plug-in cars

The image of the electric car as the future of passenger vehicles has led to a wealth of start-up companies hoping to cash in on the newest type of automotive propulsion. Starting a company—an automobile company at that—is not an easy task, however. Now Lucid Motors (nee Atieva) may be...

The Tesla Model 3, the first mass-market electric car from the Silicon Valley carmaker, is now nominally in production. Scaling up from a trickle of hand-assembled cars to 10,000 units a month is Job One to keep Tesla afloat by letting it sell cars to hundreds of thousands of hand-raisers globally...

In North America and Europe, the old saying—"Win on Sunday, sell on Monday"—probably no longer applies. That is, winning races over the weekend probably does little if anything to boost sales of passenger cars and light trucks, certainly not the way it did in the U.S. in the 1950s and...

There is a lot to consider when it comes to purchasing an electric-car charging station, as it can affect the ownership experience and the convenience of using the car. While some owners of plug-in hybrids may stick with the 120-volt charging cord that comes with the car, virtually all buyers of...

Another month, and another round of European electric car sales data is ready for dissemination. Electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles continue to earn a healthy share of the European car market, and it's clear there's still a definitive electric car for Europeans. That is the...

Ask a North American driver to name companies that make electric cars, and you'll probably hear Tesla, maybe Nissan, and perhaps Chevy or BMW or Toyota. Chinese drivers may be more likely to say BYD (and perhaps Tesla), but Europeans will likely name Renault. (And Tesla.) The Renault Zoe, now in...

It may be human nature to avoid doing things that are for the long-term good but impose short-term costs. Exercising more, giving up smoking, or paying more for a car that is better for the environment all challenge many otherwise responsible citizens. And it's abundantly clear that the emergence...

There's no denying Tesla has accomplished a lot since the Model S was introduced in 2012. It pioneered the luxury electric car segment and put an unrivaled charging network into place through its Supercharging stations. On one side, it certainly seems like Tesla is poised for electric vehicle...

Tesla may garner much of the buzz surrounding electric cars, but BMW has quietly become a significant challenger in the electric-vehicle sales race. Nissan, General Motors, and Tesla have all 100,000 to 300,000 plug-in vehicles globally, but this year, BMW and its Mini brand are on track to deliver...

The month of July brings plenty of juicy deals on battery-electric, plug-in hybrid, conventional hybrid, and fuel-efficient vehicles. Much like last month, many of the deals remain. However, there are a few newcomers to the list for July—including one vehicle that may startle a few consumers...

It’s a cool spring morning in Menlo Park, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley. In a two-story concrete-and-glass building on Constitution Avenue, just down the block from Facebook’s vast fortress, a group of automotive engineers and designers is working to create the...

Audi may have taken an evolutionary approach to the design of the newest, largest luxury sedan, but it is positioning the car as a technical force to be reckoned with. The 2019 Audi A8 ushers in a new era for the German luxury brand—starting now, every single model will soon feature a...

Often there seems to be no middle ground in discussing electric-car maker Tesla Motors. The challenge of reading large volumes of Tesla coverage is that it tends to be either sharply negative or rabidly positive. And the California company's stock is so obsessively analyzed both by supporters and...

VW Group remains one of the world's three largest carmakers, along with Toyota and General Motors, but the German automaker foresees challenges ahead. Specifically, Volkswagen believes the industry will face a shortage of lithium-ion batteries if new investment is not made soon for additional cell...

Incentives for the purchase of a plug-in battery-powered vehicle continue to be a powerful motivation to get new buyers to consider electric cars. The federal income-tax credit of $2,500 to $7,500 has long been supplemented by various state programs, including a purchase rebate in the crucial...

It was time to let her go. She is my 2013 Tesla Model S, serial number 003662, in dark green, now with 76,000 memorable miles. The best car I’ve ever owned, by far. She had taken me to 33 states and roughly 100 Superchargers, through deserts, mountains, and tropics, with total reliability...

Last month, 1,642 Chevrolet Bolt EV 238-mile battery-electric hatchbacks found buyers, enough to take the Bolt's six-month aggregate to 7,592 deliveries all told. It was the latest and highest in a string of rising monthly delivery totals for the 238-mile battery electric hatchback, and it marked...

Faraday Future has seen its share of setbacks following January's reveal of its FF 91 electric luxury car, but it walked away with a victory at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. The troubled company not only took home a victory, but it also claimed a new record in the process. The FF 91...

The 2017 Tesla Model 3 has apparently entered pilot production, following a pair of photos tweeted by Tesla CEO Elon Musk. The caption on the first of the two photos, this one black-and-white, says simply, "First production Model 3." The second photo, tweeted 40 minutes later, is in full color but...

As the market for electric vehicles continues to grow, electric-car infrastructure will need to keep up with the growing population of them. To solve the problem, companies are looking at a variety of new and innovative ways to charge more cars without actually taking up more space. Enter the ebee...