Tesla's Semi truck won't start hauling cargo this year either. The automaker has revealed during its most recent earnings call that it has pushed back the truck's arrival — yet again — to 2022, three years after its original launch target in 2019. Last year, the company announced that it had to delay the vehicle's release to 2021 but didn't elaborate on what prompted the decision and if it was primary due to the pandemic. Now, according to TechCrunch, Tesla told shareholders that the Semi truck will be delayed due to the limited availability of battery cells and global supply chain challenges.

The whole statement reads:

"We believe we remain on track to build our first Model Y vehicles in Berlin and Austin in 2021. The pace of the respective production ramps will be influenced by the successful introduction of many new product and manufacturing technologies, ongoing supply-chain-related challenges and regional permitting.

To better focus on these factories, and due to the limited availability of battery cells and global supply chain challenges, we have shifted the launch of the Semi truck program to 2022. We are also making progress on the industrialization of Cybertruck, which is currently planned for Austin production subsequent to Model Y."

As TechCrunch notes, Tesla executive Jerome Guillen also left the company in June, just a few months after he started leading the trucking division. While the automaker didn't say whether his departure was in any way connected to the Semi's delay, Guillen used to lead Tesla's entire automotive business until he was made president of the Heavy Trucking unit in March. 

Tesla first announced the Semi back in 2017, promising an electric big rig with a 500-mile range and technologies that include Enhanced Autopilot. It's been traveling all around the US and has apparently been capable of doing cross-country trips on its own without escorts since 2018, relying entirely on Tesla's existing Supercharger network. Elon Musk told staff in an internal email last year that the Semi is ready to enter mass production, but the company's readiness doesn't mean anything without the truck's components. 

Roads that can charge electric cars or buses while you drive aren't a new concept, but so far the technology has been relatively expensive and inefficient. However, Indiana's Department of Transport (INDOT) has announced that it's testing a new type of cement with embedded magnetized particles that could one day provide efficient, high-speed charging at "standard roadbuilding costs," Autoblog has reported. 

With funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), INDOT has teamed with Purdue University and German company Magment on the project. They'll carry out the research in three phases, first testing if the magnetized cement (called "magment," naturally) will work in the lab, then trying it out on a quarter-mile section of road. 

In a brochure, Magment said its product delivers "record-breaking wireless transmission efficiency [at] up to 95 percent," adding that it can be built at "standard road-building installation costs" and that it's "robust and vandalism-proof." The company also notes that slabs with the embedded ferrite particles could be built locally, presumably under license. 

The final phase sounds ambitious, with INDOT saying it would "test the innovative concrete’s capacity to charge heavy trucks operation at high power (200 kilowatts and above)." If the final quarter-mile test track is a success, INDOT will use the tech to electrify an undermined segment of public interstate in Indiana. 

Powering heavy trucks directly from the road without any pollution at an affordable price would be an environmental breakthrough, but there's still a lot of work to do to prove it works. Plenty of other similar efforts are underway, as the UK has committed around $780 million for under-road charging research, for example. Sweden has also tested slot-car like technology that would contain an electrified "rail" embedded into roads. This latest efforts sounds far less complicated, provided it lives up to Magment's claims, 

The Volkswagen group's desire to crush records with electrified cars now extends to one of the world's toughest off-road challenges. Autoblogreports that Audi has started testing the RS Q E-Tron, a from-scratch hybrid off-roader it hopes will score overall victory in the 2022 Dakar Rally. If so, it would be the first electrified vehicle to win the gruelling competition.

 The RS Q E-Tron relies on an electric drivetrain with two modified Formula E motors, one at each axle. As you won't find a charging station in the middle of the desert, however, Audi uses a race-ready TFSI engine as part of an energy converter that charges the battery while driving and braking. This isn't a zero-emissions car, then, but it stays in a relatively efficient power band (between 4,500RPM and 6,000RPM) that should reduce the racer's environmental impact.

The machine should be highly adaptable, too. Unlike many EVs, the front and rear axles aren't mechanically connected — software handles torque distribution instead. That not only allows for an easily reconfigurable center differential, but saves the bulk that would normally be used for a conventional differential and propshaft.

Audi plans to enter the machine into multiple cross-country rallies in 2021 before participating in the Dakar Rally in January.

If Audi is successful, the RS Q E-Tron will make a stronger case for eco-friendly endurance racing. While not a pure EV, it will handle extremely long stages (up to 500 miles) with a significantly reduced emissions footprint. It also won't surprise you to hear that Audi wants more than just bragging rights. It expects lessons learned from the car to reach production cars. We wouldn't count on something with a similar drivetrain when the VW group is transitioning to EVs, but it's easy to imagine electric SUVs and crossovers that are better-suited to off-roading.

The dream of autonomous driving everywhere is still a long way away. But soon Mercedes will launch Drive Pilot, its level 3 autonomous driving system in Germany on the S-Class and EQS. We had a chance to try the system out at the automaker’s test track and, while it did what it was supposed to do, we found it hard to turn off our driving brain while behind the wheel.

The system works on highways in traffic at speeds up to 60 kph (37 mph). Essentially it’s for daily commuting. But during that time the driver can stop paying attention and the Mercedes is responsible for everything that happens. That’s not to say you can nap, the vehicle still tracks the driver with an in-car monitor and it requires the driver to take over when it’s about to go faster than 37 mph, an emergency vehicle shows up, it rains or other situations that the vehicle is not built to handle. But you can play Tetris and text people. So that’s fun. Watch our video for the full story.

Mercedes Benz announced its latest step towards electrification on Thursday, asserting that the company will offer BEV versions of its model lineup "in all segments the company serves" by 2022 and that "all newly launched architectures will be electric-only" starting in 2025.

"The EV shift is picking up speed — especially in the luxury segment, where Mercedes-Benz belongs. The tipping point is getting closer and we will be ready as markets switch to electric-only by the end of this decade," Ola Källenius, CEO of Daimler AG and Mercedes-Benz AG, said in a prepared statement. "This step marks a profound reallocation of capital. By managing this faster transformation while safeguarding our profitability targets, we will ensure the enduring success of Mercedes-Benz."

To do so, MBZ plans to invest some €40 billion into BEV technology between 2022 and 2030. What's more, in the 2025 model year, MBZ will introduce a trio of EV-specific architectures: MB.EA for full-size passenger vehicles, AMG.EA for performance EVs geared towards existing AMG customers, and VAN.EA, Mercedes' new line of light commercial EVs and service vans.

Mercedes plans to build and operate eight gigafactories in the coming years to help accommodate the 200 gigawatts of battery production capacity the company anticipates it will need for all these new BEVs it will be making.

Partners Lyft and Ford are laying the groundwork for their driverless ride-hailing plans. Today, the companies announced that Ford's Argo AI-powered cars will be available on Lyft's network later this year in Miami, followed by Austin in 2022. The move will allow passengers to choose a Ford self-driving vehicle with a safety driver in those regions when they book their ride from the app. By 2026, Ford plans to add 1,000 of its driverless vehicles to Lyft's fleet in multiple markets, a pact that the companies are in the process of finalizing.

The deployment should provide a shot in the arm for Lyft's autonomous ride-hailing ambitions. The company plans to get fully driverless fleets serving customers in multiple US cities in 2023. But, it suffered a setback last year when its self-driving partner Magna chose to shift to assisted driving products instead. The decision reflected wider concerns within the industry over the revenue-bleeding nature of autonomous driving. In December, Uber decided to sell its self-driving unit to startup Aurora as a belt-tightening maneuver.

Fortunately for Lyft, it's had close ties with Ford — which is aggressively pursuing its own self-driving goals —since 2017. The partnership between the two companies was forged on the back of Ford's $1 billion investment in autonomous vehicle startup Argo AI. Since then, the automaker has been testing its driverless vehicle service in Miami, Austin and Washington, D.C.

“Argo and Ford are currently piloting, mapping and preparing for commercial operations of autonomous vehicles in more cities than any other [autonomous vehicle] collaboration, and this new agreement is a crucial step toward full commercial operations – the addition of Lyft’s world-class transportation network,” said Scott Griffith, CEO, Ford Autonomous Vehicles & Mobility Businesses.

The lifetime emissions of an electric car versus a gasoline vehicle has become an intensely debated topic for governments. A new study that compares the climate impact of passenger cars could play a pivotal role in the argument. The report claims that electric cars produce far fewer greenhouse gas emissions "from the cradle to the grave" than their gas-guzzling counterparts. According to the study, the core result is the same globally, even when applied to countries like China and India, where the majority of the electricity to recharge an EV comes from coal.

The findings are a rebuke for voices in the automotive and oil lobbying industries that still claim that electric cars are no cleaner than gas-powered vehicles. It arrives as governments are trying to cement their environmental policies in line with the Paris Agreement. Finalized in 2015, the climate change accord saw 143 countries, including the US, agree to limit global temperature increases to less than 2 degrees Celsius. To help meet that target, Washington state and California have proposed banning the sale of new gasoline cars from 2030 and 2035, respectively.

The study conducted by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) examined the entire life-cycles of EVs and gasoline cars, from extracting raw materials to production to their eventual disposal. Researchers examined the greenhouse gas emissions from the vehicle and fuel types in four territories that together account for 70 percent of new car sales worldwide: the US, the EU, China and India.

For cars registered in 2021, the report found that lifetime emissions for a medium-sized EV in Europe are between 66 and 69 percent lower compared to that of a gasoline vehicle in the same category. In the US, an EV produces between 60 to 68 percent fewer emissions. In China, an EV results in between 37 to 45 percent fewer emissions. In India, it’s between 19 to 34 percent lower.

By 2030, the gap between EVs and gas-guzzlers is tipped to increase to 74 percent to 77 percent in Europe, 62 percent to 76 percent in the US, 48 percent to 64 percent in China, and 30 percent to 56 percent in India. 

Notably, the researchers assume that a vehicle will be on the road for around 18 years. They also state that the gap between the figures reflects the uncertainty around how the energy mix in each region develops, which itself is tied to future policies.

“One important result of the analysis is to show that life-cycle emissions trends are similar in all four regions, despite the differences among them in vehicle mix, grid mix, and so on. Already for cars registered today, [battery electric vehicles] have better relative [greenhouse gas] emissions performance everywhere than conventional vehicles,” said ICCT deputy director Rachel Muncrief.

There are still caveats, however. Though EVs cut back on carbon emissions over time, they inevitably take a toll on the environment. By one recent estimate, you'll need to drive a new EV thirteen and a half thousand miles before you're doing less harm than a gas-guzzling saloon.

Owners of non-Tesla EVs may be able to use some Superchargers by the end of 2021. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has revealed on Twitter that the company is opening up its Supercharger network to other EVs later this year. Musk has long talked about making the network accessible to other electric cars and, as CNBC notes, he mentioned late last year that some brands have are already seeking access to Tesla's charging stations. Now, we have a better idea of when that might happen.

Opening up its network to other companies won't be simple, seeing as Tesla uses a proprietary connector in North America. It has to make sure the stations will work across brands and that secure software handshake between a non-Tesla car and a Supercharger is possible. The transition could be easier in Europe where the automaker already uses standard CCS connectors. 

Electrek reported back in June that Tesla is already in talks with authorities in Norway, and that it applied for incentives to deploy charging stations that will be available even to non-Tesla vehicles "from the third quarter of 2022." Germany's minister of transport also previously revealed that he was in direct contact with Tesla and other companies to make sure existing infrastructure like the Superchargers are "also opened up to other manufacturers."

Musk unfortunately didn't elaborate on his tweet, so we've still yet to know which Superchargers will be accessible by other vehicles first. He did say, however, that the network will open up to other brands in all countries where it's available over time. 

GM is working on another electric pickup truck in addition to GMC's Hummer EV and the electrified Chevrolet Silverado it confirmed back in April. The automotive giant has made the announcement at a media event, according to CNBC and CNET Roadshow. It didn't reveal a lot of details about the project and only showed a shadowy image of a tarp-covered truck during the presentation, but it did say that it would be a full-size GMC pickup.

Also, CNBC says it's expected to be a more "traditional" pickup than the Hummer EV, which is a "lifestyle" vehicle. That could mean that it's something priced within the reach of more people than the Hummer is, though GMC global head Duncan Aldred reportedly refused to admit whether it's the electrified version of the Sierra pickup. 

General Motors has been pledging more and more money into efforts to go electric and driverless. The automaker originally planned to pour $20 billion into the endeavor, but it announced that it would raise its 2020-to-2025 investment to $35 billion just this April. GM plans to offer 30 EVs on the market by the end of 2025 and to exclusively sell electric vehicles starting in 2035. 

The Hummer EV is slated to go into production this fall and would be one of first electric pickups people can buy. With prices that begin at around $80,000, though, it's not exactly a direct competitor to other upcoming electric trucks. Tesla's Cybertruck and Ford's F-150 Lightning will cost about half that, and this mysterious third electric truck might be more of competition for them.

Owners of 2017 to 2019 Chevrolet Bolt EVs should not park their cars indoors or leave them to charge overnight unattended, according to a safety alert issued by The National Highway Traffic Administration (NHTSA). The warning comes after two Bolt EVs included in GM’s 2020 recall of the vehicle caught fire recently. One blaze happened outside the home of a Vermont state legislator at the start of the month, while the other occurred in New Jersey.

“At GM, safety is our highest priority, and we are moving as quickly as we can to investigate this issue,” a spokesperson for the automaker told CNBC. According to NHTSA, the batteries in the vehicles included in the safety warning can smoke and catch fire.

In the US, GM recalled nearly 51,000 Bolt EVs. The company pushed an update to those cars that limited their batteries to 90 percent of a full charge. More recently, GM said it would install diagnostic software on those cars to prevent future fires. It also promised to assess and replace batteries that featured any “anomalies.” Notably, at the same time, it also removed the charging cap it had implemented when it originally recalled the Bolt.

Part of the reason the ongoing reports of Bolt fires are a cause for concern is due to the fact the 2017 to 2019 models use the same cells at the center of a similar issue with the Hyundai Kona. Both companies sourced the batteries for those vehicles from LG Chem. Last year, Hyundai recalled 25,564 Kona EVs after more than a dozen incidents of fire and then later went on to replace the batteries in 75,680 vehicles.