Trade News

Getting the right infrastructure in place to accommodate a growing electric vehicle market is a massive challenge, even in major cities.

But what if the industry could test the transition to EVs in a smaller geographic area first, to see what works best?

That's the goal of a new project on Astypalea, a Greek island in the southern Aegean Sea.

A collaboration between Volkswagen and Greek government officials brought EVs to Astypalea last month, kick-starting the modernization of the island's energy system over the next five years.

Astypalea (ah-stee-PAH-lee-a), with a reported population of only a few thousand, will serve as a "future lab" for Europe's shift to electrification and decarbonization, Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess said.

Police, the airport authority and the local municipality, along with private customers, are the project's target. The goal is to swap out 1,500 internal combustion engine vehicles on the island with 1,000 EV…

Some aspects of modern electric vehicle ownership have not changed much from the first generation of EVs that were popular a century ago. Back then, as today, there was range anxiety. Part of that was borne out of the charging situation.

Back then there were three ways to charge electric car batteries:

1. The vehicle could be left at the dealership overnight.

2. The battery pack could be removed and replaced with a freshly charged pack.

3. The vehicle could be plugged into one of the few public charging stations.

Home charging also was possible, but it was not widespread. The charging equipment was expensive and not very user-friendly like today's chargers. Because of exposed wiring and mercury arc rectifiers, a battery charger could be dangerous to have in a home garage, where it may not be shielded well from moisture and could be damaged easily if something banged in to it.

A mercury arc recti…

Fighter jets can refuel in flight, saving much time on long trips. So, what if you could likewise top off your vehicle's energy supply while zooming along?

That is the vision of Khurram Afridi, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Cornell University.

Afridi's team is exploring a way to charge moving electric vehicles as they pass over high-voltage wires embedded in the roadway. It's known as dynamic wireless power transfer.

The team's approach uses capacitive charging with high-frequency (13.56 megahertz) electric fields, vs. the lower-frequency (85 kilohertz) magnetic fields used in the inductive charging pads on the market today, which require a vehicle to remain stationary while being charged.

Imagine, no waiting in line. No getting out at a station and fumbling with cash or a credit card in the dark, rain, heat or snow. And critically, EV batteries could be much smaller, improving sustain…

Nearly a century ago, a federal program to electrify America's rural areas transformed their economies and brought them into the 20th century. Now, advocates of rural electric vehicle chargers say they will be crucial to bringing the nation's small heartland cities, small towns and farming communities fully into the 21st century.

While the Biden administration's new infrastructure initiative and most electrification efforts focus on putting chargers in dense metro areas, rural citizens also are getting some attention. The $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure framework supported by the president currently includes $7.5 billion to construct a national EV-charging network along highways and in rural and disadvantaged communities.

Many rural chargers are being financed by state disbursements of funds from the $3 billion Volkswagen AG agreed to pay the U.S. in 2016 as a penalty for its diesel-emissions cheating scandal. In addition, VW-created …

SHANGHAI — In 2016, when BAIC Motor Co., a state-owned automaker, installed its first batch of 10 stations in Beijing to swap batteries for its electric cars purchased by a local taxi company, few other automakers operating in China quickly followed suit.

However, since 2020, construction of battery swap stations has accelerated: The number of battery-swap stations across China surged to 617 as of April 2021 from 306 at the end of 2019, according to the China Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Promotion Alliance, a Beijing-based trade group of EV makers and EV charging service providers.

Battery swapping has yet to take off in the U.S., but a slew of Chinese automakers have started to embrace it as a way to serve their EV customers.

Leading the construction of battery swap infrastructure in China are two young domestic companies: EV startup Nio and Aulton New Energy Automotive Technology Co., which specializes in battery swap …

BERKELEY, Calif. -- Tesla Inc. has introduced an option for some customers to subscribe to its advanced driver assistance software, dubbed "Full Self-Driving capability," for $199 per month, instead of paying $10,000 upfront.

"FSD capability subscriptions are currently available to eligible vehicles in the United States. Check your Tesla app for updates on availability in other regions," Tesla said Saturday on its website.

"The currently enabled features do not make the vehicle autonomous," Tesla said, adding they "require a fully attentive driver, who has their hands on the wheel and is prepared to take over at any moment."

Tesla currently charges $10,000 for semi-automated driving features such as lane changing and parking assistance under its full self-driving package.

Tesla said the subscription service is available in vehicles equipped with "Full Self-Driving computer 3.0 or above." Tesla told customers that upgrading to the new hardware will…

DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. is reestablishing itself in the industry's largest segment, compact crossovers, after years of declining share with a pair of small utility vehicles aimed at different buyers: the Escape and Bronco Sport.

More than two-thirds of the Bronco Sport's 60,514 sales so far this year come from buyers new to Ford, the company says. The new offering hasn't cannibalized sales of the Escape, which rose about 1 percent to more than 85,000 in the first half of 2021 despite the ongoing chip shortage that is crimping production.

Combined, the two small utilities would rank fourth in the segment, behind the Toyota RAV4, Honda CR-V and Nissan Rogue, according to the Automotive News Research & Data Center.

Ford is quickly gaining market share in the segment — up 3 percentage points to 11 percent through the first six months of 2021 — while Toyota and General Motors lose share and Honda's is flat, according to LMC Automotive data.

Read more about 1-2 punch lifts Ford in key segment

School buses may be America's most ubiquitous and underappreciated transportation resource. From rural roads to urban centers, more than 10,000 school districts rely upon approximately 480,000 school buses to carry 24 million students twice a day. By comparison, that's more than eight times the number of domestic air passengers who fly each day.

Someday soon, school buses might serve a second purpose. In addition to transporting students, they may be a nationwide energy source.

"The school bus industry is almost at the tip of the spear when it comes to vehicle-to-grid technology," says Kevin Matthews, managing director, sustainability sector, for National Strategies, a Washington-based research and consulting firm that works with state and local governments. "The lightbulbs have gone off, especially with utilities, that yeah, we can figure out our vehicle-to-grid issues with school buses."

Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology holds the possibility of trans…

For one of its most critical product launches in years, Infiniti is emphasizing star power, not horsepower.

Nissan Motor Co.'s luxury brand has enlisted entertainment and sports celebrities to create buzz around its second-generation QX60 midsize crossover for an influencer-themed launch campaign when it arrives this fall.

The three-row crossover is Infiniti's sales powerhouse, driving nearly 29 percent of its U.S. sales last year. The launch of the redesigned 2022 model is make-or-break for Infiniti, which is struggling to keep customers' attention thanks to a bare-bones product lineup.

Its U.S. sales have been in decline since 2017, slumping 32 percent last year — the largest annual drop in the brand's history. Infiniti reported 79,502 sales in 2020, its lowest total in two decades.

The planned marketing campaign for the QX60 eschews an emphasis on product specs, such as horsepower and torque. And the reason for that…

The U.S. is clashing with Mexico and Canada over rules for cars shipped across regional borders, with automakers and governments telling the Biden administration that it’s imperiling the success of their new trade pact.

The dispute focuses on how to calculate the percentage of a vehicle that comes collectively from the three countries under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because conversations are private. The deal took effect last July, replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, but the new so-called rules of origin are designed to be phased in over several years.

The U.S. insists on a stricter way than Mexico and Canada believe they agreed to for counting the origin of certain core parts including engines, transmissions and steering systems in the overall calculation, the people said. That makes it harder for plants in Mexico and Canada to meet the new threshold of 75 …