John Voelcker, Contributing Editor
Articles
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Sometimes the media don't quite know what they're talking about.
And so it was with a story that had actress Anne Hathaway importing one of the first 2014 BMW i3 electric cars from Germany for her...
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Hydrogen As Electric-Car Range Extender? French Tests Start SoonHydrogen fuel cells have often been viewed as alternatives to large battery packs for powering electric vehicles. But what if a small hydrogen fuel cell could be used in a battery-electric vehicle--solely as a range extender? The French postal service, La Poste, is about to test that concept in...
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Pickup Truck Anger, Tesla-Ford Fight, Electric-Car Vending Machine: Today's Car NewsToday on Green Car Reports: Tesla's Model S keeps its top-rated safety scores, readers berate us for writing about pickup trucks, and carsharing faces questions about whether it's a real business. All this and more on Green Car Reports. Are Tesla Motors and Ford going to battle over the Model E...
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Who Will Own Model E Trademark: Tesla, Or Ford?Perhaps the auto world is Wonderland--for, as Alice famously said, it gets curiouser and curiouser. The latest oddity is a report last Sunday from the enthusiast site Ford Authority that Ford Motor Company has filed for a trademark on "Model E." It's odd because reports last summer indicated that...
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Why Green Car Reports Writes About Full-Size Pickup TrucksOnce in a while, we're blind-sided by responses to an article we publish--and we learn something in the process. On December 23, we wrote about ways that the all-new 2015 Ford F-150 full-size pickup truck might get better gas mileage. We learned that at least some of our readers seem to resent the...
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Electric Cars So Disruptive, Gas Cars Will Be Obsolete In 2016, Says FuturistMany people like to think they can predict the future, but only futurists (and psychics) get paid to do it. And futurist Lars Thomsen thinks that electric cars are such a disruptive technology that they will make gasoline cars obsolete--starting in 2016, or much earlier than most other analysts...
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Today on Green Car Reports: We look at what could raise fuel efficiency in the next Ford F-150 pickup truck, we run down electric motorcycle options this year, and cheer the passing of Venezuela's...
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2015 Ford F-150 Gas Mileage: What We Know So FarThe Ford F-150 full-size pickup is the best-selling single nameplate in the U.S. market, so any changes to Ford's premier truck mean a lot. Buyers, dealers, and the whole industry are paying close attention to information about the next generation 2015 Ford F-150, the first all-new design of Ford's...
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2014 Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid: Plug-In To Replace HybridContrary to published reports, no plug-in Porsches were sold in the U.S. last month. Whether the first one is handed over late this month or early next month--we'll know by Friday, January 3--the company is taking an unusual step with its 2014 Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid. The German prestige maker...
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Gasoline Cars To Remain Dominant In 2040, Energy Agency SaysCars running on gasoline have been with us for almost 140 years, and diesels for almost 80 years. More than 1 billion vehicles on the planet use those fuels today. So the view that liquid hydrocarbon fuels are on their way out requires taking a rather long view. Now we have one estimate of a...
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Will There Be Another Electric Mini E Within A Few Years?Back in 2009, the MINI E electric car was BMW's very first attempt at building a battery-electric vehicle. The fleet of several hundred electric MINIs was leased out to volunteer test drivers in the U.S., Europe, China, and the U.K. to let the company gather data on how drivers used plug-in cars in...
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Volkswagen Tiguan TDI: Forbidden Fruit Drive ReportIt seems to be the season for diesel compact crossovers. Since September, we've driven the 2013 Mercedes-Benz GLK 250 BlueTEC and the new 2014 Audi Q5 TDI. Now we've added some forbidden fruit to that list: the European-market diesel version of the Volkswagen Tiguan, sold in North America only with...
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The Ford Escape, entirely redesigned for 2013, is one of the best-selling entries in the popular category of compact crossover utility vehicles.
The real-world gas mileage of the latest Escapes,...
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Audi R8 e-Tron Electric Supercar Back From The Dead, With Greater Range?The on-again--then off-again, then on-again, then off-again, then on-again--Audi R8 e-tron all-electric sports car may in fact hit showrooms next year after all. And it's all due to what Audi suggests are unspecified advances in battery technology. The Australian site Drive (via Motor Authority)...
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Volkswagen XL1 138-MPG Diesel Plug-In Hybrid: Drive ReportWe didn't expect the Volkswagen XL1 to be as much fun to drive as it is. Which makes it doubly a shame that Volkswagen won't be selling its radically efficient, two-seat, plug-in diesel hybrid XL1 model in North America. At a price of € 111,000 (roughly $153,000), the 250 XL1 cars that...
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Modern Electric Cars, Three Years Later: Lessons LearnedThree years ago yesterday, the first retail buyer of a brand-new Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car was handed his keys in Denville, New Jersey. Just three days earlier, the first Nissan Leaf buyer had received his battery-electric car in a large ceremony at San Francisco's City Hall...
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Road Trips In A Tesla Model S Electric Car: Lessons LearnedIt's one facet of the American myth: Get in your car, drive away from wherever you are, take the road trip. Think crossing the country to find the California Dream. Think Jack Kerouac's On the Road. Think buddy movies. MORE: Tesla Model S Road Trip: 1,200 West Coast Electric-Car Miles More...
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Second Tesla Road Trip, Honda Hybrids, BMW i3 Repairs: Today's Car NewsToday on Green Car Reports: We run down what happened on a second Tesla Model S road trip, BMW i3 repairs may not be as pricey as feared, and we tell you all about Honda's hybrids. All this and more on Green Car Reports. It may have a body of carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP), but the 2014 BMW...
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People tend to recall bad or frustrating experiences more acutely than good ones.
Which is likely why a staple of plug-in car forums is the bad-treatment-at-a-car-dealership story.
Anecdotes abound...
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Ethanol A Victim Of Change As Gasoline Sales Have Flatlined?Eight years ago, ethanol was going to let the U.S. grow its own vehicle fuel, reduce its use of gasoline made from imported oil, and boost energy security. How much have you heard about those themes lately? Not much, we'd wager. A lot has changed since the 2007 passage of the Energy Independence...
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2015 Ford Mustang: How High Will Its Gas-Mileage Ratings Go?Almost four years ago, the Ford Mustang was the first car to offer both 300 horsepower and 30 miles per gallon in its an EPA highway rating. How much better will the new 2015 Ford Mustang do? The 2015 Mustang will offer a four-cylinder engine, the model's first since 1993--though the new 2.3-liter...
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Electric Cars: Which States Are Doing It Right, Which States Lag?If you live in parts of California, electric cars--from the Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid all the way up to the Tesla Model S--are no longer uncommon. The streets of Palo Alto, in the center of Silicon Valley, are practically crawling with Teslas these days. But in other parts of the country, you may...
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AWD Cars Increasingly Popular; How To Make Them Fuel-Efficient?It wasn't so long ago that all-wheel drive was restricted to Jeeps, trucks, and the occasional esoteric supercar. Now, according to data from Polk cited in The Detroit News, it's fitted to almost one third of the vehicles sold in the United States. MORE: 2014 Jeep Cherokee: All The Details From NY...
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New Hyundai Intrado Fuel-Cell Concept For 2014 Geneva Motor ShowHyundai announced this morning that it will unveil a new hydrogen fuel-cell concept vehicle, to be known as the Intrado, at the 2014 Geneva Motor Show in March. The Hyundai Intrado Concept will be constructed around a "super-lightweight structure" that employs a "mixture of advanced materials" that...
John Voelcker