John Voelcker, Contributing Editor
Articles
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The results of German national elections don't get much news coverage in the U.S.
But the re-election of Angela Merkel as chancellor on September 22 could prove to have an effect on your future Audi,...
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FINAL UPDATE: Plug-In Electric Car Sales For Sept: Sales Slacken After Aug RecordAfter a record-setting month in August, plug-in electric car sales moderated in September while the overall U.S. vehicle market surged. The Chevrolet Volt, the best-selling plug-in car after almost three years, registered 1,766 deliveries--little more than half the record-setting number of 3,351...
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Tesla Model S Was Best-Selling Car In Norway For SeptemberWell, here's a first: The best-selling car in Norway is the Tesla Model S. Not the best-selling electric car. Not the best-selling car with a plug. For the month of September, the Tesla Model S was the best-selling car, period. Silicon Valley startup electric-car maker Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] sold...
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Sept Plug-In Sales, VW XL1, Credit-Card Charging Fees: Today's Car NewsToday on Green Car Reports, we report on September's plug-in electric car sales, look back on the gasoline tax, augment the repair process, and warn women drivers about a new--and hitherto unknown--danger to their reproductive health. All this and more on Green Car Reports. Plug-in electric car...
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Sweet Spot For Hybrid Cars In U.S. Market: Mid-Size Sedans?What kind of hybrid car do you want to buy? Poll the automakers about what kind of hybrids they think will sell, and one answer comes back. The sweet spot for hybrids, as their model lineups show, is mid-size sedans--both mainstream and now increasingly luxury makes. Consider the lineup of...
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PlugShare Debuts Cellphone Payments For Electric-Car ChargingRecargo, the company that owns the PlugShare app for locating electric-car charging stations, launched a new way to pay for charging today. Its "Pay With PlugShare" program gives its users the ability to transact a charging session using only their smartphones. The app lets electric-car drivers...
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Nissan Leaf U.S. Content, Ducati-Powered VW XL1, IIHS Safety Ratings: Today's Car News John VoelckerToday on Green Car Reports, the Tennessee-built 2013 Nissan Leaf has less U.S. content than you might think, VW may fit a Ducati motorcycle engine to its highest-efficiency car, California governor...
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U.S.-Made 2013 Nissan Leaf Has Only 15 Percent Local Content; Here's WhyThe 2013 Nissan Leaf electric car is assembled in Smyrna, Tennessee, for North American sales. In fact, Nissan got a low-interest loan for $1.6 billion from the U.S. Department of Energy to make that possible. So why does every 2013 Leaf carry a window sticker saying that its U.S. and Canadian...
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Is Tesla Motors Really Worth Almost Half The Value Of GM?Discussions of Tesla Motors sometimes seem couched in the terms of a religious tale: Tesla as David vs General Motors in the Goliath role. One company is the plucky Silicon Valley electric-car startup that's never built a vehicle with a gasoline engine. The other is the largest U.S. automaker, one...
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Palo Alto To Require Electric-Car Charger Wiring In New HomesWith most electric-car charging today taking place in the garages of private homes, installing a home charging station can pose a hurdle to potential buyers. Now Palo Alto, California--the city in the center of Silicon Valley--is moving to make it easier for homeowners who want to switch to an...
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Mitsubishi Outlander Plug-In Hybrid: U.S. Sales In Fall 2014, MaybeThe Mitsubishi Outlander Plug-In Hybrid promises to fill an empty niche in the new-car market: a mid-size crossover utility vehicle with up to 30 miles of all-electric running, plus a plug-in hybrid powertrain for unlimited range. But a U.S. Mitsubishi executive says that high demand in other...
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Your Mileage May Vary; Dashboard MPG Readings Vary TooIt's one of the most common questions asked of any new car: "So what kind of gas mileage does it get?" The answer most often comes from the car's gas-mileage readout on the dashboard, generally specified to the tenths of a mile per gallon. But as Edmunds determined, those readings vary considerably...
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Today on Green Car Reports, car dealers in California--home state of Tesla Motors--attack the electric-car maker for deceptive marketing and pricing practices. The new 2015 Audi A8 gets special new...
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California Car Dealers Slam Tesla For Website Pricing TricksState and national auto-dealer groups have been battling Tesla Motors for four years now. The dealers want to stop Tesla from selling its electric cars directly to buyers, and are working to change state laws so Tesla will have to conduct all sales through independently-owned third parties--which...
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Cadillac Vs Tesla, Accord Hybrid Priced, Small Crossovers: Today's Car NewsToday on Green Car Reports, GM plans to face off against Tesla (one day), small crossovers are in the news--both used and upcoming--and we suggest that the best way to look at today's Nissan Leaf electric car is to think of it as a 12 -year-old Prius hybrid. All this and more on Green Car Reports...
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Future Mazda CX-3 Subcompact Crossover To Take On Honda, OthersCrossover utility vehicles are popular the world over, and they're going to get smaller. What started out as full-size and mid-size trucks are now most popular as car-based compacts--and subcompact crossovers are coming fast. MORE: 2013 Mazda CX-5 & 2012 Mazda 3: Real-World Mileage Boost From...
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Why The 2013 Nissan Leaf Is Really A 2001 Toyota PriusA lot of media discussion these days seems to focus overly on the low sales of plug-in electric cars (this piece from Friday, for instance). That despite the fact that plug-ins are selling faster than hybrid vehicles did at the same phase of their launch. But automotive history may provide another...
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GM CEO: Cadillac To Take On Tesla, One Day--With Plug-In Hybrid Sedan, Perhaps?It looks like the success of the Tesla Model S all-electric luxury sedan may be starting to get under GM's skin. CEO Dan Akerson told the Detroit News that General Motors will compete with Tesla Motors--"ultimately"--through its Cadillac luxury brand. But, Akerson said, he remained unconvinced that...
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You see and hear it all the time, sometimes from people who really ought to know better.
It's the notion that electric cars are going to improve incredibly, amazingly, unimaginably fast ... "because...
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Five Facts About Tesla & Electric Cars That May Surprise YouTesla always tops the charts. Coverage of the feisty startup electric-car maker from Silicon Valley attracts huge attention any time it appears. Discussion boards, forums, videos, comment sections, and investment blogs overflow with opinions, analysis, and utterly confident (and wildly differing)...
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New Gas Stations Must Have Quick Charging Or Other Alt Fuels, Canadian City SaysWhere should you put public charging stations for electric cars? Local businesses and governments and urban planners all over the country are grappling with that question right now. But one Canadian city has passed a law that requires new or renovated gas stations to install electric-car charging...
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Tesla Self-Driving Car, Lots Of Turbos, DoE Troubles: Today's Car NewsToday on Green Car Reports, Elon Musk stays in the news (you're not really surprised, are you?), Volkswagen and Ford both tout their turbos, and the U.S. Department of Energy faces up to some hard financial facts. All this and more on Green Car Reports. Tesla will launch a self-driving car within...
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Electric-Car Charging Network Ecotality Files For BankruptcyThe writing has been on the wall for a while now, but Ecotality filed for bankruptcy on Monday, according a report yesterday by the Associated Press. The provider of electric-car charging stations, known for its Blink network, has been troubled for some time. More than a year ago, Blink's charging...
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Energy Department To Sell Its Fisker Loan: Kickstarter, Anyone?That sound you heard yesterday was the other shoe dropping. The U.S. Department of Energy is offering its loan to Fisker Automotive for sale to the highest bidder, with a remaining face value of $164 million. The DoE did the same a few weeks ago with a much smaller loan--$45 million--to Vehicle...
John Voelcker