EVs

BYD has caught up with Tesla in the global EV race. Here’s how.

BYD, Cars, china, elon musk, EVs, syndication, Tesla / Mike M. / July 15, 2025

“Tesla has partnered with Baidu [a Chinese search and AI group] but Baidu can’t disclose all the data points to Tesla,” Duo adds. “The real-world data is definitely more valuable.”

Home field advantage

While BYD might have home turf advantage when it comes to data collection and security, Wang’s late pivot to driverless functionality has created some risks for the group.

One is question marks over financial sustainability. Price wars among Chinese carmakers are putting margins and the industry’s balance sheet under strain as Beijing demands more action to protect suppliers in the world’s largest car market.

It has also opened up some rare gaps in BYD’s otherwise formidable vertical integration. Its market leadership has also enabled it to pressure suppliers for price cuts and extended payment terms, allowing it to rigorously control costs.

But according to Chris McNally, an analyst with US investment bank Evercore, the God’s Eye platform uses software and hardware partners, including Momenta, a Chinese group backed by General Motors in the US, and some chips from Nvidia.

BYD EVP next to car — BYD’s executive vice-president Stella Li said competition with Tesla in EVs and autonomous technology would accelerate innovation, ultimately making BYD a “better’” company. Credit: Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images

For years, the risks associated with reliance on US-made chips in particular have hovered over the Chinese car sector—plans for driverless systems could be held back at any moment by US export controls or sanctions.

“Given the geopolitical environment, no one will invest in a technology with such a high risk that they’re still relying on foreign technology,” says Raymond Tsang, an automotive technology expert with Bain in Shanghai.

However, these vulnerabilities might not persist. Analysts believe BYD will soon develop most of its driverless systems in house and increasingly swap out Nvidia chips for those made by Beijing-based Horizon Robotics. “This is the BYD way to drive costs down,” McNally says.

It would also be consistent with a broader shift towards self-reliance in key technologies, in response to Washington’s steadily increasing restrictions on technology exports to China.

Yuqian Ding, a veteran Beijing-based auto analyst with HSBC, says that while BYD has not talked about developing a robotaxi service, executives have made “very clear” their plans to develop in-house all the important software and hardware needed for autonomous vehicles.

Wang, the BYD boss, has also previously indicated to analysts that the company has all the tech and know-how to develop robots, in another potential long-term challenge to Musk.

“With more than 5 million scale per annum, they can do everything,” Ding says, adding: “That’s the ultimate goal … Their target is much closer to Tesla.”

In an interview with the Financial Times this year, BYD’s executive vice-president Stella Li said competition with Tesla in EVs and autonomous technology would accelerate innovation, ultimately making BYD a “better” company.

“In the future, if you are not producing an electric car, if you’re not introducing technology in intelligence and autonomous driving, you will be out,” she warned.

Additional reporting by Gloria Li in Hong Kong

Graphic illustration by Ian Bott and data visualisation by Ray Douglas

BYD has caught up with Tesla in the global EV race. Here’s how. Read More »

5 big EV takeaways from Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill”

Cars, EV charger, EVs, One Big Beautiful Bill, syndication / Kelly Newman / July 12, 2025

Plus, OBBB got rid of penalties for automakers who fail to meet Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards. These standards have ramped up over the last 50 years and forced auto companies to make their vehicles more gas-efficient. They pushed manufacturers to, for example, get into hybrids, and build some of the first modern electrics. Now, they’ll no longer have that extra incentive to get clean, emission-wise.

Keep your eye on your city or state

Just because federal EV support is going away doesn’t mean all government support is over in the US. “I do think we’ll see states step in to fill the gap,” says Harris. So it’s worth doing a bit of research to see what incentives exist where you live.

To date, 11 states—California, Colorado, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Washington—have joined together to experiment with new polices and programs that promote cleaner vehicles.

And last month, in the middle of a fight with the Trump administration over California’s power to set its own clean air rules, California governor Gavin Newsom directed state agencies to come up with new and innovative ways to support zero-emission vehicles. The state still plans to phase out sales of new gas cars by 2035.

Stay optimistic, EV fans

Industry watchers seem certain of one thing: Despite this setback in the US, electric vehicles are the future. So while American consumers and automakers try to figure out how to cope with uncertainty, electric progress will continue all over the world.

Expect China to continue to put out well-built and -priced EVs, and export them all over the world. “Americans are paying more and closer attention to those offerings, and eventually there’s going to be demand,” says Nigro. American companies are going to have to keep up—or else. ”That’s the existential crisis the industry faces,” he says.

Yoon, the Edmunds analyst, also expects the new bill to result in short-term electric pain. But he believes there’s light ahead. In fact, Yoon is so optimistic, he allows himself an auto metaphor. “Ultimately, this will be a speed bump rather than a true obstacle,” he says.

This story originally appeared at wired.com.

5 big EV takeaways from Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” Read More »

As California faces court battles, states scramble to save their climate goals

climate goals, electrification, EVs, Policy, Science, syndication / Shannon Garcia / July 8, 2025

With or without authority to regulate heightened emissions, states plan to meet climate goals.

Traffic jam forms on Interstate 5 north of Los Angeles. Credit: Hans Gutknecht/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy, and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

When President Donald Trump signed legislation to revoke California’s authority to enforce stricter tailpipe emissions standards and to ban sales of gas-powered cars by 2035, the effects rippled far beyond the Golden State.

Seventeen states relied on California’s Clean Air Act waivers to adopt stronger vehicle pollution rules on their own, including New York, New Jersey, Oregon, Massachusetts, and Washington.

California, joined by several states, immediately sought a court injunction, calling the revocation illegal on the basis that the waivers are not subject to congressional review and that it violated decades of legal precedent and procedure. These same states recently launched an Affordable Clean Cars Coalition to coordinate legal action and policy to defend their rights to transition to cleaner vehicles.

As the legal battle plays out, states that have relied on the waivers are leaning into expanding multimillion-dollar ways to keep their EV transitions on track. Among their efforts: amping up rebates, tightening rules on the carbon intensity of fuels, and cracking down on pollution where trucks congregate.

“Climate change is still around, whether we have the waiver or not. So we have to figure out ways to make sure that we’re doing what we can to address the problem at hand,” said Michelle Miano, who heads the New Mexico environment protection division of the Environment Department.

According to data from the California Air Resources Board, the states that have passed tougher pollution rules account for about 40 percent of new light-duty vehicle registrations and 25 percent of new heavy-duty vehicle registrations in the United States, where the transportation sector is the highest source of greenhouse gas emissions as of 2022.

Among these stronger rules are the Advanced Clean Cars (ACC) I and II and Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT), which require automakers to sell a growing share of electric passenger cars and medium and heavy-duty trucks to reduce emissions from gasoline-powered counterparts.

The goal is for all new vehicles sold to be electric by 2035.

Bolstering incentives

Without ACC and ACT, states are betting they can increase demand for EVs by reducing the costs of buying a vehicle with rebates, vouchers, and grants and boosting the number of charging stations in their states. These incentives can range from a few thousand dollars for individual EV purchases to hundreds of thousands for building charging infrastructure and fleet upgrades.

On June 18, New York announced a $53 million expansion to its voucher program for electrifying last-mile truck fleets, offering vouchers from $340,000 to $425,000 for each truck, depending on the model.

“Despite the current federal administration’s efforts to erode certainty in the ongoing transition to cleaner vehicles, New York State will continue to act to protect our air, lands, and waters,” said Amanda Lefton, commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation.

In Oregon, where over a third of in-state emissions are from transportation use, the government this month opened applications for $34 million in grants toward the purchase of zero-emission trucks and developing charging stations for EVs or retrofitting diesel trucks. Lawmakers are considering expanding a popular rebate program through a bill introduced in February. The program so far has given car owners almost $100 million for EV purchases. (The program has been suspended twice after running out of money. It resumed as of May 2025.)

In Massachusetts, Gov. Maura Healey promised in May to announce “dedicated additional grant funding” for electric vehicles and vowed to increase “grant funding opportunities” for charging. Advocacy groups, including the Environmental League of Massachusetts, are counting on increased funding for its MOR-EV rebate program, which provides up to $3,500 for new EV purchases. This year, the rebate program has distributed $15.7 million in total incentives, according to the program’s statistics page.

In Washington state, lawmakers earmarked $126 million—a $16 million increase from 2024—to subsidize purchases of electric truck fleets and chargers. Many states are targeting trucks because they account for a huge share in emissions relative to their number on the road.

Will Toor, executive director of the Colorado Energy Office, credited state rebates and investments in charging infrastructure for helping Colorado reach a 20 percent electric vehicle market share in the first quarter of 2025. One in five new cars sold in the state was electric. Toor also credited the state agency’s EV buyer’s education campaign launched in late 2022, which promoted available rebates and incentives for prospective EV owners.

The scope and generosity of these programs vary widely depending on each state’s climate priorities, budget capacity, and access to federal or market-based funding streams.

“Those types of incentives can be expensive,” said Terrence Gray, director of the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management. “In Rhode Island, our budget is tight. There’s not a lot of funding available right now, so we would have to make a very strong argument that there’s a strong cost benefit to invest in these types of areas.”

With the Trump administration threatening to cut down federal funding for EV rebates through the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act, states will have to increasingly rely on themselves to fund these programs.

“The federal government isn’t going to come save us,” said Alex Ambrose, an analyst with the nonpartisan think tank New Jersey Policy Perspective.

Some are already ahead on this. California and Washington state have devised carbon markets that charge major polluters—like oil refiners, power plants, large industrial facilities, and fuel suppliers—for each ton of carbon dioxide they release. California’s auctions bring in about $3 to $4 billion per year, which support programs such as public transit and EV rebates. Washington’s system, launched in 2023, covers around 97 major emitters and has raised over $3 billion in its first two years, funding clean transportation, air quality devices, and EV chargers.

The states of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and other Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states have signed up to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, or RGGI, which is a cooperative cap-and-invest program launched in 2009 that limits emissions from the power sector and reinvests proceeds into clean energy programs like EV rebates.

Making fuels greener

While many states focus on promoting electric vehicles, others are also targeting the fuel of gas-powered cars, by adopting or developing standards that lower the carbon intensity.

These policies require fuel producers and importers to blend cleaner alternatives like biofuels, renewable diesel, or electricity into the fuel mix.

Patterned after California, Washington has a clean fuel standard in effect since 2023, targeting a 20 percent reduction in carbon intensity of transportation fuels by 2034 compared to 2017 levels.

Oregon has a similar program in place that aims to reduce carbon intensity in fuels by 37 percent by 2035.

New Mexico approved its Clean Transportation Fuel Standard in March 2024. A formal adoption hearing before the Environmental Improvement Board is scheduled to begin in September.

“We know that those (electric) vehicles aren’t for everyone and so we are very respectful of folks that decide to not purchase them,” said Miano, New Mexico’s environment protection division head.

No East Coast states have enacted a clean fuel standard, but New York state legislators may change that.

There are bills in the State Senate and Assembly that, if passed, would require fuel providers to reduce the carbon intensity of their transportation fuels by at least 20 percent by 2030. (Legislation has passed the Senate but remains at the committee level in the Assembly as of June.)

Michigan also had bills introduced in its Senate and House in 2023, but neither passed before the 2024 session ended. Similar bills have not been introduced since then.

Some of these clean fuel standards have faced criticism from environmental advocates, who argue that they allow polluters to buy their way out of reducing emissions.

But Trisha DelloIacono, policy head at advocacy group CALSTART, said the fuel standards remain one of the few politically viable tools to gradually shift the transportation sector toward cleaner fuels.

“What we need to be looking at right now is incremental changes and incremental progress in a place where we’re fighting tooth and nail to hold on to what we have,” DelloIacono said.

Where trucks congregate

There’s also a policy tool called indirect source rules, or ISR.

The rules are called “indirect” because they don’t regulate the vehicles themselves, but the facilities that attract emissions-heavy traffic, like large warehouses, ports, or rail yards. The rules hold the facilities owners or operators responsible for reducing or offsetting the pollution from their profitable traffic.

Studies show that the pollution from these trucks often ends up in nearby neighborhoods, which are disproportionately lower-income and communities of color.

California is currently the only state enforcing ISRs.

In Southern California, large warehouses must take steps to reduce the pollution caused by truck visits, either by switching to electric vehicles, installing chargers, or paying into a clean air fund. It’s the first rule of its kind in the country and it survived a court challenge in 2023, paving the way for other states to consider similar action.

New York is one of them. Its lawmakers introduced a bill in January that could require warehouses with over 50,000 square feet to reduce emissions from trucks by meeting certain benchmarks, such as hosting electric deliveries or offering bike loading zones. New York City has its own version of the rule under deliberation in the Council. As of June 2025, the bill remains stalled in the environmental committee. City Council has until December to act before the bill expires.

In New Jersey, where warehouse growth has boomed, legislators in 2024 proposed a bill that would require “high-traffic facilities” to apply for air pollution permits and provide plans to reduce diesel truck pollution.

“This is really being pushed by the community groups and environmental justice communities, especially in North Jersey. But also, warehouses are starting to pop up even in very rural parts of South Jersey. So this is very quickly becoming a statewide issue in New Jersey,” said Ambrose of the New Jersey Policy Perspective.

In Colorado, its regional air quality council in April announced plans to ask its air quality control commission to use ISR for areas with the worst air quality.

Industry groups, especially in the logistics sector, are pushing back. The industry group Supply Chain Federation told The Wall Street Journal that the southern California ISR was a “backdoor approach [that] does little to cut emissions and instead raises costs, disrupts supply chains.”

Still, experts say this may be one of the few options left for states to cut emissions from traffic-heavy facilities. Because these rules don’t directly regulate the car companies or trucks themselves, they don’t need federal approval.

“We definitely have to be nimble and fluid and also understand the kind of landscape in the state,” DelloIacono said.

As California faces court battles, states scramble to save their climate goals Read More »

Old Bolt, new tricks: Making an EV into a backup power station with an inverter

Cars, Chevy Bolt, chevy bolt euv, DIY, electricity, EVs, Features, inverter, power station, Tech / Kelly Newman / March 17, 2025

Putting big batteries to use

Using a custom kit to make a budget EV offer some emergency power.

Back when EV enthusiasm was higher, there were fits and starts of vehicle-to-home concepts and products. If EVs and their ginormous batteries are expensive, resource-intensive purchases, the thinking went, maybe we should get something more out of them than just groceries and school pick-ups. Maybe we could find other things for that huge battery to do during the 95 percent of time it spends parked in or near our homes.

An EV powering your whole home, or even pushing power back to the grid, is something higher-end EVs might do at some point with some utilities. I have a Chevy Bolt, an EV that does not have even a three-prong 110 V plug on it, let alone power-your-home potential. If I wanted to keep the essentials running during an outage, it seemed like I needed to buy a fuel-based generator—or one of those big portable power stations.

Or so I thought, until I came across inverter kits. Inverters take the direct current available from your vehicle’s 12V battery—the lead-acid brick inside almost every car—and turns it into alternating current suitable for standard plugs. Inverters designed for car batteries have been around a long time (technically, the “cigarette lighter” port on a car is an inverter), opening up both novel and emergency uses. The catch is that you have to start the car’s gas engine often enough to keep the battery charged.

The author’s Chevy Bolt EUV, last seen on Ars Technica exploring the then-new world of Tesla charging with an adapter. Credit: Kevin Purdy

What’s different about this Bolt-specific kit is that, as the inverter pulls power from the 12 V battery, the car’s larger battery, the high-voltage one that makes it actually drive, steadily refills it. And given that it’s an EV without emissions, it’s OK to keep it running in the garage. It’s by no means a whole-home solution—my kit maker, EV Extend, recommends drawing just 1,000 watts of continuous power so as not to drain the battery too far or damage the electronics. But it’s certainly better than having only flashlights, USB battery packs, and the power utility’s website open on your phone.

What can you do with 1,000 W, plus a bit of “surge” overhead for devices that kick on strong, like a refrigerator? I can’t run my home’s central HVAC system, so an outage in the depths of a DC summer, or the occasionally painful winter, would still be unpleasant. There are only three plugs, and they’re inside the car hood, so everything that needs power has to be reached by extension cord (and you don’t want to go too far with those). The car is also unlocked and running, with its key fob nearby, so it can’t be left alone.

But for backup power I never planned to have, in an area where outages are less frequent, I have something like minimum viable backup power. With properly rated extension cords, I could run fans, a small space heater, or a single-room-sized window A/C unit for a day or two on conservative settings. I could, if my fiber provider is still up, keep the Internet and router running. At a minimum, I could keep a lot of distraction devices running with the Bolt’s 64–66 kW battery (assuming I fully charged it before an outage).

I have not had a chance to really test this inverter, as the residential power in Washington, DC has been stubbornly reliable since I bought it. But I did run it for about an hour mid-day to try out some of my assumptions.

What’s in the kit

I bought a $444 kit from EV Extend, which specializes in inverter packages for the non-flashy and early adopter EVs: Chevy Bolts and Volts and Nissan Leafs. I opted for a 1,500 W pure sinewave inverter, capable of briefly handling surges of up to 3,000 W. The inverter itself is a commodity, and you can find it lots of places. The things I was really buying with this kit were:

Quick connect/disconnect couplings for attaching to the 12V battery
A safety fuse between the 12 V battery and inverter
Cables and connectors, cut and crimped and soldered specifically for the angles and spaces of the Bolt’s front compartment
Detailed instructions on how to attach, run, fit, and use everything

The owner of EV Extend makes a point of not offering his instruction manuals publicly. This is in part for “low-volume niche market” reasons. But it’s also because of a real concern that folks will see EV Extend setups, do some “I could rig that together” thinking, and expose themselves to a whole bunch of electrical, mechanical, or safety problems. He’s not opposed to DIY-ers, he writes, so much as he’s concerned about wiring quality and bad assumptions.

From the images on EV Extend’s site and various Reddit installs, you can get the gist. A big brick of an inverter, with two thick cables running to a gray plug, and another gray plug running out from the 12 V battery area, easily tucked away (with velcro) when not in use. You can buy more or less surge protection, opt to skip pure sinewave inversion (not a great idea if you’re powering electronics), or upgrade and get a remote switch. But they are all largely the same.

Among the frequently asked questions on the product page is “will this void my warranty?”

The answer: No, it should not, because the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act still exists, so there needs to be proof that this damaged your 12 V system. But there is also the unwritten caveat that it can still be very painful if your car maker or dealer is not up on their consumer rights laws.

Just a little 12-hour vehicle panic attack

My installation took about 20 minutes. It involved some socket-wrenching, and I had to saw off an inconvenient but inessential plastic bit. The toughest part involved fishing some stiff, thick wire through a space between the coolant tank and a metal bracket (which the manual warned about).

That night, I plugged in the inverter, turned on the Bolt, flipped on the inverter, and plugged in a USB-C wall plug. I connected an iPad, it started charging, and I felt a weird sense of accomplishment at having found one of the most expensive and inefficient ways to watch YouTube. For a few hours, I held some project-completing pride.

iPad charging on top of a car trunk, with an inverter visible in the background. — That feeling of project success, which would remain unfettered by diagnostic warnings until the author checked his phone. Credit: Kevin Purdy

Later that night, the myChevrolet app flung about a dozen notifications at me. The gist: Every single system on the Bolt was failing, I needed to have it towed to a dealer, and I was wrong to try and redistribute its precious electrons. These were bad messages to receive in the middle of brushing my teeth, and sleep did not come easy.

Why the panic? The majority of EVs, however sophisticated, are heavily dependent on their old-fashioned 12 V batteries. This is due in part to how many of an EV’s ancilliaries—locks, lights, infotainment, power steering, and more—are designed to run at 12 V, in common with the rest of the auto industry. But it’s also because when an EV’s higher-voltage traction battery is off, it needs to be fully off and de-energized, and the 12 V helps switch it off and keep residual systems running (Inside EVs has a good explainer on this). Disconnecting my 12 V battery, even for just a minute to attach a connector, gave the car fits about lacking this crucial reserve of juice.

It’s weird, and it can be quite frustrating in the wrong circumstances. But the next morning, I started the Bolt, let it idle for a few minutes, and all the divinations of doom disappeared from the Chevy app. Six months later, I have yet to see any others. I’ve taken my car in for a general check-up since, and the mechanic made no note of my velcro-anchored connector.

A deeper test: Pretend office outage

The inverter hook-ups were set, but household power remained stubbornly stable for months, so I decided to stage a pretend outage. Could the Bolt keep me and my wife reasonably comfortable in my office, the next room over from the garage? Could I keep a space heater or window air conditioning unit running, with occasional kick-on surges? What about the fridge? And how annoying would it be to have the car running in neutral in my garage the whole time?

Here’s what I figured could fit into 1,000 W from the inverter and its three plugs, using appropriately sized and rated extension cords:

At their lowest settings, either a bigger space heater (750 W), or a 15,000 BTU window unit (350–450 W, running roughly 50 percent of the time)
The fiber optic network terminal (ONT) and my Ubiquity network gear (Dream Machine Pro and two power-over-Ethernet access points)
My whole working desk setup: monitor, M2 MacBook Air, Sonos speakers, too many peripherals
If possible, the refrigerator (typically 60 W, with surges up to 1,200 W and defrost cycles at 240 W)
A bit of overhead, should I need to run anything else, like lamps, off my desk’s power strip

I unplugged the Bolt, opened the hood, placed the inverter on a reasonably flat part of the compartment (next time, I will have a flat piece of wood to place there), turned on the car, and flipped on the inverter. So far, so good!

Because the car was in park, it would automatically shut itself off after two hours. A number of committed campers and preppers on Reddit have suggested putting the car in neutral, engaging the parking brake (or putting chocks behind the rear wheels), and exiting the car from the passenger side (as opening the driver side door can make the car auto-shift for safety). Because it’s not in park at a low speed, the Bolt will make a whirring noise for pedestrian safety. I could temporarily cancel it by pulling the right fuse from the engine compartment box, so long as I left a note for myself with big letters to put it back in.

I first plugged in my desk and all its accompaniments, then nudged and woke up my laptop and monitor: 14.7 watts. That seemed a bit low, given that monitors are typically more than 20 watts, but the inverter is perhaps slow to report the full draw. Still, there was lots of headroom remaining.

Adding in the fiber optic modem, the Dream Machine Pro router (specified at a 50 W maximum power draw), and its PoE-based devices boosted the number to 90 watts. That left 910 watts, which felt like a lot until I plugged in the big space heater and set it to its lowest setting. Once the heater had been on for a bit, I was at 850–860 watts, combined with the other gear. I knew space heaters were inefficient in a broad sense, but now that fact is burned into my brain in little red digits.

All three plugs in—desk, networking gear, space heater—and the 850 watts the inverter eventually settled at once the heater ran a while. Credit: Kevin Purdy

All these things ran off the inverter for about 30 minutes (I wrote the previous two paragraphs with mostly inverter power), floating between 810 and 920 watts, and I saw the car’s projected mileage dip one mile when I checked on it. If I had the Bolt fully charged, I might get a maximum of 60 hours of this, or 48 hours at my typical 80 percent charge, give or take some resistance and use variables. Given what I learned, I would need to use a smaller space heater or very light air conditioning if I also wanted to keep the fridge running without nervous monitoring (and make up for some loss to an extension cord). That, or hope the power only goes out during comfortable temperatures.

But I’m using the Bolt and inverter as a just-in-case option, not something I would lean on if regular multi-day outages were occurring. It would also be quite useful for car camping, though I can’t speak to that personally. The process has, like most DIY projects, taught me some things: about power draw, EVs, and my priorities. If you have a similarly nifty but not exactly new EV, consider checking out your inversion options for it—after you fully understand the limits and know-how required.

Kevin is a senior technology reporter at Ars Technica, covering open-source software, PC gaming, home automation, repairability, e-bikes, and tech history. He has previously worked at Lifehacker, Wirecutter, iFixit, and Carbon Switch.

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The same day Trump bought a Tesla, automaker moved to disrupt trade war

Donald Trump, Electric vehicles, elon musk, EVs, Policy, tariffs, Tesla / Kelly Newman / March 16, 2025

Tesla hopes to slow down Trump’s tit-for-tat tariffs amid financial woes.

Donald Trump and White House Senior Advisor, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk deliver remarks next to a Tesla Model S on the South Lawn of the White House on March 11, 2025 in Washington, DC. Credit: Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images News

Elon Musk’s Tesla is waving a red flag, warning that Donald Trump’s trade war risks dooming US electric vehicle makers, triggering job losses, and hurting the economy.

In an unsigned letter to the US Trade Representative (USTR), Tesla cautioned that Trump’s tariffs could increase costs of manufacturing EVs in the US and forecast that any retaliatory tariffs from other nations could spike costs of exports.

“Tesla supports a robust and thorough process” to “address unfair trade practices,” but only those “which, in the process, do not inadvertently harm US companies,” the letter said.

The carmaker recommended that the USTR—in its ongoing review of unfair trade practices and investigation into harms of non-reciprocal trade agreements—”consider the downstream impacts of certain proposed actions taken to address unfair trade practices.”

According to Tesla, the current process to address unfair trade threatens to harm its more than 70,000 employees, and more broadly could trigger job losses and revenue dips in the US auto industry. It could also disrupt supply chains, as Tesla claims that even its best efforts prove it would be “impossible” to source all parts from the US currently.

“Even with aggressive localization of the supply chain, certain parts and components are difficult or impossible to source within the United States,” the letter said, asking the USTR to “evaluate domestic supply chain limitations.”

If left unchanged, the process could make the US less competitive in global auto markets, Tesla warned, recommending that the “USTR should investigate ways to avoid these pitfalls in future actions.”

Moving forward, Tesla recommends that the USTR “take into account” how the trade war could hurt US exporters, as “US exporters are inherently exposed to disproportionate impacts when other countries respond to US trade actions.”

In the letter, Tesla appears to suggest that Trump’s tariffs were rushed, suggesting that “US companies will benefit from a phased approach that enables them to prepare accordingly and ensure appropriate supply chain and compliance measures are taken.”

Tesla was not alone in submitting comments to the USTR. So far, hundreds of companies have chimed in, many hoping to push back on Trump’s aggressive tariffs regime.

Among them was a trade group representing major foreign automakers like BMW, Honda, and Toyota—Autos Drive America—which agreed with Tesla that the USTR should slow Trump down and require considerations about long-term impacts of sudden actions to address unfair trade. They similarly warned that imposing “broad-based tariffs will disrupt production at US assembly plants,” Reuters reported.

“Automakers cannot shift their supply chains overnight, and cost increases will inevitably lead to some combination of higher consumer prices, fewer models offered to consumers and shut-down US production lines, leading to potential job losses across the supply chain,” the group said.

Disrupting Trump trade war may be tough

Last week, Trump’s 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico took effect, likely frustrating Tesla, which relies on a small parts manufacturer in Canada, Laval Tool, to source parts for the already costly molds for its Cybertrucks. Those tariffs threatened to spike costs beyond the current rate of nearly $500,000 per mold at a time when the Cybertruck hasn’t been selling well, InsideEVs reported. And for Tesla, Trump’s China tariffs may hit even harder, as China is Tesla’s second biggest market.

On the day that those tariffs kicked in, the head of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation—which represents all the major US automakers, except Tesla—John Bozzella warned that “all automakers will be impacted by these tariffs on Canada and Mexico,” Reuters reported. He joined others predicting price hikes on cars coming soon, perhaps as high as 25 percent.

Tesla’s letter to the USTR is notably unsigned, despite CEO Musk’s close allyship with Trump as a senior advisor in his administration—suggesting Musk may be hesitant to directly criticize Trump’s trade war or his opposition to EVs.

Many have questioned how long Musk’s friendship with Trump can possibly last, given their strong personalities and seeming unwillingness to bend to critics. At the beginning of this administration, Musk seemed unafraid to question Trump despite teaming up with him. Perhaps most notably, Trump’s team was supposedly “furious” after Musk trashed Trump’s $500 billion “Stargate” project with OpenAI, Politico reported, which Trump had hyped as “tremendous” and “monumental.”

“It’s clear he has abused the proximity to the president,” a Trump ally granted anonymity told Politico. “The problem is the president doesn’t have any leverage over him and Elon gives zero fucks.”

Officially, Trump downplayed Musk’s public criticism of his major announcement, seeming to understand that Musk views OpenAI CEO Sam Altman—whom Musk is suing for making a “fool” out of him—as an enemy.

“He hates one of the people in the deal,” Trump told a reporter who asked if Musk’s comments had bothered him, confirming, “it doesn’t.”

Despite a long history of harsh comments about EVs, Trump has recently hyped Tesla cars, which Tesla noted in its letter to the USTR, further its mission “to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.” The BBC noted Tesla’s letter was sent the same day that Trump hosted a White House event where the president vowed to purchase a Tesla in defiance of Tesla boycotts and protests that some believe are driving a steep Tesla stock fall and even degrading the price of used Teslas. In a Truth Social post, Trump claimed that he was buying a Tesla to support “one of the World’s great automakers” and “Elon’s ‘baby,'” alleging that protests and boycotts were somehow illegal.

The Hill suggested that their friendship isn’t likely to end soon, even though Trump has supposedly complained in private about taunts suggesting that Musk is really the president or somehow pulling the strings, The Independent reported.

Musk may be settling into a good dynamic with Trump after spending ample time at the president’s side, reportedly even joining meetings and sensitive calls. Or perhaps Musk is giving Trump space to call the shots, after Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency’s aggressive cuts at federal agencies sparked backlash that finally pushed Trump to rein in Musk’s power a little.

Musk’s proximity to Trump was predicted to be a boon to his businesses, but Tesla has been stuck in a slump that seemingly some Trump allies think Trump might fear makes him look weak, The New Republic reported. But Trump has made tariffs the core of his trade policy, hoping aggressive taxes will force more industry into the US, and it’s hard to see how Musk could easily influence him to shift gears.

In Tesla’s letter, the automaker told the USTR that it was “essential to support US manufacturing jobs” by ensuring that cost-prohibitive tariffs or other import restrictions don’t disrupt critical auto industry supply chains. For Tesla, the stakes couldn’t be higher, as the company reminded the USTR that “Tesla was ranked as the world leader in the transition to vehicle electrification,” manufacturing “the best-selling car in the world (EV or otherwise).”

“Tesla’s US facilities support over 70,000 employees and are responsible for billions of dollars of US investment and economic activity each year,” Tesla’s letter said.

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

The same day Trump bought a Tesla, automaker moved to disrupt trade war Read More »

Trump has thrown a wrench into a national EV charging program

Cars, electric car charging stations, electrify america, EVs, Policy, syndication, trump administration / Mike M. / February 16, 2025

Electric charging projects have been thrown into chaos by the administration’s directive.

A row of happy EVs charge with no drama, no phone calls to the support line, and no one shuffling spots. Credit: Roberto Baldwin

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

For now, Priester’s will have to stick to its famous pecans in Fort Payne, Alabama. But maybe not for long.

Priester’s Pecans, an Alabama staple, is one of more than half a dozen sites across the state slated to receive millions of dollars in federal funding to expand access to chargers for electric vehicles.

Across the country, the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program, part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed into law under then-President Joe Biden, is set to provide $5 billion to states for projects that expand the nation’s EV charging infrastructure.

But in a February 6 letter, a Trump administration official notified state directors of transportation that, effectively, they can’t spend it. The Federal Highway Administration rescinded guidance on the funds, which had been allocated by Congress, and “is also immediately suspending the approval of all State Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Deployment plans for all fiscal years,” the letter said.

“Therefore, effective immediately, no new obligations may occur under the NEVI Formula Program until the updated final NEVI Formula Program Guidance is issued and new State plans are submitted and approved.”

POLITICO reported on Wednesday that a DOT spokesman said in an email that states were free to use a small portion of the funding—about $400 million—because that was money the states had already “obligated,” or awarded to subcontractors. But that would still leave close to 90 percent of the funding up in the air.

Even before the administration had issued its letter, some Republican-led states, including Alabama, had already announced pauses to their states’ implementation of the national EV charging program.

“In response to Unleashing American Energy, one of several Executive Orders that President Trump signed on January 20, 2025, the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs has paused the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) Program as of January 28, 2025,” the Alabama agency responsible for implementing NEVI posted on its website. “In addition, for applications for funding that were originally due on March 17, 2025, ADECA has closed the application window until further notice.”

Despite the announcement by the Trump administration, however, legal experts and those familiar with the electric charging program at issue say the president does not have the power to permanently nix the NEVI program.

“NEVI funding was appropriated by Congress as part of the bipartisan infrastructure law, and it cannot be canceled by the executive branch,” said Elizabeth Turnbull, director of policy and regulatory affairs at the Alliance for Transportation Electrification, a trade group for the electric vehicle industry. “It’s not clear that the secretary of transportation has the authority to revoke states’ NEVI plans, and it’s quite clear that the executive branch lacks the authority to withhold the funding for any sustained period. So, we expect recent executive branch actions to be successfully challenged in court.”

Even under the most aggressive arguments for a strong executive branch, the Supreme Court has stated clearly that the Constitution gives Congress the sole authority to appropriate and legislate.

Lawmakers, too, have weighed in on the legality of the Trump administration’s NEVI directive, saying officials acted with “blatant disregard for the law.”

In a letter to administration officials, Democratic members of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works urged the Department of Transportation to retract its February 6 letter and “implement the law according to your responsibilities.”

The Democrats’ letter also asked for responses to questions about the legal basis for the action and for information about the involvement of individuals associated with Elon Musk’s so-called “Department of Government Efficiency.” DOGE is not an official department, and multiple reports show that Musk’s team has been dismantling parts or all of some federal agencies.

Tesla, Musk’s electric vehicle company, currently has the largest network of fast chargers in the country. It’s not yet clear if any new policies on NEVI, or the pause on building out a more robust network for all EV drivers, could benefit Tesla.

The Department of Transportation, the Federal Highway Administration’s parent agency, did not respond to a request for comment.

With or without NEVI, the move toward the electrification of transportation is inevitable, experts say. But they warn that although the administration’s pause of the program will likely be reversed by the courts, even a temporary delay in EV charging infrastructure can harm the nation’s ability to quickly and efficiently transition to electric vehicles. And the Trump administration ignored an earlier court order to lift a broad freeze on federal funds, a federal judge ruled this week.

Meanwhile, Trump’s NEVI freeze has sown confusion across the country, with EV stakeholders and state governments scrambling to figure out what the funding pause will mean and how to respond.

Beyond Alabama, interviews across the country found officials in deep red Wyoming contemplating a possible return of funds, while those in progressive states like Illinois and Maryland remain firmly committed to the EV buildout, with or without federal funding. In purple North Carolina, officials are in limbo, having already spent some NEVI funds, but not sure how to proceed with the next round of projects.

Alabama

In Alabama, officials had already announced plans to fund more than a dozen chargers at sites across the state along interstates and major highways, including installing two dual-port chargers at eight Love’s Travel Stops and another at Priester’s Pecans off I-65 in Fort Deposit.

At the time, state officials, including Republican Gov. Kay Ivey, praised the funding.

“Having strategic electric vehicle charging stations across Alabama not only benefits EV drivers, but it also benefits those companies that produce electric vehicles, including many of them right here in Alabama, resulting in more high-paying jobs for Alabamians,” Ivey said when the funding allocation was announced in July 2024. “This latest round of projects will provide added assurance that Alabamians and travelers to our state who choose electric vehicles can travel those highways and know a charging station is within a reliable distance on their routes.”

In total, Alabama was set to receive $79 million in funding through the program, including $2.4 million to expand training programs for the installation, testing, operation, and maintenance of EVs and EV chargers at Bevill State Community College in the central part of the state. The college did not respond to a request for comment on whether the money had been disbursed to the institution before the announced pause.

In an email exchange this week, a spokesperson for the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs confirmed what the agency had posted to its website in the wake of Trump’s inauguration—that the state would pause NEVI projects and await further guidance from the Trump administration.

Even with a pause, however, stakeholders in Alabama and across the country have expressed a commitment to continuing the expansion of electric vehicle charging infrastructure.

For its part, Love’s Travel Stops, a 42-state chain that had been set to receive more than $5.8 million in funding for EV chargers in Alabama alone, said it will continue to roll out electric chargers at locations nationwide.

“Love’s remains committed to meeting customers’ needs regardless of fuel type and believes a robust electric vehicle charging network is a part of that,” Kim Okafor, general manager of zero emissions for Love’s, said in an emailed statement. “Love’s will continue to monitor related executive orders and subsequent changes in law to determine the next steps. This includes the Alabama Department of Transportation’s Electric Vehicle charging plan timelines.”

The state of Alabama, meanwhile, has its own EV charger program apart from NEVI that has already funded millions of dollars worth of charging infrastructure.

In January, even after its announced pause of NEVI implementation, the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs announced the awarding of six grants totaling $2.26 million from state funds for the construction of EV chargers in Huntsville, Hoover, Tuscaloosa, and Mobile.

“The installation of electric vehicle charging stations at places like hotels are investments that can attract customers and add to local economies,” ADECA Director Kenneth Boswell said at the time.

North Carolina

In North Carolina, the full buildout of the state’s electric charging network under NEVI is in limbo just four months after the NC Department of Transportation announced the initial recipients of the funds.

NC DOT spokesman Jamie Kritzer said that based on the federal government’s directive, the agency is continuing with awarded projects but “pausing” the next round of requests for proposals, as well as future phases of the buildout.

If that pause were to become permanent, the state would be forced to abandon $103 million in federal infrastructure money that would have paid for an additional 41 stations to be built as part of Phase 1.

Last September the state announced it had awarded nearly $6 million to six companies to build nine public charging stations. Locations include shopping centers, travel plazas, and restaurants, most of them in economically disadvantaged communities.

NEVI requires EV charging stations in the first phase to be installed every 50 miles along the federally approved alternative fuel corridors, and that they be within one mile of those routes. The state has also prioritized Direct Current Fast Charging (DCFC) stations, which can charge a vehicle to 80 percent in 20 to 30 minutes.

The NEVI program is structured to reimburse private companies for up to 80 percent of the cost to construct and operate electric vehicle charging stations for five years, after which the charging stations will continue to operate without government support, according to the state DOT.

The state estimated it would have taken two to three years to finish Phase 1.

Under Phase 2, the state would award federal funds to build community-level electric vehicle charging stations, farther from the major highways, including in disadvantaged communities.

That is particularly important in North Carolina, which has the second-largest rural population in the US in terms of percentage. A third of the state’s residents live in rural areas, which are underserved by electric vehicle charging stations.

There are already more than 1,700 public electric charging stations and 4,850 ports in North Carolina, according to the US Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels Data Center. But they aren’t evenly dispersed throughout the state. Alleghany and Ashe counties, in the western mountains, have just one charging station each.

Vickie Atkinson, who lives in the country between Chapel Hill and Pittsboro in central North Carolina, drives a plug-in hybrid Ford Escape, which is powered by an electric engine or gas, unlike full electric models, which have no gas option. Plug-in hybrids typically have fully electric ranges of 35 to 40 miles.

“I try to drive on battery whenever possible,” Atkinson said. But she’s frustrated that she can’t drive from her home to downtown Siler City and back—a 60-mile round trip—without resorting to the gas engine. There are two chargers on the outskirts along US 64—only one of them is a fast charger—but none downtown.

“I really hope the chargers are installed,” Atkinson said. “I fear they won’t and I find that very frustrating.”

Former Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, advocated for wider adoption of electric vehicles and infrastructure. In a 2018 executive order, Cooper established a benchmark of 80,000 registered zero-emission vehicles in the state by 2025.

North Carolina met that goal. State DOT registration data shows there were 81,658 electric vehicles and 24,457 plug-in hybrids as of September, the latest figures available.

Cooper issued a subsequent executive order in 2022 that set a more aggressive goal: 1.2 million registered electric vehicles by 2030. At the current pace of electric vehicle adoption, it’s unlikely the state will achieve that benchmark.

The electric vehicle industry is an economic driver in North Carolina. Toyota just opened a $13.9 billion battery plant in the small town of Liberty and says it will create about 5,100 new jobs. The company is scheduled to begin shipping batteries in April.

Natron Energy is building a plant in Edgecombe County, east of Raleigh, to manufacture sodium-ion batteries for electric vehicles. Experts say they are cheaper and environmentally superior to lithium-ion batteries and less likely to catch fire, although they store less energy.

The global company Kempower opened its first North American factory in Durham, where it builds charging infrastructure. Jed Routh, its vice president of markets and products for North America, said that while “the rapidly shifting market is difficult to forecast and interest in electric vehicles may slow at times over the next four years, we don’t expect it to go away. We believe that the industry will remain strong and Kempower remains committed to define, produce, and improve EV charging infrastructure throughout North America.”

North Carolina does have a separate funding source for electric charging stations that is protected from the Trump administration’s program cuts and cancellations. The state received $92 million from Volkswagen, part of the EPA’s multi-billion-dollar national settlement in 2016 with the car company, which had installed software in some of its diesel cars to cheat on emissions tests.

The Department of Environmental Quality used the settlement money to pay for 994 EV charging ports at 318 sites in North Carolina. The agency expects to add more charging stations with $1.8 million in unspent settlement funds.

Electrify America was created by the Volkswagen Group of America to implement a $2 billion portion of the settlement. It required the car company to invest in electric charging infrastructure and in the promotion of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles.

Electrify America operates 20 charging NEVI-compliant, high-speed stations in North Carolina, using the settlement money. However, the funding pause could affect the company because it works with potential site developers and small businesses to comply with the NEVI requirements.

The company is still reviewing the details in the federal memo, company spokeswoman Tara Geiger said.

“Electrify America continues to engage with stakeholders to understand developments impacting the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure program,” Geiger wrote in an email. “We remain committed to growing our coast-to-coast Hyper-Fast network to support transportation electrification.”

Wyoming

In Wyoming, Doug McGee, a state Department of Transportation spokesperson, said the agency is taking a wait and see approach to NEVI moving forward, and is not ruling out a return of funding. About half a dozen people at the department handle NEVI along with other daily responsibilities, McGee said, and it will be easy for them to put NEVI on hold while they await further instruction.

The department was in the process of soliciting proposals for EV charging stations and has not yet spent any money under NEVI. “There was very little to pause,” McGee said.

Across 6,800 miles of highway in Wyoming, there are 110 public EV charging stations, making the state’s EV infrastructure the third-smallest in the country, ahead of charging networks in only North Dakota and Alaska.

Illinois

More progressive states, including Illinois, have explicitly said they will redouble their efforts to support the expansion of EV charging infrastructure in the wake of the Trump administration’s NEVI pause.

The state of Illinois has said it remains committed to the goal of helping consumers and the public sector transition to EVs in 2025 through state funding sources, even if some NEVI projects are halted.

Commonwealth Edison Co. (ComEd), the largest electric utility in Illinois and the primary electric provider in Chicago, also announced a $100 million rebate program on Feb. 6 at the Chicago Auto Show, funds that are currently available to boost EV adoption throughout the state.

The funds are for residential EV charger and installation costs, all-electric fleet vehicles, and charging infrastructure in both the public and private sectors.

According to Cristina Botero, senior manager for beneficial electrification at ComEd, the rebate is part of a total investment of $231 million from ComEd as part of its Beneficial Electrification plan programs to promote electrification and EV adoption.

While the $231 million won’t be impacted by the Trump administration’s order, other EV projects funded by NEVI are halted. In 2022, for example, $148 million from NEVI was set to be disbursed in Illinois over the course of five years, focusing on Direct Current Fast Charging to fulfill the requirement to build charging stations every 50 miles, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation.

“We are still in the process of reviewing the impacts of last week’s order and evaluating next steps going forward,” said Maria Castaneda, spokesperson at IDOT, in an emailed statement.

The NEVI funds were also set to help achieve Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s goal to have 1 million EVs on Illinois roads by 2030. Officials estimated that at least 10,000 EV charging stations are needed in order to achieve this 2030 goal. Last fall, there were 1,200 charging stations open to the public.

In January, Illinois was awarded federal funds totaling $114 million from the US Department of Transportation to build 14 truck charging hubs, adding to the statewide charging infrastructure.

According to Brian Urbaszewski, director of environmental health programs for the Respiratory Health Association, most of that funding is either frozen or at risk.

However, programs like the recent ComEd rebate will not be impacted. “This is at the state level and not dictated by federal policy,” Botero said.

Maryland

In Maryland, state officials are trying to assess the fallout and find alternative ways to keep EV infrastructure efforts alive. The outcome hinges on new federal guidance and potential legal battles over the suspension.

Maryland is allocated $63 million over five years under NEVI. The Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) launched the first $12.1 million round last summer to build 126 fast-charging ports at 22 sites across many of the state’s counties. At least some are expected to be operational by late 2025.

In December, MDOT issued a new call for proposals for building up to 29 additional highway charging stations, expecting stable federal support. At the time, senior MDOT officials told Inside Climate News they were confident in the program’s security since it was authorized under law.

But Trump’s funding pause has upended those plans.

“The Maryland Department of Transportation is moving forward with its obligated NEVI funding and is awaiting new guidance from the U.S. Department of Transportation to advance future funding rounds,” said Carter Elliott, a spokesperson for Gov. Wes Moore, in an emailed statement.

The Moore administration reaffirmed its commitment to EV expansion, calling charging essential to reducing consumer costs and cutting climate pollution. “Gov. Moore is committed to making the state more competitive by pressing forward with the administration’s strategy to deliver charging infrastructure for clean cars to drivers across the state,” the statement added.

In written comments, an MDOT spokesperson said the agency is determining its options for future funding needs and solicitations.

Katherine García, director of the Sierra Club’s Clean Transportation for All program, said that freezing the EV charging funds was an unsound and illegal move by the Trump administration. “This is an attack on bipartisan funding that Congress approved years ago and is driving investment and innovation in every state,” she said.

She said that the NEVI program is helping the US build out the infrastructure needed to support the transition to vehicles that don’t pollute the air.

The Sierra Club’s Josh Stebbins lamented the slow pace of the EV charger buildout across the state. “We are not sure when Maryland’s NEVI chargers will be operational,” he said. “States must move faster and accelerate the installation of NEVI stations. It has been frustratingly slow, and the public needs to see a return on its investment.”

Maryland EV ambitions are high stakes. Transportation remains the state’s largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, and public officials and advocates see EV adoption as critical to meet its net-zero carbon goal by 2045. NEVI is also a key plank of the state’s broader Zero Emission Vehicle Infrastructure Planning initiative, designed to accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels.

What happens next

As litigation is brought over the Trump administration’s pause on NEVI funds, experts like Turnbull of the Alliance for Transportation Electrification believe the United States remains, despite this bump, on the road toward electrification.

“We are not shifting into reverse,” Turnbull said. “The EV market will continue to grow across all market segments driven by market innovation and consumer demand, both within the United States and globally. By pretending the EV transition doesn’t exist, this administration risks the US’s global competitiveness, national security, and economic growth.”

Trump has thrown a wrench into a national EV charging program Read More »

Citing EV “rollercoaster” in US, BMW invests in internal combustion

bmw, Cars, Electric vehicles, EV, EVs, internal combustion, PHEVs, syndication / Shannon Garcia / February 11, 2025

“We anticipated that people wouldn’t want to be discriminated against because of the power train,” Goller said. “We’ve gone the path which others are now following.”

Analysts say BMW is better positioned than rivals to meet the EU’s tougher emissions targets without selling EVs at deep discounts. It is also less exposed to Trump’s tariff war since 65 percent of its cars sold in the US are built locally, and it is also a net exporter from the US.

“From an operational standpoint, I think BMW, outside China, is very well placed,” said UBS analyst Patrick Hummel. “They’re pretty much where they need to be in terms of the EV share in the mix.”

Jefferies analyst Philippe Houchois has described BMW, which has in the past drawn criticism from investors for hedging its bets on power train technology, as “the most thoughtful [original equipment manufacturer] over the years.”

This year, the group will launch its Neue Klasse platform for its next generation of EVs, with longer range, faster charging, and upgraded software capabilities, which Houchois said would “consolidate a lead in software-defined vehicles, multi-energy power train, and battery sourcing.”

But China has proved challenging to the Munich-based carmaker. BMW and Mini sales in the world’s largest automotive market fell more than 13 percent last year to 714,530 cars, a more severe slump than rivals such as Mercedes-Benz and Audi.

Analysts at Citigroup have warned that BMW remains vulnerable to China, where intensifying price pressure in an overcrowded market has been forcing carmakers to discount prices. Sliding sales in the country, where BMW still delivers just under a third of its cars, “remains our key concern,” the Citi analysts said.

Goller acknowledged China was unlikely to return to the explosive economic growth that first attracted foreign carmakers to flood into the country.

“But we still see a growing market… and therefore, our ambition is clearly that we want to participate in a growing market,” he said.

Goller added that it shouldn’t come as “a shock” that Chinese brands were rapidly taking domestic marketshare from foreign carmakers.

“The cars are really good from a technology perspective,” he said. “But we are not afraid.”

Citing EV “rollercoaster” in US, BMW invests in internal combustion Read More »

Feds putting the kibosh on national EV charging program

EV charging, EVs, syndication, Trump, Uncategorized / 9u50fv / February 9, 2025

“There is no legal basis for funds that have been apportioned to states to build projects being ‘decertified’ based on policy,” says Andrew Rogers, a former deputy administrator and chief counsel of the Federal Highway Administration.

The US DOT did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It’s unclear how the DOT’s order will affect charging stations that are under construction. In the letter, FHWA officials write that “no new obligations may occur,” suggesting states may not sign new contracts with businesses even if those states have been allocated federal funding. The letter also says “reimbursement of existing obligations will be allowed” as the program goes through a review process, suggesting states may be allowed to pay back businesses that have already provided services.

Billions in federal funding have already been disbursed under the program. Money has gone to both red and blue states. Top funding recipients last year included Florida, New York, Texas, Georgia, and Ohio.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has spent the last few weeks at the head of the federal so-called Department of Government Efficiency directing “audits” and cuts to federal spending. But his electric automobile company has been a recipient of $31 million in awards from the NEVI program, according to a database maintained by transportation officials, accounting for 6 percent of the money awarded so far.

The Trump administration has said that it plans to target electric vehicles and EV-related programs. An executive order signed by Trump on his first day in office purported to eliminate “the EV mandate,” though such a federal policy never existed.

NEVI projects have taken longer to get off the ground than other charging station construction because the federal government was deliberate in allocating funding to companies with track records, that could prove they could build or operate charging stations, says Ryan McKinnon, a spokesperson for Charge Ahead Partnership, a group of businesses and organizations that work in electric vehicle charging. If NEVI funding isn’t disbursed, “the businesses that have spent time or money investing in this program will be hurt,” he says.

This story originally appeared on wired.com.

Feds putting the kibosh on national EV charging program Read More »

Whistleblower finds unencrypted location data for 800,000 VW EVs

Cars, connected cars, data breach, Electric vehicles, EVs, Online Privacy, Volkswagen, vw / Shannon Garcia / December 30, 2024

Connected cars are great—at least until some company leaves unencrypted location data on the Internet for anyone to find. That’s what happened with over 800,000 EVs manufactured by the Volkswagen Group, after Cariad, an automative software company that handles much of the development tasks for VW, left several terabytes of data unprotected on Amazon’s cloud.

According to Motor1, a whistleblower gave German publication Der Spiegel and hacking collective Chaos Computer Club a heads-up about the misconfiguration. Der Spiegel and CCC then spent some time sifting through the data, with which allowed them to tie individual cars to their owners.

“The security hole allowed the publication to track the location of two German politicians with alarming precision, with the data placing a member of the German Defense Committee at his father’s retirement home and at the country’s military barracks,” wrote Motor1.

Cariad has since patched the vulnerability, which had revealed data about the usage of Skodas, Audis, and Seats, as well as what Motor1 calls “incredibly detailed data” for VW ID.3 and ID.4 owners. The data set also included pinpoint location data for 460,000 of the vehicles, which Der Spiegel said could be used to paint a picture of their owners’ lives and daily activities.

Cariad ascribed the vulnerability to a “misconfiguration,” according to Der Spiegel, and said there is no indication that anyone aside from the publication and CCC accessed the unprotected data.

Whistleblower finds unencrypted location data for 800,000 VW EVs Read More »

Hertz continues EV purge, asks renters if they want to buy instead of return

Cars, chevy, Chevy Bolt, Electric vehicles, EVs, Hertz, Tesla, tesla model 3 / Kelly Newman / December 27, 2024

Apparently Hertz’s purging of electric vehicles from its fleet isn’t going fast enough for the car rental giant. A Reddit user posted an offer they received from Hertz to buy the 2023 Tesla Model 3 they had been renting for $17,913.

Hertz originally went strong into EVs, announcing a plan to buy 100,000 Model 3s for its fleet by the end of 2021, but 16 months later had acquired only half that amount. The company found that repair costs—especially for Teslas, which averaged 20 percent more than other EVs—were cutting into its profit margins. Customer demand was also not what Hertz had hoped for; last January, it announced plans to sell off 20,000 EVs.

Asking its customers if they want to purchase their rentals isn’t a new strategy for Hertz. “By connecting our rental customers who opt into our emails to our sales channels, we’re not only building awareness of the fact that we sell arsenal but also offering a unique opportunity to someone who may be in the market for the same car they have on rent,” Hertz communications director Jamie Line told The Verge.

Hertz is advertising a limited 12-month, 12,000-mile powertrain warranty for each EV, and customers will have seven days to return the car in case of profound buyer’s regret.

According to The Verge, offers have ranged from $18,422 for a 2023 Chevy Bolt to $28,500 for a Polestar 2. We spotted some good deals from Hertz when we last checked, with some still eligible for a federal tax credit.

Hertz’s EV sell off may be winding down, however. Last March we saw more than 2,100 BEVs for sale on the company’s used car site. When we checked this morning, there were just 175 left.

Hertz continues EV purge, asks renters if they want to buy instead of return Read More »

Lower-cost sodium-ion batteries are finally having their moment

Cars, EVs, sodium batteries, sodium-ion batteries, syndication / Beth Washington / December 6, 2024

In contrast, a sodium-ion battery relies on an element—sodium—that you can find in table salt and ocean water.

Among the other benefits, sodium-ion batteries perform better than lithium-ion batteries in extreme cold. CATL has said its new battery works in temperatures as low as -40° Fahrenheit.

Also, a sodium-ion battery has much lower risk of fire. When lithium-ion batteries sustain damage, it can lead to “thermal runaway,” which triggers a dangerous and toxic fire.

The process of manufacturing sodium-ion batteries is similar to that of lithium-ion batteries, or at least similar enough that companies can shift existing assembly lines without having to spend heavily on retooling.

But sodium-ion batteries have some disadvantages. The big one is low energy density compared to lithium-ion. As a result, an EV running on a sodium-ion battery will go fewer miles per charge than a lithium-ion battery of the same size.

“That is just what nature has given us,” Srinivasan said. “From a physics perspective, sodium batteries inherently have lower energy density than lithium batteries.”

A typical sodium-ion battery has an energy density of about 150 watt-hours per kilogram at the cell level, he said. Lithium-ion batteries can range from about 180 to nearly 300 watt-hours per kilogram.

I asked Srinivasan what he makes of CATL’s claim of a sodium-ion battery with 200 watt-hours per kilogram.

“We tend to be skeptical of news releases from companies,” he said. He specified that his comment applies to all battery companies.

Venkat Srinivasan, director of the Argonne Collaborative Center for Energy Storage Science, discusses battery research with a materials scientist in one of the energy storage discovery labs at Argonne National Laboratory. Credit: Argonne National Laboratory

The national labs’ initiative has a five-year timeline, with a goal of developing sodium-ion batteries with energy densities that match or exceed those of today’s iron phosphate-based lithium-ion batteries. Researchers would do this by finding various efficiencies in design and materials.

The project is happening alongside the labs’ ongoing work to develop and improve other kinds of batteries.

Lithium-ion batteries dominate today’s market. This year, global production of lithium-ion batteries was about 1,500 gigawatt-hours, and production of sodium-ion batteries was 11 gigawatt-hours, or less than 1 percent, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

Lower-cost sodium-ion batteries are finally having their moment Read More »

Electric vehicle battery fires—what to know and how to react

batteries, battery fires, Cars, EVs, syndication, Tesla / Mike M. / August 24, 2024

sick burns —

It’s very rare, but lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles can catch fire.

Reece Rogers, wired.com – Aug 24, 2024 11: 17 am UTC

Enlarge / The battery pack of a Volkswagen ID. Buzz electric microbus on the assembly line during a media tour of the Volkswagen AG multipurpose and commercial vehicle plant in Hannover, Germany, on Thursday, June 16, 2022.

Lithium-ion battery fires can be intense and frightening. As someone who used to repair second-hand smartphones, I’ve extinguished my fair share of flaming iPhones with punctured lithium-ion batteries. And the type of smartphone battery in your pocket right now is similar to what’s inside of electric vehicles. Except, the EV battery stores way more energy—so much energy that some firefighters are receiving special training to extinguish the extra-intense EV flames that are emitted by burning EV batteries after road accidents.

If you’ve been reading the news about EVs, you’ve likely encountered plenty of scary articles about battery fires on the rise. Recently, the US National Transportation Safety Board and the California Highway Patrol announced they are investigating a Tesla semi truck fire that ignited after the vehicle struck a tree. The lithium-ion battery burned for around four hours.

Does this mean that you should worry about your personal electric vehicle as a potential fire hazard? Not really. It makes more sense to worry about a gas-powered vehicle going up in flames than an electric vehicle, since EVs are less likely to catch fire than their more traditional transportation counterparts.

“Fires because of battery manufacturing defects are really very rare,” says Matthew McDowell, a codirector of Georgia Tech’s Advanced Battery Center. “Especially in electric vehicles, because they also have battery management systems.” The software keeps tabs on the different cells that comprise an EV’s battery and can help prevent the battery from being pushed beyond its limits.

How do electric vehicle fires happen?

During a crash that damages the EV battery, a fire may start with what’s called thermal runaway. EV batteries aren’t one solid brick. Rather, think of these batteries as a collection of many smaller batteries, called cells, pressed up against each other. With thermal runaway, a chemical reaction located in one of the cells lights an initial fire, and the heat soon spreads to each adjacent cell until the entire EV battery is burning.

Greg Less, director of the University of Michigan’s Battery Lab, breaks down EV battery fires into two distinct categories: accidents and manufacturing defects. He considers accidents to be everything from a collision that punctures the battery to a charging mishap. “Let’s take those off the table,” says Less. “Because, I think people understand that, regardless of the vehicle type, if you’re in an accident, there could be a fire.”

While all EV battery fires are hard to put out, fires from manufacturing defects are likely more concerning to consumers, due to their seeming randomness. (Think back to when all those Samsung phones had to be recalled because battery issues made them fire hazards.) How do these rare issues with EV battery manufacturing cause fires at what may feel like random moments?

It all comes down to how the batteries are engineered. “There’s some level of the engineering that has gone wrong and caused the cell to short, which then starts generating heat,” says Less. “Heat causes the liquid electrolyte to evaporate, creating a gas inside the cell. When the heat gets high enough, it catches fire, explodes, and then propagates to other cells.” These kinds of defects are likely what caused the highly publicized recent EV fires in South Korea, one of which damaged over a hundred vehicles in a parking lot.

How to react if your EV catches fire

According to the National Fire Prevention Agency, if an EV ever catches fire while you’re behind the wheel, immediately find a safe way to pull over and get the car away from the main road. Then, turn off the engine and make sure everyone leaves the vehicle immediately. Don’t delay things by grabbing personal belongings, just get out. Remain over 100 feet away from the burning car as you call 911 and request the fire department.

Also, you shouldn’t attempt to put out the flame yourself. This is a chemical fire, so a couple buckets of water won’t sufficiently smother the flames. EV battery fires can take first responders around 10 times more water to extinguish than a fire in a gas-powered vehicle. Sometimes the firefighters may decide to let the battery just burn itself out, rather than dousing it with water.

Once an EV battery catches fire, it’s possible for the chemical fire to reignite after the initial burn dies down. It’s even possible for the battery to go up in flames again days later. “Both firefighters and secondary responders, such as vehicle recovery or tow companies, also need to be aware of the potential for stranded energy that may remain in the undamaged portions of the battery,” says Thomas Barth, an investigator and biomechanics engineer for the NTSB, in an emailed statement. “This energy can pose risks for electric shock or cause the vehicle to reignite.”

Although it may be tempting to go back into the car and grab your wallet or other important items if the flame grows smaller or goes out for a second, resist the urge. Wait until your local fire department arrives to assess the overall situation and give you the all clear. Staying far away from the car also helps minimize your potential for breathing in unhealthy fumes emitted from the battery fire.

How could EV batteries be safer?

In addition to quick recalls and replacements of potentially faulty lithium-ion batteries, both researchers I spoke with were excited about future possibilities for a different kind of battery, called solid-state, to make EVs even more reliable. “These batteries could potentially show greater thermal stability than lithium-ion batteries,” says McDowell. “When it heats up a lot, it may just remain pretty stable.” With a solid-state battery, the liquid electrolyte is no longer part of battery cells, removing the most flammable aspect of battery design.

These solid-state batteries are already available in some smaller electronics, but producing large versions of the batteries at vast scale continues to be a hurdle that EV manufacturers are working to overcome.

This story originally appeared on wired.com.

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