Politics

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has weighed in with his verdict on startup electric-car maker Tesla Motors: It's a "loser." So, for that matter, is another startup that's still in business, Fisker Automotive. The two car companies were lumped in with a pair of bankrupt businesses...

Yesterday, we discussed the problem of America's crumbling roads and bridges. Taxes on gasoline are meant to keep that stuff up to snuff, but the costs of maintenance and upgrades are outpacing revenue. The reason? The federal gas tax hasn't risen since 1993. The Wall Street Journal recently...

With the announcement of final rules for corporate average fuel efficiency of 54.5 mpg by 2025, the NHTSA and EPA have done two things. The agencies have given carmakers both a major technological challenge--double the effective gas mileage of your vehicles in 12 years--and something they have long...

Let's face it: political discourse in the U.S. isn't very pretty. It's generally a matter of two large parties -- each backed by an army of fundraisers, copywriters, and statisticians -- shouting at each other in front of sympathetic audiences. Over the past couple of decades, the situation seems...

Last week, governors of more than 20 states joined together to ask the auto industry for a specific kind of car: a mid-size sedan powered by natural gas, rather than gasoline. This week, the industry responded, with auto-company representatives gathering in Oklahoma City to discuss the request with...

Look back a few years, and the Federal government under President George Bush offered buyers of hybrid cars up to $3,400 in tax credits for buying an electric car. As of December 31, 2010, those tax credits expired, to make way for similar tax credits for those who buy fully electric or plug-in...

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...

Electric cars have traditionally been more costly to build and buy than their gasoline counterparts thanks to their limited production numbers and the high cost of battery packs. We already know that the price of electric car battery packs are dropping faster than analysts predicted they would, but...

You felt the earth shake a week ago today when the EPA formally approved the sale of E15 gasoline, right? Oh, you didn't? Not surprising, really. No gas station in the U.S. sells E15 today, and it looks like it may be a while before any given driver sees the stuff showing up as one of several...

Most brand-new auto technologies are, at best, a breakeven proposition in their early years. Toyota is thought to have lost money on every Prius hybrid it sold for several years, until its sales rose enough to gain economies of scale. Makers of plug-in electric cars may be losing money on each one...

Politics is never pretty, and the politics of alternative fuels seem even less so. Today, The Detroit News reports that the U.S. military's program to reduce its reliance on oil by using ethanol and other non-petroleum fuels could be de-funded in the military authorization bill that's now working...

Always read the fine print. That's a lesson every car buyer should take to heart. Especially since Nissan, Chevrolet, Tesla, and Mitsubishi all now engage in a pricing practice of which they should be ashamed. It's so-called "net pricing" of their electric cars, in which the price appearing in...

The improving fuel efficiency of modern cars is set to be a double-edged sword for car buyers, at least as far as reducing gas bills is concerned. With gas mileage rising all the time, we're using less fuel--undoubtedly a good thing. That also means less gas tax revenue for the government however...

The electric vehicle world is watching the rollout of Better Place's electric-car network in Israel with interest, but some have asked whether Better Place has an effective monopoly on electric cars granted by the Israeli Government. Better Place says its service and its cars compete with gasoline...

The partisan politics around electric cars have been poisonous pretty much since they launched in December 2010. But commentators are now raising two issues that had almost gotten lost amidst Congressional hearings on Volt battery fires, the GM bailout, the Solyndra collapse, and lazy reporting...

A bill signed in Colorado will now allow lessees to claim any tax credits for hybrid cars and electric vehicles, rather than the lessor. Previously, the state had allowed banks or finance companies to choose whether claim the credits themselves on lease vehicles, or to pass the credits on to the...

You may have heard and read more than you want to on the media distortions and lousy reporting about the Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car. Former GM product czar and climate-change skeptic Bob Lutz has been a lonely voice in his series of Forbes pieces slamming the distortions (the most...

It still hasn't really registered in public awareness, but as we've said before, U.S. gasoline consumption has been falling since 2006. Now, it turns out that U.S. energy imports have been falling as well--from 60 percent in 2005 to just 45 percent last year. That can be attributed to two factors...

What goes around comes around, and you need look no further than the auto industry for proof. Model names can be mothballed for decades before reappearing. Features and styling cues make comebacks, with mixed success--all the marketing in the world can’t make Ventiports modern today. Less...

One month from today, your 2011 Federal and state tax returns will be due. (It would have been a month from yesterday, but April 15 falls on a Sunday this year.) So consider this your friendly reminder to make sure that if you bought a plug-in car during 2011, you remember to apply for the Federal...