Usually, the “Gas2 Week in Review” is a summary of recent, important stories in the media about zero emissions transportation. Tesla often is at the forefront of these stories. The CNBC report about Tesla employees who divulged problems with Model 3 battery production and quality control absolutely caused a media frenzy this week, including at our sister site, CleanTechnica.
The idea to summarize, synthesize, and interpret the big stories about green transportation in the “Gas2 Week in Review” makes sense as a general rule, especially about EVs. We are near to the moment in time when EVs will have both a range of 200-plus miles as well as a friendly price tag. ICEs (internal combustion engines) are to be a thing of the past in major countries by 2040 — the US as the embarrassing exception unless radical changes occur in the executive branch. Big corporations are coming to the realization that renewable energy is a business opportunity, and stalwarts of the fossil fuel industry like Shell are opening up, asking, “How will the world produce more and cleaner energy to power our homes and fuel our vehicles in coming decades while reducing CO2 emissions that cause climate change?”
I saw real evidence of the epiphanies that are taking place around clean transportation this week when I joined in with the Middle East 2018 Global EVRT (Electric Vehicle Road Trip). I had a chance to get up-close-and-personal with an EV fleet which, for 9 days, traveled across the UAE to Oman and back to demonstrate the possibilities of electric transportation. With the fleet comprised of 4-Tesla Model S’s, 1-Tesla Model X, 4 Chevy Bolts, and a BMWi3, I was both participant and observer, driving my first EV as well as collecting impressions how the Middle East is beginning to think differently about energy production and usage.
So allow this edition of the “Gas2 Week in Review” to digress from its usual weekly format, please, so that we can explore some of the excitement, curiosity, and questions that arise when a new people and place are exposed to EVs.