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Last year, skyrocketing demand sent a record $128 billion into investments for E.V. manufacturing and battery plants, which require a large footprint. A battery plant can cover 4.5 million square feet, roughly the size of 25 Walmart Supercenters. Projections suggest the country may need 120 or more additional such plants.
Before those batteries and the cars that use them can be made, they must be conceptualized. So automakers are pouring money into research and development facilities.
— The New York Times
The Times speculates that the money being dumped into facilities that support E.V. development could lead to a golden era of highly technical corporate design for car manufacturers. Projects such as El Dorado’s 300 Kansas in San Francisco and the Snøhetta-led Research & Engineering Campus for... View full entry
A new electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) terminal concept has been unveiled by Foster + Partners. The firm says its plan would augment the Dubai International Airport (DBX) and was developed in unison with Skyports Infrastructure, which Foster + Partners called a leader in advanced air... View full entry
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has announced a new grant program that aims to spur climate action across the city through nonprofit organizations and small businesses. Designed in partnership with the Department of Planning and Development’s Chicago Recovery Plan Initiative, the Climate... View full entry
Dozens of electric yellow school buses are scheduled to roll on city streets as early as next fall, officials announced Tuesday. The city is using an $18.5 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency with funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill to purchase 51 electric school buses. It’s part of an effort to meet the city’s and the state’s shared goal of converting all New York’s school buses to run on electricity by 2035. — Gothamist
In April, New York Governor Kathy Hochul agreed on a $220 billion state budget with legislators, which included a plan to make New York State’s nearly 50,000 school buses 100% electric by 2035. It’s estimated that the state currently has just 36 electric school buses. New York City currently... View full entry
The Federal Highway Administration just approved all 50 state plans, in addition to Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico, to build EV charging stations along America’s approximately 53,000-mile interstate highway network as part of the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) formula program... View full entry
The mantle of international rooftop garden design might have a new crown jewel following Camerana&Partners’ completion of the La Pista 500 project for legendary Italian automaker FIAT in the country’s motorsports capital of Turin. Promoted by the Pinacoteca Agnelli as a “manifesto of... View full entry
As reported by Electrek in May 2022, Tesla has moved its previously-announced plans for a supercharging station featuring a diner and drive-in movie theater from a vacant lot in the city of Santa Monica to the current location of a Shakey's Pizza franchise on 7001 Santa Monica Boulevard... View full entry
Electrical Vehicle wireless charging technology company Electreon has announced that it is set to establish its first public wireless EV charging road system in the U.S. The Michigan Department of Transportation along with the State Department of Future Transportation and... View full entry
Sales of cars powered solely by batteries surged in the United States, Europe and China last year, while deliveries of fossil fuel vehicles were stagnant. Demand for electric cars is so strong that manufacturers are requiring buyers to put down deposits months in advance. And some models are effectively sold out for the next two years. — The New York Times
As noted by The New York Times, the rise of electric vehicles represents the largest shift in the auto industry since the introduction of Henry Ford’s Model T. Their sales account for nearly 9 percent of new cars sold last year, which is up from 2.5 percent in 2019, according to the... View full entry
Alphabet’s self-driving car company Waymo is partnering with Chinese automaker Geely to create a fleet of all-electric, self-driving robotaxis. — The Verge
The cars will be designed in Sweden, where Geely owns Swedish car manufacturer Volvo. Waymo will integrate the Waymo Driver, their autonomous driving technology, into Geely's electric, transportation-as-a-service (Taas)-optimized Zeekr vehicle. Waymo plans to deploy the vehicles in the US within... View full entry
French start-up EasyMile is to be the first transport provider to run a fully autonomous vehicle on a public road in Europe. The company has been authorised to run a driverless bus at the Oncopole medical campus in Toulouse, in partnership with French engineer Alstom. — Global Construction Review
The bus will operate at “Level 4,” meaning no human attendant will be on board. The authorization was granted by France’s Ministry of Transport and Ministry of Ecological Transition, on advice of the Minister of the Interior and local authorities. The bus arrives ahead of the implementation... View full entry
The ending of this year’s COP26 conference has left many architects to ponder how effective the mostly non-representative group of negotiators were in addressing the skepticism and high expectations coming into the meeting that is meant to address what is undoubtedly the greatest moral issue of... View full entry
But where cities are succeeding, they’re finding that electrifying public transit can solve more than just climate problems. It can clean the air, reduce traffic jams and, ideally, make getting around town easier for ordinary people, which is why some politicians have staked their reputations on revamping transit. In many cases, city governments have been able to take climate action faster than their national governments. — The New York Times
The effort to reduce car traffic mirrors those taking shape in U.S. cities like New York and San Francisco. The cost of doing so has in a way become its own problem, as the infrastructure required to support expansive EV fleets in large metropolitan areas has proven to be a challenge for many of... View full entry
Rivian Automotive Inc., the electric-vehicle startup backed by Amazon.com Inc., is in talks to invest at least $5 billion to build a factory near Fort Worth, Texas, according to a document obtained by Bloomberg News. — Bloomberg
The factory, labeled “Project Tera” according to the Bloomberg-obtained document, would be able to produce 200,000 vehicles a year and create at least 7,500 jobs by 2027. A number of incentives, including grants and a city tax abatement of up to $440 million, have also been proposed in the... View full entry
According to South Korean car manufacturer, Hyundai, flying cars will exist in cities around the world by the end of this decade. At the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) conference, a trade association for the United Kingdom motor industry, Michael Cole, the president and chief... View full entry
