While Tesla CEO Elon Musk has already been quoted as promising that the payback period for choosing an all-electric Tesla Semi offering over a conventional diesel truck would be just a few years time, not everyone is willing to take his word on the matter.
In order to better support its growing electric vehicle fleet (and fleet customers), Deutsche Post DHL has come to an agreement with Innogy that will see electric vehicle charging infrastructure provided to DHL locations in 10 different countries in Europe.
The European passenger plug-in vehicle market had its best not-last-month-of-quarter record in November, with over 29,000 vehicles delivered to happy customers. This is the 7th time in the last 8 months that we saw +50% growth rates.
The first all-electric e-Crafter vans have now been delivered to customers by Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles. Surprisingly (since large companies don’t typically like to put bull horns behind their entrances into hot new markets), an official event was held to mark the first deliveries of the new product. The event was held at the Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles headquarters in Hannover, Germany.
Seemingly in anticipation of surging demand for electric light-duty commercial vehicles as stricter regulations go into effect, Renault has formed a new joint venture in China with the firm Brilliance China Automotive Holdings Ltd.
As one of the first VW Beetle owners, my father might have been an odd entrant into the modern-day vehicle. A conservative WWII hero and vet, he made his life by keeping part of his sorrow tucked away and shut down in a corner of his mind — the war memories corner. To raise his children, he relied on a mix of conservative faith and Star Trek, and he strived to be fun. Ever the two-sided personality, his hero was Captain Kirk, and Star Trek was a dinnertime fair.
The top 20 CleanTechnica stories of the past week, surprisingly, didn’t include a single Tesla story! Just kidding — it was the subject of 5 of the 20 articles and was heavily embedded in some of the others as well. But we did also have some fascinating pieces about other EVs, clean power trends, scientific advancements, and more.
Volkswagen has, for the time being, halted deliveries of its T6 multivan to dealerships after it was detected that the diesel van was emitting nitrogen oxide levels well above legal limits. The company has now reported this fact to Germany’s auto industry watchdog, KBA.
I know, I know — Volkswagen deceived the public and regulators for years with “defeat devices” that have resulted in innumerable premature deaths … and continue to cause harm today. I know, I know — Volkswagen is king of vaporware and has been pumping concept electric vehicles for ages that are still years away from potential production.
One of the parts of the auto industry that is best suited to near-term electrification is the delivery vehicle/van segment. Such vehicles — whether inner city parcel delivery trucks, produce trucks, mail delivery vehicles, bakery vans, etc. — generally don’t travel much on a daily basis, and often follow very reliable usage patterns within a strict service area, so there are often no fundamental reasons for the operators of such vehicles to not go electric.
