Interesting Ideas

The Highlander was still at the show in the hybrid form. Toyota focused instead on the crowd favorite RAV-4 Hybrid Toyota’s push toward full electrification took an unusual turn at the 2026 Chicago Auto Show, where the brand’s newest battery-electric SUV — the Highlander BEV — dominated headlines without ever ... [continued]

The post The Highlander BEV: Toyota’s Missing Debut at the 2026 Chicago Auto Show appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Shanghai, CHINA — XPENG showcased its AI-driven ADAS system to global delegates this week, hosting live road demonstrations during the UN/WP.29 Informal Working Group on Automated Driving Systems (IWG ADS) session in Shanghai. The international forum, which brings together stakeholders from regulators to industry experts and consumer groups to develop ... [continued]

The post XPENG Demonstrates Real-World AI Driving To Global Delegates At UN Vehicle Regulation Harmonization Forum In China appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Low pressure system funnels rain over already saturated areas, compounding risk of further flooding

A deep area of low pressure to the south-east of New Zealand’s North Island swept into the region on Sunday, bringing heavy rain, gale-force winds and dangerous coastal swells that lashed exposed shorelines. The storm triggered power outages, forced evacuations and damaged infrastructure, with further impacts likely on Monday as the system lingers for a time, before tracking southwards later.

Its arrival came after days of widespread flooding in the Ōtorohanga district, where a man was found dead after his vehicle became submerged in flood waters. Some areas recorded more than 100mm of rain in 24 hours on Thursday, with Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay and the Bay of Plenty bearing the brunt of the deluge. The Tararua district and Wairarapa have also been experiencing heavy rain and strong winds from the storm, with 24-hour rainfall totals reaching more than 100mm locally, and wind speeds of about 80mph (130km/h) along coastal parts.

In my recent article on America’s new maritime plan, I argued that it was competing for the wrong century by anchoring itself to legacy fuels and industrial logic that made sense when gasoline and diesel dominated global energy demand. A reader asked a question regarding the fuel cost variance for ... [continued]

The post The End Game Economics of Maritime Fuels appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Some districts are adding programs in clean energy and sustainability, while one state is infusing environmental lessons into culinary education and construction

On one end of the classroom, high school juniors examined little green sprouts – future baby carrots, sprigs of romaine lettuce – poking out of the soil of a drip irrigation system they built a few weeks prior.

On the opposite end of the room, a model of a hydropower plant showed students how the movement of water can stimulate electrical currents. In this class in South Carolina’s Greenville county school district, students primarily learn about one topic: renewable energy.

The climate crisis is no longer a matter of concern to the US administration, which has decreed that global warming is a hoax that may be safely ignored.

The post Rolling Back Climate Rules Will Cost Americans Bigly appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Analysis reveals big regional disparities as critics say Labour’s proposed levy could slow uptake of EVs

Drivers in the south-west of England would pay nearly four times as much as those in London as a result of Labour’s mileage-based tax on electric cars, according to analysis of official data.

The 3p-a-mile road charge, announced in the autumn budget and due to take effect in 2028, is expected to raise £1.1bn a year, partly offsetting the loss of fuel duty revenues as drivers switch from petrol to electric vehicles.

Images confirm xAI is continuing to defy EPA regulations in Mississippi to power its flagship datacenters

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company is continuing to fuel its datacenters with unpermitted gas turbines, an investigation by the Floodlight newsroom shows. Thermal footage captured by Floodlight via drone shows xAI is still burning gas at a facility in Southaven, Mississippi, despite a recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruling reiterating that doing so requires a state permit in advance.

State regulators in Mississippi maintain that since the turbines are parked on tractor trailers, they don’t require permits. However, the EPA has long maintained that such pollution sources require permits under the Clean Air Act.

The fight for Hope Moor is set to be repeated across the UK as the government aims to hit its renewable energy targets

Instead of a slingshot, the Davids are brandishing a sculpture and a coffee table book. Their Goliaths are a Norwegian energy company and a UK energy secretary with renewable targets to meet.

A fierce battle has begun over one of England’s tallest windfarms, proposed for deep peat moorland overlooking the Yorkshire Dales national park, in what residents say will mark the irrevocable industrialisation of their rural landscape.

If you have been reading the recent takes on the “legacy EV retreat,” including at least one piece published here last week, you have likely seen the narrative that Detroit is just lazy, lobby-happy, and getting exactly what it deserves for dragging its feet. The argument generally goes that if ... [continued]

The post It Isn’t That Simple: Why “Free Trade” Needs A New Playbook appeared first on CleanTechnica.

All this year, we’ll be exploring the many reasons to love heat pump water heaters (HPWHs). Perhaps the top reason is that they save so much money on utility bills. In fact, besides heat pumps for space heating, HPWHs are the appliance with the most potential savings across all household ... [continued]

The post Heat Pump Water Heaters Can Save Over $500/Year On Utility Bills appeared first on CleanTechnica.

December saw plugin EVs at 43.8% share in the UK, up from 40.0% year on year, with BEVs alone taking 32.2% share. Full year 2025 saw EVs at 34.6% share, up from 28.1% in 2024. Overall December auto volume was 146,249 up some 4% YoY. Full year 2025 auto volume ... [continued]

The post UK EVs At 34.6% Share In 2025 — Tesla Model Y Best-Seller appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Wild gardening is about shedding obsessions with tidiness, embracing a looser aesthetic and providing a home for ‘the most important creatures on the planet’

On a wintry January day in Manchester, I crossed University Green, navigating a paved path behind our hotel through lush patches of lawn. It was the start of the inaugural “Wilding Gardens” conference. For two days, scientists and practitioners were gathering to discuss new ways to think about gardens and nature, about what nature needs to thrive, and the untapped potential of gardens – if we step back and allow ecological processes to unfold – to help counter climate change and biodiversity loss.

Clumps of snowdrop flowers poked through the unmown grass and a grey squirrel streaked across it, from one bare-branched tree to another. Probably common alders, going by the University of Manchester Tree Trail. The world’s first industrial city seemed an apt venue for a talkfest on the urgency of rewilding suburban gardens to help save the planet from precisely what drew Marx and Engels there to study, 180 years ago: the impacts of industrialisation.

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December’s auto market saw plugin EVs at 34.5% share in Germany, up from 23.4% year on year. Full year 2025 saw EVs at 30.0% share, decently up from 20.3% YoY. Overall December auto volume was 246,439 units, up some 10% YoY. Full year 2025 auto volume was 2,858,591 units, up ... [continued]

The post 2025 EVs At 30.0% Share In Germany — Volkswagen ID.7 Best-Seller appeared first on CleanTechnica.

The Florida firm AccuSolar is among the stakeholders supporting forward movement in the US floating solar industry, despite the sharp U-turn in federal energy policy.

The post The Evolution of the US Floating Solar Industry appeared first on CleanTechnica.

The charger firm claimed the site operated 24 hours a day, but the parking operator had different ideas

I charged my electric car at the 24-hour Mer EV charging station in my local B&Q car park.

I then received a £100 parking charge notice (PCN) from the car park operator, Ocean Parking. It said no parking is allowed on the site between 9pm and 6am.

Frome, Somerset: As the large raptor squirms and uses its wings to try to balance on a precarious perch, I find my own arms lifting in solidarity

Six, seven, eight, nine long‑tailed tits are on a foraging flit through hawthorn bushes, and the straggler drops obligingly on to a berry‑stacked twig before my eyes. Its tail works like the hand of a clock as the clinging bird jiggle‑jumps through a full 360-degree rotation, beak pecking for who knows what. The twig is unmoved by such exertions, for the bird weighs the equivalent of seven paperclips. What must it be like to inhabit the insubstantial ghost‑world of a long‑tailed tit, where you can leap and land all you like with no discernible impact?

Ahead and above, a bird 100 times its weight is weightless in the sky. The soaring buzzard masters gravity with its “fingertips” – the deeply separated primary feather tips on the wings. I cannot see the little flicks and tilts that enable it to descend in controlled steps; drop and hold, drop and hold.

JD Vance is seeking to create a ‘trading bloc’ as shortages and climate crises mean a kaleidoscope of rare earths are increasingly jealously guarded

The announcement by the US vice-president, JD Vance, that the country is seeking to create a new critical minerals “trading bloc” is a final, exotic, nail in the coffin of the old global trading system. The era of mass abundance, as supplied by unfettered free trade and global markets – “neoliberalism” – is over. We live in a new world of strategic competition between states over scarce but essential resources, with shocks to supplies from human activity and natural disasters an ever-present risk.

This means recalibrating how we think about our economy: the new economic fundamentals today are resource constraints and climate and nature crises, and these, rather than human activity, will increasingly shape the world we inhabit. Flows of finance and stocks of wealth will matter less than stocks and flows of real material resources.

Other than the new Rivians, the most anticipated new fully electric vehicle may be the Slate pickup truck. There have been many photos of the prototypes and test vehicles, but not a lot of video footage of the Slate being driven.  Jay Leno, the noted car enthusiast and collector, got ... [continued]

The post Jay Leno Drives A Slate Pickup Truck (Video) appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Project in Ceredigion aims to help country catch up with large-scale nature recovery projects elsewhere in UK

A Welsh charity has bought more than 480 hectares (1,195 acres) in Ceredigion to establish Cymru’s “flagship” rewilding project, helping the country catch up with large-scale nature recovery projects under way elsewhere in the UK.

Tir Natur (Nature’s Land), founded in 2022, announced it had acquired the site at Cwm Doethie in Elenydd, or the Cambrian mountains, after a fundraising drive launched last year raised 50% of the £2.2m purchase price. A philanthropic bridging loan enabled the sale.