Green Car News

  • Uber self-driving car

    Samsung might be supplying Tesla's promised new Autopilot chips in the spring. Honda reveals a new battery that could have 10 times the range of today's lithium-ion cells. And the U.S. hit a milestone for electric car sales last month, reaching 1 million plug-ins across the country. All this and more on Green Car Reports. Rivian CEO R.J. Scaringe revealed to us that the company is building its upcoming electric pickup and SUV, and their battery packs, with an upgrade to faster-charging 800 volts in mind. The company is already testing the upgraded 800-volt batteries and preparing for the...

  • 2017 Tesla Model S testing at Consumer Reports
    Future Tesla Autopilot chips may come from Samsung self-driving push

    The race to build self-driving cars is heating up, with Google (Waymo), Tesla, Uber, Lyft, Ford, GM (Cruise), and others all vying to build the first reliable self-driving system. Now add Korean electronics giant Samsung to that list—with a twist. Its first client could be one of the major...

  • EVgo charging station in Union City, California with resused BMW i3 battery backup
    A million electric cars sold in the U.S., led by California

    Drivers are buying electric cars, and advocates are keeping track. Last month, Veloz, an electric car advocacy organization consisting of regulators, automakers, charging manufacturers and networks, utilities and others, announced that the U.S. had surpassed 1 million electric car sales. That's...

  • Honda Clarity Electric at Honda R&D Center, Tochigi, Japan, June 2017
    Honda presents new battery chemistry that could succeed lithium-ion

    Researchers from around the world are looking for the successor to the lithium-ion battery for electric cars, power tools, and electronics—one that will store more energy with less size and weight, charge more quickly, and have improved safety. All battery chemistries come with tradeoffs. The...

  • Rivian R1T electric pickup concept
    Rivian electric pickup, SUV ready for future 800V upgrade—possibly in 2022

    The Michigan-based electric-vehicle hopeful Rivian claims that its upcoming R1T pickup and R1S sport-utility vehicle, both revealed last month around the LA Auto Show, will be able to recharge up to 200 miles of range in just 30 minutes—provided they’re connected to a DC fast charger...

  • Boring Company opens first test tunnel in LA, Dec. 2018
    Nissan muscles up electric marketing, VW ID testing, Tesla fire: Today's Car News

    A new Chinese electric carmaker plans to sell electric cars in the U.S. via the owner of the defunct automaker Coda. A new Tesla Model S unexpectedly caught fire—twice—after getting a flat tire in California. And Volkswagen teased a video and images of its new I.D. electric hatchbacks...

  • 2020 Volkswagen ID 3 spy shots

    Volkswagen has heard the naysayers. After being caught cheating on emissions tests with its diesels and being forced to promote electric cars through various legal settlements around the world, the company clearly realizes it has a steep climb to convince consumers it is serious about selling a wide range of electric cars it has planned. DON'T MISS: VW plans 27 electric cars by 2022 on new platform So far, it isn't helping that the cars are still in development, after Tesla has ramped up to a pace of selling more than 100,000 electric cars per year. To help convince buyers that its electric...

  • 2018 Tesla Model S
    Tesla Model S catches fire—twice—after flat tire in California

    A week after reports surfaced that a 2014 fire in a Tesla Model S was caused by a bullet fired from inside the car, in the battery of another brand new Tesla Model S caught fire in California. The owner told local news crews that he was driving on Highway 17, which runs from San Jose to Santa Cruz...

  • Qiantu K50 by Mullen
    Chinese electric sports car Qiantu K50 might be made in U.S., with Coda connection

    There's quite a list of Chinese automakers that are relatively unknown outside China yet have grand plans to enter the U.S. market. The latest is China’s Qiantu Motor, which has developed an all-electric luxury sports car called the K50, The K50 went on sale in China earlier this year and...

  • 2018 Nissan Leaf
    How Nissan hopes to market its future electric cars

    The Nissan Leaf with a roughly 60-kilowatt-hour battery was expected to make its public debut at the LA Auto Show earlier this month. It didn’t. That car is expected to appear “very soon,” perhaps at the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show to be held in Las Vegas next month. DON'T...

  • Pronto.AI self-driving car system
    GM battery layoffs, Trump and fuel economy, more fast chargers: Today's Car News

    Electrify America gets plans approved to build more fast chargers in California. A new study shows what the Trump administration is missing about how fuel-economy standards affect vehicle affordability. And we have results from our last Twitter poll and a new poll for you to try. All this and more...

  • 2017 Tesla Model S testing at Consumer Reports
    How often do you use Tesla's Navigate on Autopilot? Twitter poll results

    After Elon Musk's announcement last week imploring Tesla owners to try the company's new Navigate on Autopilot software, and promising that the system will allow Teslas to commute from home to work and back without intervention, left us wondering if our readers are equally optimistic about the...

  • 2019 Chevrolet Volt

    Will the Chevrolet Volt get an immediate successor, or will any other model soon carry on with the potential of its brilliant Voltec plug-in hybrid system? Considering what General Motors announced yesterday, both of those possibilities are now looking less likely. GM said that it will cut 50 jobs at the Brownstown facility that assembled battery packs for the Volt, as well as a few other models, including the Buick LaCrosse and its eAssist system. DON'T MISS: What will happen now that the Chevy Volt has been discontinued? Twitter poll results This news comes in addition to GM’s...

  • Electrify America DC fast chargers at San Francisco Premium Outlets, Livermore, California
    California approves next Electrify America fast-charge rollout

    Electrify America's second round of electric-car charging installations has won approval from the California Air Resources Board. The company announced plans for its second round of public charging stations in October, including adding more California cities, helping rural residents install home...

  • 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV electric cars outside dealership    [photo: Patrick Reid]
    Study finds what Trump is missing about fuel economy: Poor people don't buy new cars

    Rising fuel economy standards make driving more affordable for low-income households, not less as the Trump administration argues, according to a new study by the Consumer Federation of America. In their proposal to freeze fuel-economy increases, the EPA and NHTSA argued that increasing fuel...

  • Smokestacks pollution air quality
    Will climate talks bring real progress? Take our Twitter poll

    Last weekend, climate talks in Poland wrapped up by scraping a length of thorns off the Paris-agreement rose stem. Global leaders de-thorned issues as sharp as how nations will measure progress toward reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, whether planting more forests should count, for example, how...

  • 2019 Chevrolet Volt
    Trump on electric cars, tailpipe tests, tech to clean up engines: Today's Car News

    EVgo launches its first ultra-fast charger in the desert. Microwave ignition claims to clean up internal combustion. And a group proposes publishing its own independent emissions tests. All this and more on Green Car Reports. "All-electric is not going to work," President Trump said in an interview...

  • President Donald Trump (Photo courtesy DoD)
    Electric cars "not going to work," Trump says of GM's plan

    In an interview with Fox News last week, President Trump revealed his inner thoughts about electric cars—not that many had any doubts. "All-electric is not going to work," he said, referring to General Motors' stated goal to transition to "a world with zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero...

  • MWI microwave ignition module

    Former Porsche AG CEO Wendelin Wiedeking, who waged a failed takeover of the Volkswagen Group ten years ago, is reportedly one of the backers of a new venture that, at face value, is making claims that sound very much like those made of what was then the favored tech for VW and Audi: TDI diesel. The idea, belonging to a company called MWI (Micro Wave Ignition), which presented the technology at a conference in Hanover, Germany, last week, involves igniting fuel with pulsed microwaves instead of spark plugs (or even glow plugs). Engineers at MWI, according to a Bloomberg report, claim that...

  • EVgo 350-kw DC fast-charge station, Baker, Calif.
    EVgo launches first public 350-kw fast charger

    The desert is full of apparitions. The latest is a high-powered DC fast charger for electric cars that don't yet exist. This apparition is an EVgo charging station in Baker, California, the "Gateway to Death Valley" on Interstate 15, halfway between L.A. and Las Vegas, installed last week. DON'T...

  • Portable Emissions Measurement Systems (PEMS) on a Peugeot 308
    Independent group aims to be for emissions what NCAP or IIHS is for crash safety

    A newly formed organization called Allow Independent Road-testing (AIR) wants to make impartial emissions ratings available to vehicle shoppers. Using a simple rating from A (best) to H (worst), they would tell you, at a quick glance, how much you’re endangering the health of your family with...

  • 2020 Volkswagen ID Neo spy shots - Image via Theo Calitz
    Electric Infiniti, Hyundai Kona Electric price, Nio ES6, German batteries: Today's Car News

    Infiniti plans to introduce a concept version of its first production electric car at the Detroit auto show next month. Hyundai announces pricing for its upcoming Kona Electric. Chinese electric startup automaker Nio reveals its second production model. And German automakers announce big...

  • 2019 Nio ES6
    Nio ES6 makes appearance in China, on sale June

    Chinese electric automaker Nio introduced its second, most mainstream, model at an event in China on Saturday. The Nio ES6 is a small-to-midsize crossover vehicle, which, according to Nio's optimistic specs, could deliver 258 miles range from its standard 70-kilowatt-hour battery, or 289 miles from...

  • 2020 Mercedes-Benz EQC
    German automakers commit to massive battery purchases, sidestep some hard realities

    Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, last week revealed that it will be buying $23 billion in battery cells by 2030. What it didn’t fully reveal—its sources for those cells—says as much, if not more about a point of unease among German automakers. Battery packs—and...

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