VW
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For the past 50 years, the German auto industry has enjoyed quite the roll of growth and success in the U.S., built largely on its expertise with one specific technology: the internal combustion engine. But now the importance of that advantage is fading, with electric cars on the rise and the highest-value component within them the battery pack. Increasingly, companies with headquarters in South Korea, Japan, and China—not Germany—have taken the lead not just on cells and chemistry but in the design of modules and sometimes the entire pack architecture. Meanwhile Volkswagen, for...
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From a global view, going electric could hike up small-car prices
As soon as 2024, electric cars are expected to reach price parity with gas-powered cars, largely due to the falling costs of battery packs. Volkswagen’s chairman Hans Dieter Pötsch, earlier this week, provided some commentary to the German Welt am Sonntag that appears to be aimed at...
Bengt Halvorson -
Volkswagen tests mobile DC fast charging station for urban network gaps
Automakers face some daunting challenges in selling electric vehicles to urban apartment-dwellers, who are often without a home charging point. As a partial response, Volkswagen has shown a portable DC fast charging unit aimed at urban environments or temporary use at events or in parking...
Bengt Halvorson -
German automakers commit to massive battery purchases, sidestep some hard realities
Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, last week revealed that it will be buying $23 billion in battery cells by 2030. What it didn’t fully reveal—its sources for those cells—says as much, if not more about a point of unease among German automakers. Battery packs—and...
Bengt Halvorson -
Compact Audi, flagship VW crossover could show upscale side of VW electric platform
Audi has recently released several hints that we’ll soon see a first concept tease of its smaller, more affordable electric vehicle, to be built on Volkswagen’s modular electric-vehicle architecture, termed MEB. And secondly, the Volkswagen brand is also soon expected to give a first...
Bengt Halvorson -
2019 Toyota Prius AWD price, more VW electrics, French protests: Today's Car News
Toyota announced pricing for the new 2019 Prius AWD-e. In trade talks with the Trump administration, VW's CEO revealed the company could use Ford factories in the U.S. to build new models—which could include electric cars. Rioters in France this month won what they wanted: a reprieve from...
Eric C. Evarts -
Nissan announced it planned to remove Chairman Carlos Ghosn after an investigation revealed alleged financial misdealing. VW has no fun trademarking names for its new series of I.D. electric cars. The EPA plans to tighten emissions rules on heavy trucks. And cross-lawsuits reveal the underlying machinations in the Faraday Future saga. All this and more on Green Car Reports. Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn was reportedly arrested in Japan after a Nissan investigation alleged that he under-reported his income from the company and misused corporate resources. Known as the father of the Nissan Leaf...
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VW is planning to build 15 million electric vehicles
UPDATE: The very premise of this piece has been shaken when Volkswagen told the original source of this report, Automotive News, that its chief executive had misstated the number of MEB vehicles it now planned to eventually build to be 50 million, not 15 million. The latter is not surprising based...
Bengt Halvorson -
In pictures: Volkswagen TDI diesels await their fate in Pike's Peak shadow
It might be the world’s largest single-company junkyard and pick-a-part business, if not for the prominent "No Trespassing" and "Drone-Free Zone" signs. Instead, it’s a massive storage facility in Colorado for thousands of disgraced VW and Audi TDI diesel vehicles awaiting whatever fate...
Andrew Ganz -
Volkswagen ID Vizzion large all-electric sedan teased before Geneva debut
Volkswagen's first dedicated battery-electric vehicle will roll off the production lines in 21 months, but we won't see the compact hatchback ID model in North America. Instead, the first dedicated VW plug-in electric vehicle will be the production version of the ID Cross compact crossover that's...
John Voelcker -
Regulators approve updates to some Audi, VW, Porsche 3.0-liter diesel SUVs
State and federal environmental regulators announced Monday they had approved modifications to illegally polluting Volkswagen, Audi, and Porsche SUVs fitted with VW Group's 3.0-liter V-6 TDI turbodiesel engine The EPA and California Air Resources Board sent a letter Friday to VW announcing the...
Aaron Cole -
Volkswagen ID Crozz electric crossover concept updated at Frankfurt show
Germany's giant VW Group has said, several times, that it will have 30 different electric cars on sale globally by 2025. Over the last year, it's unveiled three different Volkswagen ID electric-car concepts, two of them thinly disguised versions of future production models for 2019 and 2020. Now...
John Voelcker -
It has been nearly two years since Volkswagen came clean and admitted its "clean diesel" engines were actually quite dirty. In 2015, a VW engineer admitted the TDI diesel cars sold in the U.S. since 2009 were outfitted with "defeat device" software that let them pass emission tests, only to emit far more nitrogen oxides in real-world use. Two years is a long time to implement damage control, which has cost VW Group $25 billion to date—but the story is continuing to unfold. DON'T MISS: Lasting legacy of VW diesel scandal: EU gets serious about testing A former Audi engineer has now...
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VW engineer gets 40 months in jail, $200K fine, for diesel cheating role
Former Volkswagen employee James Liang was sentenced in Detroit on Friday to serve 40 months in prison and pay a $200,000 fine for his role in the global Volkswagen diesel-emission cheating scandal. It was a stiffer sentence than expected for an engineer who helped to create software that...
John Voelcker -
Volkswagen ID Buzz drive: electric VW bus offers unique EV concept
When you see a concept car drive onto the stage at an auto show, don't be fooled into thinking it's what you'll drive out of the dealer a couple of years later. We got to drive the Volkswagen ID Buzz all-electric Microbus concept car Saturday for a couple of miles along the oceanside road outside...
John Voelcker -
Volkswagen to build ID Buzz electric Microbus, cargo vans too, on sale in 2022
The Volkswagen ID Buzz concept, an all-electric reinterpretation of the iconic VW Microbus, generated huge enthusiasm and public crowds when it debuted in January at the Detroit auto show. Today, the company announced its board had officially approved production of the vehicle, a distinctive entry...
John Voelcker -
VW exec to plead guilty to diesel cheating charges after jail, house arrest
It has been almost two years since Volkswagen changed the prospects for diesel-powered cars when it admitted to eight years' worth of cheating on emissions tests for its so-called clean diesel vehicles. The effects of the German automaker's diesel scandal are still unfolding today, not only in the...
Sean Szymkowski -
Modifications to oldest, dirtiest VW, Audi TDI diesels approved by EPA
VW Group of North America now owns hundreds of thousands of Volkswagen and Audi TDI diesel vehicles it has bought back from owners under the terms of various diesel emission scandal settlements. Yesterday, it got some very good news: the EPA has approved a modification that will it allow it to...
John Voelcker -
This Thursday, the California Air Resources Board will meet to consider what action it will take on an important plan that could bring many more electric-car charging sites to the state. That document is the first 30-month investment plan submitted by Volkswagen for its "Electrify America" program. Each of four stages in the 10-year plan is evaluated separately by the EPA (for the 49 states) and by California, which sets its own, unique vehicle-emission rules. DON'T MISS: VW Electrify America plan for electric-car charging across U.S. released (Apr 2017) The Electrify America plan, which is...
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All-electric VW ID Buzz Microbus confirmed for production
Working to redirect attention from its diesel-emission scandal—soon to wind down in the U.S. but ongoing in Europe—Volkswagen Group has talked a lot about its future electric-car plans. It will launch three high-volume battery-electric vehicles on a common architecture over the next...
John Voelcker -
Judge approves VW diesel V-6 settlement, last major piece of scandal
The Volkswagen diesel cheating saga has closed another chapter as a U.S. judge approved a proposed settlement for V-6 powered vehicles, the final major U.S. piece of the entire scandal. In total, Volkswagen will pay $1.22 billion, both in settlements to owners and to cover the cost of modifying or...
Sean Szymkowski -
Extent of Volkswagen diesel deceit detailed in new book
It's getting close to two years since Volkswagen admitted it had installed "defeat device" software on hundreds of thousands of diesel vehicles sold in the U.S. The fact that VW carried out the deception is a well-documented story, covering how the software worked, how the company cheated, and...
Sean Szymkowski -
Volkswagen T-Roc video teases new small SUV five months early (updated)
Sales of crossover utility vehicles—the ones that look like tough, capable, high-riding SUVs but actually sit on passenger-car underpinnings—continue to surge all over the world. Carmakers are meeting the demand by adding new varieties (four-door coupe utility vehicle, anyone?) and...
John Voelcker -
Modified 'new' 2015 Volkswagen TDI diesels come with big discounts
If you're itching to climb into a brand new, 2015 Volkswagen TDI, the german automaker wants to sweeten the deal for you. Volkswagen has begun selling its fixed, 2015 model year TDI diesel vehicles and the marque has given dealers a bit of firepower to help move cars from dealerships to driveways...
Sean Szymkowski