Syndicate
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It's now clear: Volume deliveries of the second version of the 2013 Tesla Model S began this month. That would be the version fitted with the middle of three battery-pack sizes, with a stated energy capacity of 60 kilowatt-hours. The news does not come from Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA], a company that can be bafflingly opaque about standard business metrics like production and deliveries. Instead, it comes from scanning the "Delivery Update" thread of the Tesla Motors Club forum (that thread now runs to 400 pages, by the way). Multiple reports have been posted during the month of owners taking...
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Tesla CEO Musk: Boeing 787 Batteries 'Inherently Unsafe'Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk is hardly shy and retiring. He tweets out random financial results, states as fact things that haven't quite happened yet, and regularly speaks his mind. Yesterday, he described the troubled Boeing 787 Dreamliner's battery pack design as 'inherently unsafe,' which could...
John Voelcker -
Tesla CEO Elon Musk Offers Help To Boeing On Battery ProblemsHe has his eyes on space, and is changing the world of automobiles with his Tesla electric cars--but now Elon Musk is offering a hand to Boeing, too. The Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] CEO tweeted Saturday that he was in talks with the chief engineer of Boeing's Dreamliner 787 aircraft, currently...
Antony Ingram -
Daimler, Ford, Nissan Agree To Share Hydrogen Fuel-Cell Costs For 2017 Or LaterThe speculation is over, as Daimler has signed a three-way agreement with Ford and the Renault-Nissan Alliance to jointly develop future hydrogen fuel-cell technology. The technology, expensive to develop and not without its drawbacks, has been explored by each company in the past, and the...
Antony Ingram -
Electric Cars Used As Emergency Power: DoD Begins TestsPicture the scene: There's a power cut. It goes dark. Your TV, refrigerator and computer all shut down. How long will it last? Who knows? Power outages are normally brief affairs, but in disasters like 2012's Superstorm Sandy, people could be left without power for days. A potential solution...
Antony Ingram -
Mitsubishi i-MiEV Electric Cars Recalled To Fix Braking ProblemMitsubishi Motors Corp. is recalling 14,700 Mitsubishi i, or i-MiEV electric cars over a brake fault. The global recall will fix a component of the brake booster system. In normal operation, an electric pump sends air to the brake booster, which applies extra force to that generated by the driver...
Antony Ingram -
Volkswagen flipped a large ceremonial switch yesterday that signaled the official launch of a huge array of photovoltaic solar cells at its Chattanooga assembly plant, which builds the Volkswagen Passat mid-size sedan. The new solar field can supply up to 12.5 percent of the plant’s total energy needs, adding to an already low-carbon electricity supply that includes roughly 50 percent nuclear and hydro generation. With a generating capacity of 9.6 megawatts of direct current, the 33-acre solar field is the largest one at any industrial plant in the world, the largest in Tennessee, and...
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U.S. Could Be The Biggest Electric Car Market By 2020There's no doubt about it: Electric car sales are going up. 2012 saw sales triple compared to 2011, and while the overall number of electric cars will increase in modest amounts, improved education and more choice should ensure a general upward trend. According to Pike Research, there could be as...
Antony Ingram -
Next Ford F-150: Advanced Materials Likely, Hybrid Powertrain PossibleThe new Atlas Concept that Ford Motor Co. [NYSE: F] unveiled at Detroit this past week revealed several interesting technologies that altogether could save fuel (active grille shutters, active wheel shutters, a drop-down air dam, and power running boards) and be useful to serious truck users...
Bengt Halvorson -
GM States The Obvious: 'The Electric Car Is Not Dead'Well, duh. The day after it unveiled the 2014 Cadillac ELR range-extended electric luxury coupe, GM's North America chief Mark Reuss told attendees at a trade event that "the electric car is not dead." “That’s despite what you might hear, and despite what you might read about Americans...
John Voelcker -
Honda Gear Concept: The Original Civic, Reincarnated?With the North American International Auto Show diverting much of the motoring press to Detroit, Honda has surprised us all by launching a new concept car at the Montreal International Auto Show instead. The Gear Concept Study Model is a subcompact hatchback, with more than a hint of some of...
Antony Ingram -
Reminder: Tax Credit For Electric-Car Charging Station Is BackAs part of the recent fiscal cliff deal passed by Congress, many green energy programs saw renewed focus and deadline extensions, allowing people to benefit from them for a little longer. Included in these programs is the Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property credit. This allows eligible...
Antony Ingram -
Gosh, those crazy electric cars. They're so different and confusing, eh? We've now come across a new and thus-far unparalleled example of just how far people will go to avoid dealing with the realities of electric cars. Which are, of course, smooth, quiet, and torquey, meaning they're fast off the line. We already know the Gummint plans to require quiet electric cars to get noisier at low speeds, so that pedestrians deeply engrossed in their iPhonePodPads will hear them coming. But this example has to do with the behavior of electric cars from the driver's perspective behind the wheel. As you...
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2013 Ford Fusion Energi: 21 Miles Of Electric Range From Plug-In HybridThe guessing is over, as Ford has revealed full EPA mileage figures for its 2013 Fusion Energi plug-in hybrid, after teasing its 108 MPGe highway rating a few weeks back. Joining the C-Max Energi in Ford's plug-in hybrid lineup, the Fusion Energi touts a combined 100 MPGe in blended electric mode...
Antony Ingram -
Boeing 787 Batteries Same As Those In Electric Cars? Umm, NOGird yourself: It's possible we're about to see a new wave of attacks on electric cars that ignore battery science. This time the culprit is the troubled Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft. The FAA has grounded all 787s after a string of fires in their lithium-ion battery packs; other countries have...
John Voelcker -
Third Better Place CEO In Four Months DepartsBetter Place, the battery-swapping network operating in Israel and Denmark, didn't have an easy 2012, and 2013 is looking little better. Indeed, Reuters now confirms the departure of their current CEO, Evan Thornley. Better Place founder Shai Agassi was ousted last October, following losses of $490...
Antony Ingram -
Ford Atlas Truck Concept Demos Fuel-Saving Active Wheel ShuttersIn order to improve the aerodynamics of new vehicles—and boost their highway gas mileage—automotive engineers have looked to a new series of seemingly minor features that add up to meaningful gains in EPA ratings. One of them is the active grille shutters that have become increasingly...
Bengt Halvorson -
Updated Acura NSX Hybrid Supercar Concept Debuts In DetroitIt’s not quite the production version of the new NSX that we were hoping for, but the updated concept car presented at the 2013 Detroit Auto Show today does give us a much better idea as to what the production version, due sometime in the next couple of years, will be like. We can clearly see...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
We know the specifications and details of the 2013 Nissan Leaf, which has now gone into production in Smyrna, Tennessee. But the missing piece of information has always been: What will the battery electric car cost now that it's built in North America? During an electric vehicle roundtable today at the Detroit Auto Show, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn provided the answers. The new base-level 2013 Nissan Leaf S will start at $28,800. That makes it, as Nissan says, the least expensive five-seat battery electric vehicle sold in the U.S. The mid-level Leaf SV now carries a price starting at $31,820, and...
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Volkswagen's Two Diesel Plug-In Hybrid Concepts: Detroit Auto ShowAt the Detroit Auto Show, Volkswagen showed not just one but two concepts with diesel plug-in hybrid powertrains. VW not only unveiled its CrossBlue Concept for a mid-size seven-passenger crossover, it also showed the CrossCoupe Concept it had premiered last year at the Beijing Auto Show. Each...
John Voelcker -
Tesla Now Delivering Model S, But Cash Crunch Judgment Waits For FinancialsOne hurdle down: Tesla is now delivering production Model S electric cars to paying customers from its reservations list of 18,000 or so. Next hurdle: Can Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] bring in enough cash from those sales, and ramp up production fast enough, to keep the company solvent? It would appear...
John Voelcker -
2013 Detroit Auto Show Preview: Diesels, Electrics And HybridsNext week is the annual Detroit Auto Show, one of the most important events on the automotive calendar and increasingly a place for car companies to show off new green technology. Given consumer tastes and the trends in the market, it should come as no surprise that the list of green cars, whether...
Antony Ingram -
How Bad Were The Nissan And GM Electric-Car Sales Shortfalls?If 2011 was the year of overoptimism for electric-car sales, and 2012 was Sophomore Slump after the inevitable shortfall, will 2013 be the year of realism? That really depends on what the world's leading electric-car maker, Nissan, sells this year. Let's recap. Several years ago, Nissan said that...
John Voelcker -
How Many Tesla Model S Electric Cars Were Built In 2012? How Many Sold?It may be the most eagerly sought piece of information in the plug-in electric car world. And Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] ain't talking. The company has a set policy of not disclosing monthly sales figures or production figures until it has to by law. So it'll be another month or so before we know how...
John Voelcker