Electric car

At the end of November this year, the number of electric cars and hybrids sold world-wide exceeded 3 million. The exact figure is 3.3 million vehicles, and only this year the sales of plug-in hybrids worldwide exceeded 1 million units, Automedia writes, referring to information from the EV Sales Blog.

Volkswagen AG unit Electrify America said on Monday that it plans to install 2,800 electric vehicle charging stations in 17 of the largest U.S. cities by June 2019, according to Reuters. 

The charging stations will be located at roughly 500 sites, with around 75 percent of them at workplaces and the rest at multifamily dwellings such as apartment buildings.

A Turkish engineer has designed a driverless electric car that has broken a speed record in the United States, making him one of the leading individuals in the technology sector.

The future of electric cars depends on China, and the situation will be impressive before the end of this decade - half of the world's electric vehicles are expected to move on the China road network by 2020.

This is the result of a study conducted by the American consulting company AlixPartners, quoted by Automedia.bg.

One of China's largest state-owned automakers has said it will phase out sales of all petrol vehicles by 2025, as Beijing considers taking all fuel-burning cars off the country's roads, news18.com reported. 

Ford Motor Co  will launch 50 new vehicles in China by 2025, including 15 electrified vehicles, Peter Fleet, head of Ford Asia Pacific, told a news conference on Tuesday, reported Reuters.

 Germany's BMW AG is talking with other automakers "around the world" to try to find partners to lower the cost of electrifying its future Mini small cars, management board member Peter Schwarzenbauer told Reuters.

At global level, sales of electric vehicles are record high in the third quarter of this year, world news agencies said.

This is largely due to strong demand from China. The sale of electric and hybrid vehicles increased to 287 thousand for the period between July and September. This represents an increase of 63% compared to the same period of last year. 

German automaker Volkswagen on Nov. 17 said it planned to invest more than 34 billion euros ($40 billion) over the next five years in new technologies to advance its push to become a global leader in electric cars.

Since October 30, a service for shared mobility with electric vehicles has begun in Sofia. The service is called Spark and is managed through a mobile application that allows customers to find the nearest electric car, to reserve and rent it.