Politics

  • Chrome exhaust pipe

    The most important green-car story of 2017 came on September 10, in a report by the Associated Press that covered articles in two Chinese state media outlets on a statement by a deputy industry minister. Speaking at "an auto industry forum," the AP wrote, Xin Guobin said his ministry has begun "research on formulating a timetable to stop production and sales of traditional energy vehicles," as he noted "some countries" have already done. The statements were published by the state Xinhua News Agency and the Communist Party newspaper People's Daily, meaning they represented official government...

  • Photovoltaic solar power field at Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee
    In Germany, neighborhood solar starts to eat away at utility revenue

    Five years ago, an electric-utility think tank issued a dire warning to its members: Your century-old business model is ending. The continually falling costs of renewable energy generation, especially solar panels, would begin to erode utilities' business from its most profitable customers, the...

  • Coal power plant in China
    China's aggressive plan to counter climate change leaves US government in the dust

    As the Trump administration abandons numerous U.S. efforts to rein in emissions of the climate-change gas carbon dioxide over time, another large polluter is pushing ahead with an aggressive plan to slash pollution from energy producers. China, currently the top carbon emitter and largest consumer...

  • 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV electric car at EVgo fast-charging station, Newport Centre, Jersey City, NJ
    In an ideal world, this is how electric-car tax credits should work

    The tax reform bill likely to be voted on by the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives retained a number of provisions originally slated to be cut from the tax code. Among them was the federal income-tax credit for purchase of a plug-in electric vehicle. Three carmakers—General Motors...

  • U.S. Capitol Building
    Electric-car tax credit retained in Congressional tax reform bill: confirmed (update)

    We'll likely never know whether it was the influence of auto lobbyists, pressure from the actual public, or a letter signed by two dozen mayors. But however the sausage was made, it appears that the U.S. income-tax credit for purchase of a plug-in electric vehicle will not be killed after all...

  • Portable Emissions Measurement Systems (PEMS) on a Peugeot 308
    Preventing the next Dieselgate: EU can now oversee, overrule new-car approval by member countries

    With the exception of California's longstanding ability to set its own tougher emission standards, any car legal to sell in one state of the U.S. is legal to sell in all of them. And aside from a handful of differences—daytime running lights, speedometers marked in km/h—Canadian-market...

  • 2016 BYD Tang plug-in hybrid SUV, made in China

    As the electric-vehicle market matures and more global automakers commit to building battery-powered cars, one driving force has emerged to lead the pack. With apologies to the title of a comedy from half a century ago ... The Chinese Are Coming. That's the assertion made by old China hand Michael Dunne, of Dunne Consulting in Hong Kong, who makes the case for the future dominance of China in the world's electric-car competition by highlighting two crucial points. DON'T MISS: China electric-car rules to start in 2019; aggressive totals are world's highest According to Dunne's latest...

  • 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV
    22 mayors join letter urging electric-car tax credit retention by Congress

    Two bills from the Senate and House of Representatives that would radically reform U.S. tax policy for the first time in three decades are now being reconciled by a joint committee from both houses of Congress. No public hearings on those bills have been held in either chamber, and the legislation...

  • Non-ethanol gasoline pump
    Renewable-fuel mandate ruling leaves no one happy: the best compromise?

    As they say, the best compromise is usually the one that leaves all parties equally dissatisfied. When it comes to the Environmental Protection Agency's renewable-fuel mandate, it seems regulators have reached equilibrium. The latest skirmish in the long-running battle over the U.S. renewable-fuel...

  • President Donald Trump (Photo courtesy DoD)
    Trump EPA: less enforcement of laws, more leeway for polluters

    In grade school, students commonly ran through the halls when teachers or other school staff weren't looking. Signs forbidding the act of sprinting past lockers did little to deter the practice, since there was no incentive not to run unless someone present was enforcing the rule. The same can be...

  • Tesla Store Los Angeles [photo: Misha Bruk / MBH Architects]
    Judge sides with Tesla, slams dealer association in Missouri

    Since Tesla began selling electric cars directly to customers throughout the U.S., the electric-vehicle maker has had to play franchise-law whack-a-mole in multiple state courts. On Tuesday, Tesla scored a decisive victory when the Missouri Court of Appeals reversed a lower court's ruling that...

  • 2017 Nissan Leaf
    If you plan to buy an electric car, you should do it this month

    Common wisdom has it that the last few days of any calendar year are the best time to buy a car. Not only are franchised dealers and their salespeople seeking to close out the month with a bang, but it's the end of a year and their allocation of cars next year can depend on how many they sell this...

  • President Donald Trump (Photo courtesy Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons)

    By now it's clear that the Trump Administration is doing everything it can to end U.S. government efforts to address climate change. Climate-science deniers sit in powerful government positions, language on climate change has been eradicated from websites, and the U.S. is now the sole nation in the world that plans to withdraw from the Paris Climate Treaty signed by President Obama in late 2016. Will it work? DON'T MISS: Climate change all manmade, say actual scientists: awkward for Trump science deniers If nothing else, the administration's efforts have provoked a furious backlash by several...

  • EPA administrator Scott Pruitt  [photo from 2014]
    EPA chief Scott Pruitt: 'environmentalism' is use rather than preservation

    EPA head Scott Pruitt will likely go down as one of the most controversial agency chiefs in that agency's history of almost 50 years. The former Oklahoma attorney general, who sued the EPA 14 times on behalf of fossil-fuel interests during the Obama administration, has a radically different view of...

  • Buick Velite 5, for sale in China, at 2017 Shanghai auto show   [photo: Ronan Glon]
    Is China making U.S. irrelevant to the future of automobiles?

    The first automobile was invented in Germany in 1885 by Karl Benz, but it was the U.S. that led the building of the global 20th-century automobile industry. Through the turn of the current century, the U.S. new-vehicle market was the world's largest, and General Motors was for decades the world's...

  • Site of new California Air Resources Board headquarters, Riverside, CA, Oct 2017
    CARB steps up shadow-EPA role with new building, vehicle testing lab

    For 45 years, the Environmental Protection Agency has been charged with protecting the U.S. from pollution in its air, water, and land. Under the Trump Administration, its administrator Scott Pruitt is aggressively muzzling and removing scientists, eradicating climate-science from its activities...

  • ebee streelight charging station
    US governors release own plans to cut carbon at climate-change summit

    While President Trump has announced the U.S. will pull out of the Paris Climate Accord, the United States cannot formally exit the agreement until November 5, 2020. Despite the administration's stance and its many efforts to end U.S. action to reduce carbon emissions, numerous U.S. governors...

  • EPA administrator Scott Pruitt  [photo from 2014]
    EPA head: new report that climate change is manmade has 'no bearing' on plans to end climate action

    When top U.S. scientists released the fourth National Climate Assessment, it spelled out one blunt conclusion: human activity in releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere caused the climate change that has warmed the globe. Mandated for release every four years, the report will apparently have...

  • U.S. Capitol Building

    The battle over early termination of the U.S. income-tax credit for purchase of an electric car took a new turn on Thursday. HR1, the draft Tax Cut and Jobs Act introduced in the House of Representatives, would end the credit as of December 31. The U.S. Senate version of the tax-reform bill introduced late Thursday, however, retains the credit. DON'T MISS: House tax bill eliminates credit for all electric-car buyers: report To become law, each house must finalize a version of its bill and then pass it. After that, the two bills must be reconciled by a joint committee to produce a single piece...

  • Eiffel Tower in Paris, France (photo by Rijin, via Wikimedia Commons)
    EU to slash vehicle carbon emissions one third more from 2021 through 2030

    Europe already has tough standards for reducing carbon-dioxide emissions in current and future vehicles. Now they're going to get significantly tougher between 2021 and 2030. At its weekly cabinet meeting, held Wednesday, the European Union formally adopted far more stringent requirements for...

  • The White House, Washington, D.C.  [Creative Commons license by dcjohn]
    GM, Nissan push to retain EV credit; tax bill also targets renewables, helps nuclear energy

    The United States tax code hasn't seen a major overhaul in decades, and the current Congress—along with the Trump administration—may be learning, or re-learning, why. Numerous opponents have moved swiftly to condemn various aspects of the draft Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (HR1) proposed in...

  • Global carbon dioxide emissions, 1850-2030 [CO2 Information Analysis Center, World Energy Outlook]
    Climate change all manmade, say actual scientists: awkward for Trump science deniers

    When the Environmental Protection Agency quietly issued its new four-year plan in mid-October, the phrase "climate change" did not appear anywhere in the 38-page document. It is now clear the Trump Administration intends to delay, halt, or erase government efforts to limit U.S. emissions of carbon...

  • Chevrolet Bolt EV being charged outside Go Forth electric-car showroom, Portland   [photo: Forth]
    Draft tax bill eliminates credit for all electric-car buyers: report (updated)

    The process of drafting a so-called tax reform bill has been shrouded in mystery, with even Republican congressmembers admitting they didn't know what provisions it would contain. But according to a report on Thursday, the draft of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act proposed in the House of Representatives...

  • Bugatti Chiron Scale Engine and Gearbox
    When will U.S. ban sales of new cars with engines? Poll results

    Presuming China sticks to its statement that it will ban sales of new vehicles with combustion engines in some future year, the auto industry is facing a very different future than it was a year ago. Similar bans from Norway, The Netherlands, France, and the U.K. all represented smaller markets...

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