Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD and Toyota have announced a new joint venture focused on researching and developing battery electric vehicles.
Scheduled to launch in China in 2020, the venture will design and develop electric vehicles and platforms. The former are intended for the Chinese market, and will be designed to “be attractive to Chinese customers,” according to a release.
BYD – the initials stand for Build Your Dreams – is partly owned by MidAmerican Energy Co., a unit of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire-Hathaway Energy. It is testing Class 8 electric trucks at the ports of San Diego, Long Beach, Los Angeles and Oakland, and recently announced the deployment of 21 BYD battery-electric Anheuser-Busch delivery trucks.
The company is also rolling out 183 zero-emission BYD K9 buses in Chile and 50 electric vans for the Bahamas.
Toyota has other joint venture electrification manufacturing and research centers in China, including partnerships with China FAW Group Corporation and Guangzhou Automobile Group Co.
“Based on the thinking that electrified vehicles contribute to society only when it is popularized, Toyota is initiating electrification globally,” the release said.
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Did you know?
In 2017 the state of Tennessee licensed 200 acres for the cultivation of hemp. That figure shot up to 3,338 acres in 2018 – and 38,000 acres so far in 2019.
Source: Field of Dreams, via FreightWaves
Quotable
“The system design did not include a consideration for jaywalking pedestrians.”
NTSB’s Vehicle Automation Report, explaining that the software inside the Uber self-driving SUV that killed an Arizona woman last year was not designed to detect pedestrians outside of a crosswalk. (Wired.com)
In other news
Truck stop bridge
In the past two weeks, two trucks have gotten stuck or damaged their trailers because of the clearance under a Kansas City bridge. (KHSB)
Yandex is testing an autonomous delivery rover in Moscow
The autonomous delivery company is piloting a robot that can deliver small packages autonomously. (VentureBeat)
Texas has not had a death-free day on its roads in 19 years
That is 6,939 days of at least one highway death, and a total of nearly 67,000 since November 7, 2000. (HoustonChronicle)
Inside the high stakes race to build an electric flying taxi
The New York Times visits Lilium, a German electric aircraft startup. (NewYorkTimes)
Final thoughts,
Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) has set an ambitious goal of carbon neutrality by 2040. Yet the company continues to grow the amount of cargo carried via airplane, the most polluting form of transportation, according to a study published in Reuters. In July, Amazon Air carried 136 million pounds of goods in the United States, up 29% from the prior year.
Hammer down, everyone!
