Electric buses, Washington, London, Bolloré, Valladolid, Xiamen.

Funding for electric buses: The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has announced a total of 55 million dollars in grants to put more battery-electric and fuel-cell buses into service across the country. Ten projects in the states of California, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas were selected to receive a share of the grants.
greencarcongress.com, fta.dot.gov

Washington pushing EV ownership: Lawmakers in Washington state plan to encourage more drivers to turn to electric cars. A new bill would renew the sales tax exemption until 2021, but only for the first 45,000 dollars of an electric car’s purchase price – bad news for Tesla.
autoblog.com

London´s cabbies call for transformation package: The Licensed Taxi Drivers Association (LTDA) and Clean Air in London (CAL) are urging London’s mayor Boris Johnson to implement an eight-point plan to encourage private hire and taxi companies to use electric vehicles. The package includes further incentives as well as 500 rapid charging points exclusively for use by private hire vehicles and taxis.
evfleetworld.co.uk, cleanair.london

Bolloré wins backing for charging network: French Bolloré Group said on Friday it will invest 150 million euros (172m USD) to roll out an charging network across France, after the plan won government backing. Bolloré plans to install 16,000 new chargers nationwide in the next four years (we reported).
reuters.com, europe.autonews.com

European cooperation: The German metropolitan region of Lower Saxony teams up with the Spanish city of Valladolid to jointly promote electric mobility. As a first step, a VW e-Golf is tested by the Valladolid city council. More electric cars (the locally produced Renault Twizy as well as EVs from Volkswagen) will go on Valladolid´s streets later as part of a project funded by the EU´s Smart City project.
metropolregion.de (in German)

Xiamen goes all-electric: 30 BYD e6 pure electric taxis were put into service in the Chinese city of Xiamen, with another 60 e6 taxis to follow soon. The Xiamen Public Traffic Plaza-Station will set up more than 50 charging poles in the city, 20 of which have already been put into service.
whatsonxiamen.com