Electric Cars

A rally in Cupertino, California sets a new record as part of National Drive Electric Week.

Carmaking is very, very, very expensive. A conventional vehicle platform or architecture generally costs about $1 billion to design, engineer, test, certify, and put into production. And the various models derived from that architecture usually last about seven years. Multiply that by multiple...

The latest Nissan Leaf ad showcases the advantage of electric-car torque.

Today, most plug-in electric car buyers qualify for a Federal income-tax credit of $2,500 to $7,500--but Senator Harry Reid thinks those incentives should be expanded. He proposes to overcome one challenge with that incentive: Buyers must wait up to 15 months to realize the benefit, which they...

More-efficient gasoline cars may be curtailing sales of hybrids, plug-ins, and other alternatives.

Nissan adds a pickup bed to the Leaf electric car for an unusual project.

Have we just seen the first crack in the facade of auto-dealer opposition to Tesla Motors selling cars directly to retail buyers? An opinion piece in auto-industry trade journal Ward's Auto concludes with the following remarkable sentences: We can keep Tesla busy defending what are basically...

In February, the Canadian province of British Columbia became one of few areas of the world to allow its plug-in electric vehicle purchase incentives to expire. The cause was simple: The initial allocation of funds ran out, and the incentive was not renewed with further funding. Five months of...

Massachusetts' highest court affirms the legality of Tesla's company-owned stores.

French carmaker Renault hasn't sold cars in North America in almost 30 years, But as half of the global Renault-Nissan Alliance--and Europe's earliest volume electric-car maker--its cars and concepts are important to watch for clues to future Nissan offerings. So the Renault Eolab Concept that will...

MIT replaces gasoline with electricity with its latest robot.

Tesla is reorienting the local economy toward car manufacturing, a new report says.

Nissan is set to close electric-car battery plants in England and the U.S. and turn to Korean maker LG Chem for some batteries. Or perhaps not. A startling and exclusive Reuters report yesterday said that Nissan is in the middle of reassessing its plans for electric-car production and global...

A Tesla Model S with LumiLor electroluminescent light coating.

The first Formula E Championship race was held last weekend in China.

It's often said by electric-car owners and advocates that once you start driving electric, you never want to go back. Now it appears that at least a handful of car dealers are learning that the principle extends even to loaner cars from the dealership. A recent Facebook thread on the BMW i3 Owners...

The 2015 Kia Soul EV will arrive in U.S. dealers this fall.

BMW will wait at least six months to decide whether to build the MINI Superleggera roadster.

Tesla Motors' battery Gigafactory took another step toward construction with the approval of incentives worth up to $1.3 billion by Nevada lawmakers. Governor Brian Sandoval signed the package of four bills into law one week after announcing that the Silver State would host the first of what could...

An unorthodox method for charging an electric car.