News

When all or most cars are EVs, cities will need massive numbers of on-street chargers, and innovative designs will be required to minimize intrusion into already-cluttered public spaces. Düsseldorf-based technology group Rheinmetall presented a novel curb charging system at a recent e-mobility conference in Germany. The new charger integrates charging electronics into the curb itself,

Hagerty on Wednesday released its seventh annual “Bull Market” list of classic cars the insurer believes will rise in value in the coming year. These aren’t new cars tipped to become future classics, or old cars that have already maxed out in value. Rather, they are somewhere in the middle. These are older cars that

Cavotec has implemented the Megawatt Charging System (MCS), a DC charging standard that provides up to 3 MW of power from a single connector. MCS, which was officially launched in October at the Bauma construction machinery trade fair, was designed for use with heavy-duty vehicles in a variety of sectors, including agriculture, construction, and mining,

Lithium-ion battery prices have been dropping for so long that industry players and pundits tend to factor ever-cheaper cells into their predictions, and many have made (dubious) comparisons to Moore’s Law, one of the core tenets of the computer industry. Now, thanks to rising raw material and battery component prices, along with more general inflation,

Former Formula 1 driver Romain Grosjean will make a return to top-level motorsports in 2024 when he hops behind the wheel of Lamborghini’s new LMDh race car. Grosjean, who raced for Renault, Lotus, and Haas during his time in F1, was named on Tuesday as a driver for Lamborghini Iron Lynx, the factory-backed team that

Ampaire, a manufacturer of electrified aircraft, has received a $9-million grant from the DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) SCALEUP program, which it will use for the development of FAA-certified hybrid subsystems. The company is currently using a converted hybrid Cessna 337 Skymaster aircraft—dubbed the ARPA-E Bird—as a  test bed for the development of subsystems

Maersk has opened a 14,000-square-foot warehouse for EV batteries in Teplice, Czech Republic, which will provide battery repacking, charging and in-depth quality controls, as well as other value-adding services. Batteries will be delivered by train from the ports of Hamburg, Bremerhaven, Rotterdam, Koper and Rijeka, and can be distributed from Teplice to surrounding car production

Bentleys and sneakers don’t normally go together, but they do when we’re talking about the one-off 2022 Flying Spur Hybrid developed by Bentley in collaboration with Dominic Ciambrone, or better known to fans as The Surgeon. Ciambrone is a custom shoe designer who launched a line of Bentley-inspired sneakers, and he was recently picked by

British EV software specialist ev.energy has launched a new cloud-based EV charging tool for business. Pando is designed to enable charger manufacturers, distributors and installers to be fully compliant with UK Smart Charging Regulations. It provides load management, compliance testing and charger sharing as standard features. Following months of testing with 20 partners and over 20,000

Foxconn Ventures has agreed to invest up to $170 million in Lordstown Motors in exchange for all of Lordstown’s outstanding preferred stock and 18.3% of its common stock.  Lordstown will use the proceeds to fund the development of a new EV program in collaboration with Foxconn, dubbed the “EV Program.” (Let’s hope they come up

Travis Pastrana’s “Family Huckster” packs the guts of a gymkhana car into the body of a 1983 Subaru GL wagon. Pastrana unveiled this unusual build earlier this year, and the wagon makes its gymkhana video debut on Dec. 6.  Inspired by Subaru GL wagons used as a marketing tie-in with the U.S. ski team, the

EVBox introduced its Troniq Modular DC fast charging platform in the European market last year. Now the company has launched the EVBox Troniq Modular Compact, a more compact (2.03 m high) solution designed for sites such as underground parking garages or city center locations, where station footprint or height might be constrained. The Troniq Modular

The Tesla Semi is finally here, and it’s officially a beast. “If you’re a truck driver and you want the most bad-ass rig on the road, this is it,” said Tesla’s CEO at a delivery event at the company’s Nevada Gigafactory, just before he handed over key cards to two PepsiCo executives. EV pundits were

BMW this week revealed a modern take on its legendary 3.0 CSL. The new version is based on the 4-Series platform and combines BMW’s most powerful production inline-6 with rear-wheel drive and a 6-speed manual transmission. Ferrari Vision Gran Turismo concept Ferrari revealed a Vision Gran Turismo concept. The design is a wild single-seater with

Tesla’s recent announcement that it will make its charging connector design available to colleagues and competitors has been getting mixed reviews. Some pundits poo-pooed Tesla’s announcement—one commenter wrote, “This is not the way standards are developed.”   However, we saw it as a step in the direction of a more interoperable EV ecosystem, which could

LG Chem has signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a new cathode manufacturing facility in Clarksville, Tennessee. Manufacturing plants for batteries and other EV components are popping up all over the country these days, and the announcements invariably mention President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which offers incentives for companies to establish supply chains here

Cruise, a self-driving technology company majority owned by General Motors, plans to rapidly scale up its robotaxi service in 2023, Gil West, Cruise’s chief operating officer, told Reuters in an interview published on Wednesday. Cruise’s service is already available in San Francisco in limited form, and the company has previously announced an expansion to Austin

Croatia is not exactly known as a center of the auto industry, but Rimac Automobili (which Charged has been covering since 2013) has achieved some impressive things. In 2021, the Rimac Nevera (which is named for an unexpected Mediterranean summer storm) did a quarter-mile in 8.582 seconds to set a record as the world’s fastest-accelerating

CorePower Magnetics has received a $5-million grant from the DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) Seeding Critical Advances for Leading Energy Technologies (SCALEUP) program, which it will use for scaling its magnetic solutions for EVs and EV charging. The company is also planning to open a new manufacturing line in Pittsburgh. Commercialization partners Eaton and

Toyota on Thursday provided the first look at a new three-row SUV currently in the works and destined for production in the U.S. The SUV has been confirmed as the Grand Highlander, and it’s set to make its debut on Feb. 8 at the 2023 Chicago auto show. The Grand Highlander will likely go on

New York and Massachusetts are both slated to phase out the sale of fossil passenger vehicles by 2035. The increased demand for electricity will require interconnection to high-capacity transmission lines in the next decade, according to a new study. The Electric Highways Study, produced by the utility National Grid, in collaboration with transportation analytics organizations

Another day, another announcement of a new battery gigafactory. FREYR Battery has purchased a site in Coweta County, Georgia for its planned Giga America battery plant, and will begin detailed project engineering “in the coming months.” FREYR plans to invest some $1.7 billion in the first phase of Giga America, which will be a cell

Honda will launch a version of its popular CR-V compact crossover powered by a hydrogen fuel cell, the automaker announced on Wednesday. The hydrogen-sipping CR-V will arrive in 2024 and be built at the former plant of the Acura NSX supercar, located in Marysville, Ohio. NSX production came to an end at the specialist plant

A team of researchers at Penn State has developed a new battery structure that uses internal thermal modulation to optimize battery temperature, which could lead to faster charging times. The researchers describe their work in “Fast charging of energy-dense lithium-ion batteries,” published in Nature. Batteries operate most efficiently in an optimal temperature environment, as team

The development of local battery supply chains is a high priority in both North America and Europe, but as an infographic from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence demonstrates, removing China from the equation will be a difficult task, as the country currently dominates the processing of battery minerals. Most of the world’s lithium, nickel, cobalt, and manganese

Lancia’s sole model at present is a subcompact hatch known as the Ypsilon. However, in more prosperous times, the historic Italian marque was churning out iconic rides like the Stratos, Delta HF, and of course the Aurelia. The Aurelia was a high-end nameplate built during the 1950s. It was available in multiple body styles, including

Commercial EV builder Orange EV deployed its first electric truck in 2015, and now claims to have 450 terminal trucks in use by more than 130 fleets. Now the company has announced plans to establish its new corporate headquarters and manufacturing operations in the Turner Logistics Center, an industrial park under construction in Kansas City,

The need to quickly increase EV battery testing capacity is making validation labs harder to manage and forcing engineering teams to explore ways to sustainably scale up their test lab operations. From few to dozens of test cells, managing power from the battery cyclers is one of the main challenges that impacts lab efficiency, CO2

Audi on Monday announced U.S. pricing for the R8 V10 GT, marking the swan song for the German automaker’s V-10 engine. The base price is $249,900 plus a $1,495 destination charge, $595 for paint, and a $1,300 gas guzzler tax. That brings the total cost to $253,290 for each of the 150 units planned for

The Wiener Linien transport company, which operates the subway, bus and streetcar networks in Vienna, Austria, has ordered 60 Mercedes-Benz eCitaro electric buses, to be delivered between 2023 and 2025. Wiener Linien plans to convert 9 of its 127 routes to electric operation with the low-floor eCitaro by the end of 2025. The 12-meter solo