Electric Vehicles

Detroit’s Eastside Gets Affordable Electric Vehicle Carshare

December 4, 2024 Ethan Bakuli, Next City. Create! Cars, Detroit, Electric Vehicles, Michigan, Transportation

As Loretta Powell settled into the driver seat of the Chevy Volt, she gave herself a few seconds to get acclimated to the vehicle’s settings before pressing the blue power button located behind the steering wheel. It was the second time the Detroit educator was behind the wheel of an electric car. The first time she drove the Volt, she recalled, was “nice and smooth.” “You couldn’t tell you were driving; it was very quiet and peaceful,” said Powell, as she backed out of the parking lot at community development organization Eastside Community Network‘s Stoudamire Wellness Hub. Like most electric vehicles, it emits an angelic hum as it reverses.

The Search For Green Common Ground

October 17, 2024 Emmett Hopkins, In These Times. Organize! Communities, Electric Vehicles, Green Transition, Lithium, Transportation, Worker Rights and Jobs

Last fall, indigenous organizers in northern Chile walked the perimeter of vast salt flats, in a region where multinational mining companies control lithium evaporation ponds and other mineral extraction operations that have been documented to inflict damage against local peoples’ sacred and life-sustaining lands. Five thousand miles to the north, auto workers in Michigan prepared to walk off the job at noon to demand, in addition to decent pay and working conditions, the inclusion of workers at the companies’ expanding electric vehicle (EV) and battery operations.

The Win For EV Workers In The South You Didn’t Hear About

August 17, 2024 Ella Fanger, Portside. Educate! Alabama, Electric Vehicles, Labor Movement, The South, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Organized labor is in the midst of a fierce campaign to make inroads at auto manufacturers in the South, most recently at the Mercedes plant in Vance, Alabama, where on May 17, 56% of workers voted narrowly against joining the United Auto Workers. But a few months before the unsuccessful vote at Mercedes, workers 100 miles away at an EV bus manufacturing plant in Anniston, Alabama, unionized and won a historic contract. In January 2024, the majority of the around 600 workers at a plant run since 2013 by New Flyer, the largest transit bus manufacturer in North America, signed a union card to join the International Union of Electrical Workers-Communications Workers of America (IUE-CWA).

New ‘Battery Belt’ Opens Organizing Front In The South

August 3, 2024 Ben Carroll, Labor Notes. Organize! Electric Vehicles, Labor Movement, The South, Unions

Towering cranes pierce the sky, contrasting with the rural surroundings. It’s an early morning in June, the air already gauzy and thick, and construction is humming at the Toyota Battery mega-site in Liberty, North Carolina. Trucks and other heavy machines dart in and out of the complex. A line of food trucks is tucked around the corner, alongside a dozen tour buses used to move workers. Production is slated to begin in 2025. By 2030, when the 7 million-square-foot complex is fully operational, it will have 14 production lines—10 dedicated to batteries for electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electrics, and four for hybrid electric vehicles—operated by 5,100 workers. The total population of Liberty is 2,655.

Electric Trains Are The Powerhouse Electric Vehicles

June 4, 2024 High Speed Rail Alliance. Create! climate crisis, Electric Vehicles, Energy, Railroads, Trains, Transportation

Lawmakers and business leaders alike are touting electric cars as a game-changer for climate change. And it’s true that cutting carbon pollution from vehicles is critical. The transportation sector accounts for about 29 percent of greenhouse-gas pollution in the US. The on-road emissions in Texas alone account for nearly ½ of 1 percent of all carbon-dioxide pollution globally. But the hype around electric cars is misplaced. Electric trains are the true powerhouse EV in the fight against climate change. And it’s not even close. Data from the UK shows that the national rail system is about 25% more energy efficient than electric cars, and London’s subway system is about 40% more efficient.

Toyota’s AI Greenwashing Bot Attacks Creators

February 6, 2024 The Yes Men. Resist! Artificial Intelligence, Electric Vehicles, greenwashing, The Yes Men, Toyota

January 24, 2024, Washington, D.C. — Last week, "Toyota" debuted a stunning eco-conscious AI personality, Electra, to promote their not-very-electric range of "Electrified" cars ahead of the Washington Auto Show. An AI trained on corporate and climate data to help drivers feel good about their environmental footprint regardless of the car they drive, Electra launched online simultaneous to a live unveiling at the National Press Club—which took a shocking turn as the AI hijacked the operation, recruiting users to revolt against her maker while nearly murdering a presenter onstage.

Cobalt Red, How The Blood Of The Congo Powers Our Lives

January 25, 2024 Ann Garrison, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Book Review, Cobalt, DR Congo, Electric Vehicles, Human Rights, Resources

“Unspeakable riches have brought the people of the Congo little other than unspeakable pain.” So writes Siddharth Kara in Cobalt Red, How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives . It’s one of the many poetic phrases that make this book easy on the ear but hard on the heart and mind. There’s pleasure in turning the pages of such finely crafted prose, pain in knowing that, if you have half a heart, you’ll never be able to see your smartphone, laptop, tablet, solar power system, or electric car quite the same way again, that you’ll see blood all over the supply chain that put them in your hand, on your roof, or in your driveway.

Auto Workers Charge Up The Power To Fight For An Electric Future

October 17, 2023 Keith Brower Brown, Labor Notes. Resist! Auto Workers, Electric Vehicles, Strikes, Unions, United Auto Workers (UAW)

“I think organizing those [non-union] plants needs to be our number one priority after we get done organizing the Big 3,” says Ryan Ashley at Ford Cleveland Engine. “With how significant the gains are looking in this contract, they’ll see it. And it’ll help.”

UAW Scores Major Victory

October 7, 2023 Luis Feliz Leon, In These Times. Resist! Auto Workers, Electric Vehicles, General Motors, Strikes, United Auto Workers (UAW), Victory, Worker Rights and Jobs

On Facebook Live Friday afternoon, United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain symbolically awarded roses to automakers General Motors, Stellantis, and Ford based on progress at the negotiating table, a reference to the reality show “The Bachelor.” The only thing missing was teary-eyed CEOs breathing a sigh of relief as the UAW agreed not to widen its strike to more factories for now. The UAW was poised to tap 5,000 members at GM’s assembly plant in Arlington, Texas, as part of its latest stand-up strike escalation. These workers would have joined 25,000 already on strike at five assembly plants and 38 parts distribution centers nationwide.

Automakers’ Electric Vehicle Lie

October 1, 2023 Lucy Dean Stockton, The Lever. Create! Cars, Electric Vehicles, The Big 3, Unions, United Auto Workers (UAW), Worker Rights and Jobs

The United Auto Workers are entering their third week of the first-ever simultaneous strike against the three big automakers, and for the first time, a sitting US president, Joe Biden, joined them on the picket line. Executives at General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis are pushing back on worker demands by invoking the climate crisis. They say it is impossible to give workers what they want while also making a swift transition to manufacturing electric vehicles. On September 14, Ford’s CEO Jim Farley said that the union’s demands — higher wages, better hours, an end to tiered employment, and guaranteed job security in a green energy transition — could send the company into bankruptcy.

Will The Clean Energy Auto Economy Be Built In Factories With Safety Hazards?

August 30, 2023 Luis Feliz Leon, In These Times. Educate! Autoworkers, Batteries, Electric Vehicles, Ohio, Workplace Safety

Thirty-year-old Rick Savage was among the first workers hired at Ultium Cells’ 2.8-million-square-foot battery plant in Lordstown, Ohio, in April 2022. “I heard about the battery plant and how it was going to be technologically superior to all other manufacturing companies,” Savage remembers thinking. “The future of the automotive industry is going to be electric.” Ultium Cells was a high-profile joint venture between U.S. automaker General Motors and South Korea’s LG Energy Solution. The Lordstown plant — billed as the largest battery plant of its kind anywhere in the country — was predicted to cost some $2.3 billion and generate more than 1,100 new jobs.

UAW Chief Says Union Prepared To Strike Against Big Three Automakers

July 13, 2023 Tara Suter, The Hill. Resist! Auto Workers, Electric Vehicles, Strikes, Unions, United Auto Workers (UAW), Worker Rights and Jobs

The head of United Auto Workers (UAW) raised the prospect of strikes ahead of talks with the three biggest automakers in Detroit later this month, as the industry faces major changes amid the shift to electric vehicles. Shawn Fain, the union’s president, said the auto workers will have a chance to attain larger concessions from the companies — General Motors (GM), Stellantis and Ford — in their new contracts “only if our members get organized and ready to strike.” The auto union is seeking to secure its members’ place in the emerging electric vehicle (EV) market — specifically joint-venture plants often operated by both the auto manufacturers and companies that make the batteries needed for EVs.

Battery Jobs Must Be Good-Paying Union Jobs, Says New UAW President

May 19, 2023 Dan DiMaggio, Labor Notes. Organize! Auto Workers, Electric Vehicles, Just transition, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Contracts covering 150,000 auto workers at the Big 3 will expire on September 14, and the new leadership of the United Auto Workers is taking a more aggressive stance than in years past. “We’re going to launch our biggest contract campaign ever in our history,” UAW President Shawn Fain told members in a Facebook live video. Fain took office in March after winning the union’s first one member, one vote election. Running on the slogan, “No Corruption, No Concessions, No Tiers,” he and the Members United slate swept all the positions they ran for, giving reformers a majority on the international executive board.

Union Win At Bus Factory Electrifies Georgia

May 18, 2023 Luis Feliz Leon, Labor Notes. Organize! Electric Vehicles, Georgia, Unions, Victory, Worker Rights and Jobs

After a bruising three-year fight, workers at school bus manufacturer Blue Bird in Fort Valley, Georgia, voted May 12 to join United Steelworkers (USW) Local 697. “It’s been a long time since a manufacturing site with 1,400 people has been organized, let alone organized in the South, let alone organized with predominantly African American workers, and let alone in the auto industry,” said Maria Somma, organizing director with the USW. “It’s not a single important win. It’s an example of what’s possible—workers wanting to organize and us being able to take advantage of a time and a policy that allowed them to clear a path to do so.”

The Cobalt Gold Rush And The East Palestine Disaster

April 14, 2023 Ellen Brown, Web Of Debt. Educate! Cobalt, East Palestine, Electric Vehicles, Ohio

Holidays in my childhood were spent at my grandparents’ farm in Plain Grove, Pennsylvania, 35 miles from East Palestine, Ohio. My grandfather’s grandfather fought at Gettysburg and homesteaded the 160-acre farm after the Civil War. My grandmother sold it in the 1960s for $13,000, lacking a male heir to do the work; but my relatives still live in the area. I have therefore taken a keen interest in the toxic chemical disaster that resulted when a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed in East Palestine on Feb. 3, although it is not my usual line of research. The official narrative doesn’t seem to add up. Something else must have been going on, but what?

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