Electric vehicles pass key milestone in Europe
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Electric vehicles in Europe passed a key milestone last month as EV sales surpassed those of petrol-powered cars for the first time. The record sends a powerful message to U.S. automakers paring back on EV production.
Sales of EVs in the European Union rose to 22.6% of all sales in December, passing those of gasoline-powered cars, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association. Sales of hybrids, meanwhile, easily topped them both.
With a takeover by hybrids and EVs in the EU and Asia well on pace, the challenge now for big U.S. automakers is how to compete while still battling political obstacles to EVs set up by the White House.
General Motors this week took a $7.2 billion charge to earnings to cover losses in its EV business, contributing to a 55% decline in annual profit. But CEO Mary Barra, while promising higher profit this year, said the company is not giving up on EVs because they know once people drive them they typically don’t go back.
With Chinese EVs increasingly appearing in Mexico and soon in Canada after China’s trade deal with the country last week, inexpensive EVs will soon be rolling both north and south of the U.S. border. Some cars by Chinese EV maker BYD can now charge in under five minutes.
How GM GM 0.00%↑, Ford F 0.00%↑ and indeed, Tesla TSLA 0.00%↑ manage White House hostility to EVs while staying relevant on the international stage will be one the great auto industry stories of 2026.
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Bloomberg steps in for president to save world
. . . . Michael Bloomberg’s philanthropic organization confirmed for the first time this week that the New York billionaire who once ran for president has committed over $3 billion to efforts to fight climate change in the past decade.
The former New York mayor’s Bloomberg Philanthropies committed $270 million to United Nations efforts around its COP30 summit in Brazil last November, raising its total pledges above the $3 billion threshold, according to an analysis in the Financial Times.
The financial donations place Bloomberg above even Bill Gates in terms of climate pledges, with some estimates placing Gates’s commitments at about $2 billion.
More importantly, they set the one-time presidential candidate at odds with President Donald Trump, who has done nothing but attack climate investing and is infamously known for almost no philanthropy whatsoever despite his reported net worth of more than $6 billion.
As political pundits argue today who is on the right side of history, it seems to us that historians will be able to answer that question quite clearly in 50 years, if not five.
Editor’s picks: Iconic winter wildlife; plus, EV charging network powers up
Watch the video: Take a journey through magical winter landscapes, exploring the wondrous and wild animals that live there. Watch as they grow up, hunt, mate and learn to survive in some of the harshest environments on Earth. From BBC Earth.
America’s EV charging network had a huge year of growth
The public fast-charging network for EVs in the U.S. grew at a record pace in 2025, expanding by 30% and adding more than 18,000 new ports. Growth was largely led by private investment, but a portion came from the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program, InsideEVs reports. The new data shows the NEVI program is finally gaining some momentum, the report notes. Charging analytics firm Paren reports nearly 100 new NEVI-funded charging stations came online in the U.S. last year, adding close to 500 new ports.That’s more than double the number of stations and roughly three times the number of NEVI-funded ports added in 2024. Paren attributed the record-breaking overall U.S. network growth to the combined efforts of automakers, retailers and charging companies, working together.
Latest findings: New research, studies and projects
Climate change is reshaping tropical forests
After analyzing 40 years of tree records across the Andes and Amazon, researchers have found that climate change is reshaping tropical forests in uneven ways. Some regions are steadily losing tree species, especially where conditions are hotter and drier, while others are seeing gains. Rainfall patterns turned out to be just as important as rising temperatures, Science Daily reports. A new study from researchers at the University of Liverpool and published in Nature Ecology and Evolution shows that tropical forests across the Amazon and Andes have experienced major changes in tree diversity in recent decades as global environmental conditions continue to shift. The research is based on decades of detailed tree records. The data was collected by hundreds of botanists and ecologists working in long-term forest plots, providing one of the most comprehensive assessments yet of how tree diversity is changing in some of the most biologically rich forests on Earth.
Words to live by . . . .
“Spring, summer and fall fill us with hope; winter alone reminds us of the human condition.” —Mignon McLaughlin.