evs and hybrids

But in a move that puzzled many of the state’s progressives, Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, joined the California Republican Party to oppose the measure because of Lyft’s involvement. He called it “a special interest carve-out” and a “cynical scheme devised by a single corporation to funnel state income tax revenue to their company.” The governor and his office argued that higher taxes aren’t necessary for funding electric vehicles. This year’s state budget, Newsom told voters, includes $10 million for…

The cathode is a marvel of molecular choreography. How much power a battery holds, and how long it lasts, depends on its lattice of metallic atoms—how well it can catch and release lithium ions. For decades, engineers have fiddled with designs that help this movement along. And they’ve gotten pretty good, if the electrical vehicles and phones of today are any barometer. But the cathode is also the place where things inside the battery typically go wrong. This immaculate structure, so artfully arranged, starts to lose its…

But utilities will likely play the biggest role in ushering in a new era of electricity grids, says Max Baumhefner, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council. One easy way they can encourage EV drivers help the grid is by offering “time-of-use” rates, which make it cheaper for owners to charge at times when the grid is less taxed—for example, when most folks are asleep at night. After watching 10 years of success with these rates programs, Baumhefner has concluded that “if we give people a little nudge,…

When a California pollution regulator voted last month to approve a rule banning new gas-powered car sales in the state by 2035, its officials were hailed as climate heroes. With good reason too: The move will reduce emissions by nearly 400 million metric tons between 2026 and 2040, the state calculates, preventing an estimated 1,300 deaths from heart- and lung-related ailments. The ban is the first such move in the US and among the most aggressive climate regulations in the world. It underscores the Golden State’s…

The lack of a US supply chain for electric vehicle battery materials is often spun as a tale of inconvenient geography. In many ways, this is true. There’s cobalt from the Congo. Indonesian nickel. Latin American lithium. But there’s one critical material for which this isn’t the case: graphite. The material, which is the biggest component of battery cells by weight, isn’t a rare metal. It’s an arrangement of six carbon atoms that can be dug up basically anywhere in the world, including from large deposits in the United…

“China has gone from having virtually no electric vehicles to having almost half of the world’s stock of passenger electric vehicles, and far more of that in terms of buses, trucks, and two-wheelers,” says Mazzoco. “This was somewhat of a surprise, even for Chinese policymakers.”At times that has meant charging infrastructure struggled to keep up. Shenzhen, home to EV and battery maker BYD, provided an early case study. By 2017, all of the city’s buses were electric, and its taxi fleet went all-electric a year later. At…

The headquarters of battery giant CATL tower over the coastal Chinese city of Ningde. To the untrained eye, the building resembles a huge slide rising out of the urban sprawl. It is, in fact, a giant monument to the company’s raison d'être: the lithium-ion battery pack.You may have never heard of CATL, but you’ve definitely heard of the brands that rely on its batteries. The company supplies more than 30 percent of the world’s EV batteries and counts Tesla, Kia and BMW amongst its clients. Its founder and chairman,…