Apart from effort to electrify, there were geopolitical tensions around climate science and the 1.5C goal at pre-Cop31 climate talks

Electrifying the world – with electric vehicles, electric heating and cooling, and modernised heavy industry – could be the next biggest step towards phasing out fossil fuels, replacing the 80% of global energy that still comes from hydrocarbons. As using electrical energy is much more efficient than combustion, the move would save billions of dollars for consumers and businesses – global energy demand could be halved, according to one estimate.

For decades, electrification has been a nerdish backwater of global climate action. But in the last two weeks, at preparatory talks in Bonn before the forthcoming UN Cop31 climate summit, the subject finally took centre stage.

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© Photograph: Filip Singer/EPA

© Photograph: Filip Singer/EPA

© Photograph: Filip Singer/EPA

Robotaxis Recalled From Highways Waymo has recalled nearly 4,000 robotaxis and pulled them off highways while it works

One of the most hotly anticipated electric vehicles makes its formal debut next week. It's the Blank Slate, a refreshingly simple pickup truck EV designed by Slate Auto, which is trying to take some of the soaring cost out of a new car with a back-to-basics approach that means even electric windows are an optional extra. Of course, a crucial aspect of this pared-back approach is pricing.

Plenty of people are attracted to the idea of a truck with a compact footprint, no infotainment system or embedded modem, and the option to upconvert it later into an SUV or fastback. In the abstract, at least, people aren't going to jump at the prospect of a truck with 150 miles (241 km) of range if it costs too much.

When Slate broke cover in 2025, it was targeting a price of around $20,000, assuming the $7,500 IRS clean vehicle tax credit would remain in effect, but it was abolished later that year.

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Has the allure of the Porsche Taycan waned? The four-door electric sedan that thinks it's a GT sold well for the first few years after its introduction in 2020, but sales began to slip even before the brand added the smaller, more affordable Macan SUV to its electric lineup. The EV underwent its midlife refresh a couple of years ago, but it seems Stuttgart wasn't done yet; Porsche has some more tweaks for model year 2027, at least for the US market.

For one thing, the 105 kWh performance battery is standard across the Taycan range now—which starts at $111,900—and can charge at up to 320 kW with an 800 V DC fast charger.

And as long as you're not ordering the stripped-out Turbo GT with the Weissach Pack, there's a new plug for that—the CCS1 port that usually lives on the passenger side has been replaced by a NACS port. So no adapter is needed to charge at any of those thousands of Tesla superchargers, but only a small percentage of them operate at sufficient voltage to charge near the Taycan's limit. But IONNA has native NACS chargers capable of 400 kW, and Porsche will provide a CCS1 adapter to use with Electrify America and other 800 V chargers.

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Against all odds, the Tesla Cybercab is in production. And while Elon Musk's company may not have a very coherent plan for the tiny, autonomous two-seater, it's still taking the necessary steps to certify the EV's legitimacy. As such, Tesla recently filed paperwork with the Environmental Protection Agency that reveal many of the Cybercab's specs, including its weight, battery size, and preliminary range estimates.

What these documents reveal is the lightest, most range efficient vehicle Tesla has ever produced - and quite possibly one of the most efficient EVs ever produced.

The EPA filings confirm the Cybercab runs on a single front-mou …

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The driving technology company Mobileye plans to launch a robotaxi service in an as-yet-unnamed US city in 2027, it said earlier today. The service will be vertically integrated, using Mobileye's Moovit mobility platform to interact with customers booking rides, coordinate drivers, and so on. The Israeli company, which was bought by Intel in 2017 before going public again in 2022, says it will start with around 100 robotaxis early next year.

"Mobileye has spent more than two decades building the technologies required for autonomous driving," said Amnon Shashua, founder and CEO of Mobileye. "Today we are taking the next step: combining those technologies with operational ownership to create a financially and geographically scalable robotaxi business designed from the ground up for global deployment."

The company first rose to prominence in the mid-2010s, when Tesla began using Mobileye's advanced driving assistance systems (ADAS) as part of Autopilot. That relationship lasted until 2016, when Mobileye dropped Tesla as a customer after being alarmed that a driver assistance system was being sold to end users as driverless technology. Since then, Mobileye has continued to work with other partners on ADAS and autonomous vehicles.

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Just in time for Le Mans, BMW is pulling the cover off its new M performance concept built on the Bavarian automaker's Neue Klasse next-generation architecture.

The concept is the debut of a new design language for BMW's M division, signaling a shift toward a more electrified future. The company says it is built on the guiding principle "Born on the racetrack. Made for the streets," bridging BMW's motorsports heritage with its next-generation EV technology.

Marketing bromides aside, the new concept is a two-door sedan with powerful proportions, precise lines, wide wheel arches, and a muscular shoulder section. It's also an introduction to …

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Uber One, meet Waymo Premier.

The robotaxi operator announced a new $29.99-a-month premium tier for riders who want a more elevated and exclusive autonomous experience. The invite-only membership service is aimed at Waymo customers who use the service most frequently, offering them a number of perks, including priority pickups, 10 percent cash back on every trip, early robotaxi access in new cities, and up to five free cancellations a month.

Waymo Premier will be initially offered to select riders in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix, the company said. The program will scale to new cities as Waymo continues to expand; the company h …

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Chinese EV colossus BYD has announced plans to speed up its conquest of the European auto market with the rollout of superfast Flash Chargers across the continent. BYD has already installed the first new chargers in Germany and the UK, and plans to roll out 3,000 across Europe by the end of next year.

At an estimated cost of €580,000 (about $670,000) per charger according to the Financial Times, that would mean a total spend of roughly $2 billion to install the network. The 1,500kW charging stations are significantly more powerful than Tesla's 500kW V4 Superchargers, though Tesla already has 20,000 chargers installed in Europe. BYD, which h …

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Waymo has a lot of experience building virtual systems to help its autonomous vehicles better understand the real world. It built realistic 3D worlds to better anticipate natural disasters and unpredictable edge cases. It created a virtual representation of a hyperattentive driver to test against its own autonomous vehicles in a series of simulated scenarios to see which is better at crash avoidance.

Now, in a new research paper published today in Nature Communications, Waymo describes a new computer-based cognitive model that explains how human drivers make split-second decisions to avoid crashes. The company thinks the new model will serv …

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Third of world’s energy needs should come from electricity by 2035, says Murat Kurum, as priorities set out for this year’s UN climate summit

The world should aim to meet a third of its energy needs from electricity within a decade to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the host of the next UN climate summit has said.

While about a third of global electricity generation already comes from renewable sources, other energy-intensive sectors – chiefly transport, heating and industries – have lagged behind. Close to four-fifths of final energy still comes from fossil fuels, as a result.

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© Photograph: Images By Tang Ming Tung/Getty Images

© Photograph: Images By Tang Ming Tung/Getty Images

© Photograph: Images By Tang Ming Tung/Getty Images

Thousands of electric vehicles in Waymo’s autonomous robotaxi fleet may eventually give up their used batteries for a very different purpose—contributing up to hundreds of megawatt-hours of stationary energy storage to local power grids.

That prospect comes from a “strategic supply agreement” announced by Waymo and B2U Storage Solutions on June 4. B2U has been repurposing thousands of used batteries from various electric vehicles by installing them in large stationary energy storage projects. Such energy storage facilities can capture excess renewable energy during low demand periods and release such energy when local power grids are experiencing peak demand periods.

“Our business is getting the full residual value out of electric vehicle batteries after they're no longer suitable for automotive use,” Freeman Hall, CEO of B2U Storage Solution, told Ars. “Waymo puts a lot of miles on EVs and their model is expanding rapidly, and so we're just very pleased and honored to be able to work with them.”

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Aviation start-ups and the Trump administration want to replace helicopters with electric aircraft, but the new vehicles still have to pass arduous tests before the public can use them.