Green Car News
-
Tesla Motors said today it would cut the third-quarter production target for its 2012 Model S all-electric sport sedan, according to a stock analyst who follows the company. A report by Wunderlich Securities analyst Theodore O'Neill notes that Tesla is now saying it would probably only deliver 500 cars through the end of September, down from a previous target of 1,000. It still expects to deliver about 5,000 cars by the end of 2012, meaning an average of 1,500 cars a month from October through December. The delays were attributed to unspecified production execution issues. Green Car Reports...
-
Small, High MPG, Hybrids, Plug-in Cars All Gain Sales In 2012With continued uncertainty about gas prices, more Americans than ever are buying smaller, more efficient cars. According to Automotive News (subscription required), the demand for small, high gas mileage cars has meant that sales of compact cars -- like the Toyota Yaris, Kia Rio and Chevrolet Sonic...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Electric-Car Battery Costs To Decline To $200/kWh In 2020, McKinsey SaysIt's not for no reason that electric cars are more expensive to buy than their fossil-fueled counterparts. If you wanted to point the finger of blame squarely at one thing, you'd likely be pointing it at batteries. At the moment, a typical lithium-ion battery pack costs around $500-$600 per...
Antony Ingram -
Ethanol In Your Gasoline Tank: The Pros And ConsWith flex-fuel cars that can run on E85 ethanol still a minority of the vehicles on sale, you might think ethanol isn't as important as some other future fuels. But up to 10 percent of every gallon of gasoline you buy today is ethanol, and that proportion may rise to as much as 15 percent if gas...
Antony Ingram -
Nissan's Mark Perry: We're Investigating Arizona's Wilting LeafsMore than two months after a few Nissan Leafs in Arizona began to lose capacity bars in the extreme heat and suffer premature battery aging, Nissan has started formal investigations into the issue. While being interviewed over the telephone by Arizona’s KPHO 5 station in Phoenix, Mark Perry...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Midwest And Mountain Group To Work Toward Natural-Gas CarsThere may only be a handful of natural gas vehicles on sale, but representatives from Colorado and Oklahoma want that to change. A meeting between politicians from each state and representatives from the automakers in Detroit will meet on Monday to discuss ways in which demand for natural gas...
Antony Ingram -
One of the most common complaints we get at GreenCarReports is that we refer to the 2012 Chevrolet Volt as an electric car. Because it has a range-extending gasoline engine, some say, it is only a plug-in hybrid and therefore not worthy to be classed as an electric car. As we’ve illustrated before however, the Volt spends more time as an electric car than you’d think. Even after 101 million collective miles, Chevrolet Volts spend most of their time in electric mode. As part of the Volt’s onboard OnStar telematic system, the odometer readings of each car are transmitted back...
-
Could The Opel Adam Minicar Become The Smallest Buick Ever?Buick and Opel have long been linked, starting 45 years ago when Buick dealers sold Opels imported from GM's German brand. There will be no more Opel-brand cars sold in the States, but a number of current and future Buicks were developed by Opel and are sold in Europe as Opel models. So we got to...
John Voelcker -
Nissan, GE, Working To Solve Leaf, WattStation Charging WoesPlugging an electric car into a charging station might seem like a simple process, but sometimes even the simplest of processes can go wrong. Over the weekend, we heard reports of several cases of Nissan Leaf owners whose Leafs had sustained damage after charging at GE WattStation Level 2 charging...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Electric-Car Charging Stations: Will Market Forces Cut Prices?As some public charging stations have started charging fees for charging sessions, many electric-car drivers are debating what a fair price would be. Virtually all drivers accept that it's reasonable to pay something to charge at a private business. Two executives from Coulomb Technologies, which...
George Parrott -
Gas Stations, Quick Charging Stations: A Match Made In Heaven?Hawaii is already a pretty good place to drive an electric car, and not just so you can enjoy the beautiful scenery in electric-powered silence. Islands are ideal places to own electric cars, where distances are shorter and gas prices are higher. And Oahu is set to become even better, as...
Antony Ingram -
Elon Musk Bets Half Of All Cars Built In 2032 Will Be ElectricTesla Motors CEO Elon Musk has an enthusiastic base of fans who consider him a visionary. And with Paypal in the past, and SpaceX as well as Tesla today, Musk has an impressive track record. So ears perked up when he recently predicted that in 20 years, half of all new cars sold would be plug-in...
John Voelcker -
Earlier this month, BMW confirmed that the Mini Paceman two-door coupe concept car we saw at the 2011 Detroit Auto Show would go on sale in the U.S. early next year. But according to Automotive news (subscription required), the new car -- essentially a coupe version of the existing Mini Countryman Crossover -- wouldn’t be the only new Mini to hit dealers in the coming years. In fact, by 2020, there may be as many as 10 different Mini models on the market in the U.S. These new models will include a five-door wagon, a van (due to arrive this fall), and possibly even a notchback sedan...
-
Jay Leno, Bob Lutz, Talk Plug-ins, Drive Via Plug-in Hybrid TruckAmericans love the utility and functionality of the mighty pickup truck, but not its gas mileage. So its no surprise that talk show host Jay Leno thinks that Americans will love the Via Vtrux, a range-extended, full-size, electric pickup truck that combines the practicality of a Chevy Silverado...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
How To Keep Your Nissan Leaf’s Battery Pack Happy In Hot WeatherJust like humans, lithium-ion battery packs don’t like extremes of temperature, which is why automakers often build plug-in cars with liquid-cooled battery packs. Unlike the 2012 Chevrolet Volt and 2012 Tesla Model S however, the Nissan Leaf doesn't have any liquid cooling for its battery...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
2013 Lexus ES 300h Pricing And Details AnnouncedLexus has announced pricing details for its all-new ES 300h hybrid luxury sedan. Joining the non-hybrid ES 350, the ES 300h will have a MSRP of $38,850, plus a delivery, processing and handling fee of $895. With a 2.5-liter, Atkinson-cycle four-cylinder engine, the ES 300h develops a combined 200...
Antony Ingram -
2013 Nissan Versa Hatchback Previewed By New Nissan NoteNissan announced today the next generation of its global subcompact, the Note, due to go on sale in Japan this September and Europe in 2013. Nissan North America has now followed that news by announcing that the next Versa hatchback will use the same platform, and echo many of the Note's styling...
Antony Ingram -
BMW Diesels To Return To U.S. In New, Smaller FormatWhile Europe has received diesel BMWs in four and six-cylinder guise for decades, U.S. buyers have only been allowed a small selection--which shrunk further when BMW discontinued the 2011 335d. That's about to change, reports Motor Authority, as BMW has confirmed it will soon offer a 2.0-liter...
Antony Ingram -
Five to eight years ago, Chinese carmakers were going to blast into the U.S. car market and sell huge volumes of inexpensive small cars--just like the Germans, Japanese, and Koreans before them. Then, two or three years ago, Chinese auto companies were going to leapfrog directly into electric cars, dominating that market globally. Neither of those things has happened. At least not yet. China's national government, working closely in partnership with large industrial companies, still has as its official policy that "new energy vehicles" will become a major part of the country's output--and...
-
E15 Ethanol Gasoline Arrives...At One Station In KansasIf ever there was a suitable place to sell stronger blends of ethanol in gasoline, it's the midwest. With vast supplies of common crops like corn, the midwestern states are ideal for ethanol production and sales. And kicking off that trend is one lone gas station in Kansas, the first to sell E15...
Antony Ingram -
2012 Tesla Model S: Will Winter Weather Ruin Its Range?The first two 2012 Tesla Model S all-electric sport sedans to roll off the Tesla production line last month were shipped to Chicago, where they're presumably now tooling around in the Midwest's record-setting summer heat. But how will the cars' impressive EPA range of 268 miles hold up six months...
David Noland -
New-Car Buyers Want Higher Gas Mileage (It Pays For Itself Too)How much do you spend on gasoline each year? If you happen to live in the average U.S. household, the total is more than $2,850 every year--roughly $240 a month, or $60 each week. So when the Consumer Federation of America surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults in May on their attitudes toward fuel efficiency...
John Voelcker -
Urgent: Save This Old, Ground-Breaking Hybrid Car!It's another Monday morning, and there's nothing like a positive start to the week. Unfortunately, this is nothing like a positive start to the week. In fact, when we started reading a thread on U.K. car enthusiast forum Retro Rides, it made us rather angry. If you read our piece last year on a...
Antony Ingram -
Free Electric-Car Charges Start To Depart; What's A Fair Fee?demanding $ 2.00/hour for charging as do the similar charging stations....
George Parrott