By 2025, Toyota plans to meet about 70 per cent of its European sales with full hybrid cars, ten per cent with plug-in hybrids and another ten per cent with battery and fuel cell cars.

Austria aims to decarbonise its transport sector. The coalition of the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and the Greens want public authorities to exclusively purchase zero-emission vehicles as early as 2022 and otherwise focus on subsidies for the electrification of official fleets, taxis, rental cars, car-sharing, public transport as well as private cars.

The city of Auxerre has commissioned the French manufacturer Safra to deliver five fuel cell buses by the end of this year. To be precise, these are hybrid buses that combine a 30-kW Symbio fuel cell system with a 30-kilo hydrogen tank and a 132-kWh battery pack.

Honda and Isuzu Motors signed an agreement for joint research into heavy-duty trucks with fuel cells. The cooperation is, however, only scheduled for two years for the time being, concrete series models have not been announced.

Toyota has just named some new key points for the market launch of the second generation of its Mirai fuel cell model. The production of the second model generation will start in Japan this autumn.

The electric vehicle retrofitter eCap Mobility and the microlight aircraft manufacturer Breezer Aircraft want to develop a fuel cell drive that can be retrofitted to single-engine aircraft. However, the focus is more on single-seat sports aircraft than on the electrification of commercial planes.

Akasol will supply battery systems for more than 40 hydrogen trains of the type Alstom Coradia iLint, which were ordered from Alstom by the regional public transport company of Lower Saxony and the Rhine-Main transport association.

China will not make significant cuts in subsidies for electric cars this year. This was announced by Miao Wei, China’s Minister of Industry and Information Technology.

Mercedes-Benz has opened an expanded development and test centre at its truck plant in the German town of Wörth after a year and a half of construction. This is where solutions for connected, autonomous and electric driving for trucks will be developed and tested.

Toyota is apparently planning worldwide sales of only 500,000 purely electric cars in 2025, which is only a fraction of what other automakers such as VW and Tesla are planning.

Norway is widely considered a leading EV market, and sales in the Scandinavian nation are often used to test the waters for new electric vehicle technologies and market trends. The statistics are now out for December 2019, which has shown a significant decrease in BEV sales, while hybrids seem to have become more popular.

BMW intends to introduce the second-generation fuel cell technology developed together with Toyota in the BMW X6 and X7. Head of Development Klaus Fröhlich made the announcement in an interview.

The South Korean government will provide a total of 950 billion won (about 627 million euros) in 2020 to subsidise electric cars and expand the network of charging stations in the country, this signifies a 60 per cent increase from 2019.

Several US American states have launched initiatives to support the electrification of their traffic. Massachusetts and Delaware extended their subsidy programmes, while Ohio is angling to introduce one. California extended traffic benefits to include those driving used EVs.

The French government has revised its bonus-malus CO2 system with the aim of quintupling sales of electric vehicles by 2022 compared with 2017. To this end, new modalities for the environmental bonus will be introduced and the environmental penalty will be drastically increased.

A new US American spending bill includes the retroactive extension of tax credits for home EV charger installation, electric motorcycles, and fuel-cell vehicles. Previously, the credits had been extended through 2017, and have now been extended to 2020.

The first hydrogen-powered Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system has gone live in Pau, in the south of France. It is called Fébus and launched with the roll-out of a fleet of eight 18m Van Hool Exqui-City FC buses, serving a special six km route.

The Chinese joint venture Ballard Hy-Energy Technologies (Weichai Ballard JV) has ordered membrane electrode assemblies worth $19.2M from the Canadian fuel cell specialist Ballard Power Systems. These will be used in FC vehicles for the Chinese market.

Exactly 3,697 electric cars were newly registered in Norway in November. The market share of electric cars among car registrations was 36.9 per cent. The most successful model of all drive types was the VW e-Golf.

Registrations of alternative drive vehicle reached a new record of 10.2 per cent market share in the UK during November. This means more than one in 10 cars joining British roads were either hybrid, plug-in hybrid or pure electric.

The Hyundai Motor Company has presented its ‘Strategy 2025’ roadmap, in which the South Korean Group also sets its frameworks for electrification. By 2025, Hyundai intends to become one of the three largest EV manufacturers in the world with a multi-faceted approach.

Germany has taken the lead in e-mobility technology ahead of France, while China consolidates its clear overall lead, specifically regarding batteries. In a comparison of the seven major automotive nations, Roland Berger and fka GmbH have released the latest edition of the Electric Mobility Index.

In August 2019, 6,672 electric vehicles drove on Polish roads, with a share of just 0.2%, Poland is at the bottom of the league in Central Eastern Europe. Nevertheless, or precisely because of this, the Polish government has set itself ambitious targets for e-mobility. But the new funding programme is controversial, as Aleksandra Fedorska reports.

The Slovak Ministry of Economy is starting a new round of subsidies for electrified vehicles in order to encourage individuals, businesses and government agencies to purchase electric vehicles. A total of 5 million euros has been earmarked for the programme.

The new European CO2 legislation for passenger cars and light commercial vehicles obliges the EU Commission to monitor real fuel and electrical energy consumption from next year onwards. This was pointed out by the ICCT.

The merger of the fuel cell businesses of Michelin and Faurecia announced in March, has now been completed. The two French companies hold equal shares in the formally established joint venture “Symbio, A Faurecia Michelin Hydrogen Company”.

German and European car manufacturers are currently fully committed to the battery and still very hesitant regarding the fuel cell. Toyota is doing it the other way around. Hyundai wants to develop both technologies in parallel. A closer look at what the Koreans have in mind.

The Norwegian shipbuilder Ulstein has presented the concept of an offshore construction vessel with hydrogen propulsion. The Ulstein SX190 will be tested on the high seas from 2022.

California’s subsidies for electric cars and plug-in hybrids will change this December. Only electric vehicles up to a price of USD 60,000 will be eligible for the grant, except hydrogen cars. But this is not the only change.

The Norwegian Havyard Group is working with partners on a fuel cell system for large ships. The company is now entering the approval phase with Linde Engineering as tank supplier and PowerCell Sweden as fuel cell supplier.