“EV’s – Electric Vehicles”

As the electric vehicle (EV) market continues to collapse into a smoking pile of melted metal and plastic politicians, and EV makers, are finally, belatedly, taking notice. How could they do otherwise? Government hasn’t yet taken upon itself the power to force Americans to buy EVs or to destroy their internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, but whenever the election is decided after November 5—if Trump’s ahead, there will be many votes to “find”—that might change.

There are some lessons to be learned here, but we’ve become so dependent on these things so quickly that I’m not sure what we pivot to.

I think probably breathing deeply and figuring out how to deal with the problems we have on our hands right now would be a good thing before we proceed any further into this brave, new, all-electric mandated world, no?

The car was 12 miles away – but the hackers may as well have been inside it. Over a wireless connection, the small group was able to unlock the Tesla Model S’s doors, open its boot while in motion and – most concerningly – activate the brakes.

The demonstration, from security researchers at the Chinese technology company Tencent, was no more than that. The Tesla vulnerability was not used on the road, and the company fixed the problem.

But when disclosed eight years ago, it was seen as a worrying sign: that as cars became increasingly technologically sophisticated, with critical functions controlled by centralised computer systems, they also became more vulnerable.

Residents, chemists and firefighters are raising concerns about prevention and emergency preparedness after 15,000 kilograms of lithium batteries inside a shipping container caught fire at the Port of Montreal on Monday.

“Around 6 p.m., I started smelling something chemical in my place,” said Lia Chauvel, who lives about two kilometres from the port. “Like at 7 p.m., I get a text from the city. I thought it was spam.”

The fire started at 2:40 p.m. About two hours later, the city issued a precautionary lockdown notice through landlines to some nearby residents. A reminder alert was sent at 6:51 p.m.

Exploding with the force of a bomb blasting 2,000°C super-heated jets of flame into surrounding areas, melting and decomposing nearby structural materials including metal and concrete, and sending vast amounts of toxic fumes into any enclosed atmosphere. Thinking about putting the conflagration out – forget it – run (if you can) for your life. Welcome to a future where electric cars become common and are to be found packed like sardines into ferries and underground car parks beneath apartment buildings. A recent freedom of information request from the insurer QBE found that electric vehicle battery fires in the U.K. jumped by 46% last year. Car and bus fires were up 33% and 22% respectively and it is noted that there are now three battery fires a day compared with two in 2022.

Motorists without space at home to charge their cars are facing prohibitively high costs at public facilities

Britain’s public charging network is so expensive that the cost of driving an electric car is now up to twice the price of running a petrol or diesel vehicle.

The UK has more than 12,500 rapid or ultra-rapid charging stations — a 40 per cent increase on a year ago — but data shared with The Times shows they cost an average of 80p per kilowatt hour (kWh), making the switch to electric cars prohibitively expensive for motorists who do not have access to cheaper at-home charging.