A secondhand EV is a possibility for many families as the cost of desirable models, including Kias and Teslas, falls to £15,000 If your current car is on the way out and you think an electric replacement is too expensive, think again. Three-year-old Tesla Model 3s and Kia e-Niros that will do 250-300 miles on a single charge can now be bought for as little as £14,000. In the last year, forecourt prices for used electric cars have tumbled to the extent that previously unaffordable models are now within the reach of many families for the first time. Continue reading...

Serbian green campaigner who co-drafted declaration against lithium exploitation now fears for his safety When Aleksandar Matković received the first message threatening his life, he thought it was a prank. The text, sent to his Telegram account just after midnight on 14 August read: “We will follow you until you disappear, scum.” Matković is one of the campaigners who have been at the forefront of widespread protests against plans to develop a massive lithium mine in Serbia. He said: “At first I thought someone was joking but during the morning I got another message, saying ‘how is the struggle against Rio Tinto going?’ from another profile I didn’t know, and the app displayed the sender’s distance as just 500 [metres] away.” Continue reading...

Satellite image analysis shows 329 hectares of forest cleared during development of factory in Germany The development of a Tesla gigafactory near Berlin has resulted in about 500,000 trees being felled, according to satellite analysis. The building of the German factory has been highly controversial and attracted significant protests, as well as prompting a debate about the trade-offs involved in developing a green economy. Continue reading...

The 9% tariff is much less than the up to 36.3% others face after investigation into Beijing’s ‘unfair’ subsidies of EVs * Business live – latest updates Tesla will face a 9% levy on its Chinese-made cars exported to the EU, the European Commission has said, as it issued an update on its sweeping investigation into Beijing’s “unfair” subsidies of electric vehicles. The tariff on Tesla – far lower than the 21.3% average on companies that cooperated with the EU investigation and 36.3% on those that did not – came after the California-headquartered firm requested individual treatment as part of the wider Brussels inquiry. Continue reading...

There are signs the billionaire is becoming unpopular with the very demographic group most likely to buy EVs Elon Musk has long flirted with rightwing politics, and delights in pushing an image of himself as a contrarian showman. Yet in recent months the billionaire’s political allegiances have started to raise a question for Tesla, the company that he built into the world’s largest electric carmaker: just how far can he go before customers start to abandon his products? The German pharmacy chain Rossmann was one of the first to put its head above the parapet this week. The family-owned company announced that it would not add to the 34 Teslas in its company fleet because of Musk’s endorsement of Donald Trump for US president. Continue reading...

The country has long been the world’s biggest market – but the government’s interest is more geopolitical than environmental When Kenzi, an advertising worker in Shanghai, bought an electric vehicle in November she wasn’t even thinking about the environmental benefits. She had read Elon Musk’s biography and thought the Tesla 3 looked good. She also knew that if she bought an EV she could bypass the long wait and cost of getting licence plates, which are rationed by the government. “It’s not easy to get a licence plate in Shanghai, but you get a licence for free when you buy an EV,” she said. Continue reading...

Electric vehicles are ‘batteries on wheels’ that can put energy back into the National Grid when solar panels and windfarms do not provide much power Electric cars make some people afraid of the dark. While the batteries produce much less carbon, they require much more electricity to run. This has prompted ominous warnings that Great Britain and other wealthy countries set on banning new petrol and diesel cars risk plunging their populations into darkness. In recent months British net zero-sceptical newspapers have warned that the shift to EVs would “risk overwhelming the grid, and threaten catastrophic blackouts” when intermittent sun and wind fail to provide the necessary power. Another article claimed: “It won’t take an enemy power to put us all in the dark – just energy customers doing normal things on a normal winter’s evening.” Continue reading...

Electric automaker’s quarterly deliveries fell for two straight quarters for the first time ever Tesla’s global sales fell for the second straight quarter despite price cuts and low-interest financing offers, another sign of weakening demand for the company’s products and electric vehicles overall. The Austin, Texas, company said on Tuesday that it sold 443,956 vehicles from April through June, down 4.8% from 466,140 sold the same period a year ago. The sales were better than the 436,000 figure that analysts had expected. Continue reading...