The famous English university town of Oxford has officially launched a fleet of 159 new battery-powered buses. Some of the buses are already in service, and the city plans to convert all of its buses to zero-emission models. Operators Go-Ahead and Stagecoach put up about half of the £82.5-million cost to deploy the e-buses, and… Read more »
Tag: The Vehicles
The Ram ProMaster electric van is coming to the US
Delivery and cargo vans represent an excellent use case for electrification, but US buyers have a limited selection of electric options, so it’s welcome news that Ram has unveiled its first EV for the US—the Ram ProMaster electric van. The new Ram ProMaster EV will eventually be offered in five configurations. The delivery model is… Read more »
The real reason Hertz is selling EVs
It’s the kind of headline EV boosters hate, and EV boo-birds trumpet: just two years after announcing that it would buy 100,000 Teslas and a raft of other EVs, rental giant Hertz announced that it would sell 20,000 of its Teslas and replace them with tried-and-true gas-guzzlers (at this writing, the company is offering around… Read more »
The US and EU take different approaches to the threat of Chinese EV imports
Governments in North America and Europe are seriously concerned about China’s growing dominance of the EV industry. Chinese automaker BYD recently surpassed Tesla as the world’s leading seller of EVs, and it’s only one of several Chinese-owned brands that are already selling cars in the US and the EU. However, the world’s #2 and #3… Read more »
Carbon Brief offers a raft of resources to debunk misinformation about EVs
Here at Charged, we don’t devote much time to debunking anti-EV misinformation—the enemies of the future flood the zone with FUD 24/7, and responding to even a fraction of it might leave no time for anything else. However, a recent article in Carbon Brief is so comprehensive and well-researched that we just had to bring… Read more »
New studies indicate that battery-electric aircraft with 800 km range could be practical
Several companies are working on battery-electric aircraft, but electric aviation is a tougher nut to crack than electric cars, for physical reasons. It simply takes a lot more energy to keep an aircraft aloft than it does to propel a vehicle along a road, and every additional pound of battery weight takes a steep toll… Read more »
Phoenix completes purchase of Proterra’s electric transit vehicle business
Proterra’s filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection took the EV industry by surprise, but the blow was softened by the company’s plan to sell off its business units: Proterra Powered (powertrain and battery technology); Proterra Transit (electric buses); and Proterra Energy (charging infrastructure). In November, the Volvo Group was selected as the winning bidder for Proterra Powered…. Read more »
The heavy-duty electric truck market could break out in 2024
Electrifying heavy-duty trucks is essential if we’re to fight climate change and air pollution, but the pace of the transition has been painfully slow—many, many pilots, but few truly large-scale orders. For example, shipping giant Schneider acquired 92 Freightliner eCascadias in 2023—a good start, but only that, considering that the company currently operates over 10,000… Read more »
Plug In America receives DOE funding to expand its EV education programs
EV education and advocacy organization Plug In America has received a grant from the DOE for a three-year, $5-million consumer education project, the largest grant in the organization’s 15-year history. This grant is part of a slate of 16 projects to advance transportation electrification that will be funded throught the DOE’s Vehicle Technologies Office to… Read more »
Video: Caterpillar goes all in on EVs at CES
Off-road vehicles may turn out to be one of 2024’s top EV stories. The intrinsic advantages of EVs—silence, lack of local emissions, high torque—make them great choices for applications from construction to agriculture to mining. One off-road OEM exhibiting EVs at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show is Caterpillar. The iconic yellow-machine maker’s entire booth at… Read more »
