Wednesday, 22 July 2026

The SAIC-GM Wuling Starlight L plug-in hybrid delivers about 260 km, or roughly 160 miles, on battery power alone, according to Electrek.

Electrek put the price of the Wuling Starlight L Flagship at 132,800 yuan, or about USD 19,900.

That range comes from a 37.9 kWh lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery pack, Electrek reported.

Under the hood, a 106 hp 1.5-liter Atkinson-cycle engine works alongside an electric drive motor, and the two together produce 170 kW, or about 230 hp, according to Electrek.

Tesla submitted four fresh Robotaxi crash reports to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), one of them a Houston collision in which a remote operator steered the car into a tree stump, according to Electrek.

On that Houston report, Tesla entered the Driver/Operator Type as Remote (Commercial / Test), the first such entry across its 22 unique Automated Driving System (ADS) incident reports, Electrek reported. Electrek described it as the first crash Tesla has formally coded as remote operation in a filing.

The Houston damage stayed light. The report logged property damage only, with no injuries, no airbag deployment, and no tow, at a pre-crash speed of 2 mph, according to Electrek.

A second of the four filings covers Dallas, the first crash Tesla has reported in that city, Electrek said. The circumstances mirror a September 2025 Austin case in which a Model Y turned into a parking lot entrance and struck a metal chain at 6 mph.

The crash tallies move with fleet size. Robotaxi Tracker data cited in a June analysis put Tesla at three active vehicles in Houston, seven in Dallas, and 16 in Austin, Electrek reported. Austin accounted for two crashes in this set of filings.

For comparison on the record, Waymo told Senator Ed Markey in a February 2026 letter that it has not used remote driving or tele-operations where a human performs the Dynamic Driving Task, according to Electrek.

Škoda will deliver 52 battery-trolleybuses to the Esslingen Municipal Transport Authority, according to electrive. The full fleet is due to arrive by the end of 2026.

Of the total, ten are 12-metre 32Tr solo vehicles and 42 are articulated 33Tr models. Each solo unit carries a 135 kWh battery; each articulated bus runs a 156 kWh battery and drives two axles. Off the wires, the buses can cover up to 25 kilometres on battery power alone, Škoda says.

The order sits at the centre of Esslingen's plan to run its entire urban bus service on electric power by the end of 2026. To support that, the city is lengthening its overhead line network, which currently runs about 29 kilometres, by another five kilometres.

Total spending on the switch tops €64 million. Federal funding of roughly €27 million covers 42 of the buses plus the network extension, and Baden-Württemberg is putting in €1.43 million towards six more vehicles. Beyond the confirmed order, the contract carries an option for nine further buses.

Plugin electric vehicles took a 67.0% share of the Swedish auto market in Q2 2026, up from 62.5% in Q2 2025, according to CleanTechnica.

Overall Q2 auto volume in Sweden reached 79,891 units, up about 22% year on year, CleanTechnica reported.

Battery electric vehicle share grew strongly year on year, and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles also grew, according to CleanTechnica.

The Vietnamese port city of Hai Phong has taken delivery of 99 VinFast VF 8 electric SUVs for use across its administration, according to electrive.

The fleet was bought through a public tender awarded to the Au Lac-Thang Long Joint Venture, electrive reported. The winning bid came in at nearly 84 billion dong, roughly 5 billion dong under the tender's maximum approved value, a margin of 5.5 percent.

Of the city's 114 communes, wards and special zones, 98 received vehicles from the batch, according to electrive.

The purchase forms part of Hai Phong's plan to shift all buses and public vehicles, apart from specialised ones, to electric or other green-energy models by 2030.

The VF 8 has sold modestly at home. VinFast delivered 175,099 EVs in Vietnam last year, and the VF 8, VF 9 and Lac Hong models together made up 13,962 of them, according to electrive.

VinFast rolled out the second-generation VF 8 in May at a starting price of 999 million dong, or about EUR 33,200, with the first deliveries due this month, electrive reported.

GM has wired ChargePoint into its Energy Pass app, so drivers of its electric vehicles can locate, activate, and settle charging sessions at ChargePoint sites through the myChevrolet, myGMC, and myCadillac apps, Electrek reported.

ChargePoint runs close to 80,000 public charging ports across the US, a count that breaks down into roughly 75,000 Level 2 ports and upward of 4,400 DC fast-charging ports, Electrek said, citing federal Alternative Fuels Data Center figures from early 2026.

That footprint puts about 60% of the country's public Level 2 chargers within reach of GM drivers through the tie-up, per Electrek. GM expects the app to cover around 70% of US DC fast chargers once its planned network integrations take effect, Electrek reported.

A share of the ChargePoint sites reachable through Energy Pass work with Plug & Charge, where the vehicle and charger settle authentication and payment on their own once the connector is in, according to Electrek.

Honda has confirmed it will discontinue the Prologue in North America, according to CleanTechnica, ending sales of its only battery-electric vehicle in the region.

The Prologue was Honda's sole battery-electric model in North America, CleanTechnica reported.

The move leaves the automaker without a mainstream all-electric passenger model in the region once dealer inventories are exhausted in early 2027, according to CleanTechnica.

Tesla has opened its first full-scale public Megacharger station for the Semi in Bloomington, California, with six charging stalls delivering up to 1.2 MW each, according to electrive. The site supports the latest-generation Tesla Semi with the MC2 charging connector.

The station sits at 18434 Valley Boulevard in Bloomington, electrive reported. Zach Lawson, Business Development at Tesla Charging, said on LinkedIn that Tesla has opened the first public Tesla Megacharger in the world in Bloomington, CA, adding that the Tesla Semi and Megacharger would soon be ubiquitous.

At a Megacharger, the Tesla Semi can recharge up to 60% of its battery in 30 minutes, according to electrive. The truck recently entered series production.

The Bloomington site marks a step up from an earlier Tesla Megacharger in Ontario, which electrive said had two stalls fitted with the first-generation MC1 connector and delivered a maximum charging power of 750 kW. That site had initially been regarded as Tesla's first public Megacharger location.

Under previous company plans, the Megacharger network is expected to comprise at least 64 locations across the United States, with a possible expansion into Canada at a later stage, electrive reported.

Solar Team Eindhoven, a student group at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, has built a solar-powered ambulance named Stella Juva, which the team says is the world's first, according to pv magazine.

The vehicle runs on a 50 kWh battery paired with 542 solar cells, pv magazine reported. Of those cells, 326 are integrated into the roof and 216 are mounted on extendable solar panels.

Stella Juva measures 5 m by 1.9 m and weighs 1,350 kg, with a top speed of 120 km/h, according to pv magazine. It uses a self-developed solar inverter with a reported efficiency of 97%.

The ambulance can operate a range of medical equipment, pv magazine reported, including a vaccine and medicine cooler, a portable X-ray machine, an ultrasound device, a blood pressure monitor, a thermometer, and an automated external defibrillator.

The team plans to travel to Kenya in August to simulate healthcare delivery scenarios using the vehicle, according to pv magazine.