Lucid Motors calls its motor design miniaturized, and it’s long boasted that the light and “impossibly compact” motor in its Air electric sedan is lean enough to fit into an airplane carry-on. Lean and small is only one aspect, however. Lucid’s motors weigh just 67 pounds each and are capable of generating 670 hp—yes… More…

Interest in purchasing an EV is high among communities of color, which are also more burdened by air pollution than white communities. Yet significant barriers exist to greater EV adoption, according to a new study from Consumer Reports, EVNoire, GreenLatinos, and the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). Communities of color are most harmed by… More…

Nissan Leaf batteries are lasting a long time, according to an executive with the automaker, and that may push mass reuse and recycling further into the future. “Almost all of the batteries we’ve made are still in cars,” Nissan UK marketing director Nic Thomas said last month in an interview with Forbes (via Charged EVs). Recall that Nissan was… More…

Vinfast reported on Saturday that it has delivered the first 100 of its VF 8 electric SUVs in its home market of Vietnam, ahead of wider availability and international deliveries in the U.S., Canada, and Europe expected by the end of the year. At a delivery event held at the company’s Hai Phong manufacturing complex the company said it… More…

Volkswagen has turned the ID.4 electric crossover into a rugged off-roader. Debuting at the ID.Treffen event in Locarno, Switzerland, the VW ID.Xtreme concept applies a suspension lift, tougher styling, and more power to the mass-market EV. The ID.Xtreme concept is based on the ID.4 GTX, a version of the all-wheel-drive ID.4 that isn’t sold in the… More…

Two plug-in models will be among the first to get an updated version of Ford’s Bluecruise hands-free driver-assist system when it launches this fall. Adding an automated lane-change feature and other updates, the new version is dubbed Bluecruise 1.2 and will launch on the 2023 Ford Mustang Mach-E, the automaker confirmed Friday. Lincoln will get… More…

The Nissan Leaf will finally get bidirectional charging in the United States, and it won’t affect the EV’s warranty, Nissan confirmed this past week. Leaf models have for years had the hardware for bidirectional charging, which allows electric cars to discharge stored energy from their battery packs. And while Nissan has allowed and enabled the… More…

Future BMW electric vehicles will go farther on a charge and will be faster-charging, while costing less to produce. That’s among the takeaways from a trove of information from BMW this morning as it detailed its battery strategies for next-generation electric vehicles—including a vastly different plan for the type of cells it will be… More…

There’s a new commercial EV startup on the block. It’s called Harbinger, and claims to have an EV platform for medium-duty trucks that will erase the up-front cost premium over current gasoline and diesel trucks. The platform incorporates an “eAxle” that combines the motor, gearbox, and inverter in one unit, a modular battery pack, and streamlined… More…

Mullen Automotive on Thursday announced acquisition of a majority stake in Bollinger Motors, reviving plans to bring the latter’s B1 electric SUV and B2 electric pickup truck into production. Founded in 2015, Bollinger initially planned the B1 and B2 as no frills off-roaders aimed at outdoor enthusiasts. It revealed production-intent versions of… More…

The U.S. EV newcomer Rivian intends to partner with the oldest automaker in the world to form a joint venture around electric vans—and producing them for Europe. In the venture, announced this morning, the two companies plan to share costs around the production of “bespoke large electric vans” for both Mercedes-Benz and Rivian… More…

Israeli startup StoreDot has begun shipping samples of its fast-charging batteries to automakers for real-world EV testing. The samples are 30-Ah lithium-ion pouch cells “in EV form factor,” StoreDot said in a press release, maintaining its claim that these batteries can add 100 miles of range from just five minutes of charging. To put this into… More…

Early this year GM laid out an enticing price of $30,000 for its 2024 Chevy Equinox EV fully electric compact crossover due in fall 2023. On Thursday GM confirmed it’s planning to keep to that initial price and timeline, and it revealed much more about this upcoming EV. It will be sold in the Chevy lineup along with the gasoline Equinox… More…

Jeep on Thursday revealed what it called the next phase of its shift to an all-electric lineup for Europe by 2030 and a target of half EV sales by then in the U.S. The first of these fully electric models to arrive—revealed in March as one of Stellantis’ 25 U.S.-bound EVs by 2030—will be the Avenger. Jeep says the Avenger compact… More…

Volkswagen’s highly anticipated ID.Buzz electric van gets it right. Mostly. A couple weeks ago I was able to spend much of the day with production-spec versions of the 2024 VW ID.Buzz and found it to be a refreshing departure from the compact-to-mid-size crossover forms that have become banal. It’s neither an outfit-ready electric… More…

Dutch startup Lightyear on Tuesday announced a roughly $80 million investment the firm said will help spur development of a mass-market solar-assisted electric car. Lightyear in June revealed that in production form its Lightyear One will be instead called Lightyear 0. That model already incorporates game-changing aero and specially developed… More…

Current EVs generally weigh hundreds if not thousands more pounds than comparable internal-combustion vehicles due to heavy battery packs, and that might compromise road safety. So argues a recent Slate piece that suggests some of the latest EVs might pose more of a threat especially beyond the driver’s seat, to other vehicles and other users of… More…

General Motors will offer buyouts to U.S. Buick dealers uninterested in remaining with the brand for its EV remake, the head of Buick said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Friday. All of Buick’s roughly 2,000 U.S. dealers will be given the opportunity to take a buyout, Global Buick boss Duncan Aldred said in the interview. He… More…

A new California rule could pave the way for more affordable—and more efficient—EV charging. As reported by Canary Media (via ChargedEVs), the California Public Utilities Commission recently approved a new rule requiring the state’s three largest utilities to let EV chargers measure the amount of energy they’re using. Many home… More…

California’s Lucid Motors, which just last week started taking reservations for its most expensive model yet, the quarter-million-dollar, 1,200-plus hp Air Sapphire, might already be starting production of its most affordable, sub-$90,000 Air Pure version. In a Twitter post Friday, the company provided a glimpse of a Lucid Air coming off the… More…