A wild new EV battery can charge in just 18 seconds — plus, 4 more stories you need to know this week
This week, we're looking at Ford's wildest EV pony yet, more on the "Tesla effect," and a new wonder battery with a mind-blowing promise.
Plus, we've got all the other stories you need to know about clean machines this week:
The VarEVolt battery, a British invention, can reportedly fully charge in just 18 seconds. If that's true, it would completely change how we think about EV charge times.
RML Group was just given regulatory permission to mass-produce the new battery for EVs. Right now, the company plans on producing just a few, but if it becomes available widely, it's the gas stations — not the charging stations — that will start seeming laughably slow.
Ford's latest electric dream is an extreme race car called the Super Mustang Mach-E. Built to beat its sibling, last year's Ford F-150 Lightning SuperTruck, the Super Mustang that was designed for this year's Pikes Peak International Hill Climb has 1,421 horsepower and 6,900 pounds of downforce — double the weight of the race car itself.
As if that wasn't enough, Ford has a second, even more hardcore version with 2,250 horsepower — more than even the record-setting Rimac Nevera hypercar.
Porsche hasn't even officially announced production of an electric Cayenne — yet. To date, the German sports carmaker has given only sparse details about an electrified version of its largest SUV.
Even still, a camouflaged version of one still managed to set a record for an SUV at the 2025 British Championship Hillclimb in Shelsley Walsh.
The recent 16% drop in Tesla's U.S. sales is a huge part of why total EV sales have dropped for the first time in over a year. This is despite the $7,500 tax credit for some new models still being in play (although it will likely disappear for most models at the end of this year).
Americans bought just under 98,000 EVs in April, 4.4% less than last year at the same time. As Fortune so aptly put it, "when Tesla sneezes, the entire U.S. electric vehicle market catches a cold."
If you were going to purchase an EV, which of these factors would be most important to you?
Cost
Battery range
Power and speed
The way it looks
Click your choice to see results and speak your mind.
But the news isn't all bad, as Chevrolet's EV sales tripled, thanks largely to its Equinox crossover.
In what the company called a "nationally representative" survey, BMW reported that a whopping 92% of Americans believe that continued innovation in electric vehicles is important and 30% of those believe that it's very important.
Such open-minded optimism isn't just about EVs, either: The same study found that 58% of Americans are open to hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles.
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