The British electric vehicle developer Arrival is cooperating with the ride-hailing company Uber as they aim to build an electric car specifically for ride-hailing services. However, the electric car will probably not be exclusive to Uber.

An EU-funded project called Progressus is currently addressing three challenges in the realisation of next-generation smart grids: efficient energy conversion, smart energy management and secure monitoring – especially in the context of growing electric car sales.

According to a new study by Ferdinand Dudenhöffer’s CAR Research Institute in Duisburg, the tightening of the EU’s CO2 requirements and the shift to electromobility will not be a job killer.

BMW has announced its intention to realise a solid-state battery suitable for automotive use in series production by the end of this decade. A first demonstrator vehicle with this technology is to be shown “well before 2025”. Funding is available from German federal and state governments.

The European manufacturers’ association ACEA and the environmental organisation T&E formulate very concrete goals for electric and fuel cell truck charging infrastructure across the EU following earlier calls and pledges.

New EU rules may help phase out plug-in hybrid vehicles sooner than some carmakers were speculating. Drafts for ‘Green Finance’ regulations to come into force this year, would ban manufacturers from labelling PHEVs as “sustainable investments” beyond 2025.

The EU project FCH2RAIL (Fuel Cell Hybrid Power Pack for Rail Applications) with partners from Belgium, Germany, Spain and Portugal is developing and testing a new zero-emission train prototype. Key to the idea is a combination of electricity from overhead wires with a fuel cell power pack.

Hyzon Motors, the US developer of H2 commercial vehicles, has launched a leasing service for heavy-duty fuel cell trucks for EU customers. The company says it aims to reach parity with diesel trucks in terms of the total cost of ownership.

Scientists from Sweden’s two major technical universities have developed a structural battery that is said to be ten times better than any previous version.

In an open letter to the EU Commission, ChargeUp Europe, an association of European charging infrastructure providers, has called for a new stand-alone regulation for electric vehicle charging infrastructure. The association says this should be separate from the existing directive for alternative fuels (DAFI).

Audi has stopped the development of new combustion engines. In an interview, Audi CEO Markus Duesmann justified the decision with the EU plans for a stricter Euro 7 emissions standard.

German Economics Minister Peter Altmaier, his French colleague Bruno Le Maire and EU Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic wrote in a guest article demanding that by 2025, Europe should be able to produce enough battery cells each year to supply at least seven million electric cars.

The EU project “CoacHyfied”, led by the development service provider FEV, will develop six fuel cell coach buses for deployment. The three-year demonstration phase already started at the beginning of 2021.

In a letter, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Malta, Ireland, Lithuania and Luxembourg call on the EU Commission to set a phase-out date for the sale of new passenger cars and light commercial vehicles with combustion engines in the EU that is in line with the goal of climate neutrality by 2050.

The ‘Swedish Electric Transport Laboratory’ or SEEL for short, designed to make the country a hotbed for e-mobility, will grow larger than planned. The partners, which include Volvo and Scania as well as Chalmers University of Technology and RISE, now designated three sites.

The Spanish state apparently wants to build a battery cell factory for electric cars as part of a public-private consortium with the Volkswagen brand Seat and the energy company Iberdrola.

A new analysis by the European Alternative Fuels Observatory (EAFO) provides interesting insights into the status of charging infrastructure development in Europe. The study also shows that a major effort is still needed to reach the European Green Deal’s milestone of one million public charging points by 2025.

The Fraunhofer Institute is working with 13 European partners to develop the world’s first ammonia-based fuel cell for ships in the ShipFC project. Ammonia is mainly known for its use as a fertiliser, but is also suitable as a high-quality energy source, the institute says.

Slovenian aircraft manufacturer Pipistrel is working on a zero-emission regional aircraft with 20 seats, which should be available between 2028 and 2030. The Miniliner concept now unveiled could fly on hydrogen, although Pipistrel says it is still evaluating various propulsion solutions.

As manufacturers scrambled to meet EU (and Swiss) CO2 compliance levels with a last-minute registrations splash-and-dash in December, Schmidt Automotive Research crunched the numbers with some astonishing results.

MAN proves in Munich that e-trucks are suitable for inner-city driving at sensitive times. The test drives with the all-electric MAN eTGM truck showed a time saving of 15 to 30 per cent by shifting the time window of deliveries to the off-peak hours of the day.

The future of the British Nissan plant in Sunderland is secure in the long term due to the trade agreement reached between the UK and the EU. In return, the Japanese automaker is even investing in the English site.

The Volkswagen Group just missed the EU’s CO2 fleet targets for 2020. The CO2 pool formed with other manufacturers fell short by around 0.5 g/km last year. By contrast, the VW and Audi brands exceeded their CO2 fleet targets, primarily due to the ramp-up of the ID.3 and rising e-tron sales.

Tesla can start preparations for its battery factory at the Giga Berlin site in Grünheide ahead of schedule. Tesla has been granted a provisional start for the work upon request, according to a BMWi spokesperson, although this is in itself not a building permit.

In Italy, the first fast-charging stations have now been connected to the grid at three IP-branded filling stations as part of the European E-VIA FLEX-E project. Four more locations in Italy are to follow later this year.

Volkswagen AG has opened its CO2 pool in the EU further at the end of last year to include more manufacturers. The new pooling partners all make electric vehicles.

Battery analytics specialist Twaice Technologies has now joined the European Battery Alliance to develop a sustainable battery value chain in Europe.

The German Aerospace Center (DLR) and Norway’s SINTEF institute are researching cobalt-free lithium-ion batteries in the EU project HYDRA together with ten partners. They want to test an industry-ready prototype for real-world operation in a ship battery system.

A group of 13 partners from the entire value chain of ship electrification have launched ‘Current Direct’, a research project that aims, among other things, to reduce the cost of battery-electric propulsion systems in shipping and build an ‘Energy as a Service’ platform.

As the virus called an almost complete halt to the world this year, the newsreels continued to turn. You kept returning to our pages in greater numbers than ever, and these are the most read articles in each month of 2020.