• Energy

Oil Prices Rise — Could This Be the Last Decade of Oil and Gas Industry Growth?

• electric vehicles
• oil and gas
• renewable energy

Oil prices spiked last Friday after the U.S. airstrike last week, finishing the week up 3.6% globally according to MarketWatch, and sparking fears that it could reach $80 a barrel (currently it is at $69/barrel).  But even before this latest price increase, industry experts were beginning to wonder whether “the oncoming 2020s may well go down in history as the decade when the world’s demand for crude peaked for good,” the Houston Chronicle reported.

Why This Matters:  Energy analysts see the handwriting on the wall — that, as one put it, “[y]ou can paint a pretty bearish picture that oil demand is going to plateau before 2030.”

• Air

Top Stories of 2019: Car Wars and Federalism

• air pollution
• California cars
• carbon emissions
• electric vehicles

News about electric vehicles — both cars and trucks — and particularly the efforts of California and other states to elevate their standards on tailpipe emissions to both reduce carbon and toxic air emissions made headlines throughout the year in Our Daily Planet.

Why This Matters: The future of cars is electric — if only we can get out of our own way to speed them to the finish line.

• Air

Electric Cars Racing Ahead

• electric vehicles
• Ford
• Formula One Racing
• Mustang

This week, in the good news category, electric cars just got a lot sexier — Ford unveiled its Mustang Mach-E, an all-electric SUV at a starting price of less than $50,000, and Ford’s CEO expects it will be profitable from the starting line, as well as zero-emission.   And for auto racing fans, CNN reported that […]

• People

Yes, We Need More Electric Vehicles, But We Also Need to Drive Less

• decarbonization
• electric vehicles
• EVs
• green infrastructure

Throughout the Democratic presidential debates, and even at our own Climate Forum 2020, candidates emphasized the need for America to transition to more electric vehicle use. In fact, many of the Democratic candidates’ climate plans include sizeable investments for electric vehicle infrastructure, even offering “cash for clunkers” programs. However, as City Lab recently argued, before […]

• Air

Ford and VW Team Up To Develop Electric and Self-Driving Cars

• autonomous vehicles
• cars
• electric vehicles
• Ford
• General Motors
• volkswagen

Ford Motors and Volkswagen announced Friday that they will partner to jointly develop electric and self-driving cars — in a union that plays to the strength of each company, Ford having an advantage on self-driving cars and Volkswagon on electric cars.  Volkswagen, since its settlement for fraud violations concerning pollution control systems on their diesel-fueled cars, has been working to bring to market next year a fully electric model called the ID.3, that it will sell for $34,000, making it affordable for middle-income buyers.  As a result, Ford will introduce a vehicle in Europe made from VW components in 2023, and plans to sell 600,000 electric cars over six years.

• Energy

Cutting Through the Noise: How Green are EVs?

• electric cars
• electric vehicles
• EVs
• renewable energy
• Solar

This summer my (Miro’s) husband and I are planning a road trip from DC to the Finger Lakes and out of curiosity, I was looking at ways to make our trip more sustainable. I stumbled upon this helpful and practical guide of how to prepare your car, home, and even luggage to limit the impact […]

• Energy

Plunging Battery Prices Will Drive EV Price Parity Within a Decade

• Bloomberg
• electric vehicles
• EVs
• greenhouse gas emission
• internal combustion vehicles
• Mercedes-Benz

The rapid decline in battery prices for electric vehicles will make them far more affordable in the near term, and as a result, the age of gas-powered vehicles may end sooner than experts previously thought, according to a new report from Bloomberg NEF. In the annual Bloomberg outlook on electric vehicles, they predict that by […]

• Climate Change

Inslee’s Climate Proposal Ups the Ante

• #OurMoment
• clean energy
• climate change
• coal
• electric vehicles
• transportation

Democratic hopeful (high hopes) and Governor of Washington State, Jay Inslee, released his proposed plan to take on climate change — which is the rationale for his candidacy — and it is the most aggressively progressive climate plan thus far, raising the bar for the other candidates. 

• Green New Deal

Los Angeles Mayor Pledges Green New Deal for the City

• carbon emissions
• climate change
• electric vehicles
• Green New Deal
• Los Angeles
• smog

It was Green Day in California on Monday because, in addition to Beto O’Roarke’s climate policy rollout, the Mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, announced a Green New Deal for Los Angeles — a bold plan to deal with carbon emissions in the city, with particular focus on green buildings and zero-emission cars, which would remake the city which is known for both its traffic and its smog. 

• Energy

Duke Energy ordered to clean up its coal ash mess

• coal
• Coal Ash
• Duke Energy
• electric vehicles
• EVs

This week, as Sierra Magazine reported, North Carolina environmental regulators ordered Duke Energy to excavate and remove toxic coal ash from unlined storage sites at six power plants. Toxic chemicals concentrated in coal ash have been shown to cause cancer and nerve damage, and to impair brain development. Spills of this toxic substance have occurred […]

• Politics

Ford and GM to Add Jobs In MI to Build EVs

• cars
• Clean Car Rule
• electric vehicles
• EVs
• Ford
• General Motors
• jobs
• tax credit

Last week, both Ford and General Motors (GM), the largest American car manufacturers, announced plans to add jobs in Michigan to build electric vehicles, as both companies plan to substantially expand their lineup of electric vehicles to meet expected growing demand in the U.S. and in an effort to chip away at Tesla’s market share of EVs. 

• Sustainability

VW Seeks to Be Carbon Neutral In Production of Its EV

• carbon neutral
• charging stations
• climate change
• electric vehicles
• fossil fuels
• gas
• volkswagen

After its emissions cheating scandal last year, Volkswagen is looking to change its image, first announcing a new push for electric vehicles and now pledging to make the production of its first electric model carbon neutral.  That equates to reducing its emissions by 1 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, which is a good thing because according to GreenCarCongress.com, “the production of an electric vehicle currently generates significantly more CO2 than that of cars with a combustion engine—around 150% on average.”