Despite anemic sales and despite losing money on every battery-electric vehicle they sell, mainstream automakers are forging ahead. Here’s why, and here’s what’s needed for them to be successful. For Ford, such thinking represents a major strategy shift. Only eight years ago, the company rolled out the Ford Focus Electric, a hatchback with a tiny […]
Shell acquisition of charging network Greenlots points to juice as the new gas
Electric cars are getting the attention of oil companies. On Wednesday, one of the largest fast-charging networks in the U.S., Greenlots, announced that it had been bought by oil giant Royal Dutch Shell—via the subsidiary Shell New Energies US LLC. Greenlots includes more than 350 mainly DC fast charge stations across the U.S., the kind electric […]
Tesla vs. Self-Driving Competition
Autonomous driving technology promises to unleash sweeping changes on our society. However (perhaps fortunately), it’s likely to be some time before self-driving cars become frequent sights on the roads. Boosters tend to see autonomy as an unmitigated boon, but some of their assumptions are yet to be proven — the technology has the potential to […]
Time to examine OC Transpo governance
Dr. John Hollins, past Chair of the Board, CACOR, published an OpEd in the Ottawa Citizen, 2 Feb 2019 Transpo bought 133 double-deckers on good advice. Was it a big mistake? Jan. 26. Kelly Egan, like most observers of OC Transpo’s safety record, addresses the nuts and bolts. He notes that the collision with a […]
Electric Vehicles: The Swiss army knife of the grid
Experts see a future where electric vehicles provide an array of grid services, from demand response to soaking up excess renewable generation. Right now there are more than 250 million vehicles registered in the United States, and less than 1 million of those are electric. It’s a drop in the bucket — so far, anyway — and to date, […]