MyOpinion

Taxi driver Surendra Parajuli’s decision to buy an electric cab would have been unthinkable a decade ago, when chronic power cuts left Nepalis unable to light their homes at night.

But a dam-building spree has led to dirt-cheap energy prices in a landlocked Himalayan republic otherwise entirely dependent on fossil fuel imports, meaning the switch has put more money in his pocket.

“It has meant huge savings for me,” Parajuli, the proud new owner of a battery-powered and Chinese-made BYD Atto 3, said in the capital Kathmandu.

“It gives 300km in a single charge and costs me a tenth of what petrol does. And it’s environmentally friendly.”

Kathmandu is ground zero of an incipient transport revolution set to see the clapped out cars that clog its traffic-snarled streets make way for emissions-free alternatives.

More than 40,000 electric vehicles are on the roads around the mountainous country, according to official estimates – a small fraction of the 6.2 million motor vehicles currently in service.

But demand is insatiable: more than a quarter of those vehicles were imported in the 12 months to July, a near-threefold increase from the previous year.

Neighbouring China, now the dominant player in electric vehicles globally, is supplying nearly 70 per cent of the market.

“EVs are genuinely suitable for Nepalis,” Yajya Raj Bhatt, a prospective buyer at an electric vehicle motor show, said.

“Before, we had to rely on petrol cars, but now we can drive independently.”

More than four in five Nepalis did not have access to electricity at the turn of the century, according to the International Energy Agency.

But rapid investment in dams, which generate 99 per cent of Nepal’s baseload power, has transformed the energy grid since.

Hydropower output has increased fourfold in the past eight years, according to government figures, while 95 per cent of the population now has access to electricity.

Mazda officially opened the order books on its new Mazda EZ-6 EV and EREV versions of the car in China yesterday. And the starting price? It’s under $25,000.

Co-developed by Mazda and Chinese state-owned Changan Auto, the EZ-6 was one of two new electric offerings that debuted back in April. The other was a CX-5/0-sized crossover called the Arata, but the EZ-6 seemed closer to production, with a promised on-sale date later this year.

Kia said Friday it has completed building Hyundai Motor Group's first manufacturing facility dedicated solely to electric vehicles, which boasts an annual capacity of producing 150,000 units.

Kia held a ceremony for the Kia Gwangmyeong EVO Plant, located at Kia Autoland in Gwangmyeong, just south of Seoul, which is tasked with mass producing Kia's new EV3 model and the upcoming EV4 model.

Kia invested 401.6 billion won ($304.4 million) in the 60,000 square-meter facility, completely rebuilding it on an existing plant site to facilitate the company's next-generation vehicle production.

The event was attended by around 150 guests, including Choi Jun-Young, executive vice president and head of domestic production at Kia, and Gwangmyeong Mayor Park Seung-won.

The EVO Plant is characterized under the theme of pursuing maximum change through minimal expansion, taking into consideration its location in the city center and other environmental factors, such as the protection of green spaces.

In addition, the plant has been constructed with a full-scale conversion to electrification in mind, focusing on eco-friendly and worker-friendly elements.

Mass production of the EV3, the brand's compact all-electric SUV, began in the first half of this year. In the first half of 2025, Kia plans to introduce the EV4, the brand's upcoming mid-sized electric sedan.

Choi said in a welcoming speech that the completion of the plant "solidifies Kia's first step as an EV leader following the company's brand relaunch in 2021."

"With the goal of providing sustainable mobility solutions, we will lead innovation in the EV market and fulfill our responsibilities in helping to deliver a sustainable future," he added.

Battery-electric vehicles accounted for 8 percent of new vehicle sales in June and July of this year and should be above 8 percent for September, according to estimates from S&P Global Mobility. While growth has slowed from the 50 percent year over year we experienced in 2023, the trend is still positive, with market share increasing from 7 percent in the first three months of the year. That also has to be seen in the wider context of overall new vehicle sales, which are expected to drop by 12 percent this month.

"New vehicle sales remain stuck in neutral," said Chris Hopson, principal analyst at S&P Global Mobility. "The overall tenor of the auto demand environment remains one of consistent, but unmotivated volume levels as consumers in the market continue to be pressured by high interest rates and slow-to-recede vehicle prices, which are translating to high monthly payments."

Skydance Games, the developers behind the much-anticipated VR adventure Skydance’s BEHEMOTH, announced the game is going to be slightly delayed beyond the original November 14th release date, pushing launch back a few weeks.

Skydance announced the news in an X post, noting the new release date is now set for December 5th, 2024 across all supported headsets, which includes Quest 2/3/Pro, PSVR 2, and SteamVR headsets.

“The positive reception to the game leading up to this point has been incredible, and the strong support from our community has made us all so excited to share what we’ve been working so hard on,” the studio says in the post. “We felt giving our team the extra necessary time to polish and deliver the highest quality game at launch was most important for our players.”

At Meta Connect 2024, Meta announced not only the new Quest 3S VR headset, but also a new avatar system that will offer graphically more sophisticated models starting October 1.

According to Meta, there will be more customization options. These will now include details such as eye size, nose shape, body shape, and more. The movements and expressions of the avatars will also be much more lifelike than before.

To achieve this, Meta has overhauled the entire avatar system. In the future, developers will have access to a more detailed avatar skeleton, which will give them greater control over avatar movements and expressions.

In the course of next year, Meta wants to make it possible to use generative AI to generate new outfits through text input.

It has long been theorized that EV charging stations located in a business’s parking lot should help that business to earn more money. It’s not complicated, and on the surface, it just makes sense. If you attract more people to your parking lot, or if they are compelled to stay there longer than the average person while their car is charged, why would you not get more money out of them, get more spending in your shop?

This is something that has been argued by EV drivers and EV charging stations for several years. The good news is we’re now getting more research showing this is the case.

Interestingly, aside from businesses closer to charging stations earning more revenue, a new study found that charging stations located in lower-income areas especially benefited nearby businesses.

The MIT study, focused on California and now published in the journal Nature Communications, found that “opening a charging station boosted annual spending at each nearby business by an average of about $1,500 in 2019 and about $400 between January 2021 and June 2023.” Naturally, those kind of savings could easily cover the costs of installing a station. “These increases are equal to a significant chunk of the cost of installing an EV charger, and I hope this study sheds light on these economic benefits,” said Yunhan Zheng, a postdoc at the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) and lead author of the study. “The findings could also diversify the income stream for charger providers and site hosts, and lead to more informed business models for EV charging stations.”

Notably, whereas much research on this subject had previously relied on surveys (which is what we at CleanTechnica had conducted and also mostly seen) or were quite small scale, this MIT research team went further. “For their study, the researchers collected data from over 4,000 charging stations in California and 140,000 businesses, relying on anonymized credit and debit card transactions to measure changes in consumer spending. The researchers used data from 2019 through June of 2023, skipping the year 2020 to minimize the impact of the pandemic.” Now that’s data collection! “To judge whether charging stations caused customer spending increases, the researchers compared data from businesses within 500 meters of new charging stations before and after their installation. They also analyzed transactions from similar businesses in the same time frame that weren’t near charging stations.” Well done. There’s not much more you could do for better research on this topic.

The conclusion was that a new charging station boosted spending at a nearby business by 1.4% in 2019 and by 0.8% per year from January 2021 to June 2023. “While that might sound like a small amount per business, it amounts to thousands of dollars in overall consumer spending increases. Specifically, those percentages translate to almost $23,000 in cumulative spending increases in 2019 and about $3,400 per year from 2021 through June 2023,” MIT summarizes.

Again, this matches what we’d always found when surveying EV drivers — and simply living our lives as EV drivers. Charging stations pull you into places you wouldn’t normally go, can also cause you to hang out in that place for longer, and thus easily leads to you spending more money there than you would have otherwise.

Meta has finally revealed its latest headset, Quest 3S. Although it retains some of Quest 2’s flaws, it creates much needed parity in power and features, all at an unbeatable price: $299.

There’s no getting around the fact that the Fresnel lenses in Quest 2 (and now Quest 3S) are worse than the class-leading lenses in Quest 3. It’s not even so much the lower resolution, but mostly the glare and smaller sweet spot—which are almost completely absent on Quest 3—that are so visually reminiscent of Quest 2. These artifacts really impact the clarity of the image coming from the display.

Unfortunately this means that doing basic things in the Horizon OS interface—like navigating through your app library, browsing the web, and playing videos—will look nearly identical on Quest 3S as it does on Quest 2.

Five years ago, we announced to the world that we were building AR glasses. We don’t think people should have to make the choice between a world of information at your fingertips and being present in the physical world around you.

That’s why today, we’re unveiling Orion, which we believe is the most advanced pair of AR glasses ever made. Orion bridges the physical and virtual worlds, putting people at the center so they can be more present, connected and empowered in the world.

Beginning today at Connect and continuing throughout the year, we’re opening up access to our Orion product prototype for Meta employees and select external audiences so our development team can learn, iterate and build towards our consumer AR glasses product line, which we plan to begin shipping in the near future.

The team previously provided a fresh look at the title earlier this month, gradually releasing new teasers. Discussing their upcoming release plans and their ambitions for this intriguing narrative-driven VR adventure, One True Path targets both old and new players interested in old-school paper-and-pencil adventuring. Today's trailer in the XR Indies and Friends Showcase revealed that the first part of the game would be available for free starting today.

The Resident Evil franchise has had a pretty solid run in the world of virtual reality. Taking a bold first step, Resident Evil 7 launched with PSVR compatibility, allowing headset owners to play through the entire game in virtual reality. In October 2021, a VR version of the oft-remastered, ported, and remade Resident Evil 4 hit the Meta Quest, and it's still widely considered to be one of the best experiences for the headset almost three years later. And just last year, both Resident Evil Village and Resident Evil 4 Remake were given free PSVR2 updates.

It seems likely that Capcom will want to continue pursuing its VR ventures with the Resident Evil franchise, but it might be some time before the next mainline entry or remake releases. Instead, Capcom could look to Resident Evil's past for more VR content. There's one RE spinoff that would perfectly suit a VR makeover, and it could land at the ideal time.

Released in November 2009 – just a few months after Resident Evil 5 – Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles is a Wii light gun shooter. Players are given four lengthy scenarios to play through, each of which has them blasting classic Resident Evil enemies with the Wii remote or the Wii Zapper that was bundled with certain versions of the game. Though VR games have evolved quite a bit since the early days of on-rails shooters like Until Dawn: Rush of Blood, that type of gameplay still suits the VR format well.

It's been a year since Meta launched the Quest 3, its first major attempt at integrating mixed reality into a consumer-focused VR headset. At Meta Connect 2024 today, we're expecting the company to further expand out its headset family with a cheaper Quest 3S (likely replacing the Quest 2). And judging from the slew of rumors this year — and a bit of a tease from Mark Zuckerberg himself — Meta will likely show off its Orion AR glasses. And don't forget about Meta AI: Expect to hear more news about AI features in the Ray-Ban smart glasses, as well as throughout the company's apps.

Join us right here at 1PM ET, where we'll be covering the Meta Connect 2024 keynote live!