It's ev.news Briefly for Friday 07 August 2026, only todays headlines and nothing else, in just 4 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 Community. You can be like them by clicking here: https://www.patreon.com/evnews FORD FATHOM STARTS AT $29,945 DELIVEREDFord has named its affordable electric pickup the Fathom, priced from $28,350 for the standard-range model, or $29,945 including the mandatory $1,595 delivery fee, and it is the first vehicle on Ford's new Universal EV Platform, which uses megacasting and an "assembly tree" process at Louisville Assembly Plant to cut parts count by 20% and process workstations by 40%, alongside prismatic LFP cells from BlueOval Battery Park in Michigan and an expected range of at least 300 miles (480km). Every trim gets a large touchscreen, wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, BlueCruise, bidirectional charging, a digital key, a native NACS port and the first embedded Apple Maps navigation, with pre-orders and the full reveal due in early 2027 and customer deliveries later that year. CALIFORNIA'S MYFIRSTEV REBATES START PAYING OUTCalifornia's MyFirstEV programme has begun paying out $3,500 off a new EV and $1,750 off a used EV at the point of sale, funded by $135.5 million from the state matched by $135.5 million from manufacturers for a $271 million pot that could support more than 73,000 clean vehicles, with new vehicles capped at $50,000 MSRP, used at $25,000, and buyers required to attest they have never owned an EV. The caveats are significant: the price caps do not apply to California-headquartered makers Lucid and Rivian, carmakers choose which models and trims qualify, CARB judges eligibility on base-trim MSRP so pricier variants like the Model Y Performance still qualify, and used EVs must be certified pre-owned from franchised dealerships and at least two model years old. BMW STARTS I3 PRODUCTION IN MUNICHBMW began series production of the i3 at Plant Munich on 6 August, making it the second Neue Klasse model to reach series production after the iX3, with orders opening in mid-June and demand forcing an unusually steep ramp-up curve. Plant Munich head Peter Weber said the launch cuts manufacturing costs by a further 10% through forward planning, supplier collaboration, targeted automation, digitalisation and the Neue Klasse architecture, with the First Edition priced at €75,340 ($87,100) and the later base i3 50 xDrive at €65,900 ($76,180). ŠKODA STARTS PEAQ PRODUCTION IN MLADÁ BOLESLAVŠkoda Auto has started series production of the Peaq, its largest and most expensive electric model, at Mladá Boleslav, where it shares a line with the electric Elroq, electric Enyaq and combustion Octavia Combi, allowing output to shift between powertrains as demand changes; the model went on sale in June and had almost 8,500 orders by the end of July. Batteries are assembled on site, with a 91 kWh gross/86 kWh net pack offering more than 640 km (398 miles) of range and a smaller 63 kWh gross/59 kWh net pack starting at €49,990 (about $58,000). CHINESE BRANDS GAIN GROUND IN GERMANYChinese brands took 3.8% of German registrations in the first half of 2026, up from 2.2% in 2025, achieved in Europe's largest car market while overall demand stayed flat. Research from Deutsche Automobil Treuhand found Korean-brand owners most open to switching, with nearly one in two considering a Chinese model and one in five certain to buy, against nearly one in three of Japanese-brand owners and roughly one in four German-brand owners, though the German figures are not presented on a comparable basis and stated intent does not prove actual defection. ROYAL MAIL HITS 9,000 ELECTRIC VANSRoyal Mail has taken delivery of its 9,000th electric van, assigned to the Colchester Delivery Office, in what it calls Britain's largest electric delivery fleet, with 44 delivery sites now diesel-free and almost a third of routes zero-emission. The programme began in 2017 with an order for 100 vans and is justified by lower running and maintenance costs on short urban rounds, and now extends beyond the last mile with the first electric HGV added in December 2025 and more than 100 micro electric vehicles being deployed across the UK. KIA PV5 TAKES 37% OF EUROPEAN MARKETKia's first electric van, the PV5, arrived at the end of 2025, beat the company's own launch forecasts and now holds 37% of Europe's small electric van market according to ACEA data, leading its segment in 12 countries including the UK and Germany across Passenger, Cargo and Chassis forms. In Britain the PV5 Cargo leads all electric vans on 2026 registrations to date, and July brought Kia's first four-figure electric van month with 1,019 registrations, split 784 Cargo and 235 Passenger. ARNOLD CLARK ADDS £8.99 CHARGING SUBSCRIPTIONArnold Clark has launched an £8.99 ($12) monthly subscription on its Arnold Clark Charge network, available only through Octopus Electroverse, cutting ultra-rapid charging to 39p/kWh from the 55p/kWh standard tariff, a 16p/kWh saving that repays the fee at roughly 56kWh a month or about one and a half fills of a mid-size battery. The move carries weight because Arnold Clark is Britain's largest independent dealer group, with 140 service centres, 16 accident repair sites, 38 rental branches and Central Car Auctions, and recently reported annual revenue above £5.56bn ($7.5bn) with new-car sales up 11.2% in 2025 on the back of new EV franchises. VAUXHALL CORSA GSE STARTS AT £32,995Vauxhall has priced the electric Corsa GSE at £32,995 ($44,400) after the UK Electric Car Grant, with order books opening in September and first deliveries due in winter. Built on Stellantis's electric hot-hatch version of the e-CMP platform and shared with the Opel Corsa GSE, it uses a 207 kW (278 hp) front motor for a claimed 0-62 mph in 5.5 seconds, making it the quickest-accelerating production Vauxhall on sale and the most powerful Corsa ever, and positioning it as successor to the Nova GTE/GSi, Corsa GSi and Corsa VXR. NEW YORK TO ADD 600 CURBSIDE CHARGERSNew York City's Department of Transportation plans to add 600 curbside charging points to the PlugNYC network across all five boroughs over three years, lifting public curbside Level 2 points from 88 to 688, with each site carrying at least two posts and four charging points plus spare electrical connections for future e-mobility uses where grid capacity allows. Priority goes to dense neighbourhoods with little off-street parking and high numbers of taxi and ride-hailing drivers as well as low- and moderate-income communities, with Commissioner Mike Flynn tying the scheme to the Mamdani administration's 2050 net-zero goal, while a separate expansion at municipal parking facilities will add 92 fast and 180 Level 2 charging points procured and built by the New York Power Authority. One flag worth raising: the Ford story contains an error in the source copy — "$29,945, or £22,30" is a malformed sterling conversion. Also, your instruction was two sentences per story, but several of these items carry more load-bearing detail than two sentences comfortably hold; I've kept to two, but the Ford and California summaries in particular are doing a lot of work in single sentences and would read better at three or four if the format allows it.
