In order to produce affordable electric vehicles at scale, automakers need to both drive down battery costs and secure a stable supply of critical materials. For General Motors and its Ultium Cells LLC joint-venture battery plants with LG Energy Solution, that will be aided by plans announced Wednesday to form a joint venture between the automaker… More…

Global average battery prices fell 6% between 2020 and 2021, but they might be on the rise going forward, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s (BNEF) annual battery price survey. Lithium-ion battery pack prices averaged $132 per kwh in 2021—down from $140 per kwh in 2020—and $101 per kwh on a cell basis, the report said… More…

Mercedes-Benz and Stellantis are investing in Massachusetts-based solid-state battery firm Factorial Energy, becoming the latest in a series of automakers to back development of solid-state batteries. Multiple solid-state battery firms have cropped up promising improvements in performance over the lithium-ion chemistry used in nearly all current… More…

Kia has provided a first look at a redesigned, second-generation Niro, plus a nod that this sustainability-focused crossover will again be offered in hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and fully electric versions starting next year. The company hasn’t provided any update on which of these models are U.S.-bound—or even how the Niro’s… More…

Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell and Chinese EV firm Nio last week announced a cooperative agreement to expand charging and battery swapping stations in Europe and China. The agreement includes a network of co-branded battery swapping stations, starting with two pilot sites in China, the two companies said in press releases. Shell and Nio hope to… More…

Nissan on Monday unveiled an ambitious plan to launch nearly two dozen new electric cars and hybrids and invest in solid state battery tech by the end of the decade. Dubbed Nissan Ambition 2030, the plan calls for 23 electrified models for the Nissan and Infiniti brands globally, including 15 all-electric vehicles, by 2030. It’s part of a larger… More…

Toyota’s onslaught of battery electric vehicles is likely to arrive later than those from other automakers. But when these models appear, don’t expect Tesla range numbers—or Tesla prices. Toyota instead plans to go light with batteries on its EVs and compete with affordability, durability, and environmental responsibility, all… More…

The efficiency-focused Mercedes-Benz Vision EQXX concept will be revealed on January 3, 2022, Mercedes R&D boss Markus Schäfer announced in a LinkedIn post last week. Announced in July, the Vision EQXX targets 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) of real-world range on a single charge. That’s about 100 miles more than the 520-mile Lucid Air Dream… More…

Hyundai recently unveiled a coordinated home-energy ecosystem, bundling EV charging, solar, and home energy storage. Dubbed Hyundai Home, the service will provide one-stop shopping for these products to Hyundai customers, the automaker said in a press release. It’s scheduled to launch in certain markets in 2022. Rather than leaving customers to… More…

A majority of United States voters support requiring all new cars sold in their state to be electric by 2030, according to a new poll commissioned by nonprofit Coltura. Nationally, respondents supported phasing out sales of new gasoline cars by a 55%-35% margin. That margin varied by state, narrowing to 50%-38% in Colorado and growing to 66%-24%… More…

Rivian says its electric SUV remains on track, with first deliveries for some customers starting in January 2022. That’s despite some isolated complaints from a few Rivian R1S customers suggesting that order timelines may have been pushed back. The source of the confusion appears to be emails that went out this week, with build timelines for their… More…

The Polestar Precept concept will morph into a new flagship dubbed Polestar 5, scheduled for a 2024 launch, Polestar announced Tuesday. Confirmation came with the release of the third of a series of videos on the Precept concept’s design. This video focuses on the exterior design of the concept, which Polestar claims will be fairly close to the… More…

While driving range is one of the most important numbers for the GMC Hummer EV, it’s different for GM’s electric “supertruck” versus any other personal-use EV currently on the market. Why? Because, as we’ve outlined in the past, the top Hummer EV is solidly in the EPA’s heavy-duty truck category, with a… More…

With a splashy introduction at the 2021 Los Angeles auto show, Vietnamese auto manufacturer Vinfast detailed its plans to bring a pair of electric SUVs to the United States and establish a foothold in the U.S. EV market by the end of next year with a pair of vehicles. Confirming reports from earlier this year, those two EVs will be the VF e35 and… More…

California last week announced approval of a $1.4 billion three-year infrastructure push to meet the state’s ambitious goals for EVs and hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles. Most of the funding in the 2021-2023 plan goes to charging infrastructure, with $314 million designated for light-duty vehicle charging and $690 million for medium-duty and heavy-duty… More…

General Motors on Monday released an update on development of the 2023 Cadillac Lyriq electric SUV, which is scheduled to start production in the first quarter of 2022. Cadillac engineers of completed 80% of validation testing, meaning they can now begin fine-tuning the Lyriq ahead of the start of production, the GM press release said. The Lyriq… More…

The infrastructure and social policy bills passed by the United States House of Representatives this week include many EV provisions, from investments in charging infrastructure to a rejuvenated EV tax credit. Now they head to the Senate. The Build Back Better Act (H.R. 5376) replaces the current federal EV tax credit with a new one that… More…

Some Tesla owners on Friday night encountered a dilemma: The Tesla app—or network—was down, leaving them unable to connect to their vehicle and, well, get into it and drive. The outage, which rendered Tesla’s Phone Key feature useless to some, was not due to a hardware issue with the vehicles themselves. The idea of going keyless or… More…

Hyundai’s Genesis luxury brand revealed a fully electric version of its GV70 SUV, called the Electrified GV70, on Friday at Auto Guangzhou 2021 in China. And it confirmed that the model will be coming to North America. The reveal fills in a missing piece in a recent report that Genesis could be planning to make the GV70 EV in the U.S… More…

Ford CEO Jim Farley outlined Thursday, with a series of tweets, that the automaker is now expecting to make 600,000 electric vehicles per year globally by the end of 2023. That’s double the previous plan, and enough to potentially be considered the number-two EV maker in the U.S. by then—if other automakers keep to their current plans… More…