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In part two of our series exploring myths surrounding EVs, we weigh up the issues of resource extraction In the deserts of Chile, the Australian outback and the plains of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the earth is being peeled back and the water sucked up and dried out to find the minerals needed to feed the world’s need for electric cars. The scars left on the earth by the search for battery minerals are regularly trotted out by opponents of the transition away from fossil fuels. But in our EV mythbusters series , we are taking a closer look at some of the most common criticisms of electric cars, highlighting the myths, the realities, and the grey areas. Continue reading...

Exclusive: ‘Cushion’ for car makers facing looming tariff under Brexit deal for vehicles traded between EU and UK from start of 2024 The European Commission has hatched confidential Plan B proposals to “cushion” the impact of a looming 10% tariff on imports and exports of electric vehicles, the Guardian has learned. The proposal was presented to member states on Monday in response to pressure from car makers to amend some of the conditions imposed when the UK left the EU in January 2021. Continue reading...

Global fall averaged 4.2% between 2010 and 2022 but would have been far more if vehicle sizes stayed same Emissions from the motor sector could have fallen by more than 30% between 2010 and 2022 if vehicles had stayed the same size, a report has found. Instead, the size of the average car ballooned as the trend for SUVs took off, meaning the global annual rate of energy intensity reductions – the fall in fuel used – of light-duty vehicles (LDV) averaged 4.2% between 2020 and 2022. Continue reading...

Factories, dockers, postal workers and mechanics refuse to handle Tesla goods in fight to protect Swedish labour model Elon Musk has decried a wave of “insane” strikes focused on Tesla factories in Sweden, as workers target the US electric car manufacturer in a strike calling for collective bargaining rights. In what has been portrayed as the largest fight to save Sweden’s union model from global labour practices in decades, the powerful trade union IF Metall has been leading a strike across eight Tesla workplaces in Sweden for five weeks. Continue reading...

Reports claim Japanese carmaker will build replacements for its Qashqai and Juke crossover cars in possible £1bn investment Nissan is expected to announce it will build two new electric models in Sunderland, securing the future of the UK’s largest car factory. The Japanese carmaker will build replacements for its Qashqai and Juke crossover cars, according to Sky which first reported the news. Continue reading...

Chancellor cuts national insurance but OBR says UK facing biggest fall in living standards since records began Autumn statement - key points at a glance Keir Starmer has said that a pause in hostilities between Israel and Hamas must be used to tackle the “urgent and unacceptable humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza. Welcoming the deal , which is expected to involve the release of 50 hostages being held by Hamas and a number of women and teenagers from Israeli jails, the Labour leader said his party had been calling for “a substantial humanitarian pause”. He said: There must be immediate access to aid, food, water, fuel and medicine to ensure hospitals function and lives are saved. Aid and fuel need to not just get in but be distributed widely and safely. We must also use the space this pause creates to take more steps on a path towards a full cessation of hostilities rather than an escalation of violence. The real function of the projected spending squeeze is as a trap for Labour...

Saving the industry means saddling consumers with ever more debt. The fumes of 2007 are in the air During lockdown in 2020, the local council in my neighbourhood of Levenshulme – a suburb of red-brick terraces in Manchester – proposed a low-traffic neighbourhood scheme . The plan generated substantial backlash among a segment of the community, leading to all kinds of rows and questionable behaviour on Facebook and elsewhere. A central claim of the objectors was that people such as me who generally supported the measures were middle-class hippies intent on disrupting ordinary, working-class people who needed their cars in their day-to-day lives. At times, it seemed to touch on conspiracy theory. Supporters were cast as canny “gentrifiers”, who saw the planters being proposed to block traffic flow as an opportunity to increase the value of their properties. Continue reading...

Ruling clears way for lawsuit brought against company over fatal crash in 2019 in which Stephen Banner was killed near Miami A judge has found “reasonable evidence” that Elon Musk and other executives at Tesla knew that the company’s self-driving technology was defective but still allowed the cars to be driven in an unsafe manner anyway, according to a recent ruling issued in Florida. Palm Beach county circuit court judge Reid Scott said he’d found evidence that Tesla “engaged in a marketing strategy that painted the products as autonomous” and that Musk’s public statements about the technology “had a significant effect on the belief about the capabilities of the products”. Continue reading...

Northvolt says new lithium-free sodium-ion battery is cheaper, more sustainable and doesn’t rely on scarce raw materials Europe’s energy and electric vehicle industries could reduce their dependency on scarce raw materials from China after the launch of a “breakthrough” sodium-ion battery, according to its Swedish developer. Northvolt, Europe’s only large homegrown electric battery maker, has said it has made a lower cost, more sustainable battery designed to store electricity which does not use lithium, nickel, graphite and cobalt. Continue reading...

Business committee tells government it must get more investment into sector to avert decline The UK faces the prospect of a battery “gigafactory gap” that will undermine the electric car industry unless the government offers the growing sector more help, MPs on parliament’s business committee have said. They said the UK had a “limited window in the next three years to attract further investment into this sector” or else face the prospect of a gradual decline in the car industry and the eventual loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs. Continue reading...

Kyle Vogt exits as Twitch co-founder Emmett Shear appointed as interim boss of OpenAI Business live – latest updates The founder of General Motors-owned Cruise has stepped down less than a month after the driverless car company paused operations after an accident and the loss of permission to operate in California . Kyle Vogt did not give a reason for his departure from the company that he started in 2013 before it was bought by the US automotive manufacturer General Motors in 2016. Continue reading...

The first in a series exploring the myths and realities surrounding EVs When a fire ripped through a car park at Luton airport last month it set off a round of speculation that an electric vehicle was to blame. The theory was quickly doused by the Bedfordshire fire service, which said the blaze appeared to have started in a diesel car . Yet the rumour refused to be quelled, spreading on social media like, well, wildfire. Even when these stories are patiently debunked, they come back as zombie myths that refuse to die. Continue reading...

Coal must be phased out seven times faster and deforestation reduced four times faster to avoid worst impacts of climate breakdown, says report Coal must be phased out seven times faster than is now happening, deforestation must be reduced four times faster, and public transport around the world built out six times faster than at present, if the world is to avoid the worst impacts of climate breakdown, new research has found. Countries are falling behind on almost every policy required to cut greenhouse gas emissions, despite progress on renewable energy and the uptake of electric vehicles. Retire about 240 average-sized coal-fired power plants a year, every year between now and 2030. Construct the equivalent of three New Yorks’ worth of public transport systems in cities around the world each year this decade. Halt deforestation, which is happening to an area the size of 15 football pitches every minute, this decade. Increase the rate of growth of solar and wind power from its c...

Wave heights | Gaza march | AI and horses | Curious couples Re your article about the Australian woman, Laura Enever, breaking the record for the biggest paddle-in wave ever surfed ( Sport, 8 November ), while I applaud her great achievement, I think some credit should be given to the poor soul standing in the midst of this huge wave holding a tape measure. Catherine Waterson Bishopbriggs, Glasgow • To the Mail, Express, Sun, Telegraph, Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer and, last but not least, Suella Braverman; thanks for helping to swell the vast number of people who turned out on Saturday to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. Peter Nicklin Newcastle upon Tyne Continue reading...

The company has lost much of its value after market scepticism about startups’ prospects The future of the British brand Zapp looked promising as its top team gathered around one of its electric mopeds and stared up at a billboard bearing its logo close to Times Square, New York, in May. They threw their arms aloft as they marked the six-year-old company’s listing on the Nasdaq stock exchange, in a deal valuing it at $573m (£467m). Another billboard declared: “Simply Electric. No compromise”. On social media, Zapp wrote: “All excited and ready for the next chapter! Live life unplugged.” Six months on, the stock has hit the skids, and now has a market cap of $12.5m, according to the Nasdaq, and Zapp looks increasingly like it will join a host of British vehicle companies which have seen their US listing turn into an investors’ short stay car park. Continue reading...

Research found speeding or jumping a red light less likely in a Skoda or Hyundai than in brands sold as ‘performance driving’ What came first, the boy racer or the sports car? Academics have called for further research into the marketing of cars after analysis of UK accident data suggested that drivers of certain brands are more likely than others to cause a crash. A study of more than 400,000 UK road accidents found that when “risky or aggressive manoeuvres” played a part in collisions, there was a significant statistical difference in driver culpability across different brands. Continue reading...

All 950 of the General Motors’ subsidiary’s autonomous cars will be taken off roads for a software update General Motors’ Cruise autonomous vehicle unit is recalling all 950 of its cars to update software after one of them dragged a pedestrian to the side of a San Francisco street in early October and a subsequent ban by California regulators. The company said in documents posted by US safety regulators on Wednesday that with the updated software, Cruise vehicles will remain stationary should a similar incident occur in the future. Continue reading...

They have higher emissions, hog roadspace and are more dangerous for other road users. Yet SUVs are selling better than ever. As calls for curbs increase, some people are taking matters into their own hands It’s midnight on the edge of Clapham Common in early September. The streets are eerily quiet as a shadowy figure in black shirt, shorts and baseball cap emerges from the common. He is wearing a red face mask, his features, except for some blond locks, hidden from view. A university-educated professional, “Will”, as I’ll call him, is making one of his monthly late night rounds of various well-heeled London neighbourhoods. He is looking for cars, specifically big, high-end sports utility vehicles (SUVs) – not to steal or vandalise but to bring down in the world just a little. Continue reading...

JLR not on track to comply with zero emissions vehicle mandate, which requires 22% of sales in 2024 to be electric Britain’s largest carmaker, Jaguar Land Rover, has reported record revenues amid continued strong demand for its Range Rover and Defender models, but warned that it expects to miss UK government targets for electric cars next year. The company is not on track to comply with the UK government’s zero emissions vehicle (ZEV) mandate , which will require 22% of total UK sales next year to be electric cars. Failure to meet the target could result in fines of £15,000 for every non-electric vehicle produced over the threshold. Continue reading...

How many times do the rest of you need to be told? The middle lane is only for overtaking “Don’t hog the middle lane,” beseeched motorway signs all over the UK last weekend, at least on the sections of the M1, M42, M5 and M40 I had the pleasure of using. Lane discipline is a particular thing for particular people. I’m most definitely one of those people. I’ll keep to the left-hand lane so assiduously that if it was a contest I’d undoubtedly be in contention for the title. Proceeding along a quiet motorway at a stately 70mph, I will move into the middle lane only to overtake, before neatly slotting back into the left-hand lane. For this is the lane of the worthy, the disciplined, the considerate. It is the lane of the good. Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Nancy Mace and Marjorie Taylor Greene among those accused of hypocrisy over efforts to gut landmark Inflation Reduction Act At least a dozen Republican members of Congress have welcomed clean energy investment flowing to their electorates following Joe Biden’s landmark climate bill, even as they launch fresh attempts to dismantle the legislation. The group of conservative lawmakers, including the House of Representatives members Nancy Mace, Clay Higgins and Marjorie Taylor Greene, have all recently praised the arrival of new renewable energy, battery or electric vehicle jobs in their districts even after voting against last year’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which was loaded with incentives for clean energy projects. Continue reading...