In this special vacation episode of Quick Charge, we explore the historic dive in global diesel demand, and whether it’s being caused inflation and a slowing economy or the rapid rise in EV sales displacing millions of gallons of oil demand.
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Kia’s opened the order books on its new, affordable EV3 electric car, Volvo has a bunch of news for car enthusiasts and equipment geeks alike, we might be past peak oil, e-bikes are hot sellers, and Scooter Doll checks out some electric outboards from Mercury Marine. All this and more on today’s Quick Charge!
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US diesel demand plummeted to its lowest seasonal level in 26 years last quarter – but is that due to a down economy, or booming commercial EV sales?
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Swedish automaker Volvo has rolled out its last diesel-powered passenger vehicle, after a 45-year relationship with the powertrain and cranking out millions of oil-burning cars. Between 2012 and 2016, diesel accounted for half of the company’s global sales. But those days are over now as the company moves toward an all-electric future.
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New data shows electric cars and plug-in hybrids made up more than 24% of all new passenger car registrations in the European Union this year, rising a bit from last year. While gas vehicles still hold nearly a third of the market, diesel rates took a dive.
Amtrak has replaced a diesel-powered bus on the Pacific Northwest’s Cascades route with its first electric bus.
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Kleanbus, which just completed its first prototype vehicle, strips diesel engines out of five- to 10-year-old buses and replaces them with electric powertrains.
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Amtrak has unveiled details of its newest train – the Amtrak Airo – that will replace its 50-year-old trains starting in 2026.
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Thousands of eco-tourists travel to the community of Churchill, Manitoba every year to catch a glimpse of the vulnerable polar bears that convene along the shallow waters of Hudson Bay. Perhaps surprisingly, the “Tundra Buggy” that takes these nature-loving tourists out onto the ice has been diesel-powered … until now.
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In a response to the AdBlue shortage that’s sidelined scores of diesel delivery trucks, the Australian Trucking Association (ATA) has joined up with the Electric Vehicle Council (EVC) to urge rapid policy reforms that would accelerate the nation’s transition to a zero-emissions trucking future.
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Just days after revealing the new Chrysler Airflow Concept electric crossover at CES and promising to go 100% electric by 2028, Stellantis began to take steps toward meeting that goal by reducing the engine options for its European Citroën Berlingo, Opel Combo Life, and Peugeot Rifter models down to one. And it’s electric!
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General Motors will soon start selling first-time diesel versions of the Chevy Tahoe and Suburban SUVs, and the Silverado pickup. GM is not alone in making a play for diesel, which is being propped up as an alternative to EVs. The Detroit News today makes the wild claim that diesel’s “resilience is creating doubts about the electric future touted by governments and manufacturers alike.”
Germany has been quite slow to adopt electric vehicles. It’s partly due to domestic automakers just now starting to launch a new generation of EVs and also due to the country being entrenched in diesel for years.
But now that the Dieselgate scandal has shaken up the industry and brought to light the air pollution problems that come with the fuel, new more drastic solutions could start to be implemented: bans.
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38 company and environmental group leaders, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, signed an open letter proposing that the California Air Resources Board (CARB) lets VW off the hook in California for having cheated on reporting emissions in its diesel cars and in return, VW would be forced to significantly invest in electric vehicles or other zero-emission vehicles.
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