The UK government plan announced in 2020 is to ban new petrol and diesel model cars by 2030, but some fossil-fuelled cars are to be exempt. Now it has emerged that the concession came after lobbying by the UK car-makers’ trade body Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2269011-motor-industry-lobbied-for-a-loophole-in-uk-fossil-fuel-car-ban/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Tag: diesel
How Canadians Derailed a Train in 1998 and Drove It to City Hall for Power After a Brutal Ice Storm
James Gilboy, writing at The Drive: Over the week spanning Jan. 4-10, 1998, a trio of massive ice storms wracked the northeastern United States and parts of Canada. Knocking over transmission towers, the storms deprived up to 1.35 million people of electricity, in some cases for weeks (sound familiar?). Rather than leave town, though, one Canadian mayor stepped up to bring…
The US Government’s Entire 645,000-Vehicle Fleet Will Go All-Electric
Jalopnik reports:
The United States government operates a fleet of about 645,000 vehicles, from mail delivery trucks to military vehicles and passenger cars. On Monday, President Joe Biden announced that his administration intends to replace them all with American-made, electric alternatives… In 2015, the government operated 357,610 gasoline vehicles and 3,896 electric ones; in 2019, those numbers grew to 368,807 and 4,475,…
Norway Becomes First Country To Sell More Electric Cars Than Petrol Vehicles
Norway has become the first country to have sold more electric cars than petrol, hybrid, and diesel engines in a year. The Independent reports: Electric cars comprised 54% of all new vehicle sales in Norway for 2019. The Norwegian government plans to ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2025, and is using tax breaks and financial incentives to…
The Site of Hawaii’s First Tesla Supercharger? Probably Larry Ellison’s 3,400-Person Island
Electrek reports that 2021 will bring one of Tesla’s fast-charging Supercharger to a state that’s never had one before: Lanai Island, a former pineapple plantation that was almost entirely (98%) purchased by Oracle founder and Tesla board member Larry Ellison for $300 million in 2012, is the first in Hawaii to see a Supercharger permit filed by Tesla… The 145-square-mile island…
LiquidPiston’s ‘Inside-Out’ Rotary X-Engine Wins Army Research Contract
Connecticut-based company LiquidPiston is developing a portable generator for the US Army that uses its X-Engine, a fresh and extremely powerful take on the rotary engine that’ll deliver as much power as the Army’s current-gen-set at one-fifth the size. New Atlas reports: We’ve written a few times before about the fascinating LiquidPiston rotary engine. It’s not a Wankel — indeed, it’s…
France To Build New Nuclear-Powered Aircraft Carrier
France will build a new, nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to replace its Charles de Gaulle carrier by 2038, French President Emmanuel Macron announced Tuesday. The Associated Press reports: Macron framed the decision to use nuclear reactors to propel the future warship as part of France’s climate strategy, stressing its lower emissions compared to diesel fuel. Speaking at a nuclear facility in the…
More Than 500,000 Full Electric Cars Sold So Far This Year In Europe
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Carmakers have sold more than 500,000 battery electric cars in Europe during 2020, a milestone in the automotive industry’s move away from fossil fuels. Sales of all plug-in cars, including hybrids, have surpassed 1m during the year in the UK and the largest 17 European markets, according to data collated by Schmidt…
New Electric Cars Have Problems In Latest Consumer Reports Survey
schwit1 shares a report from Autoblog, adding: “And CR decides to predict poor reliability on EVs it hasn’t even evaluated yet.” From the report: The latest auto survey from Consumer Reports shows several newer electric cars to be beset with problems, contradicting the conventional wisdom that EVs with their simpler powertrains should have fewer issues than gasoline- or diesel-powered cars. The…
Illegal Tampering By Diesel Pickup Owners Is Worsening Pollution, EPA Says
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: The owners and operators of more than half a million diesel pickup trucks have been illegally disabling their vehicles’ emissions control technology over the past decade, allowing excess emissions equivalent to 9 million extra trucks on the road, a new federal report has concluded. The practice, described in a report…