PG Carz World

Move to electric vehicles hailed as ‘monumental’ but challenges in consumer affordability and charging infrastructure lie ahead California has approved a ban on the sale of new gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035 as the state takes dramatic steps to reduce emissions and combat the climate emergency. In a vote on Thursday, state regulators moved forward with a plan to phase out the sale of gas cars over the next 13 years in America’s largest auto market. Continue reading...

Longtime electric vehicle researcher hits the road in four countries to discover the cost Australia is paying for almost a decade of inaction As the recent electric vehicle summit got under way Dr Jake Whitehead was sitting in a plane somewhere over the Indian Ocean. The conference was intended as a reset to overcome nearly a decade of Australia’s policy inertia on electric vehicles and road transport under the former Coalition government – but Whitehead, head of policy at the Electric Vehicle Council, was on holiday. Continue reading...

Some superfans are so determined to prove that Elon Musk’s ‘autonomous’ driving technology works that they are willing to put their kids in harm’s way I’ve been a mum for a relatively short time; I’m not exactly an expert when it comes to this whole parenting thing. Still, there is one piece of advice I can confidently dole out: don’t instruct your child to run in front of a moving vehicle so that you can win an argument with strangers on the internet. Elon Musk obsessives, I’m looking at you. This month, a software CEO called Dan O’Dowd , who is hellbent on trying to ban Tesla’s “full self-driving” programme , launched an ad campaign claiming that if you put a Tesla in this mode it will mow down children . He based this assertion on a test he ran using a child-sized mannequin dressed in a safety vest, which came to a sticky end in the middle of a road in California. Continue reading...

Boris Johnson’s plans are behind schedule and the CBI says Britain is falling behind Europe and the US There is little mention of Boris Johnson’s “green industrial revolution” on the campaign trail of the two Conservative party leadership candidates. Maybe it’s not surprising when Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss are focused on formulating plans to deal with the more immediate energy crisis. That said, Labour and the Liberal Democrats are pressing ahead with announcing the investments they would make to achieve net zero by 2050. Continue reading...

Consumers say yes, the numbers add up, industry is largely on board and Labor has no policy hang-ups. This week could be the turning point • Get our free news app , morning email briefing or daily news podcast Last week an acquaintance who owns a secondhand Japanese electric car, brought to Australia as part of a bulk purchase by the Good Car Company , posted a quiet boast. His wife had put their Nissan Leaf in for its annual service. No major problems were found – just an underinflated tyre. The total bill? $120. Reading that sent me to the mess of my glovebox to work out how much I had paid mechanics to keep my Subaru Outback running over the past year. It added up to more than $700. Continue reading...

The 34-year-old engineer and new head of Bugatti can foresee not just the end of petrol, but the end of mass car ownership too Mate Rimac cannot help but be distracted. Cars are flying around the corner behind me as they turn on to the hill climb at the racetrack in front of Goodwood House. The deafening roars and the rapt crowd are testament to the power and lure of the internal combustion engine. Rimac is not, on the face of it, unlike many of the young people watching this event, the Festival of Speed. Twenty years ago he had posters of the fastest machines on his bedroom wall. Yet now, at the age of only 34, he is in the middle of the car industry’s effort to ditch petrol and move to batteries. Continue reading...

He can whizz around a track at 200mph but can’t bear constantly being on high alert for idiots on the road It’s like Gordon Ramsay claiming to hate kitchens or Elon Musk declaring that he doesn’t get any pleasure from winding people up: racing driver Lewis Hamilton has revealed that he doesn’t like driving all that much. Discussing normal-person trips in the car, the sort that do not take place at 200mph, unless you’re desperately trying to get to a drive-through before the breakfast menu finishes, Hamilton told Vanity Fair that he rarely chooses to do it. “I just think that I find it stressful,” he said. “I try not to do things that don’t add to my life”, an explanation I plan to try out in the next few days whenever it is my turn to wash up, vacuum or put out the bins. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Britishvolt’s 95-hectare site seen as great hope for car industry, but construction severely limited until February Construction of a huge electric car battery factory that has attracted tens of millions of pounds of taxpayer cash and been hailed as a flagship project of Boris Johnson’s levelling up policy has been put on “life support” to cut spending, leaked internal documents suggest. Work on Britishvolt’s 95-hectare site near Blyth in Northumberland has been severely limited until February to minimise spending as it focuses on unlocking its next round of funding and critical power supply infrastructure, the documents suggest. Continue reading...

Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh Playwright Ben Norris takes the ethical problems with self-driving cars as a metaphor for human uncertainty As we freewheel into the era of the self-driving car , we also go headlong into a set of moral dilemmas. For as long as there is the possibility of an accident, whose safety should the system prioritise – pedestrian or passenger? Should it depend on the age, number and profile of those involved? Who gets to program the computers and how certain are the instructions? Playwright Ben Norris takes this as a metaphor for uncertainty in general. All it takes is a line of code to affect the behaviour of a vehicle, just as all it takes is a momentary decision to determine how our lives pan out. At Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh , until 29 August. All our Edinburgh festival reviews . Continue reading...

Key fob warning | Missing economists | Erasmus academics | Holiday essentials | Chip shop favourites Hiding car keys in the microwave doesn’t always work ( AA chief reveals his microwave tip to foil tech-savvy car thieves, 5 August ). My father did this until my mother heated milk for coffee without first checking that the microwave was empty. The key fob was destroyed and the microwave badly damaged. David Sinclair Edinburgh • “Where are all the economists?” asks your columnist Simon Jenkins ( 8 August ). The vast majority have possibly given up in despair over Brexit. If the lunatics take over the asylum, what’s the point in having doctors? Alan Fairs Bewdley, Worcestershire Continue reading...

If a rudderless government continues to stand back, other countries will dominate the electric vehicle revolution Over recent decades, Britain’s economy has become steadily more service-based. But as the opening ceremony of Birmingham’s Commonwealth Games powerfully illustrated, industry still occupies pride of place in the imagination of regions such as the West Midlands. At the Alexander stadium, Jaguars, Minis and Rovers of various vintages were showcased to the world – the past and present of a car manufacturing sector that provides well-paid, skilled jobs, and defines a local sense of identity. The future, though, has never looked more insecure. In the short term, a combination of the pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine has created a supply chain crisis that has led to an output slump and drop in sales. In July, car sales in the UK fell by 9% . Falling living standards, prolonged recession and high inflation will add to the industry’s problems by hitting demand. This perfect...

After his wife’s Lexus was stolen, Edmund King went the extra mile to ensure his keyless fob was safe A metal box inside a microwave is not most people’s idea of a sensible key cupboard, but the AA’s president has revealed it is where he stores his car fob. Edmund King already used a Faraday pouch – a bag with a metal lining to block signals – to hold his keyless fob but has gone to extra lengths since his wife’s £50,000 Lexus was stolen by hackers. Continue reading...