Electric Cars News

Hyundai has announced its key line-up from the upcoming 2019 Frankfurt Motor Show. In addition to the global public debut of the next-generation Hyundai Grand i10 (known as just i10 in Europe), the South Korean carmaker will have two new electric concepts as well.

Tesla Inc has stood by safety claims for its Model 3 in the face of regulatory scrutiny, while documents showed the top U.S. automotive safety watchdog issued at least five subpoenas since last year seeking information about crashes involving the company's vehicles.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo said on Thursday he signed a decree that lays out government support to build an electric vehicle (EV) industry in Southeast Asia's largest economy, the Cabinet Secretariat said in a statement. Widodo did not elaborate, but a draft of the decree reviewed by Reuters ahead of the signing showed it contained a series of incentives to boost production and purchase of EVs. Widodo said in the statement that the key to the EV industry is in the construction of the batteries they run on and the "raw materials to make a battery: cobalt, manganese and others, we have in this country."

A Tesla Inc owner has filed a lawsuit against the electric vehicle maker, claiming the company limited the battery range of older vehicles via a software update to avoid a costly recall to fix what plaintiffs allege are defective batteries.

Audi revealed its all-electric SUV, the e-Tron recently in India and the model has now received a new entry-level variant for the international markets. Dubbed as the Audi e-Tron 50 Quattro, the base version is the lighter and more affordable iteration of the SUV that will sport a more accessible price too. This has been made possible largely due to the use of a smaller battery, compared to the one used on the range-topping e-Tron 55 variant, which helps weight savings of around 120 kg over the latter's 2565 kg kerb weight. The 71 kWh lithium-ion battery pack that limits the range to 300 km on a single charge in the WLTP test cycle.

The FAME II (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles) scheme came as reassurance for electric carmakers and reaffirmed that EVs are at the top of the government's agenda. Furthermore, Niti Aayog's proposal to impose a ban on combustion engine powered commuter motorcycles (below 150cc) and then the budget council moderating GST rates on EVs and promising certain incentive, built up on the plan and prompted carmakers like Hyundai and Audi to foray into the Indian EV space. However, we were still waiting for some news from established Indian EV makers. Finally, the pioneer in the Indian EV market- Mahindra has decided to play catch up and will launch its EVs which we already knew, were in the pipeline.

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Administration sent Tesla Inc.'s Elon Musk a cease-and-desist letter last year regarding Model 3 safety claims and subpoenaed the carmaker for information on several crashes, according to documents posted by a nonprofit advocacy group.

The California based carmaker in a tweet has confirmed reintroducing the unlimited free charging scheme on the Model S and Model X. At present, Tesla owners in the US need to pay $ 0.28 (28 cents) per kWh or $ 0.13 (13 cents) to $ 0.26 (26 cents) per minute for using a supercharger. This means a full charge on a Tesla Model S through a supercharger would cost $ 19.5 which is over Rs. 1300 in Indian currency. The free charging service is available to Model S and Model X owners only and Model 3 owners will need to pay for the service.