EV News Daily - Technology and Business of EVs Mar 4, 2026

BRIEFLY: Renault, Norway, Mainstream Buyers & more | 03 Mar 2026

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Term

drive modes

Drive modes are different settings you can pick in a car to help it drive better on certain roads like slippery or rough surfaces.

Car

Chevrolet Colorado

The Chevrolet Colorado is a medium-sized truck that can handle different types of roads and surfaces. It has settings that help you drive better on rough or slippery ground.

Car

Chevrolet Silverado

The Chevrolet Silverado is a big truck that can pull heavy loads and comes with different engine choices. It's good for jobs that need a strong vehicle.

Term

towing

Towing means a truck can pull things like trailers or boats behind it when you drive.

Car

Chevrolet Silverado EV

The Chevrolet Silverado EV is a truck that runs on electricity instead of gas. It can still do tough jobs like pulling trailers but is better for the environment.

Brand

Renault

Renault is a car company from France that makes different types of cars, including electric ones. They are working on new technology to make cars that use both electricity and gas.

Concept

An EREV is a type of car that mostly runs on electricity but also has a small gas engine to help when the battery runs low. This means you can drive mostly on electric power but still go longer distances without stopping to recharge.

Concept

EV share

EV share means how many electric cars there are compared to all cars in a place.

Term

BEV

A BEV is a car that runs only on electricity stored in batteries, so it doesn't use gas or diesel at all.

Term

regular hybrids

Regular hybrids are cars that use both gas and electricity, but you don't have to plug them in to charge. They charge their batteries when you drive.

Term

petrol

Petrol means the same as gasoline, which is the fuel many cars use to run their engines.

Term

plug-in hybrids

Plug-in hybrids are cars that can run on both gas and electricity. You can charge their batteries by plugging them in, so they can drive some distance using electricity alone.

Term

diesel

Diesel is a type of fuel used in some car engines. These engines are good at using fuel efficiently and give strong power.

Term

mild hybrids

Mild hybrids are cars that have a small electric motor to help the gas engine, but they can't run just on electricity.

Concept

EV adoption

EV adoption means more and more people are buying and using electric cars instead of gas cars.

Company

QuantumScape

QuantumScape makes new kinds of batteries that could help electric cars go farther and be safer.

Term

solid state battery

Solid state batteries are a new kind of battery that can store more power and charge faster without catching fire easily.

Concept

pilot line

A pilot line is like a small factory used to test how to make something before making a lot of it.

Concept

licensing technology

Licensing technology means letting other companies use your invention if they pay you for it.

Brand

Volkswagen

Volkswagen is a big car company from Germany that makes many types of cars.

Concept

solid state cars

Solid state cars are electric cars that use new batteries that work better and charge quicker.

Car

Kia EV2

The Kia EV2 is a new electric car from Kia that people will be able to drive soon.

Term

Nürburgring

The Nürburgring is a well-known race track in Germany where car makers test how fast and well their cars can drive.

Term

100 kilowatt hour battery pack

The 100 kilowatt hour battery is how much electricity the car's battery can hold, which decides how far it can drive before needing a recharge.

Term

quad motors

Quad motors means the car has four electric motors, one for each wheel, which helps it go faster and handle better.

Car

BMW M3

The BMW M3 is a fast and sporty car made by BMW. They are now making a version that runs on electricity instead of gas, which is exciting because it shows how car makers are changing. The car was tested on a famous race track called the Nürburgring to show how good it is.

Brand

Royal Enfield

Royal Enfield is a company that makes motorcycles, often with a classic look. They are now making electric motorcycles too.

Concept

scrambler

A scrambler is a motorcycle that can be used on regular roads and some rough paths, with a tough look and special tires to handle dirt.

Car

Audi S6

The Audi S6 is a nicer and faster version of a regular Audi car called the A6. In the future, Audi plans to make a new S6 that looks like a scrambler, which means it might be tougher and good for different kinds of roads. It's a fancy car that is fun to drive and comfortable.

Car

Polestar 2

The Polestar 2 is a small electric car made by Polestar, a company related to Volvo. It looks modern and runs only on electricity.

Concept

shared platform

A shared platform means different cars use the same basic parts and design to save money and time.

Brand

Geely

Geely is a big car company from China that makes cars and owns other car brands.

Brand

Porsche

Porsche is a famous car company from Germany that makes fast and fancy cars.

LIVE

Chevy Trucks have you covered when the road takes you from smooth sailing to

Chevy Colorado will eat up some of the toughest terrains with five available drive modes,

and Silverado and Silverado HD have the muscle to take you out for some series

with multiple engine options and impressive towing.

While Silverado EV is the perfect combo of performance and capability,

making it a snap to hitch up this electric truck and hit the road.

Wherever the road leads, Chevy Trucks are right there with you.

Click to learn more. Chevrolet Together Let's Drive.

Capital One's tech team isn't just talking about multi-agentic AI.

They already deployed one. It's called Chat Concierge,

and it's simplifying car shopping. Using self-reflection and layered reasoning with

live API checks, it doesn't just help buyers find a car they love.

It helps schedule a test drive, get pre-approved for financing,

and estimate trading value. Advanced, intuitive, and deployed.

That's how they stack. That's technology at Capital One.

An underlying confidence in electrified vehicles.

Renault, of course, is exploring EREV technology.

That is a small engine and then a plug socket,

but a much bigger battery that most people could do all of their electric miles on,

apart from occasionally. The new Scenic will probably come as an EREV

for trips up to 600 miles or 1,000 kilometers.

Norway's EV share has recovered in February.

January was a strange month because it was the end of the tax changes,

which pulled purchases into 2025. February, much more of a normal month,

and that is 98% pure Bev. The other 2% of the market is everything else,

including plug-in hybrids. That's plug-in hybrids, diesel, petrol, and regular hybrids,

or mild hybrids, sharing less than 2% actually between them.

Norway's battery electric car fleet just crossed 1 million.

So that is over 951,000 passenger Bevs and over 50,000 light commercial Bevs.

So that's more than a million Bevs on the road in Norway.

And actually, if you're wondering what is that percentage of the car park,

well, there's almost 3 million vehicles in Norway, so it's 32% of the cars on the road.

So even in a country where all the vehicles now sold are pure Bev, not even E-rev or plug-in

hybrid, only a third of the cars you see driving past are going to be electric.

It does spit out, obviously. Oslo is half of all cars are now pure Bev,

somewhere like rural Finnmark. It's one in 10.

Research from the charging firm Chargy and new automotive showed that EV adoption in England

over the last five years has changed in terms of who's buying them.

Once closely tied to the wealth of early adopters,

new research shows that people from all economic backgrounds are now buying EVs.

QuantumScape officially unveiled their Eagle line.

That is an automated solid state battery production facility.

It's a pilot line, and it's not made to start making millions of cells themselves.

It's to show off their technology in the hope that others will license it.

A big investor in them over the years has been Volkswagen.

I wonder if we'll see them using QuantumScape's solid state production line any time soon.

China seems about 12 to 18 months away from having some serious true solid state cars on the road.

Kia will run its first drive weekends in the UK over April to June.

So these are 30 minute drives.

And before that, talking to a Kia EV specialist all about the new Kia EV2.

Aiming at first time buyers for this compact SUV to learn about electric cars.

Expected starting price, I think under £25,000 for the 42.2 kilowatt hour version.

BMW has released footage of its electric M3 lapping the Nurburgring quad motors

and over 100 kilowatt hour battery pack.

On two wheels, Royal Enfield is launching its first electric motorcycle.

In fact, several of them under the new brand called Flying Flea.

The first one comes this year, and they'll be a scrambler inspired S6 in 2027.

The next Polestar will replace the Polestar 2 as we know it in 2027.

It's going to be lower and sportier, less like a raised saloon sedan.

UK pricing will be below £50,000.

This will be on a shared Chinese Geely platform.

And finally, Registro Italiano Emotion is now the world's first official Porsche club.

Recognised by Porsche, but exclusively for owners of battery electric Porsches.

And that's briefly.

About this episode

The episode covers a range of EV news including Chevrolet's versatile trucks and Capital One's AI-powered car shopping tool. Renault's upcoming EREV Scenic aims for long trips with a large battery and small engine. Norway's EV market is booming with 98% pure BEVs and over a million electric vehicles on the road, though only a third of total cars are electric. Research shows EV buyers in England now span all economic backgrounds. QuantumScape unveiled a solid-state battery pilot line, while Kia prepares UK EV test drives for first-time buyers. BMW's electric M3 hits the Nürburgring, Royal Enfield launches electric motorcycles, and Polestar plans a sportier model. Porsche recognizes the first official electric Porsche club.

100 kilowatt hour battery pack BEV diesel drive modes EREV technology EV adoption EV share Geely licensing technology mild hybrids

Audi S6 BMW M3 Chevrolet Colorado Chevrolet Silverado Chevrolet Silverado EV Kia EV2 Polestar 2

Original notes

It's EV News Briefly for Tuesday 03 March 2026, everything you need to know in less than 5 minutes if you haven't got time for the full show.

Patreon supporters fund this show, get the episodes ad free, as soon as they're ready and are part of the EV News Daily Community. You can be like them by clicking here: https://www.patreon.com/EVNewsDaily

RENAULT CHIEF ATTACKS "FAKE" PHEVS, EYES RANGE EXTENDERS
Renault CEO François Provost has condemned short-range plug-in hybrids from German and Chinese manufacturers as "fake PHEVs" that discourage regular charging and undermine consumer and regulatory confidence in electrified vehicles. Renault is exploring range-extender EV (EREV) technology for its next-generation electric platform — underpinning models like the Scenic successor — where a combustion engine acts only as a generator for trips up to 1,000km, and Provost is pushing for EREVs to be explicitly permitted for sale in the EU and UK beyond the 2035 all-BEV mandate.
NORWAY'S EV SHARE RECOVERS AND HITS 98%
Norway registered 7,272 new passenger cars in February 2026, with BEVs accounting for 7,127 of them — a 98.01% market share — as the market began to stabilise after a turbulent end to 2025 driven by expiring VAT exemptions. OFV Director Geir Inge Stokke compared the post-surge normalisation to the period following the 2022 VAT reform, with diesel, petrol PHEVs, hybrids, and pure petrol cars dividing up the remaining 2% between them.
NORWAY PASSES ONE MILLION BATTERY-ELECTRIC VEHICLES
Norway's battery-electric passenger car fleet has crossed one million, with 951,300 BEV passenger cars and 50,300 BEV light commercial vehicles (LCVs) on the road, representing 32.4% of all passenger cars in the country's 2.94 million-strong fleet. Oslo leads with a 48.9% BEV share in its passenger car fleet and is expected to crack 50% before summer, while rural Finnmark trails at 12.2%, and the Norwegian EV Association's Christina Bu says the LCV transition — currently at just 9.7% — urgently needs to accelerate.
UPTAKE SPREADS BEYOND WEALTHIER EARLY ADOPTERS
Research from charging firm char.gy and think tank New Automotive shows that EV adoption in England, once closely tied to wealth as measured by the Index of Multiple Deprivation, has spread significantly into poorer areas by Q3 2024–2025, with growth rates converging across most neighbourhoods. Used BEV transactions surged 45.7% in 2025 to a record 274,815 units, lifting used BEV market share to 3.5%, and with more than two million plug-in vehicles now on UK roads, the main remaining challenge is delivering reliable, affordable on-street charging in the most disadvantaged communities.
QUANTUMSCAPE UNVEILS PRODUCTION LINE IN CALIFORNIA
QuantumScape officially inaugurated its Eagle Line — a highly automated solid-state battery pilot production facility in San Jose, California — on February 4, 2026, designed not for mass production by QuantumScape itself but as a scalable blueprint that licensing partners, including Volkswagen (which has invested over $300 million), can replicate at gigawatt-hour scale in their own plants. With roughly $850 million in liquidity but a history of burning over $100 million annually and Volkswagen having scaled back its involvement in 2023 after missed timelines, QuantumScape's strategy pivot toward licensing means the next 18–24 months are critical for securing a major customer agreement.
KIA UK SETS EV2 FIRST DRIVE WEEKENDS
Kia UK will run First Drive Weekend events for the EV2 across nearly all 190 UK dealers from April 16 to June 27, 2026, offering structured 30-minute accompanied drives ahead of first deliveries expected later in the year. The EV2 is a compact SUV just over four metres long built on the 400V E-GMP platform, supporting 10%–80% DC rapid charging in around 30 minutes, with two battery options (42.2kWh and 61.0kWh) and an expected starting price of around £25,000 — potentially undercutting rivals like the Renault 5 and Ford Puma Gen-E after the UK's £3,750 plug-in vehicle grant.
BMW TEASES FOUR-MOTOR ELECTRIC M3 AT NÜRBURGRING
BMW M has released camouflaged footage of the electric M3 prototype — codenamed ZA0 — lapping the Nürburgring, featuring a unique four-motor all-wheel-drive setup with a front-motor decoupling mode for rear-wheel-drive capability that doesn't appear on any other Neue Klasse model. The ZA0 uses a bespoke battery pack with more than 100 kWh of net energy capacity not shared with regular i3 variants, with production targeted for March 2027 — well after the standard i3 sedan, which entered pre-series production at BMW's Munich plant in February 2026.
ROYAL ENFIELD SETS 2026–2027 EV AND ICE PUSH
Royal Enfield is launching its first electric motorcycles under a new sub-brand called Flying Flea, starting with the minimalist urban C6 in 2026 and followed by the scrambler-inspired S6 in 2027, both sharing a common battery architecture that signals a modular platform approach. The brand is also developing an electrified Himalayan adventure bike, pushing its EV ambitions beyond city commuting into a segment that demands tougher performance credentials around weight, range, and durability.
NEXT POLESTAR WILL BE SPORTIER AND ON CHINESE PLATFORM
Polestar will replace the Polestar 2 in 2027 with a lower, sportier saloon that will be meaningfully longer than today's 4.6-metre car — potentially rivalling the BMW 3 Series — with UK pricing expected to start just below £50,000. The new model shifts to a Geely Holdings group-wide platform shared with Volvo, Lotus, Lynk&Co, and Zeekr, developed at "China speed" in a 30-month cycle versus the typical five-to-seven-year European timeline, with software-defined vehicle capability and advanced central computing at its core.
ITALY LAUNCHES FIRST OFFICIAL ELECTRIC PORSCHE CLUB
Registro Italiano E-motion has become the world's first Porsche club built exclusively around battery-electric vehicles, earning official recognition from Porsche after beginning life as a pandemic-era chat group for Italian Taycan owners in 2021. The club's inaugural tour brought together 131 participants and 73 vehicles — a mix of 42 Taycans and 31 Macan Electrics, including two Taycan Turbo GT Weissach models — on a multi-day Alpine drive from Porsche Experience Center Franciacorta in northern Italy to the Hans Peter Porsche Traumwerk museum near Salzburg, Austria.

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