Electric Cars
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Updates to the 2019 Chevrolet Volt will help experienced electric-car drivers maximize their electric driving and minimize the times the gas engine needs to run. The biggest improvement is a new 7.2-kw on-board charger that can effectively cut charge times in half. The advantage for Volt drivers will come when they have the opportunity to recharge in public during the day. The car can take on twice as many electric miles per minute during opportunity charging sessions. This will be especially useful at public charging stations paid by the hour. READ THIS: 2017 Toyota Prius Prime vs 2017...
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Faraday Future gets a $2 billion lifeline to build expensive crossoverFaraday Future, the fledgling Tesla competitor working to build a $300,000 electric SUV, has been thrown a financial lifeline. Evergrande Health, a division of a large Hong Kong conglomerate, has committed to invest $2 billion to keep alive the all-electric luxury SUV project, according to a report...
Eric C. Evarts -
Tesla Model 3 orders open to all US, Canada buyersTesla Model 3 reservation holders who have been patiently waiting for their turn to order their cars just got a chance to move up in line. The company invited all reservation holders in the United States and Canada to place their orders, according to a Bloomberg report. To place their orders...
Eric C. Evarts -
ChargePoint invests in commercial charging for buses, delivery vans, taxisAfter opposing the settlement over diesel emissions cheating that led VW to spend $2 billion building out a nationwide network of fast chargers, and suing one of Electrify America's suppliers for patent infringement, ChargePoint, the last of the original charging-network providers for electric...
Eric C. Evarts -
Not exactly top fuel: electric cars come to top-level drag racingElectric cars have started to dominate racing series from the Pikes Peak hill climb to formula cars to Saturday night grudge matches between Tesla and Dodge Challenger owners at rented local drag-strips. At professional levels, though, racing organizations have been slow to change, and stock cars...
Eric C. Evarts -
New government in Italy plans 1 million electric cars by 2022, could cost $10BItaly has been an electric-car backwater in Europe, but a new populist government has dramatic plans to change that. According to a Bloomberg report, the new Five Star government elected in March is calling for incentives to put 1 million electric cars on Italy's roads by 2022. Last year, data from...
Eric C. Evarts -
Following a crash in early May that killed two teenagers, the battery in the Tesla Model S the teens were driving reignited twice after firefighters had initially extinguished it, according to the preliminary report released Tuesday by the NTSB. The report notes that the car was traveling 116 mph seconds before it crashed into a wall, which tore the car and its batteries apart and ignited a fire in the batteries. When Fort Lauderdale Fire and Rescue crews arrived on the scene, the car was fully engulfed in flames. DON'T MISS: NTSB launches investigation into another Tesla crash after it...
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Spy photographer captures Honda Pilot Plug-in HybridHonda has been something of a laggard in the race for electric cars. It looks like that's about to change, if recent spy photos are anything to go by. A shot by spy photographer Brian Williams in Automotive News (subscription required), shows an updated Pilot with both a reconfigured fuel filler...
Eric C. Evarts -
JLR to pump money into electric cars instead of dieselJaguar-Land Rover said in a presentation to investors Monday that weak demand for diesel-fueled cars has prompted it to increase its investment in electric cars by 25 percent—to $18 billion—by 2025. Where the company previously said it would offer an electrified version of each new...
Eric C. Evarts -
Volvo electric car, Audi e-tron delay, VW ID R electric racer record: Today's Car NewsVolvo's first electric car will be the XC40 crossover SUV. Audi delays the e-tron debut following its CEO's arrest. Volkswagen smashes the electric-car record at Pikes Peak. And the results are in from our latest Twitter poll asking what's the longest trip readers have taken in their electric car...
Sean Szymkowski -
Audi e-tron electric SUV debut delayed in latest diesel backlashIn the wake of its massive diesel emissions scandal, VW and its luxury brand Audi apologized by promising to deliver electric cars. Now that effort has been delayed by the arrest of Audi's CEO, Rupert Stadler, who was scheduled to introduce the brand's first electric car, the 2019 Audi e-tron SUV...
Eric C. Evarts -
Volkswagen's ID R Pikes Peak race car shows why you should care about electric car racingVolkswagen's Pikes Peak hillclimb race car, called the ID R, obliterated the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb's Unlimited class record Sunday by 16 seconds. Its Le Mans-prototype looks, complete with overgrown rear wing, were nearly as wild as its overall time up the paved mountain road: 7...
Jim Resnick -
The Volvo XC40 is the automaker's first all-electric car hiding in plain sight, according to the automaker. Volvo's chief designer and Polestar head, Thomas Ingenlath, confirmed to British magazine AutoCar last week that the new XC40 will be the first Volvo available with an all-electric powertrain. It will be followed by another electric car based on the next-generation version of the Volvo XC90 SUV. READ THIS: Volvo's electrification push expanding to every corner of the market Volvo introduced its new S60 sports sedan last week, and the event brought plenty of news. The company will launch...
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What's the longest trip you've taken in your electric car? Twitter poll resultsWith summertime road trips in full swing across the U.S., we're sure our readers are joining in. On those trips, many of our readers are driving electric. Americans are known for long road trips in the summer but those can be challenging for electric-car early adopters, like many of our readers and...
Eric C. Evarts -
Battery-electric vehicle versus plug-in hybrid: why having both makes senseNot long ago, green car fans had only one choice: a hybrid vehicle like the Prius that gets all its energy from gasoline. Now there is a choice of several pure battery-electric vehicles that get all their energy from grid electricity, several plug-in hybrid electric vehicles that get their energy...
John Briggs -
What type of public electric-car charger do you use most often? Take our Twitter pollPublic chargers for electric cars are expanding beyond Tesla's Supercharger network. Electrify America is rolling out a network of fast chargers to compete with Superchargers that will be available to all other brands of electric cars. States are directing public charging infrastructure and draw it...
Eric C. Evarts -
Tesla Model 3 gets new features via OTA updateBuyers of the Tesla Model 3 never thought they were getting all the luxury features of the Model S or Model X. Now, with the latest over the air update, Model 3 owners will get a few more that will bring them closer to the levels of luxury found in Tesla's more expensive cars. As part of the...
Eric C. Evarts -
Tesla sues saboteur who claims he is a whistleblowerOn Thursday, Tesla sued former employee Martin Tripp for stealing trade secrets and transferring several gigabytes of data to third parties, including pictures of the company's battery assembly line at the Gigafactory in Nevada, where he worked. The details of the suit point to a testy...
Eric C. Evarts -
Which state added its name to the list of those following California's tighter emissions regulations? What hybrid car aced the battery of crash tests inflicted by the IIHS? This is our look back at the Week In Reverse—right here at Green Car Reports—for the week ending June 22, 2018. Friday, we examined a conservative poll, funded and taken by oil industry lobbyists backed by the Koch brothers, that found that Americans really like electric cars—except when they have to pay for them. Environmental groups criticized the poll as a "push poll," even if respondents did support...
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Tesla layoffs hit 20 percent of Solar City installation locationsLast week, Tesla announced it would lay off 9 percent of its workforce in an effort to keep its doors open as it tries to ramp up production of its critical Model 3 electric car. Now internal emails obtained by Reuters show that 13 or 14 of Solar City's installation centers will be shuttered as...
Eric C. Evarts -
Conservative poll says Americans resent electric-car tax creditsResults of a study released Tuesday by the American Energy Alliance found that most voters object to tax credits for electric cars. Tellingly, the poll also shows that the public generally supports electric cars themselves. Two-thirds said they are better for the environment than than gasoline...
Eric C. Evarts -
Slovenian company makes drop-in in-wheel electric motorsSlovenian company Elaphe has created in-wheel electric motors that have been tested in the worst conditions winter could throw at them. One of the main reasons we don't see production electric cars with motors in the wheels has been that wheels take a lot of abuse, bumping over broken pavement...
Eric C. Evarts -
Uber starts paying drivers to buy electricElectric cars and fleets go hand-in-hand. That's the message Uber is trying to send to its drivers with a new program it calls EV Champions, which will pay some drivers higher rates if they drive an electric car. The pilot program starts this week and will run for a year in seven cities: Austin...
Eric C. Evarts -
Audi teams up with Hyundai to build fuel-cell vehiclesAutomakers are teaming up all over the world to prepare for the next big game in clean transportation, fuel cells. The latest partnership is between Audi and Hyundai, which announced yesterday that they will share resources to develop fuel-cell vehicles. The two said that the first fruit of this...
Eric C. Evarts