Matthew Klippenstein, Contributor
Articles
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The new year started out positively for Canadian electric-vehicle advocates, as government registration data showed Canadian plug-in electric vehicle sales topped 3,100 vehicles last year,...
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Best Western To Use 1,000 Via Range-Extended Electric Vans As Hotel Shuttles
VIA Motors has announced an $80 million purchase agreement with its Canadian distributor, Sun Country Highway, to deploy 1,000 of Via's range-extended electric Vtrux vans as shuttle vehicles at Best Western hotels. The pact is important for Via, giving it a major commitment that could kick-start...
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Plug-In Electric Car Sales In Canada In 2013: Up 50 Percent
Plug-in electric vehicle sales in Canada rose by half in 2013, with sales poised to top 3,000 units once end-of-year vehicle registration data arrives. This is a year-over-year improvement of more than 50 percent on 2012's total Canadian sales of plug-in cars, helping their share of new-car sales...
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Electric-Car Market Share In 2013: Understanding The Numbers Better
Last year, the 96,000 plug-in electric cars sold in the U.S. represented a bit more than half a percent of the total market of 16.5 million vehicles. Market share is a good statistic: It's useful, and easy to track. But we need to piece together the relationships between vehicle price, type, and...
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Nissan Leaf, Chevy Volt Range Loss In Winter: New Data From Canada
Just in time for the holiday-feast season, we now have published charts that detail the effect of cold weather on the battery range of Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt electric cars. Think "range shrinkage". The data comes courtesy of FleetCarma, the Canadian company whose app MyCarma tracks vehicle...
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Plug-in Electric Car Sales In Canada, Nov 2013: Volt Soars, Tesla Tumbles?
GM sold an excellent 133 Chevrolet Volts in November, more than doubling October's 62 sales, and bringing monthly sales into triple figures for the second time this year, behind June's 153 deliveries. While we'll have to wait for vehicle registration data, the Volt may have made up more than half...
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Last month, Apple Stores in the United States began stocking the Automatic Link.
And it might just point the way toward how to convince more car buyers that a plug-in electric car--or other...
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Plug-in Electric Car Sales in Canada, Oct 2013: Tesla-Volt Rivalry Continues
The Chevrolet Volt and Tesla Model S have jockeyed for the Canadian sales crown since the latter's arrival in Canada. October marked the 20th consecutive month that either the Chevy Volt or the Tesla Model S was the top-selling Canadian plug-in electric vehicle. In the 10 months for which we have...
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Grading Canada's Progress In Plug-In Electric Cars So Far
Modern electric cars went on sale three years ago, and now we're starting to see assessments of their progress from a variety of perspectives. Last year, WWF Canada (the panda people, not the professional wrestlers) set a goal of having 600,000 electric vehicles on Canadian roads by 2020 – or...
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Will Quebec Join California, Oregon As Electric-Car Pioneers?
Today, California buys the largest number of plug-in electric cars by far of any North American state or province. But the many civic benefits of electric cars--from zero emissions to greater energy efficiency--are inspiring other locales to step up to the plate. Last Friday, the government of...
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Giving Thanks (In Canada) for Electric-Car Charging On Roads
Today is Canadian Thanksgiving, though the country's electric vehicle enthusiasts could be forgiven a bit of pessimism. Plug-in car adoption has been slower than expected, and support seems unlikely from a federal government that has reshaped the country from mild, modest milquetoast to combative...
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What Does It Take To Drive An Electric Car In Canadian Winters?
So how on earth do you use an electric car in places that consistently get many feet of snow every winter? Short answer: snow tires. Long answer: plan ahead. Being based in Vancouver--what passes for the Canadian tropics*, where snow had to be helicoptered onto local ski hills during the 2010...
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The Chevrolet Volt and Tesla Model S were probably neck-and-neck in Canadian plug-in sales, in September
In August, the Chevy Volt won the sales podium by an 84-56 margin over the Nissan Leaf....
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Plug-in Electric Car Sales In Canada, Aug 2013: Volt Charges Ahead
In July, we tentatively crowned the Tesla Model S as the top-selling plug-in electric carmaker in Canada, reasoning that the Muskmobile would top the 42 nationwide sales reported by the Volt and the Leaf. And we were right -- by the skin of our teeth. Government registration records showed 43 new...
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Passing Gas: More Electric Cars Than Gasoline Stations Now
Electric cars achieved another milestone recently: Plug-in vehicles on American roads now outnumber the gas stations they whiz past on the roadside. We estimate the watershed (oil-shed?) event took place in early July--though there are some asterisks, as we'll discuss below. As early as next year...
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Does Toyota's Hybrid Leadership Blind It To Electric Cars?
Many who follow the progress of plug-in electric cars wonder why Toyota, despite its leadership in hybrids, lags other carmakers in its electric vehicles. The business principle of The Innovator's Dilemma suggests that the company has been slow to embrace electric cars not despite its hybrid...
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Plug-in Electric Car Sales In Canada, July 2013: Tesla On Top?
July marked the 237th anniversary of the American Republic, and the 146th birthday of Canadian Confederation. While it could also have marked another month for the Chevy Volt as the best-selling Canadian plug-in electric vehicle, when the vehicle registration data comes out, we may see the Tesla...
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Tesla Model S: Canada's 2nd-Best-Selling Plug-In Electric Car
Readers of our monthly analysis of the Canadian plug-in electric car market know two things well: a) the Chevy Volt dominates, with sixteen consecutive months of sales leadership; and b) Canadian plug-in figures are hard to come by. Our posts on June plug-in sales in the United States and Canada...
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This past June marked the 20th year since a Canadian team won the Stanley Cup, a dry spell even longer than the country's last World Series title.
June also marked the Chevy Volt's 16th consecutive...
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Plug-in Electric Car Sales in Canada, May 2013
The Canadian plug-in electric vehicle market in May was a good news/bad news sandwich: Sales held roughly steady from April, but dropped 40 percenton a year-over-year basis. Rounding out the month with some good news, May almost certainly marked the sale of the country's 3,000th electric car from a...
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Plug-in Electric Car Sales In Canada, April 2013
Most Canadians will remember last month for the introduction of the country's new $5 and $10 bills, which arrived just in time for the playoff-hockey betting season. Canadian electric vehicle enthusiasts may remember April 2013, on the other hand, as the month the Toyota Prius Plug-in fell into...
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Plug-in Electric Car Sales in Canada, March 2013
If last month's U.S. plug-in electric car sales figures could be characterized as "March Madness" -- Leaf sales tripled, Tesla took the Q1 sales crown, but the Mitsubishi i-MiEV was down 90 percent -- the Canadian market was one of "March Modestness". Sales were up, and there were a few surprises...
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Plug-in Electric Car Sales in Canada For February 2013
Americans and Canadians alike returned to work this week after a festive St. Patrick's Day. For sales of plug-in electric vehicles in Canada, the (idiomatic, good) luck of the Irish arrived for one U.S. automaker. General Motors sold 51 Chevrolet Volts in Canada in February, up slightly from its...
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Plug-in Electric Car Sales in Canada For January 2013
Earlier this month, we covered January's plug-in electric car sales in the U.S., noting that sales fell by about half from the last few months of the prior year. As a percentage, plug-in cars were 0.3 percent of the American market in January 2013--down from 0.5 percent in December, but still twice...
Matthew Klippenstein