Future Cars

To say that the auto industry has been startled by the volume of deposits on the Tesla Model 3 would be an understatement. The number of potential buyers worldwide who have sent Tesla Motors $1,000 to reserve a place in line to buy the car is now approaching 400,000, said longtime executive...

While the Tesla Model 3 and Chevrolet Bolt EV have gotten the lion's share of electric-car press lately, the Nissan Leaf remains the best-selling plug-in vehicle in history. The 200,000th Leaf was sold globally sometime in January, putting the electric hatchback at roughly twice the volume of any...

Getting more than a quarter of a million people around the world to put down $1,000 apiece for a car they won't get for another two years is a remarkable feat. When Elon Musk took the wraps off the Tesla Model 3 last Thursday evening, a screen on stage showed more than 100,000 deposits. But by the...

Two years ago, Ford successfully fought efforts by Tesla Motors to register the name "Model E" for what we now know as the Tesla Model 3, unveiled last week to great fanfare. Now it appears that the Detroit automaker may plan to use that name itself on a dedicated vehicle coming in 2019 that will...

The history of the modern incarnation of Dutch brand Spyker is a short but troubled one. After launching in 2000 with a sports car called the C8, Spyker made the costly error of entering Formula One. It then made an even costlier error of trying to save Saab, which ultimately still went under and...

BMW plans to have "second-generation" fuel-cell components ready by 2020.

I figured I’d be smart, and get to the Tesla Store at 8:30 a.m., half an hour before it opened. That would get me in line for the Model 3 before everyone but a few die-hard camper-outers. Boy, was I wrong. As I pulled up to the store in Santa Barbara, California, this morning, the parking lot...

Eager buyers have already put down deposits to reserve a Tesla Model 3 in those time zones where Tesla Stores are already open today, including both Sydney and Melbourne in Australia. Meanwhile, lines of Tesla fans and future Model 3 owners are waiting patiently in queues outside dozens of Tesla...

Tesla will begin accepting Model 3 reservations March 31.

German automakers, especially the luxury brands, are not necessarily known for humility, modesty, and deference. So for an executive at such a company to acknowledge that a U.S. upstart that didn't exist 15 years ago "did everything right" is remarkable. That's exactly what one Audi executive said...

Increasingly stiff limits on carbon emission and minimum fuel economy in most of the world's car markets mean that more plug-in electric cars must be sold. With battery costs steadily falling and the pricetag rising for the new technologies that make cars more efficient, some now envision a world...

Two weeks from tomorrow, Tesla Motors will unveil a prototype for the Model 3 electric car at its design studio in Hawthorne, California. Yesterday evening, the company kicked off the countdown to the presentation with a single tweet showing a Model S, a Model X, and a dark silhouette clearly...

Taillight shapes are a big deal for Toyota these days, as the ornate styling of the 2016 Prius hybrid has demonstrated. Now the company has released a teaser photo of illuminated taillights on what it calls "the next mechanical marvel in the Prius lineup." That car will debut on Wednesday, March...

Gasoline may cost $2 a gallon or less in many parts of the U.S., but new competitors to the Toyota Prius seem to be popping up all over the place. The 2017 Hyundai Ioniq range of hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and electric models just made its global debut at the Geneva Motor Show, only a few weeks after...

Among the three German luxury brands, BMW was first out of the gate to build and sell a battery-electric car in volume. Its unusual and technically advanced i3 small hatchback, offered with an optional two-cylinder range-extending engine, makes up the bulk of its "i" sub-brand sales, joined by the...

Perhaps no car company today is as good at the extended tease as California electric-car maker Tesla Motors. Whether it's tweets from CEO Elon Musk, fervent fan speculation on few facts, or mainstream-media coverage based on incomplete knowledge and misunderstanding, the tiny carmaker gets huge...

Tesla recently sent out invitations for the Model 3 debut event.

The next MINI Countryman could borrow a plug-in hybrid powertrain from the BMW 225xe.

Fifteen years is a short time in the life of the auto industry, just two complete product cycles for the average high-volume vehicle. But by "around 2030," according to Honda's CEO, his company will "strive" to make fully two-thirds of its cars electrified in some way--including hybrids, plug-in...

When it launched in fall 2014, the Volkswagen e-Golf electric car all but duplicated the Nissan Leaf in range and efficiency: 83 miles and 116 MPGe against the Leaf's 84-mile and 114-MPGe ratings. Since then, the Leaf has gotten an upgrade to 107 miles, and an increase is en route for the e-Golf as...