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It may be summer, but there are still tons of cleantech stories rolling through. From cheap electric cars making their way into African and South American countries, to robotaxi firsts and progress, to EV sales grow in different corners of the world. Let’s roll through each of them for more.
1. Let’s kick things off with Jennifer Sensiba’s story highlighting why Motel 6 or some other affordable hotel chain should be first to take a lead on EV charging. She makes some great points and arguments as to why this is a big opportunity to jump on right now.
Image from ChargePoint
2. Jennifer also highlighted that ChargePoint reached 1 million deployed charge points. The company estimates that 10 billion electric miles could be driven from all of the electricity those chargers have put out.
Image credit: Baidu
3. We may have the first profitable robotaxi service in the world next year. Baidu Apollo is expecting it will reach profitability in 2025.
Waymo Zeekr concept robotaxi. Image courtesy of Waymo.
4. Speaking of robotaxis, Waymo is starting to test its custom Zeekr robotaxis in San Francisco.
5. Steve Hanley covered the highly successful Ultra Low Emission Zone of London and how much it has cut air pollution in the city. It’s a tremendous success story that should be copied around the world.
6. The US Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) has a good story on the biggest state policy wins for solar energy and battery storage in the first 6 months of 2024. Wins span from West Virginia to Virginia to Maryland to Massachusetts to Colorado.
7. We’ve got a few stories about cheap electric cars making their way to new markets in Africa and South America. Remeredzai Joseph Kuhudzai explains why it’s likely several African countries will adopt electric cars faster than most of us expect. Backing Joey up, Ethiopia is going as far as banning imports of internal combustion engine (ICE) cars. Down in South Africa, the Dayun Yuehu S5 Mini SUV has become South Africa’s lowest priced EV. EV sales in these countries will also lead to much more EV production in them, and that includes the news that the Chery Omoda E5 EV will be assembled in Kenya. This cheap-EV trend also includes the BYD Yuan Up making it to Colombia for just $25,700. Though, all may not be roses and cream — in Thailand, where super-low-cost BYD electric cars have taken the country by storm, an investigation has been commenced into BYD’s deep, sudden price cuts.
8. Back to batteries, Jennifer explores why it is that the United States has largely missed the quickly growing battery era.
9. Combining solar power and electric vehicles is always fun, and the latest on that is Sunrun working with Ford to bring vehicle-to-home technology, solar power, and electric F-150 Lightnings to more homes.
The South Pasadena Police Department is the nation’s first law enforcement agency to deploy an all-electric fleet.
10. The first fully electric police fleet in the United States is now established. It’s the South Pasadena Police Department, which has 20 new Teslas patrolling the streets.
Image from Uber
11. BYD and Uber are teaming up to put 100,000 more electric cars on the road. Unfortunately, and of course, none of those will be in the United States.
12. Just yesterday, I reported on a report regarding the cars (particularly the electric cars) Tesla owners are most likely to trade their Teslas in for at auto dealerships in the US.
13. Reminding us why we do what we do, there’s the unfortunate news that the world broke the record for hottest day ever recorded three days in a row in July. Oh, actually, it ended up one more day snuck in after that to break the record 4 days in a row.
14. Meanwhile … Republicans want to dismantle the USA’s National Weather Service (NWS) if they gain power in the next election in November. That’s not a good idea.
15. And then we’ve got our various electric vehicle sales reports for places around the world. Here are recent highlights:
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