Friday, 17 July 2026

Xiaomi confirmed that Sky Nomad is a new product series under Xiaomi EV rather than a standalone sub-brand, according to Electrek. The first model in the series is a full-size SUV codenamed Kunlun N3 that measures more than 5.3 meters long, Electrek reported.

The SUV pairs a battery pack larger than 70 kWh with a gasoline engine used purely as a generator, according to Electrek. The battery delivers 400 to 500 km of electric-only range, and the engine extends total range past 1,500 km.

Pricing for the Sky Nomad SUV is expected to start as low as 200,000 yuan, about USD 29,400, according to Electrek. That would undercut the Li Auto L9 and Aito M9, which both sit above 250,000 yuan.

The series arrives after China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology cleared Xiaomi to build extended-range vehicles at its Beijing plant on June 10, Electrek reported.

Xiaomi aims to deliver 550,000 vehicles in 2026, about 34% above the roughly 410,000 it delivered in 2025, according to Electrek. Xiaomi EV delivered 185,055 vehicles in the first half of 2026, about 34% of that annual goal.

US electric vehicle sales reached 247,226 units in Q2, up 14.7% from the first quarter, according to Kelley Blue Book. More than 463,000 EVs were sold in the country in the first half of 2026.

Tesla held 50.5% of the US EV market and remained the clear leader by a wide margin, according to Electrek, even as its sales fell about 10% from a year earlier. The Tesla Model 3 placed second with 66,616 units, with sales slipping 34%.

Outside Tesla, the Hyundai IONIQ 5 was the best-selling EV in the US over the first half of 2026, with 20,730 units sold, according to Electrek.

EV sales are still recovering after the USD 7,500 federal tax credit expired last September, according to Electrek. Toyota confirmed this week that it is delaying production of the 2027 Highlander BEV, its first three-row electric SUV.

BYD has revealed a longer version of its Seagull electric car starting at 69,800 yuan, or about $10,000, according to Electrek. That price makes it BYD's smallest and most affordable electric car in China.

The new model appeared in the latest batch of new energy vehicles approved for sale by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), Electrek reported.

The redesigned Seagull measures 4,205 mm in length, 1,810 mm in width and 1,570 mm in height, with a 2,650 mm wheelbase, according to Electrek. That is considerably longer than the current Seagull, which measures 3,780 mm.

BYD also fitted a more powerful drivetrain. The new Seagull carries a 95 kW (127 hp) electric motor, up from the 55 kW (75 hp) motor in the current model, per Electrek.

The current Seagull is offered with two battery options, according to Electrek. The 30.08 kWh pack delivers a CLTC range of up to 305 km (190 miles), while the 38.88 kWh pack reaches up to 405 km (251 miles).

BYD launched the 2026 Seagull in China in May, equipped with a roof-mounted LiDAR that Electrek described as a first in its class.

Abroad, the vehicle is sold as the Dolphin Surf. The electric hatch starts at GBP 18,675 ($25,000) in the United Kingdom and EUR 22,990 ($26,000) in Europe, according to Electrek.

Tony Weber, CEO of the Federal Automotive Industry lobby group, has acknowledged that Australia is going through a paradigm shift in its car market, according to CleanTechnica.

Weber, long sceptical of electric vehicles, told CleanTechnica the Australian automotive market has shifted on its axis during the first months of 2026.

Tesla's main account said Cybercab employee rides at Giga Texas will begin soon, Electrek reported.

The company's Robotaxi account posted a July 10 clip showing a gold Cybercab moving on its own across the outbound lot at Gigafactory Texas, according to Electrek. The vehicle had butterfly doors raised and carried no steering wheel or pedals.

Electrek counted more than 100 finished Cybercabs parked in that same outbound lot.

The rides pitch arrives while Tesla's supervised robotaxi service in Austin logs a higher crash frequency than human drivers, Electrek reported. That fleet records about one crash every 57,000 miles, roughly four times the human benchmark of one per 229,000 miles.

The Austin service still uses Model Y cars staffed with safety monitors, and city officials sized it at about 50 vehicles a year after launch, Electrek reported.

Tesla has acknowledged its driver-assistance software needs a ground-up rewrite before it can operate an unsupervised vehicle without anyone behind the wheel, according to Electrek.

Chery has started locally assembling its V23 electric SUV in Thailand, according to electrive. The move makes Thailand the second country in the ASEAN region after Indonesia where the automaker offers a locally assembled V23.

Chery has planned a total investment of about 5 billion baht, roughly EUR 131 million, and targets annual production capacity of 80,000 units by 2028 at its Thai plant, electrive reported. The company deepens its presence in a market where it first sold the retro-styled model as an import.

According to electrive, Chery launched the V23 in Thailand in September 2025 with prices from 699,900 baht to 889,900 baht, roughly EUR 18,300 to EUR 23,300. The automaker has sold more than 5,500 units in Thailand and is ready to handle monthly demand of more than 1,000 units, electrive reported.

The single-motor rear-wheel-drive V23 produces 100 kW and 180 Nm of torque, drawing on a 59.93 kWh battery pack, according to electrive. That setup accelerates the vehicle from 0 to 100 km/h in 11 seconds, reaches a top speed of 140 km/h, and travels 360 kilometres on a single charge under the NEDC standard.

JSW Motors plans to launch a rebadged version of the V23 in India in 2028 and will assemble it at an upcoming factory in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Maharashtra, electrive reported.

Austria registered 40,060 new battery-electric passenger cars in the first half of the year, 27 percent more than in the same period a year earlier, according to electrive. That total drew nearly level with petrol cars, which accounted for 40,509 new registrations over the same six months.

Pure electric cars reached a 24.3 percent share of all new passenger car registrations in the first six months, electrive reported. Petrol registrations were almost identical to the previous year's figure, leaving the two fuel types close to parity.

Momentum built through the period. In June, 8,993 new battery-electric cars were registered, a 44 percent increase compared with June 2025, according to electrive. That pushed the monthly battery-electric share above 26 percent for the first time, reaching 26.3 percent.

Manuela Lenk, Director General of Statistical Methods at Statistik Austria, said the upward trend in new passenger car registrations has persisted for a full year and gained further momentum in June 2026.

The overall passenger car market also expanded. Austria recorded 164,529 registrations in the first half, a 15 percent increase compared with the first half of 2025, electrive reported.

Tesla led the battery-electric market in the first half with a 10.6 percent share, according to electrive. Skoda followed at 10.5 percent, with BMW at 9.9 percent and BYD at 9.8 percent, leaving the top four separated by less than a percentage point.

Germany is proposing legislation that would make rental e-scooter operators such as Lime and Bolt directly liable for damages caused by their vehicles, according to Electrek.

Under the plan, strict liability would fall on rental operators as the registered owners of the scooters, Electrek reported. Riders would be presumed at fault unless they can demonstrate otherwise.

The proposal covers rental e-scooters and certain self-balancing vehicles, but not electric bicycles, according to Electrek.

The measure follows sharp growth in the fleet. The number of insured e-scooters in Germany grew from around 180,000 in 2020 to nearly one million by 2023, Electrek reported, citing local media. Over the same stretch, third-party damage claims climbed from roughly 1,150 to 5,000 annually.

Rental scooters are overrepresented in that claim volume. According to Electrek, rental scooters made up only about 20% of insured scooters in 2023 but were involved in approximately 40% of insurance claims.

Other cities have moved to remove shared scooters outright. Electrek reported that Paris voted to eliminate rental e-scooters in 2023, Madrid revoked operators' licenses in 2024, and Prague removed shared scooters earlier this year. Brussels is set to do the same in 2027.

Heerema Marine Contractors trimmed the North Atlantic transit time of its semi-submersible crane vessel Sleipnir by 2.5 days after a voyage optimization pilot with French ocean intelligence company Amphitrite, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The pilot cut sailing distance by 240 nautical miles and lowered carbon dioxide emissions by up to 18%, according to OEDigital. The vessel held higher average sailing speeds without increasing fuel consumption during the crossing.

Sleipnir was sailing from Rotterdam to New York to install an offshore wind substation when the pilot ran, according to OEDigital. The vessel carries a lifting capacity of 20,000 metric tonnes.

On the return crossing, the system routed the vessel toward the Gulf Stream, where favorable ocean currents lifted its speed over ground to 14.6 knots, according to OEDigital.

Amphitrite's vessel-specific voyage optimization platform was trained on five years of operational data supplied by Heerema, according to OEDigital.

"Improving fleet efficiency is fundamental to our decarbonization strategy," said Alejandro Velez Isaza, Decarbonization Engineer at Heerema Marine Contractors.

Vimag Labs won an Indian patent for an electric motor that runs without rare-earth magnets, relying on power electronics to create its magnetic field, according to Electrek.

The company closed a $5 million Series A, with Accel leading the round and Chakra Growth Fund and Thinkuvate joining as investors, Electrek reported. Chief executive and co-founder Manish Seth, who launched Vimag Labs in September 2025, said the patent reflects more than 87,600 engineering hours.

Vimag is aiming its motor at industrial systems rated between 200 kW and 600 kW, alongside robotics, defense, and cooling uses, according to Electrek.

Magnet-free designs sidestep a supply chain that sits largely in one country. The International Energy Agency reports that China handled roughly 91% of global rare-earth refining and separation and 94% of sintered permanent-magnet production in 2024.

That concentration has driven trade friction. China placed export controls on seven heavy rare-earth elements and associated magnets in April 2025, Electrek reported. On November 7, 2025, China paused its October de minimis expansion for one year under a wider trade truce.

Other magnet-free motor developers remain further from market. Valeo does not expect to commercialize its magnet-free 'iBEE' motor until 2028, according to Electrek.

Airport operator daa has installed a pantograph charging system to run 14 zero-emission shuttle buses operated by Aircoach, electrive reported. Electrive described the setup as the first such system in Ireland, letting the buses top up at scheduled stops along the route instead of depending only on depot charging.

Each vehicle holds up to 120 passengers per trip, and the fleet moves roughly 2.5 million passengers a year between the airport car parks and its terminals, according to electrive.

A grant of EUR 4.7 million from the European Commission covered part of the cost, routed through the Connecting Europe Facility - Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Facility, electrive reported. Aircoach put in EUR 11 million of its own toward the electric fleet.

daa estimates that swapping diesel buses for electric ones cuts more than 1,470 tonnes of CO2e each year.

The airport said 82 per cent of its light commercial fleet, spanning cars and vans, has already moved to low-emission vehicles.