Production
-
If China imposes new tariffs on rare-earth metals, it could take longer for electric cars to reach a price parity with internal combustion vehicles.
-
Volvo’s US Polestar electric-car plans are in flux over China tariffs
Higher tariffs placed on cars made in China won't impact Polestar's future plans for the U.S. but could affect the future price of its cars, the brand said Wednesday. Responding to reports that its CEO suggested that the nascent electric carmaker, which is owned by Volvo, might pull the plug on...
Bengt Halvorson -
Tesla Model 3 production target reached but did automaker cut corners?
Tesla pulled out all the stops to get 5,000 Model 3s built by July 1 including pulling workers from other assembly lines, halting Model S and X production to paint nothing but Model 3's, but also critically eliminating an industry standard brake test designed to ensure quality, according to a...
Eric C. Evarts -
Tesla Model Y coming in 2020; Roadster and Semi still on the way, says Musk
Tesla CEO Elon Musk told shareholders Tuesday that the last few months have been "hellacious" for building the Tesla Model 3, but that the automaker expects by the end of this month to build 5,000 of the mid-size luxury sedan each week and beyond. "It's insanely hard to stay alive," Musk added. The...
Aaron Cole -
Volvo ditches diesel, but will half its cars be electric by 2024?
Volvo says it is going all-in on electric cars in an effort to turn the company into something of a Tesla alternative. To that end, the company has announced that half its cars will be battery electric models by 2024, according to a report in Road & Track earlier this year. It has also...
Eric C. Evarts -
Elon Musk says all-wheel-drive, Performance Model 3s will be available to order this week
In a tweet response Friday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that buyers waiting to order a Model 3 with all-wheel drive or the Performance package can begin placing their orders by the end of this week. Last month, Musk had said that the Dual Motor all-wheel-drive and Performance versions of the Model 3...
Eric C. Evarts -
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 sedans and 10,070 were Model X crossover utility vehicles. DON'T MISS: 2018 Tesla Model 3 Long Range: first drive review of 310-mile electric car For more than eight months after the first Model 3 cars were delivered to buyers at the end of July 2017, Tesla has struggled to get Model 3 production rates...
-
BMW: we won't mass-produce electric cars until 2020, with cheaper cells
BMW sold more than 100,000 cars with plugs last year, adding together its battery-electric and plug-in hybrid models. That's roughly on a par with Tesla, and ahead of both General Motors and Nissan, two other pioneers in modern electric cars. The company has put far more plug-in cars on the road to...
John Voelcker -
Nissan, Tesla surpass 300,000 electric cars; one started later, one did it with a single model
Only two automakers have built and sold more than 300,000 battery-electric cars to date. One is from Japan, the other from Silicon Valley. And each can claim a specific distinction within those totals. DON'T MISS: 300,000th Nissan Leaf sold as new electric car deliveries start We know that the...
John Voelcker -
Tesla now makes almost 1,000 Model 3s a week, Bloomberg tracker estimates
Production numbers for Tesla electric cars have always been slightly murky. The company announces deliveries only quarterly and refuses to break them down by country, meaning there are no sales figures that directly compare with those routinely issued by other makers. The Tesla Model 3 has endured...
John Voelcker -
Tesla Model 3 variants delayed; will some buyers lose $7,500 tax credit?
"Overall, I think, while there were challenges associated with Model 3 ramp, we were in a deeper level of hell than we expected, so a few levels deeper than we'd like to be, but swiftly exiting, I think." Those chastened but seemingly optimistic words came from the CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, during a...
John Voelcker -
What a difference a few months makes. In June, one month before the delivery of the first 30 Tesla Model 3, we polled our Twitter followers on how many of the lower-priced electric cars Tesla would deliver by the end of this year. The view then was pretty rosy, with more than half the respondents saying the company would have sold more than 10,000 Model 3s. DON'T MISS: How many Tesla Model 3s will be delivered by Dec 31? Poll results (Jun 2017) But Tesla faced monumental challenges in getting Model 3 up and running, likely exacerbated by the risky choice not to build the usual dozens of...
-
Electric Hyundai Kona, Kia Niro production to rise again: report
Both Hyundai and Kia planned to approach the electric and plug-in car market aggressively, but now the Korean siblings plan to boost production even over totals announced earlier this year. This past summer, both brands said they would increase their electrified car production to 50,000 units next...
Sean Szymkowski -
Parts order for Tesla Model 3 cut by 40 percent starting in December: report
Relatively few auto-company CEOs would publicly mention sleeping on the roof of one of their factory buildings. But Tesla CEO Elon Musk is not like most other chief executives of auto companies. Most also don't break news via tweet, for instance. A tweet by Musk Thursday evening referred to the...
John Voelcker -
UAW wakes up to job threat posed by electric cars, as German unions have already
With an evolving shift to electrified and plug-in electric cars, the changes that will bring to the auto industry are far from limited to the powertrains. The entire mass-production and vehicle assembly process the industry pioneered a century ago will require major restructuring, it appears...
Sean Szymkowski -
Chevy Bolt EV, Sonic, Bolt, Sonic: GM mingles gas, electric cars on same assembly line
General Motors didn't have to construct an all-new assembly plant to build its affordable, mass-market Chevrolet Bolt EV electric car. In fact, it produces the electric car at the existing Orion assembly plant in Michigan, which opened in 1983. That's not the most interesting aspect of Bolt EV...
Sean Szymkowski -
Mercedes plant to make batteries, electric motors after 113 years of engines
The first vehicle in history considered to be an automobile was the Benz Motorwagen of 1885. It was also the first vehicle from an automaker that has been around for the duration of the industry: we know it today as Mercedes-Benz. In other words, the company has been building cars for 132 years...
Sean Szymkowski -
Electric-car maker Tesla is at a pivotal time in the 13-year-old company's history as production of its mass-market Model 3 ramps up and ambitious plans to roll out additional vehicles loom. Coinciding with the production start of the Tesla Model 3 are plans for a major expansion the Silicon Valley automaker's assembly plant in Fremont, California. If all goes according to plan, the facility would double in size from its current proportions and would be a major factor in Tesla's efforts to increase production of its lower-priced electric cars. DON'T MISS: 2017 Tesla Model 3 prices, features...
-
Tesla Model 3 Performance version coming, after 'production hell' ends
Now that the Tesla Model 3 has officially entered production, the electric-car maker's main goal will be to ensure the manufacturing process ramps up smoothly. With 1,800 new reservations reportedly placed each day for the affordable electric sedan, Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter to confirm...
Sean Szymkowski -
Electric Mini to be made in U.K., despite BMW's Brexit worries (updated)
Mini, despite being owned by BMW since 1994, has long been a decidedly British brand. But both employees and fans worried that its British roots might be overlooked as a decision on where Mini's electric car is to be built closed in. Most Mini production takes place at the brand's Oxford plant in...
Sean Szymkowski -
Chevy Bolt EV plant shutdown extended, due to slow Sonic sales (updated)
One of the biggest tests of an automaker's discipline is what it does when sales start to ebb and inventories of unsold cars swell. Does it keep the production lines churning, and dial up its incentives to keep new-vehicle deliveries flowing? Or does it prioritize profitability and suspend...
John Voelcker -
Tesla finds Chinese production site for electric cars: Shanghai
Tesla is closing in on a deal to begin production of its cars in China, after it signed a preliminary agreement to explore building cars near the major city of Shanghai. By signing the preliminary agreement, Tesla will begin the first step towards local production in China, a move that would...
Sean Szymkowski -
Demand for Hyundai Ioniq hybrid, electric models higher than expected, company says
The issue first came to light in a question from a reader. It boiled down to this: "What's going on with the Hyundai Ioniq Electric, and why can't I get one at my local dealer in California?" The e-mail even included a link to a Korean business-news article, which is unusual for reader queries...
John Voelcker