Electric Cars
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Following the departure of two top manufacturing executives, electric-car maker Tesla Motors has hired a manufacturing executive from German luxury maker Audi. The company announced the news late Friday in a release sent to news media. The executive, Peter Hocholdinger, will join the Silicon Valley carmaker as its vice present of vehicle production. DON'T MISS: Tesla deadlines aren't meant to be met, Musk says: they just pressure employees According to the company's statement on Friday afternoon: Peter will be responsible for continuing to increase and improve Model S and Model X production...
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Nissan moves to take control of MitsubishiNissan confirmed on Thursday it will acquire 34 percent of Mitsubishi in a deal worth 237 billion yen (approximately $2.17 billion). The deal, which still requires shareholder approval, will make Nissan the single largest shareholder in Mitsubishi and provide it with control of the company...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
Tesla deadlines aren't meant to be met, Musk says: they just pressure employeesTesla Motors has a history of delays in bringing its cars from the design and prototype stage all the way to normal production. Its Roadster was delayed about nine months from its original anticipated launch, while the Model S was delayed more than six months. And then the Model X was delayed by...
Bengt Halvorson -
French oil company Total agrees to buy battery maker SaftEnergy storage has never been the subject of more research, capital investment, and business interest than it's experiencing in this decade. With lithium-ion cells at the forefront of both electric cars and stationary batteries used to store renewable energy for later use, batteries are hot. Now...
John Voelcker -
Audi CEO pledges one electric (or electrified) car each yearAudi is a little behind fellow German automaker BMW in the area of electrified autos, but it has a plan in place to address this shortcoming. Speaking during Audi’s annual general meeting in the automaker’s home of Ingolstadt, Germany, CEO Rupert Stadler outlined a plan to introduce at...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
2017 Chevy Bolt EV sales could go as high as 80,000, says analystThe question of how many electric cars can be sold in a single year remains a topic of hot debate as the U.S. market awaits the launch of the 200-mile Chevy Bolt EV at the end of this year. The world's best-selling electric car, the Nissan Leaf, had its highest-sales year in the U.S. in 2014, when...
John Voelcker -
Graphite battery anodes are made using a toxic substance.
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Buying an electric car can increase fuel use allowed by CAFE rulesResearchers at Carnegie Mellon University say incentives to sell alternative-fuel vehicle in federal laws could potentially create a short-term rise in fuel consumption and emissions from major automakers' new vehicles. Professors Jeremy Michalek, Ines Azevedo, and Alan Jenn studied Corporate...
Aaron Cole -
Tesla to promote Chinese national electric-car charging standardTesla will promote the new Chinese national electric-car charging standard, instead of its own Supercharger standard.
Stephen Edelstein -
Ford CEO Mark Fields confirms 200-mile electric car coming (updated)What a difference a week makes. In late April, Ford's director of electrification programs and engineering, Kevin Layden, said the 100-mile range of the 2017 Ford Focus Electric would suffice for most drivers. But then on Ford's second-quarter earnings call, CEO Mark Fields announced that the...
John Voelcker -
Tesla says it will build 500K cars a year by end of 2018; can it?When Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk said two years ago that the electric-car maker planned to be building half a million cars a year by the end of 2020, it seemed an ambitious stretch goal. When he said on last week's quarterly earnings call that the company was pulling that goal two years ahead to...
John Voelcker -
Is China the key to all those Tesla Model 3 deposits?China is the second-largest source of Model 3 reservations.
Stephen Edelstein -
It's a very reasonable question: electric cars themselves have no tailpipe emissions, but what about the power plants used to recharge them? After more than a dozen studies and five-plus years of plug-in car sales, we know the answer. In North America, an electric car charged on even the dirtiest, most coal-intensive electric grid in the nation has wells-to-wheels carbon emissions no higher than that of a very fuel-efficient car. DON'T MISS: Are Electric Cars Really Bad For The Planet? Simple Math Says No (Feb 2012) In the best of cases, electric cars charged on very clean grids have such low...
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Tesla projects total 2016 sales of 80,000 to 90,000 electric carsTesla says it will nearly double deliveries in 2016.
Stephen Edelstein -
Chevy Bolt EV electric car to be GM-Lyft self-driving car testbedIt's the season of autonomous-car announcements, apparently. This week Google and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles announced that the Silicon Valley giant would use the Detroit automaker's 2017 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans for its self-driving car research. Now, General Motors has said that the Lyft...
John Voelcker -
BMW loses electric-car staff to Chinese startup, says it's unaffectedChinese startup Future Mobility Corp. just hired a group of employees from BMW.
Stephen Edelstein -
VW e-Golf likes, dislikes, and surprises: the wrap-upWe have to admit, the Volkswagen e-Golf had us rather charmed from the start. Even based on early Euro-spec prototypes, and when we pitted all-electric against diesel with our back-to-back e-Golf vs. Golf TDI test drive review nearly two years ago, we found a lot of potential in the all-electric...
Bengt Halvorson -
Plug-in electric car sales in Canada, April 2016: Model S sales ludicrousWith the Stanley Cup destined to be won by an American team for the 23rd straight year, Canadian hockey fans seemingly spent the month of April shopping. The country's monthly auto sales topped 200,000 for the first time in history, and least two plug-in electric vehicles set sales records. None...
Matthew Klippenstein -
ChargePoint and NRG EVgo are getting additional private funding.
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Plug-in electric car sales for April 2016: Volt romps, Leaf stagnates (update)After the usual winter doldrums at the start of the year, April proved to be a good month for plug-in electric car sales in the U.S. March was a record-breaking month, and as April results come in today and tomorrow, last month's pace seems to be robust as well. As usual, the two highest-volume...
John Voelcker -
Updated 2016 Tesla Model S also gets new 75-kWh battery optionThe Tesla Model S will get the 75-kWh battery option introduced on the Model X.
Stephen Edelstein -
Nissan Leaf ads poke fun at Tesla Model 3 reservation queueNissan pokes fun at Tesla in new print ads.
Stephen Edelstein -
How BMW can compete with Tesla electric cars: future i5, plug-in hybrids, says advocateFor a decade now, Tesla Motors has been the "black swan" of the auto industry. It's a California company startup, founded from scratch, using a new powertrain, that against all odds has sold more than 100,000 electric cars and created a brand known worldwide. You can almost hear the grinding of...
John Voelcker -
Tesla's huge warehouse lease seems to be Model 3 preparationTesla is leasing multiple warehouses near its Fremont, California, factory.
Stephen Edelstein