German supplier Webasto has commissioned a new plant to assemble batteries for passenger electric cars in Dangjin, Korea, south of Seoul. The Group already holds an order from Hyundai-Kia to supply battery systems for several fully electric volume models.
Read more
Switch Mobility has announced plans to invest £300Mn across the UK and India to develop its electric buses and light commercial vehicles. The British subsidiary of India’s Ashok Leyland has similar targets for Europe, where a new facility is under construction in Spain.
Read more
General Motors and LG Energy Solution appear to consider building a third battery cell factory in the US to produce more Ultium cells to power future electric pick-up trucks. The decision is heavily dependent on state incentives, however.
Read more- ADVERTISEMENT -
Volvo Car Group and Northvolt want to set up a joint venture to develop and produce more sustainable batteries tailored to power Volvo’s and Polestar’s next generation of pure electric cars. The plans include R&D and a large scale cell factory in Europe.
Read more
The planned battery cell joint venture between Porsche and Fraunhofer spin-off Customcells becomes more concrete. The German antitrust authority (Bundeskartellamt) is looking into the Cellforce Group with reports suggesting that P3 will be the third partner in the new company.
Read more
California’s electric car startup Faraday Future plans to build a plant in China with an initial annual production capacity of over 100,000 vehicles. Industry insiders say that Faraday Future is negotiating with Geely about contract manufacturing.
Read more- ADVERTISEMENT -
The US American bus maker Blue Bird says their electric school buses sell so well, they will increase production capacity to 1,000 units a year. Also in Russia, Kamaz announced plans to build twice as many e-buses next year.
Read more
Porsche postpones the launch of the Cross Turismo, a roomier version of the all-electric Taycan, from the end of this year to early 2021. Financial news services cite Porsche CEO Oliver Blume saying the strong demand for the regular Taycan amid the pandemic had driven the decision.
Read more
German battery systems manufacturer Akasol has now placed the follow-up order for production equipment for its planned battery factory in the USA with the mechanical engineering company Manz. The “Gigafactory 2” as Akasol calls it is set to open in late 2021.
Read more
Production of the VW ID.4 has kicked-off at the Volkswagen plant in Zwickau, Saxony today. VW thus starts serially making the e-SUV before officially launching it at the end of September. Germany is just the start of the production cycle with plants in China and the US to follow closely.
Read more
The last Tesla Roadster (VIN2500) to leave the Fremont production lines is now on re-sale. Registered in December 2012 and a collector’s piece from the start, the owner, in a very Swiss move, wants to see 1.39 million francs (about €1.28).
Read more
Nio is moving on from crisis as the EV start-up secures fresh capital from banks in China. The company had signed credit lines with six domestic banks for a total of 10.4 billion yuan (around 1.3 billion euros) just days ago.
Read more
In Casa Grande, Arizona, Lucid Motors has started construction of its electric car plant and says it will invest more than 300 million dollars. The first phase of the factory construction is scheduled for completion by the end of 2020.
Read more
Dyson has axed all plans to build electric vehicles. Founder Sir James Dyson announced the surprise move in an email to employees, saying the project is not commercially viable. Dyson will rechannel the £2.5 billion already invested in other technology.
Read more
The German Ministry of Economics has submitted the documents of the first major European project for battery cell production to the European Commission and hopes to receive the Commission’s approval under state aid law this fall.
Read more
In Germany, Chinese battery giant CATL has been given the go-ahead from the region of Thuringia’s Minister of the Environment, Anja Siegesmund, to start the new construction of its battery cell plant in Erfurt.
Read more
Porsche responds to high demand for its Taycan by creating 500 additional jobs. This brings the total of new roles inspired by the electric car to 2,000 at the sports carmakers headquarters in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen, Germany.
Read more
Just in time for the IAA, Porsche plans to start production of the first Taycan customer vehicles on September 9. Porsche now also confirms that it has increased its stake in Rimac Automobili from ten to 15.5 per cent.
Read more
The German development service provider EDAG has developed a scalable floor assembly for electric cars. According to EDAG, the Scalebase makes it possible to flexibly scale floor assembly for almost all middle and upper-class electric cars.
Read more
Tesla lost another important manager this month: J. Eric Purcell. Purcell spent almost seven years with Tesla and was most recently responsible for production quality at the Fremont plant.
Read more
Porsche has released an update on numbers for the company’s first electric car, the Porsche Taycan. With clients able to register their interest, Porsche has collected almost as many pre-orders as they plan to produce electric vehicles.
Read more
The Slovakian group InoBat and the US energy technology company Wildcat Discovery Technologies plan to build a production line for electric car batteries in Slovakia. Construction of the 100-MWh line is scheduled to start in 2020.
Read more
As hybrid sales rise, Toyota intends to localise the production of HEV components more strongly in Europe. Toyota Motor Manufacturing Poland (TMMP) will produce a second hybrid transmission (e-CVT) at its plant in Walbrzych from 2021.
Read more
Jaguar Land Rover has announced plans to manufacture a range of new electrified vehicles at its Castle Bromwich plant near Birmingham. The announcement is the next step towards the company’s promise to offer electrified options for all new models starting 2020.
Read more
The plan by the revived carmaker Borgward to produce electric cars in Bremen, which had previously already come to a standstill, is now completely off the table. The reserved area will likely go to another company. It is unclear what the future holds for Borgward.
Read more
Volkswagen’s supervisory board has announced the automaker’s entry into battery cell production and is ready to invest one billion euros. Depending on the political circumstance, VW wants to set-up production in Germany at its Salzgitter site in Lower Saxony.
Read more
BYD is massively expanding their electric car production capacity in China. The manufacturer has now struck an agreement with the Changzhou city government to build a fourth car factory, which will have a capacity of 400,000 electric cars per year. Existing sites will ramp up as well.
Read more
Tesla has confirmed that its electric truck will only go into production in 2020, a year later than previously planned. It remains unclear where the Tesla Semi will be assembled.
Read more
Solar electric car startup Sono Motors announces the European production partner for the first Sion EV. National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) takes charge of manufacturing at the Trollhättan-site from mid-2020.
Read more
With the fully electric Macan to enter production in Leipzig early on in the next decade, Porsche is integrating axle assembly on-site. So far, the factory had outsourced this work to a supplier and Porsche says, the new unit will create more than 100 jobs and help keep motors a USP.
Read more