th, shows that 45% prefer a car with a pure combustion engine (ICE), […]
January 14, 2025
Swedish Scania Trucks veteran Christian Levin was elected chair of the Commercial Vehicles Board of ACEA for 2025. He sees a monumental challenge for the European truck and bus sector—one that requires the complete reimagination of an entire ecosystem: the transition from ICE to zero-emission vehicles. And that is a transition of “a magnitude unprecedented […]
January 13, 2025
One of the most miniature cars at the Brussels Motor Show, somewhat lost in the vast exposition hall occupied by Belgium’s most significant car importer, D’Ieteren, is a world premiere: the Swiss Microlino Spider. Still a concept, this roofless version, with open side panels and no doors, is meant to recall the simplicity and functionality […]
January 10, 2025
Traxio, the Belgian Federation of the automotive service sector and Mobility organization, has a new—old-hand—president: Henri de Hemptinne (66). He is former vice president of Traxio and president of GDA, the subdivision representing Belgian car dealers. Henri de Hemptine succeeds Didier Perwez, who held the chairmanship for the last six years. With Henri de Hemptine, […]
January 09, 2025
Zeekr, the Swedish-Chinese sister brand of Volvo under the Geely umbrella, first appeared in April 2021 with the 001 shooting brake. Now, it is ready to show the world a second one: a ‘touring’ version called 007 GT, based on the 007 electric sedan that only sells in China for now. To avoid any confusion […]
January 08, 2025
Czech Škoda Auto, Volkswagen’s daughter and one of the first to follow the group’s advanced EV strategy is introducing the new Enyaq family, what it calls “one of Europe’s most successful all-electric model series.” Both the Škoda Enyaq and the Škoda Enyaq Coupé now feature the brand’s new Modern Solid design language and offer enhanced […]
January 08, 2025
In its latest update of the ‘Chinese military companies’ list, the US Department of Defense (DoD) mentions the Chinese battery giant CATL for the first time, along with Tencent, another Chinese giant in gaming and communications. CATL is the world’s biggest EV battery maker, with nearly 37% market share. It is way ahead of the […]
January 07, 2025
You’ll probably not have to use it very often unless you have the habit of being chased by a police car: jump over a 3.5 cm high spike strip at 120 km per hour. But we must admit, it’s a marketing stunt that stands out for BYD’s Yangwang U9 electric sportscar to demonstrate its DiSus […]
January 06, 2025
D’Ieteren Automotive, Belgium’s largest car importer of all Volkswagen brands, with branches in energy services, is merging its charging business (EDI) and solar production and battery storage solutions (Go Solar) into one single unit, “D’Ieteren Energy.” The group is also active in other mobility sectors related to cycling (Lucien, Joule), shared mobility (Poppy, TaxisVerts), and […]
January 03, 2025
Chinese Chery Automotive is expanding its dealerships for its Omoda and Jaecoo brands in Belgium to Wallonia by signing up Stellantis dealer Groupe Ricco, which has footholds in Arlon, Libramont, Marche, and Rochefort and now also adding Groupe GSL. The latter covers the region of Nivelles and Charleroi. However, Chery has swallowed its EV ambitions […]
January 03, 2025
The world’s number one EV carmaker, Elon Musk’s Tesla, delivered 1,789,226 cars in 2024. That is 1% less than the 1,808,581 in 2023, and it is the first time that Tesla’s growth has stalled in a decade. In 2023, growth was still 38% compared to 2022. That’s a huge difference. On the other hand, Chinese […]
