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California Assemblymember Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) introduced a bill to require all new passenger vehicles sold in 2040 to be zero-emission vehicles. The bill wouldn’t apply to large commercial vehicles with GVW of 10,001 lbs or more.  

A half dozen EVs were introduce at the CES conference in Las Vegas. Among them is Chinese manufacturer Byton’s all-electric SIV, or Smart Intuitive Vehicle, which is about 85% ready for production. The single-motor RWD version boasts 272 horsepower and range of around 250 miles from a 71 kWh battery. The dual-motor AWD model yields 476 horsepower and 323 miles of range from a 95-kWh battery. Swiss-based Rinspeed introduced the Snap, which has a removable upper portion. The top can be retained if the lower part needs to be replaced.

A hot topic at the CES conference was removing drivers from autonomous vehicles. Toyota plans to demonstrate a driverless vehicle by the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic games, while GM plans to have modified driverless Bolts ready for commercial service in 2019. Google’s Waymo already has driverless Chrysler Pacificas in the Phoenix area.

GM is seeking an OK from NHTSA to test driverless robo-cabs on public roads, starting in 2019.  Company officials said they would roll out as many as 25 vehicles annually under the pilot project, if given approval from NHTSA. GM ultimately hopes to provide the vehicles to ride-sharing services such as Lyft – in which it is a major investor – as well as its own service, Maven.