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While the electric commercial segment may eventually flourish with the introduction of electric dual cabs – given there’s only one on sale right now, the $92,990 LDV eT60 – there are already more than half a dozen brands offering battery-electric vans in Australia.
Volvo recently built its last car with a diesel engine, but Toyota sees things differently. Although the popularity of the oil-burner has gone down in recent years, the Japanese automaker claims this type of engine still has a long future. Toyota Australia sales and marketing boss Sean Hanley believes that "diesel, despite popular commentary, is not dead. It's got a while to go, diesel, so it's not going to die off anytime soon."
Fiat’s zero-emissions 500e model may be in the market to receive an ICE counterpart, following declining global interest in electric models.
Took a little longer than planned, but Ford says its new EU-market Explorer EV is better for the delay. Ford of Europe borrowed Volkswagen's MEB platform to create a battery-electric SUV by Europeans, for Europeans. Planned to hit the market there in later 2023, the holdup was either caused by changes to the U.N.'s battery certification regulations, as stated by Ford of Europe at the time, or «insufficient countermeasures around fire,» in the words of Ford CEO Jim Farley. Either way, engineers reworked the chassis to fit a different nickel-manganese-cobalt pack. A regional automaker exec said the Explorer EV that just launched «is a better vehicle now than we would have launched half a year ago.»
Jump over to Fiat's USA website and you'll find two vehicles listed. Only one—the 500X—has a combustion engine. And that trim has been dropped for 2024. The other is the 500e, fresh and new with a familiar face hiding a fully electric powertrain. But that could change soon, according to a recent report from Automotive News Europe.
It is only a patent, but Ferrari has either lost the plot or is onto something with an upside-down hydrogen inline-six motor that could be a step in the right direction to save the beloved internal combustion engine. Here is what we can decipher from the patent so far.
Downsizing may be in full swing, but Porsche isn't ready to retire its V-8 just yet. Despite increasingly stricter emissions regulations, the engineers from Zuffenhausen are always one step ahead. The eight-cylinder engine is already being tweaked to meet the Euro 7 standard, even though its implementation has been pushed back. It was supposed to come into effect in 2025 but it's been delayed to 2030.
► Red tape throttles JDM supply into Europe ► Emissions and safety regs are the cause… ► Meaning they’re getting rarer, more expensive or being culled