EVs

Insurance is seldom sexy but climate change campaigners will raise a glass to Munich Re if the industry emulates its policy to cap the financial risk related to battery warranties and helps lift global investment in energy storage as a result.

Federal and state governments need to do a whole lot more to help the transition to electric vehicles, says the senate, after poll results indicated strong popular backing for the switch from fossil fuel transport.

Israeli company will offer $77m – made of up cash and shares – for a controlling stake in electric vehicle power train manufacturer SMRE with the aim of then making the Italian company a wholly-owned subsidiary as the Italian government plans a big EV push.

A new era in the Chinese energy transition is on the menu and renewables are the order of the day, according to the latest China Renewable Energy Outlook (CREO). China will not require a gas bridge between coal and renewables, it finds, adding that renewables will become the core of the nation’s energy system by 2050, with annual PV installs of between 80-160 GW possible. Not only that, but electricity supply could be cheaper in this future than it is today.

Another German car manufacturer has announced ambitious electric vehicle plans. Daimler AG says it has invested €20 billion in the purchase of battery cells to further advance its electric fleet.

A number of significant manufacturing and investment plans in China, Germany and North America by major automobile makers VW, Tesla and BYD are backing up predictions that electric vehicle car sales are set to skyrocket in the coming decades.

According to a new report by the EEA, the winner of the diesel emissions scandal is the petrol powered car. Governments and the industry have yet to facilitate a serious increase in EV registrations, as their share still languishes at less than 1%.

BYD’s electric bus business is growing at an healthy rate. Geely’s EVs lag their more traditional counterparts – but are gaining ground.

The tipping point, where the world shifts from oil and gas to renewables, will be the year 2035, says Wood Mackenzie. This is when renewables and electric-based technologies converge, with around 20% of global power needs being met by solar or wind, and roughly 20% of miles traveled by cars, trucks, buses and bikes using electricity. Will the transition come soon enough, however?

For renewables to claim a more sizable share of the global energy mix, the adoption of energy storage would need to pick up pace and the rapidly increasing size of the EV fleet will offer a scalable way to ramp up such access, says Fitch Solutions.