Profitable production of electric vehicles is highly important. Our capitalist society revolves around profitability and therefore, if electric vehicles are to prevail over gas-powered cars, they need to be profitable to manufacture in mass.

A new study published this month by McKinsey & Company and embedded below looks into how automakers can move past producing EVs as compliance cars and “drive electrified vehicle sales and profitability”. Unsurprisingly, it describes battery economics as an important barrier to profitability and though the research firm sees a path to automakers making a profit selling electric vehicles as battery costs fall, it doesn’t see that happening for “the next two to three product cycles” – or between 2025 and 2030. expand full story

On the heels of the California Air Resources Board’s Midterm Review of the Zero-Emission Vehicle Program, the state’s electric utilities are seeking to expand electric vehicle infrastructure with thousands of new charging stations.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), Southern California Edison (SCE), and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) all submitted new plans to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) last week to collect about $1 billion more from their customers in order to finance the important expansion. expand full story

In this week’s top stories: Tesla 2nd-gen Autopilot could reduce crash rate by 90%, Model S 100D update, hints at upcoming EVs from Hyundai, Audi, and VW, and much more.

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Last month, we reported on the EPA filing its midterm review of the fuel consumption standard early (before Trump takes over) in order to put in place a fleet requirement of 54.5 mpg by 2025, which would force automakers to add more electric vehicles to their fleet in order to compensate for their more gas-guzzling vehicles, like SUVs and pickup trucks.

Despite lobbying from virtually all automakers (except for Tesla), the agency went ahead with making the rule official last week and it could result in a significant acceleration of the rate of investments in EVs from current automakers. expand full story

It’s being reported this week that the cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland, Ore., sent in a request for information (RFI) to automakers for what could become the biggest electric car order ever: 24,000 vehicles.

The municipalities are currently looking for information about what electric vehicles they could get on what timeline before launching a formal bidding process. expand full story

As a major automotive supplier, Bosch is very aware of the transition to electric transport and it aims to take part in it with important investments in new lines of products. We reported over a year ago that Bosch bought the solid-state battery start-up Seeo Inc. and has since been sparsely revealing details about its plan to bring new battery technologies to market by 2020 with a 50 kWh battery pack weighing only 190 kg.

Now the company is unveiling new electric drive units at the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) to complete its electric powertrain offering to OEMs. expand full story

Fuel Cells! We thought we were already passed that after the best case scenario supply chain for hydrogen fuel cell has been proven inefficient compared to even most battery-powered electric cars available today. We thought that only a few major automakers, primarily Toyota, Hyundai, and Honda with deep sunk costs were still focusing on the technology. Even these entrenched players have been showing signs of warming up to batteries.

But now the latest automotive executive survey by KPMG suggest that a strong majority of the automotive industry still believe battery-powered cars will fail and fuel cells are the future. expand full story

A recent survey found that what’s stopping car buyers from choosing electric vehicles is the perceived lack of charging stations, something 85% of respondents mentioned, followed by the high costs (83%), and concerns over the range (74%).

That’s unsurprising, but what is more surprising is that those are not actually the main issue slowing down electric vehicle adoption. According to the same survey, 60% of the more than 2,500 American drivers said they were “unaware of electric cars”. expand full story

Germany’s electric vehicle market is lagging behind several neighboring countries and to change that, the government launched an incentive program 6 months ago to give a direct discount of €4,000 for all-electric cars and €3,000 for plug-in hybrids.

After receiving close to 2,000 applications within the first month, the rate slowed down significantly and now only 9,000 applications have been received since the start of the program. That’s disappointing since it’s for both all-electric and plug-in hybrids. expand full story

If you don’t know what ‘Adam Ruins Everything’ is exactly, it’s an internet TV show aimed at millennials and hosted by CollegeHumor’s Adam Conover. It tries to debunk allegedly false perceptions that are normally considered common knowledge. Some of the most popular episodes are “Why Engagement Rings Are a Scam” and “The Real Reason Car Dealerships Are the Worst” (which we can endorse).

In a new episode today called “Electric Cars Aren’t As Green As You Think”, Adam exposed his audience of over 11 million people to some classic electric vehicle misinformation, and in the process demonstrated that the EV industry still faces difficult perception problems reinforced exactly by this kind of simplistic thinking. expand full story