Electric Cars

  • Volvo 40.1 concept

    Finally joining the bandwagon, Swedish manufacturer Volvo has confirmed that it will introduce its first all-electric vehicle to the market in 2019. The announcement was made last week at the 2017 Shanghai auto show. That proved to be an appropriate stage, as the Chinese-owned maker plans on having the model produced in China. DON’T MISS: Volvo's next plug-in hybrids: 3-cylinder engine, smaller cars The decision will allow the company to take full advantage of the country’s technological advancement and growth, but will also allow it to tap into the world's largest market for...

  • Tesla Model S at Supercharger site in Ventura, CA, with just one slot open  [photo: David Noland]
    Tesla to double global Supercharger fast-charging network this year, it says

    Tesla continues to make sweeping changes as it prepares for the launch of the Model 3, its first mass-market electric car. The company has announced a significant expansion of its global network of Supercharger DC fast-charging stations. Executives believe, it said, that charging should be...

  • BYD e6 electric taxi in service in Shenzhen, China
    How likely is it China will outpace the U.S. in electric-car adoption? Poll results

    China is the biggest new-car market in the world, and has been since 2010. The world's largest country also has some of the smoggiest cities on the planet, and that's a source of increasing public agitation. So at national, state, and local levels, a variety of Chinese government entities are using...

  • Lilium Jet VTOL concept
    Lilium all-electric vertical takeoff and landing jet: first flight video

    The promise of flying cars has been around for decades, and companies continues to show off their interpretations of what the public may expect in the future. Lilium is one of many companies promising a world of efficient, speedy, and personal air transportation—and now the project has...

  • Nissan EVgo I-95 Charge ARC
    Nissan, EVgo add Boston-to-DC fast chargers; BMW adds charging to national parks

    Nissan is making it easier for electric-car owners to travel between the Boston area and Washington, D.C. The automaker has partnered with EVgo to add a network of nine charging sites along Interstate 95, with a total of 50 stations, each equipped with two fast-charge plugs. Dubbed the "I-95 Fast...

  • 2017 Tesla Model S
    Used Tesla Model S values stay higher than expected

    A new report from Autolist says the Tesla Model S is faring well as a used car when compared to other luxury models. On average, the electric car sells in around 87 days, which is about 5 percent faster than competitors. The report compared the Model S to the Audi A7, Porsche Panamera, BMW 6...

  • Buick Velite 5, for sale in China, at 2017 Shanghai auto show   [photo: Ronan Glon]

    China is hugely important to General Motors, as it is to virtually any global automaker. It's the largest market in the country and, recently, it has put in place an increasing set of requirements that more vehicles sold there be fully or partially electric. It also happens to be by far the largest market for Buicks in the world, to the stupefaction of numerous U.S. car buyers. DON'T MISS: Honda to launch electric car in China next year too, joining Toyota, reluctantly The Buick brand carried strong cachet for decades during which ordinary Chinese people couldn't buy cars at all, simply...

  • 2017 Honda Clarity Electric debuts at 2017 New York auto show
    Honda to launch electric car in China next year too, joining Toyota, reluctantly

    While corporate average fuel-economy standards through 2021 remain in place in the U.S., automakers are preparing their case to argue for delays in further tightening. Meanwhile, China is turning the policy screws on automakers operating in the country, telling them they must sell more electric...

  • 2013 Tesla Model S owned by David Noland, Catskill Mountains, NY, Oct 2015
    Life with Tesla Model S: replacing the drive unit (aka 'the funny noise')

    Back in 2014, Tesla had a spate of problems with the drive units in early-production versions of its Model S electric sedan. (The drive unit is essentially the car’s power train: electric motor, inverter, and gear box.) High-profile multiple failures occurred in long-term test cars driven by...

  • 2017 Toyota Prius Prime
    AAA says interest in electric cars rivals pickups: so where are the sales?

    Although fuel prices remain relatively cheap in most areas of the United States, it seems that interest in electric vehicles may be growing. According to a new survey from AAA, interest in electric vehicles among American consumers now rivals that for full-size pickup trucks. However, if that's the...

  • Hyundai Vision G (HCD-16) concept
    Genesis to offer high-end electric luxury coupe; so long, V-8

    Tesla has made an unexpected success out of its pioneering luxury electric vehicles, which offer a healthy dose of performance for good measure. Hyundai's Genesis luxury brand, while taking a couple pages from Lexus for its launch strategy, may be following a similar path to Tesla for a future...

  • 2016 Tesla Model S
    Tesla recalls 53,000 Model S, Model X electric cars for parking-brake issue

    Tesla has issued a voluntarily recall for roughly 53,000 of its Model S and Model X electric cars to address an issue in which the parking brake might stick in the engaged position. The recall was first reported yesterday by CNBC. The vehicles affected were built between February and October of...

  • 2011 Nissan Leaf electric car after battery-pack replacement  [by owner Tim Jacobsen, Concord, CA]

    In designing, testing, and producing the Nissan Leaf, the first modern electric car sold in volume, Nissan made a design decision that some other companies didn't. It chose not to build an active thermal-conditioning system (otherwise known as cooling) into its battery pack. Instead, it relies on ambient air to shed heat—which got the maker into trouble with owners in very hot climates like that of Phoenix, Arizona, where asphalt temperatures can reach 140 degrees F or more in the summer. DON'T MISS: Lessons learned from early electric car: 2011 Nissan Leaf at 90,000 miles Nissan later...

  • 2012 Toyota RAV4 EV, Newport Beach, California, July 2012
    Why Toyota's 'agonizing' U-turn toward electric cars? Because China says so

    Large auto companies are likely aircraft carriers: it takes a long time for them to change direction, and far longer yet to get them aligned on a new course. To various degrees, the world's carmakers have started to produce and sell vehicles that plug-in, whether for some or all of their travels...

  • 2017 Nissan Leaf
    Ending tax credits would kill electric-car market, Edmunds says

    The electric-car market may be in for a serious downturn when current federal tax incentives end, assuming the Trump administration declines to extend them, according to a new analysis. In 2010, the government began offering tax credits of $2,500 to $7,500 to the first 200,000 U.S. buyers of...

  • Audi e-tron Sportback Concept, 2017 Shanghai auto show    [photo:Ronan Glon]
    Audi e-tron Sportback Concept: full electic-car details, photos from Shanghai auto show

    Audi has injected a dash of sporting character and a look at the future of electric-vehicle design into its latest e-tron concept car, which made its debut at the 2017 Shanghai auto show. The Audi e-tron Sportback Concept previews a coupe-esque electric utility vehicle to come following the...

  • Toyota 'Project Portal' proof-of-concept hydrogen fuel-cell powered semi tractor, for Port of LA
    Toyota 'Project Portal' hydrogen fuel-cell heavy-duty semi tractor as proof of concept

    The challenges of building fueling infrastructure for passenger cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells are well known by now. Toyota, Honda, and Hyundai now lease low volumes of fuel-cell vehicles in selected areas of California where a few dozen hydrogen fueling stations are now up and running. The...

  • 2017 Tesla Model X
    2017 Tesla Model X electric-car pricing, feature changes

    Tesla has released updated pricing and features for its 2017 Tesla Model X all-electric crossover utility vehicle, including lower prices for both the 75D and 90D models. Like the changes released at the same time to the Model S sedan, the new lineup increases the distance between the two lower-end...

  • BMW i3 and Volkswagen e-Golf electric cars using Combined Charging System (CCS) DC fast charging

    Two billion dollars is a lot of money. When VW Group of America agreed to fund a $2 billion project to spread zero-emission vehicle infrastructure across the U.S. as part of its settlements in the Volkswagen diesel emission scandal, that immediately changed the playing field for electric-car fast charging. Now the first of four phases of the national plan has been issued, and the public has a chance to look at it and offer critiques. DON'T MISS: VW opens 'Electrify America' site for comment on $2 billion charging plan (Dec 2016) The first phase covers 30 months, or one quarter of the full...

  • 2017 Tesla Model S
    2017 Tesla Model S pricing, feature changes: breaking them down in detail

    As its owners know, although much of the car-buying world doesn't, Tesla doesn't believe in the idea of model years. Rather than updating its electric cars each autumn, to correspond to a new model year, it simply changes them when it feels the updates are ready. This can lead to some confusion...

  • Zunum range-extended electric regional jet - concept design
    Electric jet startup is backed by Boeing and JetBlue

    Seattle-based startup Zunum Aero has received funding from Boeing HorizonX and JetBlue Technology Ventures toward making its dream of electrified air travel a reality. Sometimes billed as the Tesla of the airplane industry, Zunum is developing a relatively small regional aircraft with about 700...

  • Lucid Air
    Luxury electric Lucid Air sedan hits 217 mph in stability test

    Only a handful of people have ridden in one outside the company, but development of the Lucid Air luxury electric sedan seems to be proceeding apace. The company said yesterday at the New York auto show that a development prototype had reached an electronically limited top speed of 350 km/h (217...

  • Fast-charging 2015 Nissan Leaf at evGo station in Auburn, MA   [photo: John Briggs]
    Electric-car charging networks spin out, merge, and go global

    Much like the cell-phone network industry in the mid-1990s, the electric-car charging industry is on a fast pace of network expansions and mergers. EV charging companies are on the verge of rapid global growth as utility companies and large multinational corporations put up big money, according to...

  • 2012 Tesla Model S beta vehicle, Fremont, CA, October 2011
    Tesla trucks: semi to be shown in Sept, pickup in 18-24 months

    Relative few companies regularly make major announcements via their CEO's Twitter account, but electric-car maker Tesla is different. From software updates to dates for new product lines, tweets from Tesla's CEO Elon Musk routinely make news. And so it was this week, when Musk announced the months...

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