Electric Vehicles News & Discussions

[Time_Traveller]

Xiaomi: Electric car buyers told they face six-month wait

9 hours ago

Just days after Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi launched its first electric vehicle (EV), buyers have been told they may have to wait up to six months for their car to be delivered.

Screen grabs on Chinese social media show the firm advising buyers it could take 27 weeks to deliver the SU7 Max.

The company previously said pre-orders had hit 88,898 within 24 hours of it starting to take orders on Thursday.

Xiaomi did not immediately respond to a BBC request for comment.

The technology giant, which is the third-largest seller of smartphones in the world with a market share of about 12%, is taking on EV rivals including Tesla and BYD in the world's biggest market for cars.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68705711

[weatheriscool]

[caltrek]

Electric Vehicles are Lowering San Francisco Bay Area's Carbon Footprint
April 4, 2024

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) An extensive CO2 monitoring network set up around the San Francisco Bay Area by an atmospheric chemist from the University of California, Berkeley, has recorded the first evidence that the adoption of electric vehicles is measurably lowering the area's carbon emissions.

The network of sensors, most of them in the East Bay, is the brainchild of Ronald Cohen, UC Berkeley professor of chemistry, who envisions inexpensive, publicly funded pollution and carbon dioxide monitors widely distributed around urban areas to pinpoint emission sources and the neighborhoods most affected. An estimated 70% of global CO2 emissions come from cities, yet few urban areas have granular data about where those emissions originate.

In 2012, Cohen began setting up a Bay Area sensing network that has now grown to more than 80 stations, including seven in San Francisco, that stretches from Sonoma County through Vallejo and down to San Leandro.

Between 2018 and 2022, 57 of the sensors in the Berkeley Environmental Air Quality and CO2 Network (BEACO2N) recorded a small but steady decrease in CO2 emissions — about 1.8% annually — that translates to a 2.6% yearly drop in vehicle emission rates. Looking at California data for electric vehicle adoption — which is very high in the Bay Area — Cohen and graduate student Naomi Asimow concluded that the decrease was due to passenger vehicle electrification.

Additional Extract:

Los Angeles, California; Providence, Rhode Island; and Glasgow, Scotland, have already adopted Cohen's sensors to create their own pollution monitoring networks.

Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1039743

[weatheriscool]

[Tadasuke]

Plug-in car sales in Europe increased by 10% in February year-over-year, on par with the general market growth



Plug-in car registrations in January-February in Europe (year over year change):
BEVs: about 262,000 and 13% market share
PHEVs: about 141,000 and 7% market share
Total: 403,691 (+18%) and 20% market share

Tesla Model Y remains Europe's best-selling plug-in model with almost 20,000 new registrations in February. One in every new five cars in Europe is now a plug-in hybrid or fully electric.

In my opinion, probably by 2030, 56% of new cars in Europe will be BEVs or PHEVs and by 2038 100% of new cars in Europe will be BEVs, with buying new cars which burn fossil fuels completely outlawed in some European countries and some U.S. states and ICE cars completely banned in some cities even in 2030. Of course there will be still existing internal combustion engine automobiles on roads in 2038 (which were bought in the 2020s or 2010s). I think they may persist even to the 2050s or maybe even 2060s in some countries. By 2040, passenger road and railway transport will be mostly fully electric. Cargo transport will be also gradually moving to electricity, but slightly lagging behind passenger transport. Large electric cargo ships and electric airplanes will come even later, but will come at an accelerated pace, because AGI and general-purpose robots will be a thing in the 2040s.

Toyota U.S. plug-in car sales almost doubled in Q1 2024

Toyota Motor North America (Toyota and Lexus brands) reports that its vehicle sales in the United States during the first quarter of 2024 increased by 20% year-over-year to 565,098 units. The lineup recently expanded to 27 models.

Toyota Plug-in car sales in Q1-Q4 2023:
BEVs: 9,329 (+663%) and 0.5% share
PHEVs: 33,630 (+11%) and 1.7% share
Total: 42,959 (+36%) and 2.2% share

Toyota Plug-in car sales in Q1'2024:
BEVs: 1,897 (+12%) and 0.4% share
PHEVs: 11,674 (+82%) and 2.4% share
Total: 13,571 (+67%) and 2.8% share

Toyota car models sales in Q1'2024:
Toyota bZX: 1,897 (+12%)
Toyota Prius Prime: 3,907 (+293%)
Toyota RAV4 Prime: 7,767 (+43%)

[weatheriscool]

[weatheriscool]

$45K EV smuggles a 620-mile solid-state battery out of the lab
By C.C. Weiss
April 11, 2024

IM motors has decided that semi solid-state batteries are ready for prime time. In an omen of what Western automakers will need to contend with, it's now launched a futuristic luxury coupe with a next-gen battery pack and crab-walking capability.

The high-density lithium batteries we enjoy today were an absolute technological revolution. They blew rechargeable nickel-cadmium and nickel-metal-hydride batteries out of the water, offering such a leap in energy storage by weight and volume that suddenly all sorts of things became possible.

Smartphones, all-day laptops, drones, electric cars, skateboards, motorcycles, scooters, electric aircraft, eVTOLs, ebikes... Suddenly, you could carry enough energy in a safe, reliable, high-input, high-output format that all these ideas became (or are becoming) world-changing products at an epic scale.

https://newatlas.com/automotive/im-ls-l ... lid-state/

[weatheriscool]

[Time_Traveller]

Richard Hammond predicts majority of cars will still be petrol rather than electric in 2050

14 hours ago

Former Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond has warned that the majority of cars will still be petrol in 2050, given the current rate of electrification in vehicles.

Given that there is currently no high-profile motoring show on television, the 54-year-old suggested that there could be a need for a programme that informs viewers on self-driving and electric vehicles.

“EVs will be part of the picture, of course they are,” he told The Telegraph. “But at the current rate of electrification, even if we could keep it up – which we can’t because China is withholding the rare earth minerals we need – by 2050 the majority of cars on the road will still be, and have to be, internal combustion engines.”

Stating that is was more necessary for a prime-time motoring show than ever before, he added: “The biggest financial decision we make as individuals, with a bearing on the carbon future, is the car.

“And people might end up buying electric cars that simply don’t work in their application, or not buying one when they’d be perfect. But we’re not properly informed.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/h ... 28227.html

[weatheriscool]