Author: Michael Khan

The Go-Ahead Group, the parent company of the Oxford Bus Company, has made its largest zero-emission purchase to date with an order of 104 battery-electric buses from Wrightbus. The order consists of 99 StreetDeck Electroliner double-deckers and five GB Kite Electroliner single-deckers, with eight of the double-deckers being open-top for City Sightseeing in Oxford. The purchase, which costs over £30 million and is part-funded by the Zero Emission Bus Regional Areas (ZEBRA) scheme and the Oxfordshire County Council, will result in all local routes in Oxford’s urban area being zero-emission when a separate order of 55 Alexander Dennis Envir400EV battery-electric…

BMW is considering introducing additional electric vehicles (EVs) in India in response to the growing demand from luxury car consumers. This was shared by Vikram Pawah, the country president of the German automaker, in an interview with Reuters. “We are going to have 25 electrified products (globally) by the end of 2023, of which half of them will be fully electrified. Our intention is to evaluate each one of those 12 electrified products for the Indian market,” Pawah said. The luxury automaker, BMW, is anticipating a boost in electric vehicle (EV) sales in India in 2023, as supply chain difficulties…

Tesla defied the job-cut trend among tech firms in 2022. Unlike Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Twitter, which laid off substantial numbers of employees to cut costs amid an impending economic downturn, Tesla hired nearly 29,000 new workers, a 22% increase from the previous year. Though Tesla did go through a round of layoffs, it mainly impacted corporate and remote positions that were deemed redundant. The company stated its intention to reduce salaried headcount by 10% while increasing the number of hourly workers in its manufacturing sector. Last year, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, sent an email to employees announcing…

Ola Electric, a rapidly growing player in the electric vehicle market, is making waves with its S1 electric scooter. The scooter, based on the Etergo Appscooter, has been a huge success in India and is proving to be the perfect urban e-scooter for busy cities. To support its growing customer base, the company is aggressively expanding its Hypercharger fast-charging network and Experience Centers, which serve as showrooms and service centers for its scooters. CEO Bhavish Aggarwal recently announced that the company will open 100 more Experience Centers by the end of January 2023, bringing the total number of centers to…

Kruger Energy, a Canadian developer and operator of renewable energy power plants, is incorporating electric trucks into its transportation fleet. The company has deployed two Peterbilt 579EV trucks and ordered 50 more, with 15 to 20 expected to be in operation within the next two years. The first two trucks will be used to transport products between two plants in Quebec. Jean Roy, COO of Kruger Energy, expressed excitement about this step towards transport electrification and aligning with the company’s mission to develop eco-friendly solutions. “We are excited to take our first steps in transport electrification, a goal that aligns…

EV Metals Group, an Australian battery materials company, has acquired 127 hectares of land in Yanbu Industrial City, Saudi Arabia, to build a battery chemical processing facility. The complex, which will be divided into different plants, will process raw materials from Western Australia to produce high-purity chemicals for EV batteries containing lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and other metals. See also: Lucid makes first deliveries in Saudi Arabia following European launch Construction is set to start in Q3 of this year and the production of lithium hydroxide is expected to begin in 2026 with an initial capacity of 50,000 tons and…

Hyundai Motor Group’s luxury brand, Genesis, wowed audiences at the LA Auto Show last year with the unveiling of the Genesis X Convertible, the third and final concept in a series of upscale electric GTs. These concepts are said to preview the brand’s design language in the electric era, as Genesis plans to launch only EVs from 2025. However, it seems that the luxury electric coupe inspired by the Genesis X will not just remain a concept, as Automotive News reports that the X Convertible will eventually be produced. The chairman of the Genesis National Dealer Advisory Council, Peter Lanzavecchia,…

In a recent shareholder letter, Tesla announced that it plans to continue reducing the costs of its electric vehicles and increasing production rates in the near future. This statement follows a series of price drops for Tesla’s electric vehicles worldwide, which sparked reactions from rival executives in the automotive industry. The company went on to say the following, regarding its price cuts strategy: “As we progress into 2023, we know that there are questions about the near-term impact of an uncertain macroeconomic environment, and in particular, with rising interest rates. The Tesla team is used to challenges, given the culture…

New York City is taking steps to become a more sustainable and environmentally friendly place to live and work, and one of the ways it is doing that is by requiring ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft to have a zero-emissions fleet by 2030. This announcement was made by NYC Mayor Eric Adams during his State of the City speech on Thursday. The plan is expected to impact the approximately 100,000 for-hire vehicles operating within the city. Mayor Adams stated that the city is committed to making the transition to electric vehicles (EVs) as smooth as possible for drivers. Both…

The Optimize Prime fleet charging project, led by Hitachi Europe and UK Power Networks, has come to a close in the United Kingdom. The trials, which began in July 2021, involved over 8,000 electric vehicles from Centrica, Uber, and Royal Mail. The findings will assist all parties in understanding the requirements for large-scale rollouts. The trial also included local energy partners such as Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks, Hitachi Vantara, and Novuna Vehicle Solutions. The vehicles participating in Optimize Prime were charged at the depot, at home, and on the road. The project aimed to provide an “end-to-end overview of…

Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, has confirmed that there will be no retrofit option for the company’s Hardware 3 (HW3) vehicles to upgrade to Hardware 4 (HW4) during the Q4 2022 and full year earnings call. This decision was made for two main reasons. Firstly, Musk stated that there will not be a significant difference in the performance of Full Self-Driving capabilities between HW3 and HW4. He explained that while HW4 will be safer than HW3, the latter will still be much safer than a human driver. He used the example of HW3 being 200% to 300% safer than a human,…

The highly-anticipated Tesla Cybertruck will be equipped with the company’s latest computer technology, known as Hardware 4. This will make the Cybertruck the first model in Tesla’s lineup to feature the upgraded capabilities of the advanced electronic brain. Although details of the Hardware 4 computer have yet to be revealed, it is expected to significantly enhance the performance and functionality of the Cybertruck. This news has generated even more excitement for the release of the futuristic electric vehicle. “Cybertruck will have Hardware 4. And to be clear, for 2023, Cybertruck will not be a significant contributor to the bottom line,…

CaetanoBus, a Portuguese bus manufacturer, has secured an order for 30 electric buses from the public transport operator Carris in Lisbon. The e.City Gold buses, an upgraded version of the same model that was put into operation in Lisbon in 2019, feature larger batteries and improved air conditioning systems, driver assistance systems, camera reversing systems, and warning systems for pedestrians, cyclists, and scooters in areas with poor visibility. See also: Reduce carbon emissions, airport buses in Portugal will be replaced with hydrogen fuel These enhancements will allow Carris to perform the city’s diverse and demanding routes without the need for…

BasiGo, a multi-brand vehicle assembler, and AVA have announced a partnership to assemble modern electric buses in Kenya as the country’s shift to e-mobility continues to take shape. The firms aim to manufacture over 1,000 electric buses in the next three years, creating more than 300 new manufacturing jobs and an additional 300 jobs in the ecosystem of charging, maintenance, and financing required to support electric buses in operation. This partnership will also see the company assemble 33-seater buses as they seek to phase out the 25-seater buses used in the pilot project guided by feedback from Public Service Vehicle…

Hyundai Motor Group announced on Tuesday that it has exceeded one million global electric vehicle (EV) sales, 11 years after the launch of its first EV. The group’s total EV sales stood at 1,022,284 vehicles in 2020, with Hyundai Motor Company selling 601,448 vehicles, including those from its luxury brand Genesis, and Kia selling 420,836. The group’s first EV, the BlueOn, began trial sales in South Korea in July 2011. Since then, EV sales have grown rapidly, and by 2014, annual EV sales had reached the thousands. By 2015, EV sales exceeded 10,000, and in 2017, the sales volume doubled,…

Aptera has announced that its forthcoming launch edition vehicle will come equipped with DC fast charging as a standard feature. Furthermore, the company has revealed that it has the capability to use Tesla Superchargers, thanks to recent advancements in engineering and Tesla’s release of the “North American Charging Standard” (NACS). Historically, one of the major challenges for the Aptera design team has been the vehicle’s charging system. Both Aptera CEOs have publicly expressed their opposition to the CCS charging plug, preferring the Tesla charger. However, until now, the company did not have the legal or technological capability to utilize it.…

Volta Trucks has announced a successful start to the year, with confirmation of customer production orders for the first 300 manufacturing slots of its full-electric Volta Zero. This has resulted in an associated revenue of over €85 million. The series production of the Volta Zero is set to begin at the company’s contract manufacturing facility in Steyr, Austria, in the early second quarter of 2023. The facility is prepared to meet the high customer demand for the purpose-built, full-electric medium-duty urban delivery truck. “Volta Trucks has made important progress in the first few weeks of 2023,” said Essa Al-Saleh, Chief…

It was previously believed that Tesla would move production of its Semi Class 8 electric truck to its Giga Texas plant after low-volume manufacturing began in late 2022 at a private site near its Gigafactory Nevada facility. However, according to Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo, Tesla has announced plans to open a new $3.5 billion plant in Northern Nevada for the production of the Semi. This official announcement was made on January 24th during Lombardo’s State of the State address to Nevada’s Assembly and Senate. Governor Lombardo highlighted that Nevada is actively inviting the expansion of new businesses and industries, as…

Recharge Industries, a US-Australian company, has chosen Accenture as its engineering services provider to construct a large lithium-ion battery cell factory in Australia. The factory, located in Geelong, Victoria, will have an annual capacity of 30 GWh and will produce batteries for electric vehicles and stationary energy storage. Construction is set to begin in H2 2023, and the company aims to produce 2 GWh of battery cells by H2 2024 and 6 GWh annually by 2026. Recharge Industries has already secured equipment for the first 2 GWh production line and financing with binding purchase agreements, and the equipment is expected…

Nikola has announced the development of a mobile hydrogen fueler, designed for direct fueling of hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles. The company plans to release its own Tre FCEV later in the year, and the mobile fueler has already undergone commissioning and testing, with more to be completed in the first quarter of this year. This program will offer customers a range of flexible fueling options, including Nikola’s own mobile fuelers and third-party options. “Nikola has spent the greater part of two years developing a flexible mobile fueling solution which cools and compresses hydrogen to rapidly fill 700 bar FCEV…