Category: transportation

The EPA isn’t requiring the replacement buses to all be electric, however. While the program will pay for battery-electric buses — such as the Thomas C2 Jouley that was delivered to a school in Alexandria County in Virginia on Friday to mark the start of the program — it will also pay for buses powered by propane or compressed natural gas as long as they’re also model year 2021 or newer and will serve the school district for at least five years, among other requirements.

The EPA will consider applications to replace up to 25 buses at once and has set aside $250 million for zero-emission buses in 2022 and $250 million for clean school buses, with another $4.5 billion remaining for 2023-2028. Rebates range from $375,000 for a zero-emissions Class 7 or Class 8 bus down to $25,000 for smaller propane buses (classes 3-6). The application process is open until August 19, and successful applicants should be notified in October that it’s time to order some new buses.

The plant is expected to bring thousands of new jobs to Georgia.
The plant could grow to include 8,500 employees and would be built on a 2,200-acre (890-hectare) site that state and local governments own near the hamlet of Ellabell, Georgia, said two people familiar with Georgia’s talks with Hyundai…. The second person said Hyundai would invest more than $7 billion and could also build some cars powered by gasoline engines at the site, with an announcement in Georgia set for May 20…

It would be the second massive electric vehicle plant announced in Georgia in less than a year. Rivian Automotive in December announced it would build a $5 billion, 7,500-job electric truck plant about 45 miles (70 kilometers) east of Atlanta.

“Autonomous vehicles are recording their surroundings continuously and have the potential to help with investigative leads,” says a San Francisco Police department training document obtained by Motherboard via a public records request. “Investigations has already done this several times.”

Privacy advocates say the revelation that police are actively using AV footage is cause for alarm. “This is very concerning,” Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) senior staff attorney Adam Schwartz told Motherboard. He said cars in general are troves of personal consumer data, but autonomous vehicles will have even more of that data from capturing the details of the world around them. “So when we see any police department identify AVs as a new source of evidence, that’s very concerning.”

As companies continue to make public roadways their testing grounds for these vehicles, everyone should understand them for what they are — rolling surveillance devices that expand existing widespread spying technologies,” said Chris Gilliard, Visiting Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center. “Law enforcement agencies already have access to automated license plate readers, geofence warrants, Ring Doorbell footage, as well as the ability to purchase location data. This practice will extend the reach of an already pervasive web of surveillance.”

Overall, though, online shoppers expressed more joy with the process than showroom floor shoppers. Compared to 78% of buyers highly satisfied with buying a car online, only 58% of in-person shoppers registered the same pleasure. That carried through to trade-ins and financing as well. Eighty percent of online shoppers were highly satisfied with the trade-in process, versus 57% of dealership visitors; 70% of online shoppers gave the highest marks to the financing process as opposed to 53% of guests asked to “Step into the office” and wait while the salesperson conferred with the finance manager.

The GreenBiz site takes a look at this “inductive vehicle charging pilot program.”
There’s perhaps no place more fitting for this pilot than Detroit. The city that led the nation’s first wave of automobile technology is helping lead its second, as the Michigan Department of Transportation has awarded a $1.9 million contract to Electreon to install one mile of in-road EV charging in Motor City.

“Wireless is the future for this technology,” said Stefan Tongur, vice president of business development for Electreon in the U.S. The wireless charging company is already building out the tech across Europe, where it has pilots in Germany, Italy and Sweden. The Michigan project is expected to be operational in 2023.

“We’ve always, for the past century, stopped to fuel the car, and we’re thinking the same with EVs,” Tongur said. But that creates many challenges when it comes to large-scale batteries and fleets especially, Tongur noted… So Electreon and others envision a network of strategic corridors with wireless, in-road charging that could gradually power vehicles along a route, rather than all at once at the destination. Fleet operators could either pay a subscription to use the chargers or integrate the costs into highway tolling, depending on the situation, Tongur said.

He described Electreon’s business model as “charging as a service.”

Alex Gruzen, CEO of wireless charging company WiTricity, tells the site this technology ultimately could accelerate the adoption of electric vehicles. “The company’s own research indicates that wireless charging can increase a consumer’s intent to purchase an EV by 68%, according to Gruzen, which could help move EVs beyond the early adopter stage.”

Or, as Gruzen puts it, “What we want to do is show that the EV ownership experience can be better than any experience you’ve ever had with a car before.”

Thanks to Slashdot reader doyouwantahotpocket for submitting the story.

China accounts for 60% of global EV production, and is emerging as the world’s factory for EVs having already secured the same position in digital product manufacturing. Exports to the EU grew in the wake of it announcing a policy to ban the sale of new hybrid and gasoline-powered vehicles in 2035. China’s EV exports to Europe rose fivefold to 230,000 units, with the region absorbing half of China’s total EV exports. Belgium imported 87,000 units and the U.K. 50,000 units. Of the almost 500,000 units exported, more than 100,000 appear to have originated from Tesla’s Shanghai plant.

Starting Monday, Cruise is allowed to provide the “Drivered Deployment” service on some public roads in San Francisco between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. at speeds of up to 30 miles per hour, while Waymo can offer service in parts of San Francisco and San Mateo counties at speeds of up to 65 miles per hour, CPUC said. Neither company is allowed to operate during heavy fog or heavy rain. […] Waymo said it has tens of thousands of riders on a waitlst in California after it launched a tester program in August. “We’ll begin offering paid trips through the program in the coming weeks,” the company said.

Scaringe also acknowledged the company “wrongly assumed” the newly announced dual-motor models and standard battery pack would provide satisfactory price points similar to the original configurations.