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A parking lot in suburban New Jersey isn’t the first place I’d look for a revolution. According to Jaguar, it’s where ours will start. After just over four minutes behind the wheel of the 2019 Jaguar I-Pace, the electric Jaguar feels like the beginning of something. DON'T MISS: 2019 Jaguar I-Pace electric crossover debuts in production trim; estimated 240-mile range As the first luxury battery electric vehicle from a mainstream automaker, the I-Pace will be followed by many more from other automakers—dozens if the timeline stretches far enough into the future. Its...
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Nissan Leaf 30-kwh battery decline 3 times that of earlier electric cars: studyThe Nissan Leaf, at least for the moment, remains the highest-volume electric car produced in history, with more than 300,000 sold. One of the measures that kept its cost down was the use of passive air cooling for its battery pack, rather than the pricier liquid cooling used by other makers to...
John Voelcker -
2019 Honda Insight: good-looking 50-mpg competitor for Prius hybridTeased in January as a "concept" without an interior, the production version of the 2019 Honda Insight hybrid sedan has been revealed just before this week's New York auto show. EPA ratings aren't yet final, but Honda says the new Insight is projected to achieve "up to 55 mpg" on the city cycle...
John Voelcker -
2019 Hyundai Kona Electric US debut: 250 miles of range from small electric hatchbackThe biggest question around the 2019 Hyundai Kona Electric has now been answered: it will have a rated range estimated at 250 miles on the U.S. test cycle. Hyundai debuted the U.S. version of the small all-electric hatchback on Wednesday at the New York auto show media days. While the company...
John Voelcker -
VW committed to sell 2 new electric cars in California by Dec 2019: what are they?The Volkswagen diesel emission scandal has now largely vanished from U.S. media coverage, much to VW's relief. Tens of thousands of bought-back TDI diesel vehicles still sit in fields awaiting modification and resale, or some other disposition. But among the thousands of pages of legal documents to...
John Voelcker -
Tesla Model 3 drive, 2018 Accord Hybrid, future BMW i4, longer-range Fusion Energi: The Week in ReverseWhich important new electric car did we finally get a chance to drive and report on? What good-looking new 47-mpg hybrid sedan went on sale this week? This is our look back at the Week In Reverse—right here at Green Car Reports—for the week ending on Friday, March 23, 2018. Friday, we...
John Voelcker -
Very few automakers these days build concept cars just for fun, and only occasionally are they pure styling concepts intended to showcase future design language. So when the BMW i Vision Dynamics Concept emerged onto the auto-show circuit last fall, it seemed obvious it previewed a future production model. Especially since, as many observers noted, it seemed to be sized to compete directly against the Tesla Model 3. DON'T MISS: BMW i Vision Dynamics Concept previews all-electric four-door sedan (Sep 2017) Now, BMW has revealed its plan for the production version of that all-electric sedan. It...
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Nissan electric crossover utility with AWD will be breakthrough: execCould a specific vehicle give electric cars the breakthrough they need to reach the mass market? So far, neither the world's highest-selling battery-electric model—the Nissan Leaf—nor the Tesla Model S, starting at $75,000, has sold in mainstream U.S. volumes. You might ballpark that...
John Voelcker -
2018 Tesla Model 3 Long Range: first drive review of 310-mile electric car“The Tesla Model S was a moment. The Model 3 is a product.” That pair of sentences perfectly summarized the several hours we spent last month with the 2018 Tesla Model 3 kindly loaned to us by reader Jeff Southern of Atlanta. We’d covered more than 100 miles on a variety of...
John Voelcker -
Battery life of 2018 Nissan Leaf vs 2017 Chevy Bolt EV electric cars: what manuals suggestIt's one of the major questions for any electric-car buyer: How long will the battery pack last? And what would it cost to replace it if I do need a new one sometime down the road? Now a new video looks at that question, comparing the different thermal-management technologies in the batteries of...
John Voelcker -
Ford's electric future, Model 3 parts, VW battery buy, Accord Hybrid MPG: The Week in ReverseWhich CEO actually admitted that underestimating electric cars was probably unwise? What did Ford reveal about its plans, finally, for new hybrid and plug-in electric cars? This is our look back at the Week In Reverse—right here at Green Car Reports—for the week ending on Friday, March...
John Voelcker -
Ford to electrify most SUVs, promises to pass Toyota in hybridsFord hasn’t given up on hybrids and electric cars, despite letting its existing models languish since 2013. That was the message conveyed by various executives at an event Thursday morning at the Ford Product Development Center in Dearborn, Michigan. The company will build a hybrid version of...
Green Car Reports -
Electric-car maker Tesla is known for troubled launches, at least for the four products it's offered since the first Roadster in 2008. But the launch of the Tesla Model 3, its lower-priced electric sedan, may be the most challenging yet—and it may be the Tesla with the highest expectations. The first 30 cars, now accepted to be largely hand-built, were delivered to their buyers at the end of July 2017. CHECK OUT: 2018 Tesla Model 3 - full review At that point, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he expected to be building 5,000 electric cars a week by the end of December—a target now pushed...
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Pruitt won't let California set emission standards; EPA not looking at post-2025 rulesNow, it's war, in the words of California's lead emission regulator. In what Bloomberg News called a "wide-ranging interview" with EPA chief Scott Pruitt, he indicated the agency does not intend to let California set the agenda for national emission limits on vehicles. Bringing California into line...
John Voelcker -
VW Group has nailed down $25 billion of batteries for electric cars, it said todayFor a company that has only two battery-electric models in production, both several years old, VW Group spends a great deal of time talking about electric cars. The company has plans to launch 30 new electric vehicles by 2025, and has released four Volkswagen ID concepts, the first of which will...
John Voelcker -
In pictures: Volkswagen TDI diesels await their fate in Pike's Peak shadowIt might be the world’s largest single-company junkyard and pick-a-part business, if not for the prominent "No Trespassing" and "Drone-Free Zone" signs. Instead, it’s a massive storage facility in Colorado for thousands of disgraced VW and Audi TDI diesel vehicles awaiting whatever fate...
Andrew Ganz -
Electric cars got even cleaner in a year, new grid data showsMore good news about electric cars in the U.S.: the emissions associated with the electricity used to charge them have fallen. Again. Based on the latest data on powerplant emissions from the EPA, an electric car on the road in the U.S. now has average emissions as low as an 80-mpg car. DON'T MISS...
John Voelcker -
2018 BMW i3s first drive review: sportier and nearly as efficientBMW's Test Fest in Palm Springs, California, at The Thermal Club attracts a broad range of cars. The star of the show is the 600-horsepower 2018 BMW M5. But before I can test that wild sport sedan on the track, I’ll do my best to balance my carbon footprint in the new 2018 BMW i3s. BMW has...
Kirk Bell -
The 2019 Jaguar I-Pace SUV that debuted Thursday beat all the German luxury makes to the punch in launching a viable competitor to the looks and capabilities of electric cars offered by Tesla. The 14-year-old Silicon Valley startup has attracted huge attention for the stunning acceleration of its cars, particularly the "P" performance versions. Now Jaguar has waded right into that fray. The company released a video showing the Jaguar I-Pace competing at a drag strip against two different versions of the Tesla Model X crossover utility vehicle. DON'T MISS: 2019 Jaguar I-Pace electric crossover...
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2019 Jaguar I-Pace electric crossover debuts in production trim; estimated 240-mile rangeTotal sales by Jaguar Land Rover are a fraction of those by its rivals Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz. Arguably, that has required the British luxury maker to be more agile and more creative to compete. While Audi has discussed its plans for an all-electric crossover utility version for more than two...
John Voelcker -
Hyundai Kona Electric debuts before Geneva show; 292-mile range from top modelThe lack of plug-in electric crossover utility vehicles with all-wheel drive is a growing and obvious gap in the market. And where there's a gap, aggressive South Korean carmaker Hyundai may try to fill it. The company has now released many of the details of the Hyundai Kona Electric small SUV that...
John Voelcker -
2018 Nissan Leaf electric car: four-day winter road-trip reviewThe first generation of mass-priced electric cars with ranges of 60 to 90 miles simply didn't have enough range to be used outside predictable daily commute duties and local errands around town. Sure, four-fifths of vehicles in the U.S. cover less than 40 miles a day—but that other fifth...
John Voelcker -
Toyota Prius recall in 2014 failed to fix problem, lawsuit says, may have cut mileageEarly in 2014, Toyota filed a voluntary recall notice with the NHTSA to fix a defect in roughly 800,000 third-generation Prius Liftback hybrids sold in the U.S. from 2010 through 2014. The company said it would make unspecified changes to software that controlled the vehicle's inverter, which...
John Voelcker -
China's BYD tops global electric-car production for third year in a rowTry asking any electric-car owner or advocate, or for that matter any member of the public, which automaker sold the most electric cars last year. In North America, the answer will likely be Tesla, or possibly Nissan or Chevrolet. But we'd bet you hear Tesla most often. The correct answer for...
John Voelcker