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--- transportation:electric_cars [2026/02/01 03:51] – [Costs] timb
+++ transportation:electric_cars [2026/06/07 23:35] (current) – [Costs] timb
@@ Line 1337: / Line 1337: @@
 https://gizmodo.com/study-used-evs-are-the-cheapest-vehicles-to-own-2000716344
+== EV drivers will pay $130 a year under Congress’ 2026 transportation bill ==
+Politicians say they want EVs to pay “their fair share for the use of our roads.”
+Jonathan M. Gitlin – May 19, 2026 9:12 AM
+The 119th Congress might be one of the most dysfunctional and least productive legislative sessions in the 250-year history of the United States, but it seems there’s one thing it can agree on: Electric vehicles don’t cost their owners enough money. The Transportation and Infrastructure committee has published its bill to fund surface transportation for the next half-decade, and among the provisions in the “Building Unrivaled Infrastructure and Long-term Development for America’s 250th Act” is an annual fee levied against owners of EVs.
+“I’m extremely proud of the historic level of investment in America’s bridges—at more than $50 billion, it’s the largest such investment in our history. And the BUILD America 250 Act ensures that electric vehicle owners begin paying their fair share for the use of our roads,” said committee chairperson Sam Graves (R-Mo.).
+Should the bill pass—and it enjoys support from the Democratic Party, too—you will be required to pay a $130 federal registration fee to drive an EV. And starting in 2029, that fee will increase by $5 each year until it reaches $150. Plug-in hybrids don’t escape untaxed, either; the fee for a PHEV begins at $35 a year and will escalate by $5 each year until it reaches $50 annually. And if state departments of transport don’t collect this federal EV tax, the federal government will “withhold an amount equal to 125 percent of the amount owed from the state’s highway apportionment.”
+https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/05/bipartisan-bill-in-congress-includes-130-annual-ev-registration-fee/
+== Cheaper EV Sales are Increasing ==
+Posted by EditorDavid on Saturday June 06, 2026 05:40PM
+Sales have increased for Hyundai's under-$35,000 IONIQ 5, totalling 18,395 for the first five months of 2026, reports Electrek, "up 16% from the same period last year."
+But meanwhile BYD's overseas sales surpassed 160,000 for the first time last month, "up 80% from May 2025 and 19% from the previous record of 135,098 set in April."
+<blockquote>
+Through the first five months of 2026, BYD sold 616,263 vehicles overseas. In May, overseas sales accounted for over 41% of BYD's total sales. In several major markets, including the UK, BYD surpassed Tesla and Kia to become the best-selling EV brand through April. "With fuel prices remaining high, more drivers are turning to electric vehicles as a smarter and more economical choice," Bono Ge, BYD UK's Country Manager, said last month.
+</blockquote>
+Elsewhere Electrek notes that Toyota's bZ (starting at under $35,000) was the third-best-selling EV in the U.S. in the first three months of 2026, behind only the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y. "Last month, bZ sales doubled from May 2025, with 2,646 units sold."
+And meanwhile the first Volkswagen ID. Polo and Cupra Raval models "rolled off the production line at the Group's Martorell plant in Spain, the first of several new affordable, mass-market EVs."
+https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/06/07/0036228/cheaper-evs-sales-are-increasing
@@ Line 1992: / Line 2020: @@
 https://www.economist.com/briefing/2024/01/11/western-firms-are-quaking-as-chinas-electric-car-industry-speeds-up
+== There’s a lot of hype about Chinese EVs—is any of it true? ==
+In addition to being full of screens, China now wants its cars to be packed with AI.
+Jonathan M. Gitlin – May 1, 2026 4:00 AM
+The Beijing Auto Show is currently taking place in China, offering those of us behind the Trump tariff curtain a peek at what’s increasingly being dubbed the world’s most advanced car market. Chinese EVs leave everyone else in the dust, we’re told, with infotainment that makes your smartphone look like a StarTac, range numbers that would make a turbodiesel Audi weep, and charging that might be even faster than filling up with gas, depending on the size of your tank.
+As an American, I mostly have to take someone else’s word for that. If there’s one thing Democratic politicians can agree on with Republicans, even now, it’s that they don’t want cars from Chinese automakers on US roads. Toward the end of his administration, President Joe Biden levied a 100 percent tariff on Chinese EVs. Under the Biden and then Trump administrations, Congress passed a law restricting the sale of Chinese-linked connected car software in the US. President Trump has added further tariffs to Chinese imports, making their cars even less competitive here. And just this week, more than 70 Democratic representatives called for maintaining barriers to Chinese cars for both national security and economic reasons.
+This puts those elected officials increasingly out of step with popular sentiment on the Internet (I’m using the Ars comments and social media platform Bluesky as my bellwethers). From what I can see, there’s strong appetite for those sweet, cheap Chinese electric vehicles. Headlines like Reuters’ claim that “[f]or the average price of a car in the US, you could buy 5 new Chinese EVs” only reinforce that sentiment.
+And why wouldn’t people want them? The average price of a new vehicle in the US in 2025 rose to $50,326 by year’s end. That’s up from ~$40,000 in 2020 and $35,000 in 2015. (Those numbers are for the mean; the medians are slightly less, but the difference is not great.)
+https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/05/theres-a-lot-of-hype-about-chinese-evs-is-any-of-it-true/
+===== Legal =====
+== Congress Introduces Bill To Permanently Block Chinese Vehicles From US ==
+Posted by BeauHD on Friday May 15, 2026 09:00AM
+Longtime Slashdot reader sinij shares a report from Car and Driver:
+<blockquote>
+A group of Michigan lawmakers has introduced a bill in Congress that would effectively place a permanent ban on Chinese connected vehicles from being sold in the United States. While an executive order signed by Joe Biden in early 2025 already imposed heavy restrictions, the new bill would codify and expand on the ban, as first reported by Autoweek and explained in a release by the House of Representatives Select Committee on China.
+The bill, titled the Connected Vehicle Security Act, was co-signed by John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, and Debbie Dingell, a Michigan Democrat. It joins a companion version of the same Connected Vehicle Security Act introduced last month to the Senate by Sen. Bernie Moreno, an Ohio Republican, and Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat. While the wording is similar to that found in former President Biden's January 2025 executive order, the new bill would codify the language into law, as well as determine rules for compliance and enforcement.
+Specifically, the new bill would restrict Chinese automakers from selling passenger cars in the United States if those vehicles contain any China-developed connectivity software. Officially, the bill covers the sale of vehicles from states deemed "foreign adversary countries," which include China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. The proposed legislation arrives as Chinese automakers including Chery, Geely, and BYD (maker of the 2026 BYD Dolphin Surf, shown above), continue to rise in prominence in foreign markets around the world.
+</blockquote>
+https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/05/15/0249216/congress-introduces-bill-to-permanently-block-chinese-vehicles-from-us
@@ Line 2825: / Line 2893: @@
 https://thedriven.io/2026/01/11/byds-cheapest-electric-cars-to-have-lidar-self-driving-tech/
+===== Battery =====
+== BYD rolls out EV batteries with 5-minute ‘flash charging’ — but there’s a catch ==
+Tim De Chant - 12:34 PM PST March 5, 2026
+Chinese automaker BYD unveiled a new battery pack Thursday that the company says is capable of charging from 10% to 70% in five minutes. Taking it to almost 100% takes about four minutes more.
+Recharge times like those would nullify concerns about electric vehicles’ charging times — one of the few places where internal combustion engines retain an advantage. Even in bitter cold weather (–4°F or –20°C), the pack can charge from 20% to 97% in under 12 minutes, according to BYD. The battery pack, known as the Blade Battery 2.0 system, is slated to debut in the Yangwang U7, a full-size luxury sedan.
+There is a critical caveat to this eye-popping figure. The Yangwang U7 sedan, or any other future BYD vehicle equipped with this next-generation battery pack, can only reach this ultra-fast charging time when paired with one of the company’s new Flash Charging EV chargers, which is capable of delivering 1.5 megawatts of electricity.
+Still, BYD is likely counting on this flashy charging tech to boost sales and give it an edge in a price war with other Chinese automakers that are rolling out new and improved EVs at a rapid clip.
+The Shenzhen-based company was a darling of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway holdings for years. The investor bought a 10% stake in the automaker in 2008 for $230 million — long before it became a Tesla rival and household name. Berkshire sold its last shares in 2025, returning more than 20x the original investment.
+https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/05/byd-rolls-out-ev-batteries-with-5-minute-flash-charging-but-theres-a-catch/
@@ Line 5559: / Line 5648: @@
 Liuzhao, China-based Wuling’s car also continued to outpace Tesla’s Model 3 in February sales in the Chinese market, according to EV Volumes (which has not yet released global sales estimates for February).
-https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/28/wulings-tiny-electric-hatchback-photos.html
+[[https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/28/wulings-tiny-electric-hatchback-photos.html|https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/28/wulings-tiny-electric-hatchback-photos.html]]
 == Does Driving an Electric Vehicle Matter if the Grid Is Fossil Fueled? ==
@@ Line 5573: / Line 5662: @@
 “You want to think about what we call life cycle emissions,” said Eric Larson, a senior research engineer at the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment at Princeton University. “If you’re talking about fossil fuels, like coal, there are emissions associated with mining it, and the combustion of fossil fuels gives you emissions. There are also emissions associated with manufacturing the electric vehicles and the batteries that go with it—those emissions have to be counted as well. Basically, all the emissions associated with getting from raw materials to the final miles traveled in the car have to be counted.”
-https://gizmodo.com/does-driving-an-electric-vehicle-matter-if-the-grid-is-1847689331
+[[https://gizmodo.com/does-driving-an-electric-vehicle-matter-if-the-grid-is-1847689331|https://gizmodo.com/does-driving-an-electric-vehicle-matter-if-the-grid-is-1847689331]]
 == China Is Exporting Its Obsession with Tiny Electric Vehicles ==
@@ Line 5581: / Line 5670: @@
 Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland shared this report about the boxy little Wuling:
-<blockquote>
+<blockquote>Priced at around $5,500 and famously outselling Tesla in China, it's a tiny, comically square car, produced in joint partnership with General Motors and SAIC. The micro EV has been fodder for articles and YouTubers — even while it's remained unavailable outside China.
-Priced at around $5,500 and famously outselling Tesla in China, it's a tiny, comically square car, produced in joint partnership with General Motors and SAIC. The micro EV has been fodder for articles and YouTubers — even while it's remained unavailable outside China.
 Until last summer, that is, when Wuling attempted to go international. First stop: Indonesia. With its Air model selling at a mere $16,000 — less than half the price of alternatives — the minimalist EV was depicted in advertising as a gateway to the future, a slick solution for busy Indonesian city-dwellers.
 </blockquote>
-https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/02/25/108222/china-is-exporting-its-obsession-with-tiny-electric-vehicles
+[[https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/02/25/108222/china-is-exporting-its-obsession-with-tiny-electric-vehicles|https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/02/25/108222/china-is-exporting-its-obsession-with-tiny-electric-vehicles]]
+====== Xiaomi ======
+== Xiaomi launches next-gen SU7 with 902 km range and LiDAR, still undercuts Tesla ==
+Fred Lambert - Mar 19 2026 6:28 am PT
+Xiaomi is officially launching the next-generation SU7 electric sedan today with a sweeping set of upgrades — up to 902 km of CLTC range, standard LiDAR across all trims, and an 897V charging architecture on the top model.
+The updated sedan starts at 229,900 yuan (~$33,000), still undercutting the Tesla Model 3 in China by about 5,600 yuan (~$800) despite a price increase of 10,000-14,000 yuan over the outgoing model. Xiaomi racked up nearly 89,000 pre-orders in the first 24 hours when reservations opened in January.
+The original SU7 launched two years ago and quickly became one of the best-selling premium EVs in China. Xiaomi outsold the Tesla Model 3 in the Chinese market for the first time in late 2025, and the company has now delivered over 360,000 SU7s in roughly 21 months. The next-gen model aims to widen that gap.
+https://electrek.co/2026/03/19/xiaomi-launches-next-gen-su7-902-km-range-undercuts-tesla/