Electric Mobility News

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.

The central government has sanctioned the use of 5,595 electric buses in 64 cities for intracity and intercity public transportation under the FAME II (Faster Adoption and Manufacture of (Hybrid and) Electric Vehicles) scheme in India. The Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises had invited expression of interest (EoI) from cities with a population in excess of one million; smart cities, states or Union Territory capitals, as well as special category states for submission of the proposal for deployment of electric buses on an operational cost basis. The ministry received about 86 proposals from 26 states and union territories for the deployment of 14,988 electric buses.

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.

Revolt Intellicorp is all set to launch its RV400 electric motorcycle on August 28. The company rolled off the first RV400 model from its Manesar facility recently.

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.

Speaking at Mahindra Group's 73rd annual general meeting, Anand Mahindra suggested certain temporary measures that would have a positive impact on the industry. Short term measure like - reduction or removal of the goods and service tax (GST), revising the registration fee, and reduction of road tax, as short term measure to help revive the auto industry.