Due to industrialization and an exponential increase in population, the demand for vehicles has increased in Kuwait. Utilizing fossil fuels to power vehicles that are in high demand has posed various environmental and medical implications. Considering the emission-free feature of electric vehicles (EVs), moving towards “EV readiness” is the need of the hour. This can be further enhanced by adopting alternative sustainable technologies such as photo voltaic (PV) charging of EVs, to potentially eliminate or significantly reduce the reliance on fossil fuel while simultaneously decreasing harmful emissions. As Kuwait does not manufacture cars, it imports all vehicles and their parts, including internal combustion engines (ICEs) and EVs. To find out the challenges to uplifting Kuwait’s “EV readiness” this study delved into the performance of a typical EV car in Kuwait’s weather conditions. This includes the investigation of parameters that influence the energy requirements in an electric vehicle, the change in the energy requirement in relation to several driving scenarios, and the efficiency of the EV battery. The results indicate that a significant amount of energy is being wasted for battery conditioning, which drastically reduces the distance covered during summer. The energy required for air-conditioning and battery conditioning are both positively correlated to the ambient temperature, while the time required to charge the battery has no relationship with the time of the day, traffic, or trip length. Additionally, the paper discusses some major challenges, such as lack of awareness, inadequate charging stations, and absence of policy. The paper recommends the most vital areas to be focused on for meeting the above challenges to make the transition to an “EV ready” state.

Water scarcity is a global issue recognized by the United Nations under Goal 6 of its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which is to ‘Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all’. This challenging goal requires innovations, especially in areas with freshwater scarcity. Coupling this with the expected significant growth in population, especially in developing countries, presents major challenges to obtaining the appropriate levels of water provision needed. The development of seawater desalination technologies offers hope to alleviate freshwater shortages whilst supporting SDG 6. This research addresses the development of small-scale technology utilizing solar energy for providing clean drinking water in rural, hot, arid, and remote communities. To alleviate water scarcity in rural and isolated areas, a micro solar still (MSS) system that supports a multistage distillation process can be utilized, which evaporates and condenses the saline feed water into pure drinking water with highly efficient solar heat collectors. The focus of this study was to assess the performance of two prototypes, with minor improvements to the wicking structure. Such a system has the advantage of recycling wasted latent heat in the process to increase productivity. Two prototypes were tested to assess the performance of the solar still construction material and yield, and to test the water quality and quantity under the climatic conditions of Kuwait. The operation and efficiency of the prototypes were observed across four characteristics: solar irradiance, ambient temperatures, feed water and water production. The performances of the two prototypes were comparable to the results of previously published work on MSS prototypes that utilize wicking. The recovery rates of the two prototypes were 22 and 25%, respectively. The maximum production of potable water achieved from the two prototypes was 900 and 1160 g, respectively, using a feed of 4 and 3.7 kgs. The quality of the produced water met the WHO’s standards for drinking water.