The Zaragoza, Spain City Council is ordering 68 Irizar e-mobility electric buses—51 12-meter units and 17 articulated. These buses will be progressively incorporated into the service from the last half of next year and will be operated by Avanza. This is the largest electric bus project to date for Irizar... Read more →

Germany will invest some €227 million to support the electrification of rail, with a focus on batteries and hydrogen fuel cells, including charging and refueling infrastructure. Currently, 61% of the rail network in Germany is electrified with overhead lines. Conventional rail vehicles with diesel engines are currently used almost exclusively... Read more →

FCC Medio Ambiente and Irizar will start production of the first 10 Irizar ie urban electric trucks to be used for collection of refuse. Production of these 10 units includes 4×2 and 6×2 of two and three-axle versions. The Irizar ie urban truck incorporates in-house technology developed by the Irizar... Read more →

The European Commission’s Joint Research Center (JRC) published a policy brief showing that delivery of large amounts of renewable hydrogen over long distances could be cost-effective. This finding is important because access to sufficient amounts of renewable hydrogen at low cost is essential for achieving a climate neutral Europe by... Read more →

A new study by Delta-EE, a specialist new energy research & consulting company, has found that the total announced project capacity of the rapidly growing European hydrogen electrolyzer market would take the green hydrogen sector to 2.7 GW by 2025—a nearly 50-fold increase on capacity built over the last ten... Read more →

Average emissions from new passenger cars in Europe increased for the third consecutive year in 2019, reaching 122.3 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometrer (g CO2/km), according to the European Environment Agency’s (EEA) final data. Data about newly registered vans show a stable trend. Key reasons include the growth in the sport... Read more →

European new car registrations were up by 261% in April 2021 (registering 1,029,008 units) from April 2020, but still far from pre-pandemic levels—down by 23% from April 2019, according to figures from JATO Dynamics. According to JATO data for 26 markets across the region, April 2021 recorded the lowest total... Read more →

Total greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union (EU) decreased by 3.8% in 2019, according to latest official data published by the European Environment Agency (EEA). These data confirm the EEA’s preliminary estimates, published in October 2020. The large decline in emissions, achieved before the COVID-19 crisis, was mainly due... Read more →

ESB and dCarbonX have signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the joint assessment and development of Irish offshore green hydrogen subsurface storage. This partnership represents another milestone in Ireland’s emerging hydrogen economy as part of its transition to a low-carbon future. Under this agreement, ESB and dCarbonX will work together... Read more →

As part of the UK’s Royal Mail’s continued drive to reduce emissions associated with its operations, it has converted the last-mile fleet of a Bristol Delivery Office to be 100% electric. The Bristol East Central Delivery Office, located in the City’s Easton area, has had its 23 entire fleet of... Read more →

The European Commission’s Joint Research Center recently published a report analyzing research and innovation (R&I) in low-emission alternative energy for transport in Europe. The analysis focuses on selected EU-funded projects from TRIMIS with end dates from 2019 onwards. The Transport Research and Innovation Monitoring and Information System (TRIMIS) is the... Read more →

Germany’s Federal Ministry of Economics (BMWi) and the Federal Ministry of Transport (BMVI) selected 62 large-scale hydrogen projects this week, which are to be state-funded as part of a joint European hydrogen project (Important Project of Common European Interest, IPCEI). We are making Germany a hydrogen country. In doing so,... Read more →

Germany’s Federal Council has passed the “Law for the Provision of Comprehensive Fast Charging Infrastructure for Pure Battery Electric Vehicles”, or SchnellLG for short. With this law, the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) has the legal basis for the targeted expansion of a Germany-wide network of fast-charging... Read more →

PEUGEOT has become one of the first manufacturers to offer in series production, from 2021 onwards in the compact utility van segment, an electric version powered by a hydrogen fuel cell in addition to its battery-electric version. The new PEUGEOT e-EXPERT Hydrogen includes a new mid-power plug-in hydrogen fuel cell... Read more →

Rio Tinto and InoBat, a European battery technology and manufacturing company, signed a Memorandum of Understanding to work together to accelerate the establishment of a “cradle-to-cradle” battery manufacturing and recycling value chain in Serbia. The partnership will cover the full commodity life-cycle from mining through to recycling of lithium. Rio... Read more →

The European Association of Automobile Manufacturers (ACEA) has published an interactive map showing the number of truck-specific hydrogen refueling stations required in Europe (the 27 EU member states plus the UK) by 2025 and 2030 for each country. Full interactive map is here. The first hydrogen fuel‐cell electric vehicles are... Read more →

Germany is adding another €100 million to its successful promotion of private charging stations for electric cars in residential buildings, bringing the total to €500 million. Purchase and installation of the wallboxes are supported with a grant of €900. So far, around 385,000 applications for around 470,000 charging points have... Read more →

Fuel tankering in commercial aviation is the practice of overfueling with less expensive fuel purchased at one airport to avoid purchasing more expensive fuel at another—in other words, flying with extra fuel on board to save money. Calculating the benefit of tankering is highly flight-specific; extra fuel increases the takeoff... Read more →

In the first quarter of 2021, hybrid electric vehicles made up 18.4% of total passenger car sales in the EU, almost doubling their market share in a year, according to data from the European Association of Automobile Manufacturers (ACEA). Demand for electrically-chargeable cars also increased in Q1: battery-electric vehicles made... Read more →

Nikola Corporation, IVECO and OGE have entered into a letter of intent for a collaboration to establish a business structure for transporting hydrogen via pipeline network from production sources to hydrogen fueling stations in support of fuel-cell electric vehicles (FCEVs). The collaboration is expected to enable cost-effective distribution of hydrogen... Read more →

Truck makers and environmentalists have joined forces to push for the deployment of 11,000 charging points for electric trucks across the EU by 2025, rising to 42,000 by 2030. The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) and Transport & Environment (T&E) made this call to the European Commission in a joint... Read more →

Toyota Motor Europe (TME) has started KINTO Europe GmbH, a limited liability company with headquarters in Cologne, Germany. Toyota Financial Services Corporation (TFSC), Japan, holds 51% of the company’s shares, with the remaining 49% owned by TME. Both TME and TFSC are wholly owned by Toyota Motor Corporation, based in... Read more →

Toyota Motor Europe (TME) Fuel Cell Business will supply and integrate fuel cell modules into a zero-emission train prototype as part of the FCH2RAIL project in Europe. The main objective of the FCH2RAIL project is to develop, build, test, demonstrate and homologate a scalable, modular and multi-purpose Fuel Cell Hybrid... Read more →

A team from Fraunhofer IPT is developing a continuous production line that will be able to process fuel cell components in cycles lasting just seconds. The pilot line is set to be presented at the Hannover Messe Digital Edition from 12-16 April 2021. In a live stream, Fraunhofer IPT, together... Read more →

Germany’s Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure has launched a new €300-million program for the construction of EV charging stations. We build the charging infrastructure where it is needed in everyday life and that is with the people “on site”—at supermarkets, hotels, restaurants, swimming pools or sports fields. We... Read more →

The UK Government is awarding more than £54 million ($US$75 million) to three projects to advance the next generation of electric trucks and hydrogen buses. The 3 projects are: £31.9 million (US$44.3 million) to develop electric propulsion systems for heavy goods vehicles in Cwmbran, Wales. The EPIC project led by... Read more →

Following several years of research and development, Central & East European (CEE) oil and gas corporation MOL has stepped up the value chain and has become a biofuel producer through the realization of an investment in the Danube Refinery. Bio feedstock will be co-processed together with fossil materials increasing the... Read more →

The Volkswagen Group and bp intend to work together on extending and speeding up the deployment of ultra-fast electric vehicle (EV) charging facilities at bp retail sites across the UK, Germany and elsewhere in Europe. Extensive ultra-fast charging networks are seen by both companies as essential to accelerate the adoption... Read more →

Seven companies from the GET H2 initiative in Europe want to build a cross-border pipeline for green hydrogen. From Lingen (Emsland) to Gelsenkirchen and from the Dutch border to Salzgitter, production, transport, storage and industrial acceptance of green hydrogen are to be connected in several steps between 2024 and 2030... Read more →

The EU should promote the use of green hydrogen and ammonia by ships as part of its upcoming maritime fuel law, major shipping industry players and environmentalists have told the European Commission. The FuelEU Maritime initiative will require ships carrying EU trade to progressively switch to sustainable alternative fuels. In... Read more →

The all-new Toyota Yaris (earlier post) has been named as the 2021 European Car of the Year. Selected by a jury of 59 automotive journalists from across Europe, the fourth-generation Yaris receives the award 21 years after the innovative first generation was named European Car of the Year in 2000,... Read more →

E10 gasoline blends (10% ethanol) will be introduced at gasoline stations across the UK in September 2021. Its introduction on UK roads could cut transport carbon dioxide emissions by 750,000 tonnes a year—the equivalent of taking 350,000 cars off the road, or all the cars in North Yorkshire. It will... Read more →

Solaris has just delivered three Urbino 18 electric buses to Bonn. It is the first contract for the manufacturer with Stadtwerke Bonn Bus und Bahn (SWB). The three delivered Urbino 18 electric buses are fueled solely by power derived from renewable sources. The future is electric. We stick to our... Read more →

The European Commission proposed setting up 10 new European Partnerships between the European Union, Member States and/or the industry. The goal is to speed up the transition towards a green, climate neutral and digital Europe, and to make European industry more resilient and competitive. The EU will provide nearly €10... Read more →

The Volkswagen Group is expanding its WeShare electric car sharing project to Hamburg later this week; the pilot project launched in Berlin in 2019. Due to the Corona pandemic, we are unfortunately only able to launch in Hamburg with a delay of around one year. We are all the more... Read more →

IDTechEx expects electric motorcycle sales in Europe to have grown at least 50% year-on-year in 2020, building on the momentum of recent years. (Although steep, the 50% growth is half that experienced in 2019 from the year before.) This growth is driven by continued policy support from governments alongside start-ups... Read more →

Ford committed today that by mid-2026, 100% of Ford’s passenger vehicle range in Europe will be zero-emissions capable, all-electric or plug-in hybrid, and will be completely all-electric by 2030. Similarly, Ford’s entire commercial vehicle range will be zero-emissions capable, all-electric or plug-in hybrid, by 2024, with two-thirds of Ford’s commercial... Read more →

Berlin start-up ELO Mobility and the Fraunhofer Institute for Transport and Infrastructure Systems IVI are jointly developing a new generation of city buses with hydrogen drive technology as part of the Go4City (G4C) project. The Go4City project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure. The official... Read more →

After 2 years of research and confidential preparation, a group of 30 European energy players has launched HyDeal Ambition with the aim of delivering 100% green hydrogen across Europe at €1.5/kg before 2030. The production of green hydrogen generated by solar-driven electrolysis from the Iberian Peninsula will begin in 2022.... Read more →

In a common letter, the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), Transport & Environment (T&E) and the European Consumer Organization (BEUC) asked the EU climate, transport, industry and energy commissioners to use this year’s revision of the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Directive (AFID) to require 1 million public charging points across the... Read more →

Air Liquide and Siemens Energy have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the objective to combine their expertise in PEM (Proton Exchange Membrane) electrolysis technology. They intend to focus their activities on these key areas: co-creation of large industrial-scale hydrogen projects in collaboration with customers; laying the ground for mass... Read more →

The European Commission has approved, under EU State aid rules, a second Important Project of Common European Interest (IPCEI) to support research and innovation in the battery value chain. The project, called “European Battery Innovation” (EuBatIn) was jointly prepared and notified by Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy,... Read more →

A European consortium consisting of 25 organizations in the hydrogen sector has formed to define, develop and test the first European standard for fuel-cell modules for heavy-duty applications. The consortium—“StaSHH” (Standard-Sized Heavy-duty Hydrogen)—comprises 11 fuel cell module suppliers, 9 original equipment manufacturers and 5 research, test, engineering and/or knowledge institutes.... Read more →

Aluminum maker Constellium SE is in the advanced planning stages of an investment to increase its recycling capacity in Europe. This project will be focused on using recycled material to provide slabs for Constellium’s automotive and packaging businesses in Europe. This strategic initiative is expected to add a minimum of... Read more →

SK Innovation will initially invest US$1.148 billion in SK Battery Hungary (SKBH) to build its third European factory in Iváncsa, Hungary, with a production capacity of 30 GWh per year. This scale of output would supply batteries for approximately 430,000 cars based on 70 kWh per charging with a more... Read more →

At the first Hydrogen General Assembly, Germany’s Federal Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer announced €24.4 million in funding for three projects developing fuel cell and battery-electric drives for commercial vehicles. We want to work towards zero emissions road logistics with alternative drives. That is why we are supporting companies in bringing... Read more →

The German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) has commissioned the German Aerospace Center (DLR) to plan a pilot plant for the production of electricity-based (electrofuel) renewable kerosene for aviation. By switching to electricity-based kerosene, we can save millions of tons of CO2 emissions in air traffic. But... Read more →

The H24All project, led by a consortium of fifteen partners, has presented an application for European Green Deal funding to develop Europe’s first 100 megawatt (MW) alkaline electrolyzer plant, which will be connected to a Repsol industrial site. The consortium aims to pave the way for a new and competitive... Read more →

Norwegian-based broad energy company Equinor, gas transmission system operator OGE and steel producer thyssenkrupp Steel Europe have concluded their joint feasibility study started in October 2019 and will continue their cooperation on the topic going forward. The three partners’ goal was to evaluate the possibility to supply thyssenkrupp Steel’s Duisburg... Read more →

A new study by the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) has found that there are currently 6.2 million medium- and heavy-duty commercial vehicles on the EU’s roads, the average age of which is 13 years. Almost 98% of all these trucks run on diesel, according to the 2021 Vehicles in... Read more →