Electric Vehicles
Electric trucks and the freight problem
Heavy freight is where battery mass, charging power and duty cycles all bite hardest, and where the answer differs sharply by route length.
Electric Vehicles
Batteries, charging, range and the economics of the transition.
Electric Vehicles
Buying an electric car: what actually to check
A short list of specifications that determine daily experience, most of which are not in the headline figures.
Electric Vehicles
Total cost of ownership: running the numbers properly
Purchase price is the worst comparison available, and the honest calculation depends heavily on where you charge and how long you keep it.
Electric Vehicles
Second-life batteries and recycling
A pack retired from a car still holds most of its capacity. What happens next is an industry that barely exists yet, for a reason.
Electric Vehicles
What the EV transition costs the grid
Total electricity demand rises modestly. Peak demand is the problem, and it is almost entirely a question of when people plug in.
Electric Vehicles
Charging at home: what actually matters
The single decision that determines whether living with an electric car is convenient or tiresome, and it is mostly about electrical supply.
Electric Vehicles
Self-driving levels, and why the numbers mislead
A six-point scale describing who is responsible, routinely used as if it described how good the software is.
Electric Vehicles
Vehicle-to-grid: the idea that keeps not arriving
A parked fleet of electric cars is an enormous distributed battery, and every attempt to use it runs into the same obstacles.
Electric Vehicles
Are EVs actually cleaner? The lifecycle answer
Manufacturing emissions are higher, operating emissions are lower, and the crossover point depends on where you plug it in.
Electric Vehicles
Charging infrastructure: the problems that are not technical
Chargers fail for reasons of payment systems, grid connections and maintenance contracts far more often than for reasons of engineering.
Electric Vehicles
Battery chemistry, without the marketing
Every chemistry trades energy density against cost, longevity, safety and materials. There is no chemistry that wins on all of them.
Electric Vehicles
What actually limits charging speed
A charger rated at 350 kW and a car that peaks at 250 will not give you either number for very long.
Electric Vehicles
Why EV range figures never match your dashboard
The number on the sticker comes from a laboratory cycle. The number on your screen comes from a Tuesday in February.