charging
Latest
After Math: Let's shake things up
As Anchorage, Alaska was being rocked by a magnitude 7.2 earthquake this week (which, as of the writing of this post, had thankfully only resulted in infrastructure damage and not any actual injuries), the tech industry was making major rumblings of its own. Tesco is teaming with VW to change how shoppers charge their cars, Lyft plans to triple the number of available CitiBikes, Fortnite continues to curbstomp its battle royale competition, and Microsoft (ever so briefly) stole the crown for "world's most valuable business" from Apple.
New York spurs EV sales with fast chargers and lower power rates
Federal electric car tax credits might disappear (if just due to strong sales), but that isn't preventing individual states from stepping up. New York has unveiled a string of programs that it hopes will incentivize EV purchases in the state. In addition to an existing Drive Clean Rebate knocking as much as $2,000 off EV purchases, the state is deploying as many as 200 150kW fast chargers in "more than two dozen" locations around major traffic corridors, JFK International Airport and five large cities outside of NYC (Albany, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Yonkers). In theory, you can buy an EV knowing you'll always have enough battery life for an upstate jaunt.
Google limits Pixel 3's fast wireless charging to certified devices (update)
We hope you prefer wired charging if you're buying Google's Pixel 3 or Pixel 3 XL phone with no intention of getting a Pixel Stand. The tech giant's new flagship devices don't support 10W Qi charging and will only reach 5W charging speeds on most wireless chargers. Google has confirmed the charging cap after an Android Police reader measured it and found that to be the case. The reader contacted Anker, their wireless charger's manufacturer, and the accessory-maker told them that the phone "sets a limitation for third-party charging accessories."
Uber will introduce a 'clean air fee' to all London rides
Uber has been consistently vocal about its green aspirations. From electric scooters to its own EV charging networks, the company's eco-friendly ambitions reached a pinnacle last year when it announced its "Clean Air Plan" for the city of London. Now, it's revealed more about what this plan will look like.
Wireless charging: Are we doing this or not?
The world is going increasingly wireless, with hardware manufacturers left and right eschewing physical ports and cables for digital handshakes and gigahertz connections. Just look at Apple's infamous headphone jack-eliminating AirPods, for example. However, one plug that device makers have continually struggled to remove is the one that supplies the gadget with power. The era of wireless mobile device charging has been "right around the corner" for the better part of a decade but will Google's latest foray into Qi-enabled charging technology finally be the popular push that brings wireless power transfers into the mainstream?
Lucid Motors will give owners access to VW's charging network
Lucid Motors' first electric car won't roll out of the factory until 2020, but you'll at least know where to charge it when it does arrive. The company has signed a preliminary deal that will give Lucid Air drivers access to VW's Electrify America charging network through a cross-country charging plan. You won't win any prizes for guessing the reason why: it's all about the scale and performance of the network. Electrify America is promising more than 2,000 chargers with power levels up to 350kW. The chances are good are that you'll have access to numerous quick-charge stations in your state.
Tesla is ending its lifetime free Supercharging offer
Tesla's offer of free, unlimited Supercharger access was supposed to have ended in early 2017, but it's been on a form of life support since then. Unless you were buying a regular Model 3, you could get the no-cost charging by ordering your EV with a referral code from an existing owner. Now, however, even that exception appears to be coming to an end. Elon Musk has pointed out that the referral program is about to end. After September 16th, owners will only get to hand out $100 in Supercharging credit to Model S, Model X and Model 3 Performance buyers -- just enough for a few top-ups.
Honda will pay EV owners to charge when energy demand is low
While electric vehicles are better for the environment than cars running on gas, the electricity used to charge them might not always come from renewable sources. Honda has launched a program enticing customers to reduce their carbon footprint even further by paying them money for participating. People tend to plug their vehicles in after they get home from work, but that's when demand on the grid is the highest. The automaker's SmartCharge beta program gets instant info from the grid through cloud-to-cloud communications, so it can notify people (via the HondaLink EV app) to start charging when electricity demand is low and when renewable energy availability is high.
Ontario kills EV subsidies to reduce gas prices
Last month, Ontario elected a new provincial government; Doug Ford's Conservative Party, which has already begun enacting its key policies. That includes an immediate end to an electric and hydrogen vehicle subsidy, as well as incentive programs for EV chargers. The aim? To gut a cap-and-trade program that was designed to encourage folks to ditch their planet-killing gas guzzlers.
Tesla opens its 10,000th Supercharger
Tesla's Supercharger network has come a long, long way since it was available in a handful of California towns in late 2012. The automaker has opened its 10,000th Supercharger in Belleville, Ontario, Canada as part of a rapid expansion that (as of late May) included roughly 1,000 chargers either in construction or at the permit phase. For context, it took roughly a year and a half for Tesla just to have enough EV charging stations for one coast-to-coast route in the US -- now, Superchargers blanket North America as well as significant stretches of Asia, Australia, Europe and the Middle East.
Pop-up EV charger disappears when it's not being used
Electric vehicles face a lot of challenges in the push for mainstream adoption, and the proximity to domestic charging points is one of them. No problems there if you've got a driveway where you can install a charger, but for those living in built-up areas where on-street parking is the only option, getting an EV is all but out of the question. Enter Urban Electric, a company that's developed EV charging points that literally pop out of the ground.
Ford's electric GoBikes have arrived in San Francisco
Bike-sharing company Motivate is expanding its San Francisco offering to include electric versions of Ford's GoBikes. They'll be available at no extra cost in the same way as Ford's regular GoBikes, which can be unlocked with the accompanying app or via the Clipper card. The roll out will initially include 250 bikes, which are designed to give riders an added boost while pedalling -- up to 18mph in fact -- so you'll still be able to ride in bike lanes.
UK National Grid plans superfast country-wide EV charging network
Range anxiety could soon be a thing of the past for electric vehicle drivers in the UK, as National Grid is proposing a network of superfast charging points that would mean 90 percent of motorists would always be within 50 miles of a charging station. The strategically-placed points would offer up to 350KW of power, drawn directly from the country's high-voltage power grid, which is managed by the company, and could charge a car in between five and 12 minutes -- much faster than the 20 to 40 minutes it currently takes.
Tesla's plan to charge electric semis relies on its customers
Customers have been lining up to order some of Tesla's electric big rigs since the Semi debuted in November, but there is one big question: where will they get charged? According to Reuters, at first the rollout will rely on customers like Pepsi and UPS to build on-site "megachargers" and trucks will be restricted to going back and forth on routes that keep them near home base. Representatives for the companies confirmed they're working with Tesla to build in-house charging locations, however, the plan for a Supercharger-like network that could juice up trucks on the road is a bit fuzzier.
EV chargers are coming to BP petrol stations this year
With the UK government pledging to ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars by 2040, the major fuel giants will need to evolve or face losing a sizeable share of their income to the rising number of alternative energy companies. We've already seen Shell begin installing charging points inside petrol stations in order to satisfy the rising number of EV owners, but it'll soon be joined by rival BP after it announced that it has invested in electric vehicle charging company FreeWire to bring mobile charging units to a select number of forecorts.
Touring France’s EV charging network in the Renault Zoe
The Renault Zoe doesn't grab EV headlines like the Nissan Leaf, Chevy Bolt and Tesla's Model 3, because it's not sold in the US. But with a 41kWh battery that can propel it 300 km, a €23,700 ($29,000) starting price and zippy performance, it's worth learning about the French-made car. I took it on a tour in and around Paris to check out not only the EV itself but France's entire charging network. Cars like the Zoe and the infrastructure are going to be crucial, because the city of Paris plans to ban gas-burning cars by 2030, with the rest of the country following suit by 2040.
Volkswagen plans 2,800 EV charging stations in the US by 2019
Volkswagen has committed to building an EV charging network in the US. By 2019, VW's Electrify America division plans to install 2,800 charging stations in 17 of the country's biggest cities, according to Reuters. It'll cost the automaker some $2 billion, with California getting almost half of the investment. That might sound like a lot of money, but for context, Volkswagen had paid out over $20 billion for its diesel emissions scandal as of this February.
Surface Book 2 can’t stay charged during gaming sessions
The Surface Book 2 is aimed at graphic pros, but with a stout NVIDIA 1060 GPU, it's a tempting gaming machine, too. As we observed during our review, gaming drains the battery pretty fast, though. Worse, The Verge noticed that the power supply can't actually charge the battery fast enough to prevent it from draining in some cases. A Microsoft spokesman has confirmed to The Verge that "in some intense, prolonged gaming scenarios with Power Mode Slider set to 'best performance' the battery may discharge while connected to the power supply."
Olie lamp includes a voice assistant and wireless charging
It seems like everyone is building in Alexa or Google Assistant smarts to their speakers, thermostats and cars these days. If you haven't yet had enough of devices you can talk to, the Olie lamp over at Indiegogo might interest you. It's a cute little desk, floor or table lamp that will have a voice assistant from Amazon or Google and a neat little Qi wireless charging station built right in (to the table-sized Olie).
Major car companies partner for Europe-wide EV charging network
A group of the biggest names in the car industry have announced a joint partnership to develop a Europe-wide high-power charging (HPC) network for electric vehicles. The venture, named IONITY, draws on expertise from BMW, Daimler, Ford, Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche, and aims to launch 400 HPC stations by 2020.
