Jennifer Mossalgue

The Sakura, an unassuming microcar from Nissan and Mitsubishi which launched last year, has become the top-selling EV in Japan, beating out global rival Tesla. In a country that has been dragging its heels in going electric, this neat little car meets an obvious need that connects to consumers: It’s cheap and insanely practical.

It’s soon game over for Volkswagen combustion-engine passenger cars in Norway. Norwegian VW importer Møller Mobility Group just confirmed the plan to wrap up any orders on ICE cars in the country by December 2023 – after that, the brand will only sell its electric models.

Food trucks in the US are huge business, and huge polluters with noisy generators spewing noxious fumes into the air, making that artisan taco a little less palatable. But this Seattle startup, Joule Case, is building a unique business by supplying modular battery systems to food trucks eager to ditch the gas generators for a clean, quiet electric alternative. 

Stellantis, parent company of Fiat, Ram, and Peugeot, announced its plans to overtake Ford as the global number-one seller of pickup trucks and vans within the next four years, and it’s hoping electrification will take it there. 

Amazon announced that it has doubled its fleet of custom-designed Rivian electric delivery vehicles (EDVs) to a total of 10,000 vehicles, all making last-mile deliveries in 1,800 US cities. The company now operates one of the largest fleets of EDVs in the US.

In a seemingly bizarre yet tragic twist, a new study says that EV owners are a fickle bunch. After purchasing an electric vehicle, half of EV owners go back to ICE vehicles as either a replacement car or a second vehicle for their household – all with the exception of Tesla owners, who are (no surprise) notorious for their fierce brand loyalty.

The agile two-seater Stella Terra solar car just finished a 620-mile off-roading adventure in Morocco and the Sahara, all on a single charge. The designers behind the project say it isn’t just about maximizing range and distance, but showing off the car’s lightweight, aerodynamic design and its ability to traverse tough terrain without any major drama or head rattling. Land Rover and BMW, take note.

The EU Court of Justice yesterday announced a landmark ruling stating that pedal-assist e-bikes are actually bikes, not motorbikes or (gasp) motor vehicles, which means e-cyclists aren’t obligated to be insured in the same way as motorists and can be compensated as a cyclist, not a “motor vehicle driver,” in the case of an accident.

This week, Stockholm announced plans to become the first large capital city to put an all-out ban on petrol and diesel vehicles from a 20-block commercial and financial district in its center, all in a move to reduce air pollution and engine noise. Sure, dedicating a slice of the city to pedestrians, cyclists, and electric vehicles is excellent news, but the zone is only 180,000 square meters, and residents will have to wait until 2025 before the dream is realized – and even longer before governmental officials consider expanding the zone farther out.

It’s official: Renault has announced that it is targeting November 1, 2023, as the day it will separate its new EV unit Ampere from the rest of the company as a first step in the run-up to the initial public offering.

The European Union has put its stamp of approval on a reworked law yesterday banning all new sales of ICE vehicles from 2035. Meanwhile, the European Commission has also proposed new targets to cut CO2 emissions from city buses and trucks from 2030 and onward. Here’s the latest.

France has received the green light from the European Commission to start cracking down on ultra-polluting short-haul flights within the country, starting with a ban on three popular flights from Paris-Orly Airport. The country also aims to curb the use of private jets in an effort to both reduce CO2 emissions and keep up the social media backlash against the super-rich jet set in a time of soaring inflation and energy cutbacks.

Paris is considering an all-out ban on the insanely popular rental electric scooters in the coming weeks, with backers of the plan saying that they clog up the streets and sidewalks, freak out pedestrians, and aren’t even that green due to their “very short life.”

In France, solar just got a huge boost from new legislation approved through the Senate this week that will require all parking lots with spaces for at least 80 vehicles – both existing and new – to be covered by solar panels.

What’s good for America isn’t necessarily good for your friends across the pond – at least that is the central message to an urgent call to action from the EU this week against what it sees as “discriminatory” tax credits and incentives against European and Asian carmakers in the groundbreaking new Inflation Reduction Act. 

While Tesla has been rolling out its global network of 30,000 fast chargers for years, Renault has announced its own plan to build a network of 200 EV ultra-fast-charging stations across Europe, kicking off first in its native France.

Installation of all 80 offshore wind turbines off the west coast of France has been completed, with France’s first offshore wind farm scheduled to be up and running by the end of the year. The Saint Nazaire site will produce enough power to cover 20% of total electricity consumption of the Loire-Atlantic, or around 700,000 people.

Renault is shining a light on its brand-new all-electric compact Megane E-Tech, which boasted the best EV sales in France last month, with 25,000 vehicles sold in the last three months. That tallies up to a 100K/year run rate – could it outrun Telsa’s Model 3 this year?

It’s official: Yesterday the European Parliament voted to make Europe the first carbon-neutral continent by 2050, with the sales of new ICE vehicles to be illegal from 2035. Since most auto manufacturers are planning to go all-electric by this deadline, the new policy feels like too little, too late, and way too much compromise.

While life may soon start to feel a little less sweet for EV owners in Norway, the country is eyeing its next strategic move toward an even greener future, and that means fewer private cars (even electric varieties) clogging the roads in favor of walking, cycling, and taking the bus.

Last week, French company Renault announced its plan to fully review spinning off its electric car business into a separate company in 2023, in hopes of catching up with rivals Tesla and Volkswagen.

Today, Volvo Group, Daimler Truck, and Volkswagen’s AG heavy-truck business the Traton Group announced the official signing of a joint venture to install and operate a high-performance public charging network for electric, heavy-duty, long-haul trucks and buses across Europe.

It’s been a rough week for one of Europe’s best-selling electric cars, the zippy little Zoe, which failed Euro NCAP’s latest round of grueling vehicle safety tests with a grand total of zero stars out of five, a huge blow to a vehicle that previously boasted five-star ratings in earlier models. Is it the end of the road for the beloved Zoe?

Yesterday US Vice President Kamala Harris kicked off the government’s new plan to build 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations across the country with a ceremony at an EV charging facility in suburban Maryland, followed by an odd, bumbling demo where she appears to be using an L2 charging station for the first time.