John Voelcker, Contributing Editor
Articles
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Today on Green Car Reports, we correct the math in Forbes magazine, GM says it wants to build a Tesla competitor, and Jewish holidays cause clean air. All this and more on Green Car Reports.
General...
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Nissan Leaf Ad Crosses A Line: 'Not Why Electric; Why Gas?'The question isn't, "Why electric?" It's, "Why gas?" And with those eight words, Nissan marketers crossed a line that no other established carmaker has dared to cross. In a 20-second ad for the 2013 Nissan Leaf electric car now running on television--you may already have seen it--Nissan said it out...
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Surprise: Take Cars Off Roads, Air Gets Much, Much ClearerIt stands to reason: Take all vehicles off the roads, and the air will get cleaner. But now we can answer the question, "How much?" And it turns out that the answer is, "A lot." In a new paper, A national day with near zero emissions and its effect on primary and secondary pollutants, published in...
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Next Volt Engine, Diesel MPG, GM History, Is Coal Dying? Today's Car NewsToday on Green Car Reports, we've got photos of the new--and rather nice-looking--2014 Mazda 3 sedan, news about the future of coal for generating electricity, and a look at General Motors repeating history with its newest hybrid. All this and more on Green Car Reports. We think we just got a look...
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2014 Chevy Malibu Gas Mileage: Making Eco Mild Hybrid Irrelevant, Again?The 2014 Chevrolet Malibu gets a new base engine, and with it come new, higher fuel-efficiency ratings from the EPA. But does the improved gas mileage mean the Malibu Eco model no longer has a reason to exist? For the new model year, Chevy made a large number of changes to the year-old vehicle...
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2014 Mazda 3 Sedan Live Photo Gallery: 2013 Frankfurt Auto ShowThe all-new 2014 Mazda 3 was revealed at the end of June, but only as a five-door hatchback--the model that will be the mainstay in Japan and Europe. Now we've had our first look at the 2014 Mazda3 four-door sedan in person; it was displayed at last week's Frankfurt Auto Show. The pictures show the...
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It's been rumored for a while that the next-generation Chevy Volt electric car would get a new, smaller, three-cylinder engine as a range extender.
Now we've seen what that engine could be, in the...
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Could Google Buy Tesla? Should It?Speculating on what will happen to Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] can be endlessly entertaining, and the discussions have taken up terabytes of server space already. But last week, a Forbes contributor suggested an intriguing notion: Should search giant Google buy Tesla? The conventional wisdom has been...
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Coal Makes Electric Cars Bad? No, Plug-Ins Show Coal As BadEvery so often, electric-car skeptics will attack the idea of using grid electricity to power a car by bringing up coal. "Yeah," the argument goes, "but you're just burning coal instead of gasoline in your electric car--so how's that any better?" There is, of course, a fair amount of science that...
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Signed Offer For Fisker Automotive Sent To Energy DepartmentThe fate of Fisker Automotive has been hanging for months, but now an offer for the company has been "signed" and is "on the table." At least that's the word from Ingo Voigt, who with Fritz Nol is one of a pair of German investors who want to buy the company. "I am proud to tell you that we just...
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Nissan Leaf Electric Car Added To Certified Used ProgramElectric cars have been on sale almost three years now, which means that some of them are starting to show up on used-car lots. To alleviate concern over the unknown future life of a used electric car, Nissan has now added its Leaf to the company's Certified Pre-Owned Vehicles program. Starting...
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Volkswagen Will Be The Biggest Electric-Car Maker In 2018, It SaysAs a group, German automakers have not been at the front of the move toward plug-in electric cars. Nonetheless, Volkswagen Group will be the world leader in electric and hybrid cars by 2018. It says. The bold claim came not from an offhand comment by an executive at this week's Frankfurt Auto Show...
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We get a lot of spy shots of new or prototype cars sent in to High Gear Media, but not that many come from waterproof cameras.
These photos show a potentially new and so far unknown MINI model...
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AM General Buys VPG, Defunct Natural-Gas Handicapped Van MakerLess than a year ago, Vehicle Production Group seemed a success: The startup maker had built 2,500 MV-1 handicapped vans in a year, about one-quarter of them powered by natural gas. But this past April, VPG shut down due to a cash crunch that meant it couldn't make payroll. Now, its $50 million...
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BYD Plans Electric Supercar, More Powerful Plug-In HybridBYD Auto hasn't been in the news much lately, but the largest privately-owned Chinese carmaker hasn't backed away from its ambitious plans. According to China Car Times, BYD will launch a new plug-in hybrid model next year, to be called the Tang, to be followed by an electric supercar. Both...
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New Nissan Rogue, Frankurt Plug-Ins & Hybrids, Tesla Scrambles: Today's Car NewsToday on Green CarReports: It's all about the Frankfurt Auto Show. We've got details of concepts and new production cars, plus a host of live galleries of the greener and more interesting cars. Meanwhile, there's a new Nissan Rogue, and Tesla is working hard to complete the expanded Supercharger...
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2014 Nissan Rogue Crossover: Full Details From Frankfurt Auto ShowThis morning, Nissan pulled the covers off a pair of all-new compact crossovers at the Frankfurt Auto Show. Though they're sold under different names in Europe, the vehicles are what we'll come to know in North America as the 2014 Nissan Rogue. The new 2014 Rogue will arrive at dealers this...
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BMW Concept X5 eDrive Live Photos: 2013 Frankfurt Auto ShowBMW does very well with its sport utility vehicles in North America, which is why they're made in South Carolina. And with hybrid crossovers and sport utilities coming thick and fast, today saw the official unveiling of the BMW Concept X5 eDrive at the Frankfurt Auto Show. The company had released...
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At this morning's Frankfurt Auto Show, the wraps finally came off the production version of the 2015 BMW i8, the plug-in hybrid coupe that's the high-performance counterpart to the 2014 BMW i3...
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C-Max Succeeds, Frankfurt Green Preview, Autonomous Cars: Today's Car NewsToday on Green Car Reports: We show you what's coming up in green cars at this week's Frankfurt Motor Show, Chevy thinks about plug-in pricing, and German luxury diesels are adding start-stop to save even more fuel. All this and more on Green Car Reports. We've updated our preview of the green cars...
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Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vs Electric Car: Buyer Beliefs May DifferIn writing about green, fuel-efficient, and advanced technology cars, it's important to understand who buys them--and why. Volkswagen, for instance, found that diesel and hybrid buyers are separate groups with little crossover. Now Toyota suggests that the supporters of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles...
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Electric-Car Drivers Charge Anywhere; Check Out These Photos!Plugging in your electric car to recharge the battery is simple if you have your own garage, carport, or driveway. If you park on the street, it's a little harder; there just aren't that many curbside charging stations yet. So electric-car owners can get very, very resourceful. We said it more than...
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FINAL UPDATE: Plug-In Electric Car Sales For Aug: Volt, Leaf Hit New Highs, Total Exceeds 10,000Sales of the two highest-volume plug-in electric cars soared in August, with both the Chevrolet Volt and the Nissan Leaf setting all-time monthly sales records. And two Toyota plug-ins set sales records as well. The Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid sold more than it has all year, and the low-volume RAV4...
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New Effort: Electric-Car Rentals And Charging For Orlando, FloridaWhat's the best way to persuade people that electric cars are a viable alternative to gasoline cars? Get "butts in seats." And what's one of the largest car-rental markets in the United States? That woud be Orlando, Florida. Now a new initiative, Drive Electric Orlando (DEO), is coordinating rental...
John Voelcker