Free Republic

President Joe Biden suggested Tuesday it is false that his administration is restricting consumer choice in the automobile market, but his administration recently finalized a rule that will force electric vehicles (EVs) to make up a much larger share of overall auto sales over the next decade. Biden made the remark during a Tuesday speech about his administration’s decision to significantly bolster tariffs against Chinese products including steel, semiconductor chips and EV batteries. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a rule in March that requires manufacturers to make EVs constitute between 35% and 56% of new cars sold in 2032,...

The Zigy electric quadricycle for one is a concept study at the moment, but its designers are seeking industry partners to move to prototyping - Andrea Mocellin ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The design collaboration that brought us the Revolve wheelchair in 2021 has now turned its attention to the problem of inner-city mobility. Noting that many SUV-sized vehicles around town only have a single occupant, the team has designed a compact EV for one. The collaboration in question is between German mobility designer Andrea Mocellin and engineering consultancy Dexet Technologies. The Zigy concept was inspired by the narrow and congested roads of London,...

A new type of hybrid sodium-ion battery that offers both high capacity and rapid-charging capabilities could power mobile devices, electric vehicles and space tech. Researchers have developed a new coin-type sodium-based battery that can charge rapidly “in seconds” and could potentially power everything from smartphones to electric vehicles (EVs) in the future. By combining anode materials used in conventional batteries with cathodes from supercapacitors — batteries that can store and deliver energy at very high rates –– the scientists created a new type of sodium-ion battery that offers both high capacity and rapid-charging capabilities. They were looking for a way...

EVs may be safer for the environment but owners claim the vehicles are causing harm to their health. There are growing reports of electric car drivers suffering motion sickness, dizziness and nausea from the vehicles' braking and acceleration systems. And a former Tesla owner has claimed that she experienced nosebleeds, hair loss and 'debilitating' body pains while using the vehicle she purchased in 2021. While she was not entirely sure the Tesla was at fault, the Georgia resident and said her symptoms disappeared after selling the car. Tesla owners have had to trade in some models because the air conditioning...

California Democrats are frustrated by many of their consumers. No matter how much they plead, whine, and cajole, people simply aren't buying electric vehicles in the numbers the state is demanding. And progress in getting charging stations up and running is far behind schedule. Also, all of the electrical power being flushed into these systems is expensive. But don't worry about any of that. Gavin Newsom and the Democrats have a plan to address all of these woes. In order to subsidize the cost of electric vehicles and encourage more people to buy them, they're going to tack on a...

You might understand the shock that Hertz customer Joshua Lee felt when he saw the receipt for his rented Tesla Model 3. After returning the vehicle back to Hertz following a weekend vacation in Los Angeles, Lee noticed he was hit with additional charge of $277.39 on top of his initial reservation price. Why was he charged so much additional money? According to Hertz, that was the cost of refueling the electric Model 3. Unfortunately for Lee, the further he pried the company for information, the more Hertz doubled down, and the more confused he became.

New technologies that will make monitoring drivers' behavior easy and comprehensive … will soon also be mandatory.H.R. 3684, an “infrastructure” bill signed by Joe Biden in 2021 included a provision mandating expanded monitoring of folks as they drive an automobile. And henceforth the intrusive technologies will be required in all new vehicles being manufactured and sold in the U.S.New vehicles will be required to have passive monitoring systems to assess each driver’s behavior. An algorithm will determine if the driver is too impaired to operate the vehicle. If so, the vehicle will either be disabled, or some as yet unexplained...

On the road to delivering 100 miles of EV range in five minutes by the end of 2024, tech firm StoreDot has installed its extreme fast charging cells in a Polestar 5 prototype, and zapped the 77-kWh pack to 80% capacity in 10 minutes. For many car drivers, the journey from home to work or the mall or school is a fairly short one, well within the per-charge battery range of modern electric family cars anyway. But those needing to make longer daily trips are going to be plugged in more often. DC fast-charging is already available for quick top-ups,...

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.

Vast swaths of the United States are at risk of running short of power as electricity-hungry data centers and clean-technology factories proliferate around the country, leaving utilities and regulators grasping for credible plans to expand the nation’s creaking power grid. In Georgia, demand for industrial power is surging to record highs, with the projection of new electricity use for the next decade now 17 times what it was only recently. Arizona Public Service, the largest utility in that state, is also struggling to keep up, projecting it will be out of transmission capacity before the end of the decade absent...

A.I. is rigged. When looking up any question susceptible of a liberal bias, A.I. appears to provide a biased answer. Today I asked my A.I. “copilot,” “How long does it take to re-fuel a gas-powered car?” Even without being asked, my copilot insisted on comparing fueling time for gas-powered cars to charging times for E.V.s, concluding that “in summary, while gas refueling is faster in the worst-case scenario, considering overall monthly time spent, E.V.s are more efficient in terms of charging time.” I didn’t even ask about charging time for E.V.s, but A.I. insisted on comparing E.V.s with gas-powered cars...

Powering the nation’s long-haul trucks with electricity would require the same amount of electricity for more than 46 million homes every year. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In 2022, California adopted regulations that required all new cars, trucks and SUVs sold in the state to be zero emissions by 2035. Immediately, 17 states eyed the electric vehicle mandates and started considering their own. That was on top of the Biden administration’s own tailpipe standards, which many say function as a federal EV mandate. The vision of a forced electric vehicle transition hasn't quite gone as California and the Biden administration have hoped. But in...

Two years ago, an emissions data firm known as Emissions Analytics, published a study that revealed E.V.s emitted more pollution than gas-powered cars, and the type of pollution they emitted is the most common vehicle-related environmental contamination. The study flew relatively under the radar until a few days ago.

Michigan autoworkers are worried that President Joe Biden’s policies pushing for a transition to electric vehicles (EV) will cost their jobs, according to The New York Times. Some autoworkers represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW) union are not pleased with the president’s support of EVs due to the products needing less manpower to produce, which could eliminate tens of thousands of jobs not just in manufacturing, but also in supporting services like insurance and trucking, according to the NYT. Biden has made union support a key part of his campaign and presidential policy, but his push to have half...

The Biden administration is poised to soon finalize gas-powered car tailpipe emissions standards that consumer advocates and energy industry groups have dubbed a "de facto electric vehicle mandate." The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) proposed tailpipe emissions – which were in recent weeks submitted to the White House Office of Management and Budget for final review – are designed to ensure a staggering 67% of new car sales are electric by 2032. Over the weekend, the New York Times and Washington Post reported the White House is set to double down on that lofty goal while loosening earlier targets. "The President...

France’s President Macron had a plan to make millions of electric vehicles a year. Chancellor Scholz planned to put 15 million on Germany’s roads by 2030. President Biden trumped the lot with a $174bn (£138bn) plan to make the US the world leader. Even Boris Johnson Get info without leaving the page. – remember him – had a £1bn plan to beef up our charging network. Rewind only a couple of years, and almost every president or prime minister was making electric vehicles the cornerstone of an industrial strategy. And yet, this week we have learned that Renault is abandoning...

The Biden administration has warned that Chinese electric vehicles can pose a national security threat to the United States as they can collect huge amounts of personal information and may send it overseas. US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said during an Atlantic Council fireside chat on Tuesday that the US should think deeply about whether it wants all the data collected by electric and autonomous vehicles to be sent to China. She said the information could be about the driver, the location of the vehicle and the surroundings of the vehicle. Raimondo’s comments came after Bloomberg reported last week that...

Cities coast-to-coast grappling with broken-down e-buses that cannot be fixed .. Between the federal government, states and municipalities, untold billions in taxpayer dollars have been spent adding electric buses to transit fleets across the U.S. in an effort to reduce carbon emissions. However, cities from coast-to-coast are grappling with broken-down e-buses that cannot be fixed, are too expensive to fix, or they have scrapped their electric fleets altogether. Officials in Asheville, North Carolina, recently expressed frustration that three of the five e-buses the city purchased for millions in 2018 are now sitting idle due to a combination of software issues,...

Electric vehicles are the future, they said. They’re the quintessential pain in the backside that isn’t worth the money and a resource drainer for the working family. Who am I kidding? These cars aren’t for people like us. It’s for rich, wealthy, woke whites who think they’re doing their part in going green. They’re really setting up their families to freeze to death when the battery dies as temperatures dip. In Canada, one man detailed how these vehicles were the greatest scam of the modern era, given the $130,000-plus investment he sunk into this cockamamie lefty idea. When the EV...

It was love at first sight when Neil Semel saw the electric Mercedes EQS 450+ at a Pompano Beach dealership. The sedan was the perfect sleek black color his wife wanted, had only 2,200 miles and they both liked the idea of getting away from gasoline. “I’ve always driven combustion engines and I thought it was time to try to save the planet,” Semel said. But after less than 5,000 miles of driving around his Boca Raton neighborhood, Semel was shocked to find some essential — and very expensive — parts were already wearing out. The tires. “If somebody looked...