Volkswagen, BYD, Proterra, Baidu, Aston Martin, Paragon.

VW has to pay 14.7bn dollars to settle the diesel scandal in the USA. 2bn will fund ZEV infrastructure and initiatives over ten years. Most money (10bn) is to go into a funding pool for affected consumers, who will then have to choose between a buyback or emissions modification. The latter has to be approved by the EPA and CARB. If the court ultimately approves the ruling, it will be the largest consumer auto industry class action settlement in U.S. history. VW may face criminal charges still.
greencarcongress.com, dailymail.co.uk, vwcourtsettlement.com (check for eligibility)

Dreaming big: BYD aims to sell 1 million electric vehicles by 2020 and believes in an EV marketshare of 30% by 2025, assuming that growth is accelerating. Furthermore, BYD is to start a pilot with an elevated transit bus for up to 50,000 passengers in Shenzhen this September. The concept resembles the straddling bus and the Airbus would travel 5 – 10 metres above cars.
chinadaily.com.cn

Open fast-charging patents: Proterra released patents on overhead fast-charging technology for electric buses, following Tesla and Toyota in the hope to accelerate the industry. The technology that has been made available openly is called Single Blade Charging and access is royalty-free.
autoblog.com

Chinese Google car: Baidu, China’s equivalent to Google, gears up to mass produce driverless cars within five years time. Testing of the autonomous vehicles is under way and while nothing has been said about the nature of those cars, it seems rather obvious that they will be electric in one way or another.
news.xinhuanet.com

Similarly certain is that the super car by Aston Martin and Red Bull is to be a hybrid, Autocar reports. A model of the AM-RB 001 hypercar has been presented to the selected few already and is set for public debut on July 5. Working prototypes cannot be expected before spring next year though.
autocar.co.uk

Mining more sustainably: Paragon subsidiary Voltabox is to strategically cooperate with Joy Global to develop smart battery systems for the latter’s mining equipment. First deliveries are planned for 2017.