Wednesday, 9 September 2026

Greater electrification of transport could reduce Europe's import dependency by nearly a quarter by 2040, according to CleanTechnica.

The figure lands as Europe prepares to set the shape of its renewable energy framework for the decade after 2030, CleanTechnica reported. That decision ties the pace of road transport electrification to a supply-security question rather than to emissions accounting alone: electricity drawn from domestic generation displaces imported energy, and CleanTechnica puts the scale of that displacement at close to one quarter of the continent's import dependency.

VinBus, a Vingroup-owned public transport operator, has put 50 electric school buses into service in Quang Ninh City, Vietnam, according to electrive.

The free service began on 5 September, the first day of the 2026-2027 school year, and Quang Ninh City says it is the first locality in Vietnam to introduce such a scheme, electrive reported.

Operations run on six main routes from Monday to Friday, with Saturday service on some routes, and cover around 2,000 students from 22 educational institutes, per electrive.

The vehicle chosen is the VinFast EB 6, described by electrive as the smallest electric bus in the VinFast line-up at 6.2 metres long, 2.2 metres wide and 2.9 metres high.

Each bus carries a 179.5 kWh LFP battery pack and a single rear-mounted motor rated at 140 kW and 420 Nm, according to electrive. The pack accepts charging at up to 120 kW and needs 70 minutes to go from 20% to 80% state of charge.

Range is up to 340 kilometres on a single charge, with a top speed of 90 km/h, electrive reported.

Nearly USD 74 billion in manufacturing investment is still moving ahead in the Southeast, Grist reported, even as federal policy has turned against electric vehicles.

The Trump administration ended federal EV tax credits and imposed tariffs on battery packs, charger hardware and other components, according to Grist. The same report says the administration loosened rules on emissions from gas-powered cars and ended the Biden administration's push to electrify government vehicle fleets.

Product plans at existing sites have shifted. Hyundai has added hybrid production to the lineup at its plant near Savannah, a facility originally built to make EVs, Grist reported.

Utility spending in the region has moved the other way. EV-related investment by utilities across the region rose 14% this year, according to the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy as cited by Grist.

Enforcement action has also hit the sector's workforce. Federal immigration agents raided an electric vehicle battery plant in Georgia a year ago and arrested more than 400 people, most of them South Korean workers who were there to help get the new factory off the ground, Grist reported.

Rivian broke ground on its manufacturing plant near Atlanta in 2025, according to the same report.

Toyota is recalling roughly 10,000 electric C-HR vehicles in North America, according to Electrek.

The action covers certain model-year 2026 C-HR units, and the remedy is a software fix rather than a hardware replacement: technicians at Toyota dealerships will update the battery electronic control unit (ECU) software on affected cars, Electrek reported.

Owners will be contacted in early November 2026, per Electrek.

Lidl will put GBP 10 million into its UK electric vehicle charging network in the current financial year, according to electrive.

Around 100 new rapid chargers will go in at existing Lidl stores in the UK under that spending, electrive reported.

The retailer calculates that its lower charging rate could save drivers about GBP 4.41 per session against the market average, which it puts at roughly GBP 529 a year for regular users, according to electrive.

Rapid charging is currently available at about one-third of Lidl GB stores, per electrive.

Lidl owns its charge points outright rather than relying on third-party operators, electrive reported.

Enercity and Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles have logged their first successful trading result from a vehicle-to-grid pilot in Hanover, according to electrive, with revenue in the low three-digit range after several months of shadow trading.

The pilot uses twelve VW ID. Buzz vehicles drawn from Enercity's service fleet, electrive reported. The partners are testing whether electricity held in the vans' batteries can be fed back into the public grid and sold on the electricity market.

Fleet size is what makes the trading leg possible. "Our twelve ID. Buzz vehicles together provide more than 0.1 megawatts, putting us above the required minimum size," the project said, per electrive.

Moving from a single fleet to wider deployment runs into administrative plumbing rather than hardware. Von Butler said more than 700 grid operators will have to adapt their billing systems, metering point operators need to supply suitable meters, and installers must put the required infrastructure in place for customers, according to electrive.

Twenty-five class 8 battery-electric semi trucks will run the Houston-Dallas freight corridor as part of a planned 63-truck fleet that Google calls the largest known development of class 8 battery zero-emission trucks in Texas, according to electrive.

Google expects the full fleet to cover roughly 11 million miles (17 million km) each year and to avoid 92,000 metric tons of CO2, electrive reported.

The operating roles are split between two partners. Nevoya will act as the carrier running the trucks, while Greenlane Infrastructure builds the charging network along the route.

Nevoya has been on the lane since January, when it started rolling out 40 battery-electric Freightliner eCascadia trucks under GMA's first procurement programme, according to electrive.

Greenlane set out its side of the corridor in May, announcing dedicated electric truck charging sites in Houston and Dallas. Each site is planned with six to eight pull-through charging lanes handling both CCS and MCS charging, electrive reported.