plug-in cars
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Over the seven years modern, mass-priced electric cars have been on sale, various bits of wisdom have emerged among their fans, advocates, and owners. One might be how much battery range is "enough" to prevent drivers from worrying constantly about whether they need to charge. Another might be which vehicles have batteries that seem to hold their capacity over time—and which don't. DON'T MISS: Top Six Trends In Plug-In Electric Cars Through 2020 (Feb 2016) Now the well-known consulting firm of McKinsey has summarized what it has concluded on some of these issues. McKinsey summarized its...
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Plug-in electric car sales in Canada, March 2018: Prius Prime rivals Volt
The Chevy Volt won its umpteenth monthly plug-in sales title in Canada last month, but soaring sales of other models were the big story in the Canuck electric vehicle market—which may have reached 1.75 percent of the market in March. The Volt tallied 555 March sales, Canada’s...
Matthew Klippenstein -
Why I traded my Chevy Bolt EV for a Tesla: one reader's story
As a nation, the U.S. takes lots of road trips, because most of the country has no viable mass transit between city pairs. If electric cars are ever to enter the mass market in North America, they have to be usable on those road trips. Last year, our reader Jay Lucas of Alexandria, Virginia, wrote...
John Voelcker -
Buyers in seven Northeast states urged to consider electric cars
When companies want to sell more of something, they market it. Now, at long last, electric cars are about to get the same treatment.
Eric C. Evarts -
5 things about the 2019 Hyundai Kona Electric we learned at the NY auto show
After a Detroit auto show that was about little except pickup trucks and a new Jeep, followed by a tepid Chicago show, New York proved to be relatively rich in interesting new green cars. The standout was clearly the 2019 Hyundai Kona Electric, the 250-mile battery-electric small hatchback that...
John Voelcker -
What China learned from California about getting electric cars on its roads
In the U.S., California has long been viewed culturally as the crazy, free-spirited cousin. As Californians like to point out, their state of 40 million people is also the world's sixth-largest economy all by itself. Resolutely progressive, it has regulated vehicle emissions for five decades and...
John Voelcker -
The monthly report on sales of plug-in electric cars may well have come to a close this month. General Motors, makers of the Chevrolet Bolt EV and Volt, said it will only release sales figures quarterly starting after its Tuesday release of deliveries for the month of March. Interestingly, the company adopted an argument used by Tesla for almost a decade in refusing to release monthly data: monthly sales have too much fluctuation to be meaningful trend indicators. DON'T MISS: Tesla Model 3 production crossed 2,000 last week; is it sustainable? "Monthly sales are subject to many issues that...
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Tesla Model 3 production crossed 2,000 last week; is it sustainable?
Tesla reported Tuesday that it built 34,494 electric cars in the first quarter of 2018, by far its largest quarterly production total ever. But all eyes were on one number: the production of Model 3 sedans, which was 9,766 vehicles out of that total. Of the rest, 11,730 were Model S hatchback...
John Voelcker -
Will electric cars grow faster or slower than expected? Take our Twitter poll
Innovative technology in the auto industry—turbochargers or catalytic converters or disc brakes, say—tends to launch in high-end vehicles and filter down to the mass market over many years, often decades. Technology tipping points in society happen more rapidly and become indispensable...
John Voelcker -
Nissan Leaf refurbished batteries offered for older electric cars, in Japan
With more than 300,000 Nissan Leaf electric cars on the road, some more than six years old, battery degradation is becoming more and more of an issue. The different rates of capacity loss are a topic of much discussion among Leaf owners, but it now seems likely that Nissan's choice of passive air...
John Voelcker -
China plans to standardize electric-car tech nationally to expand its global lead
Sales of plug-in electric vehicles in China were almost four times those in the U.S. last year, and the gap is expected to widen this year. The world's largest car market is engineering a massive shift over the next two decades away from cars with combustion engines toward battery-powered cars. It...
John Voelcker -
Classic Mini converted to electric previews 2019 Mini E to come
With a new, all-electric Mini E set to arrive in dealerships in a year or less, BMW wants to highlight the idea of a Mini Cooper powered by batteries. That's what led it to display an "old Mini" converted to electric power at a reception before last week's New York auto show. Sadly, the car wasn't...
John Voelcker -
A parking lot in suburban New Jersey isn’t the first place I’d look for a revolution. According to Jaguar, it’s where ours will start. After just over four minutes behind the wheel of the 2019 Jaguar I-Pace, the electric Jaguar feels like the beginning of something. DON'T MISS: 2019 Jaguar I-Pace electric crossover debuts in production trim; estimated 240-mile range As the first luxury battery electric vehicle from a mainstream automaker, the I-Pace will be followed by many more from other automakers—dozens if the timeline stretches far enough into the future. Its...
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Nissan Leaf 30-kwh battery decline 3 times that of earlier electric cars: study
The Nissan Leaf, at least for the moment, remains the highest-volume electric car produced in history, with more than 300,000 sold. One of the measures that kept its cost down was the use of passive air cooling for its battery pack, rather than the pricier liquid cooling used by other makers to...
John Voelcker -
Tesla recalls 123,000 Model S electric cars over steering-bolt corrosion
Tesla will recall roughly 123,000 of the Model S electric cars it built from 2012 through April 2016 to replace bolts in the power-steering units of the electric cars. The company said the bolts could corrode in cars used on roads where calcium or magnesium salts are used to melt ice. The Model S...
John Voelcker -
Beverly Hills bans plug-in hybrids from public charging stations
Well, that's ... interesting. The city of Beverly Hills, California, has issued new regulations for parking and electric-car charging. As of Monday, April 2, only battery-electric cars will be allowed to park and plug in at any of the city's 35 public charging stations—plug-in hybrids will...
John Voelcker -
When do you expect to buy your first battery-electric car? Twitter poll results
It's called walking the talk. Also, putting your money where your mouth is. Either way, when we polled our Twitter followers to ask when they intended to buy their first battery-electric car, we didn't expect the distribution of responses we got. DON'T MISS: Plug-in electric car sales in Feb better...
John Voelcker -
2019 Hyundai Kona Electric US debut: 250 miles of range from small electric hatchback
The biggest question around the 2019 Hyundai Kona Electric has now been answered: it will have a rated range estimated at 250 miles on the U.S. test cycle. Hyundai debuted the U.S. version of the small all-electric hatchback on Wednesday at the New York auto show media days. While the company...
John Voelcker -
British carmaker Jaguar Land Rover and Waymo said Tuesday the carmaker would sell Google's autonomous-car technology arm up to 20,000 of its new all-electric Jaguar I-Pace SUV to be used in self-driving service by 2020. While last week's news focused entirely on the fatal crash of a Volvo converted by Uber to autonomous operation—apparently with Volvo's safety features switched off—carmakers and other companies continue to plan for expanded test fleets and limited trials of self-driving cars. Waymo will fit its latest sensors and software to the electric Jaguars and put them into...
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2019 Lincoln Aviator crossover to include plug-in hybrid version
Ford's premium brand, Lincoln, has started to take on a new confidence, with far more luxurious vehicles and high-end trim levels and vehicles that are more than just restyled mass-market products. On Wednesday, it will draw back the veil from one of the several new SUVs that it hopes will power...
John Voelcker -
2020 VW Atlas Cross Sport concept shows plug-in hybrid possible in future
In Europe these days, it's all but de rigeur to fit auto-show concept vehicles with plug-in hybrid powertrains. Most of the Volkswagen SUV concepts that previewed what is now the Volkswagen Atlas seven-seat crossover, on sale today, sported plugs—though no such version emerged into...
John Voelcker -
Tesla sales: how much do rebates matter to buyers in Canada?
The government of Ontario amended its plug-in electric vehicle incentive program in March, eliminating incentives for vehicles with a recommended price of $75,000 or more. What effect will this have on demand for Tesla’s Model S and X? Two years ago, this site analyzed the impacts on...
Matthew Klippenstein -
VW committed to sell 2 new electric cars in California by Dec 2019: what are they?
The Volkswagen diesel emission scandal has now largely vanished from U.S. media coverage, much to VW's relief. Tens of thousands of bought-back TDI diesel vehicles still sit in fields awaiting modification and resale, or some other disposition. But among the thousands of pages of legal documents to...
John Voelcker -
Here's how California's carpool (HOV-lane) stickers work now: updated
For years, green-car buyers in California have enjoyed a special perk: access to high-occupancy vehicle lanes that can whiz past gridlock, even with just a single occupant. Now, updates to the rules signed into law in October by Governor Jerry Brown will likely change the way owners and shoppers...
Aaron Cole