Manufacturing
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You see a lot in the press these days about the low sales of plug-in electric cars. While deliveries have risen every year--and have outpaced hybrid sales at the same point after launch--electric cars clearly remain only a tiny piece of the global car market today. But those low sales nonetheless require a huge amount of battery capacity. DON'T MISS: Plug-In Electric Car Sales In Aug: All-Time Leaf High, Volt Best In 12 Months Depending on your assumptions and calculations, in fact, electric cars to date may already have used as much battery capacity as every hybrid built in 17 years...
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Ford HQ To Have Michigan's Largest Solar Array, 30 Charging Stations Included
Ford will install a solar canopy over parking spaces at its Michigan headquarters.
Stephen Edelstein -
Buying A New Car Is Greener Than Driving An Old One...Really
You've probably heard it at some point: A friend claims his older vehicle is far greener than the new car with much higher fuel economy you just bought That's because, he says, the old car didn't require all the energy and natural resources your car consumed as it was built. But is that older car...
Antony Ingram -
Tesla Recruits U.S. Military Veterans To Build Electric Cars In California
Tesla Motors is making a concerted effort to hire veterans.
Stephen Edelstein -
Carbon Fiber In Cars: More Energy To Make, Lower Lifetime Emissions
BMW answers criticism of its carbon-fiber commitment.
Stephen Edelstein -
Tesla Hiring At Second California Facility, Ex-Chrysler Plant
Tesla is seeking workers for a new facility, a former Chrysler parts-distribution plant in Lathrop, California.
Stephen Edelstein -
BMW is on track to build twice as many i3 electric cars in 2014 as it originally planned.
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Tesla Will Build Electric Cars In China; Model S On Sale There This Week
We've expected it for some time, but now it's been confirmed: Tesla will build electric cars in China in the next three to four years. While Chinese production won't replace the company's facilities in the U.S, it will give Tesla a foothold in an ever-growing market--and help it avoid China's hefty...
Antony Ingram -
Aluminum Vehicles Save More Energy Than It Takes To Build Them
So, you've done the right thing: You've decided your next car will be considerably more fuel-efficient than the one you drive now. That's great news. But, have you considered how it's built--and more to the point, what it's built out of? A new peer-reviewed paper from the Oak Ridge National...
Antony Ingram -
Tesla Gigafactory Faces Skepticism From Panasonic, Analysts
Elon Musk, CEO of startup electric-car maker Tesla Motors, is no doubt used to skepticism. Now he faces new doubts over the company's plans for a massive "gigafactory" costing as much as $5 billion to manufacture more lithium-ion cells than any other plant in the world. DON'T MISS: Tesla's...
John Voelcker -
Landfill Power For Toyota Plant Cuts Carbon Emissions 90 Percent
Several automakers have realized that being truly green involves much more than just building cars that don't use much fuel. The latest is Toyota, which is simultaneously powering its plant and cutting local emissions in Georgetown, Kentucky, by capturing waste gas from a local landfill site...
Antony Ingram -
Tucson Wants Tesla Gigafactory, Gives Formal Proposal To Electric-Car Maker
Tucson wants to be the home of Tesla Motors' massive lithium-ion battery cell factory.
Stephen Edelstein -
As vehicles all over the world slowly get more fuel-efficient, the energy required to make them--and their thousands of parts--is coming to represent a higher proportion of their lifetime energy footprint. And this, in turn, is leading carmakers to focus on cutting the energy required to manufacture new cars wherever possible. A recent study by Volkswagen looked at the carbon footprint for the most fuel-efficient model of its new Golf hatchback, known as the VW Golf TDI BlueMotion. MUST READ: Half Of All Cars Banned From Paris Roads Over Smog; Electric Cars Exempt That vehicle, with a 103-hp...
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Where Should Tesla Put Its Battery Gigafactory? Reader Poll
When electric-car maker Tesla Motors released more information about its planned "gigafactory" to produce lithium-ion battery cells in the U.S., it revealed the four states it's considering as plant locations. They are Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas, all of which are shown as candidate...
John Voelcker -
Tesla's Lithium-Ion Battery Gigafactory: What You Need To Know
This afternoon, Tesla Motors released details on its proposed "Gigafactory" to build lithium-ion cells for its future electric cars. To provide enough cell capacity to build a projected 500,000 electric vehicles in the year 2020, Tesla would require more cells than last year's entire global...
John Voelcker -
How Are Electric-Car Batteries Made? Photos From Nissan's New Plant
Making a battery for an electric car is more like assembling microelectronics than the kind of auto-plant scenes we think of, involving huge steel stamping presses and battalions of automated welding robots. Last month, in addition to driving a 2013 Nissan Leaf through the Tennessee countryside, we...
John Voelcker -
U.S.-Built Electric Cars To Get U.S.-Made Battery Cells Too
While the number of plug-in electric cars built in the U.S. is steadily increasing, the lithium-ion cells in their batteries have mostly come from overseas. But this turns out to be the year that cell production largely moves onshore as well. The 2013 Nissan Leaf, now coming off the assembly line...
John Voelcker -
GM Now Building Chevy Spark EV Electric-Car Motors In Maryland
Eighteen months ago, GM announced that it would build the electric motor for its upcoming Chevrolet Spark EV electric car in the U.S. Now, that motor is officially in production at the company's Baltimore Operations plant in White Marsh, Maryland--along with the associated final-drive...
John Voelcker -
Building cars by hand is an increasingly endangered art, and the few carmakers that still persist tend to charge rather a lot for their products. Renault's Twizy electric minicar doesn't quite feature hand-rolled fenders or curvaceous aluminum bodywork, but unusually it uses far less automation than you'd expect of a modern vehicle--in fact, the whole car is built up by humans, rather than robots. Low production numbers are the reason, as is the relatively low purchase price. Production automation would quickly boost costs--and therefore purchase price--to a point where its manufacture would...
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Tesla Opens Distribution & Assembly Center In The Netherlands
As the first cars are set to arrive in European dealers next year, Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] has announced its new European distribution center in Tilburg, Netherlands. The facility will serve as a final assembly point for European vehicles, as well as acting as Tesla's distribution hub and regional...
Antony Ingram -
How Do You Make An Electric Car? Smart Shows You
If you read our reviews a few months back, you'll be aware that the 2013 Smart Fortwo Electric Drive is a much better car than its predecessors. In third-generation form, it's quicker and has a greater range, but is now available to buy as well as lease--and it's the cheapest electric car on sale...
Antony Ingram -
Electric Cars Are Tougher Than They Look, Eh, China?
Several years ago, the world's auto industry heard a constant refrain: "The Chinese are coming, the Chinese are coming!" With low labor costs and a government imperative to create globally competitive car companies, Chinese makers were expected to follow in the footsteps of the Japanese and Koreans...
John Voelcker -
Never Fear, More Priuses Will Be Here! Or Not. It Depends
If you want to buy a new 2011 Toyota Prius hybrid these days, you may have to scramble. Supplies are down to 3,000 units, which is less than 10 days' worth of sales. In auto industry terms, that means "sold out," and dealers are charging higher markups on the few precious Priuses they still have...
John Voelcker -
Earthquake To Delay U.S. Assembly of Nissan Leaf Electric Cars?
By far the most ambitious plan to build and assemble electric cars in the U.S. comes not from General Motors or Ford, but from Nissan. Now, it may happen a little later than expected, due to the March 11 earthquake and resulting tsunami that severely damaged large portions of Japan's industrial...
John Voelcker