John Voelcker, Contributing Editor
Articles
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The upcoming 2014 BMW i3 electric car is generating a lot of quiet excitement--especially for its optional "ReX" range extender, a tiny two-cylinder engine that fits under the rear deck to power a...
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Tesla Model X Electric Crossover Pushed Back A Year To Late 2014Now that Tesla appears to be delivering hundreds of its Model S electric sport sedan each week, public attention inevitably turns to its future. Specifically, the next vehicle it plans to launch, the Model X all-electric crossover utility vehicle--which will offer optional all-wheel drive. But...
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Nissan Replaces Electric-Car Unit Executive To Boost SalesIt's no secret that Nissan hasn't sold as many battery electric cars over the last two years as it had planned. The company just sold its 50,000th Nissan Leaf last month, but it had hoped to sell up to twice that number between the start of production in late 2010 and the end of last year. Now the...
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Tesla Wins One In Minnesota: Bill To Ban Its Stores DefeatedLike a lot of news from Tesla, this came in the form of a tweet by CEO Elon Musk on Friday morning. It read, in its entirety, "Minnesota auto dealers tried to pass legislation to block Tesla stores. Bill was just defeated in Senate. Thanks MN!" And indeed, a Minnesota Senate committee voted down...
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It Took Time To Build Gas Stations Too, Says 97-Year-Old Driver (Video)"I love to drive," says the 97-year-old driver. "And that's, to me, part of my longevity." But Charlie Yaeger is old enough to remember when gas stations were so sparse that drivers had to memorize where every one was located. In a new video issued by Nissan, he draws parallels between that...
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Diesel Road Trip: Agency Rocks SxSW With 1979 Oldsmobile CoupeNothing like a lime green 34-year-old diesel car to wake you up the morning after you spring forward, is there? Two weeks ago, we wrote about the near-pristine 54,000-mile 1979 Oldsmobile 98 Coupe that popped up for sale on the delightful and quirky Bring A Trailer site. Now, BaT has published an...
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Cars of the future--especially those from the past--always exert a powerful pull on our imaginations.
They range from the outlandish (no wheels) to the bizarre (extreme styling exercises) to the...
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Diesel Fuel Derived From Algae Now Testing In 2 VW TDI ModelsFor a century, we've gotten almost all our gasoline and diesel fuel from petrochemicals. Now Silicon Valley startup Solazyme [NSDQ:SZYM] is testing diesel fuel derived from refining renewable oils--produced by specialized algae--in two Volkswagen turbodiesel models. Since July 2012, the VW Passat...
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Tesla Will Repay Its Energy Department Loans By 2017, It SaysWhat a difference a few years makes. Startup electric-car maker Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] said it will repay its $465 million in low-interest loans from the U.S. Department of Energy five years earlier than originally scheduled. The news came yesterday in the company's annual report. Sourcing Tesla...
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Collaboratev Project: 'Roaming' For Electric-Car Charging StationsElectric-car charging stations are being added to more and more public parking lots, curbsides, corporate garages, and a host of other locations. But as any electric-car driver can tell you, many of them are operated by specific networks. They often require drivers to have set up an account...
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GM Working On 200-Mile Electric Car, Says CEO AkersonLast summer he dropped a hint that it might be possible. Now Dan Akerson has confirmed it: GM is working on an electric car with a 200-mile range, according to its CEO. The chief executive officer of General Motors made the comment yesterday at an energy conference, as reported in Reuters. He...
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Electric-Car Efficiency: Forget MPGe, It Should Be Miles/kWhTwo days ago, we ran down all the rated ranges of every plug-in electric car offered for sale in the U.S. market this year. We did not include ratings for efficiency. In part, that's because the unit the EPA uses doesn't actually have much to do with the electricity owners use to recharge the...
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News Flash: The next Chevy Volt will have less electric range than the current one, perhaps no more than 18 to 30 miles.
Or perhaps not.
We suspect that a comment by Thomas Sedran, GM's vice...
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Volkswagen XL1 Diesel Plug-In Hybrid: Live Photos From GenevaWill this be the car that finally makes the ultra-aerodynamic and futuristic GM EV1 electric car look old-fashioned? Today, VW Group took the wraps off the production version of the Volkswagen XL1, a turbodiesel plug-in hybrid two-seater that will be its most fuel-efficient model ever offered. The...
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Would You Like To Buy A Tank Of Gas For $2.50? (Video)Suppose you went to the gas station, filled up your car or SUV, and then the pump said you had to go inside to pay. And suppose that even though your total was $40 or $50 (maybe more), the cashier smiled and charged you ... $2.50. What would the expression on your face be? That's the premise of a...
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2013 Electric Cars: Rated Range For Each Model, Ultimate GuideIt's really the defining feature of any plug-in electric car: How much electric range does it have? The ever-helpful EPA, which has rated the gas mileage of all new cars, publishes its estimates of electric range for every plug-in car on the market. So here's our list of all 2013 plug-in cars, with...
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Ford C-Max Does Not Beat Prius V Wagon In Real-World UseWe've written quite a lot about the gas mileage of Ford's two new 2013 hybrid models, the C-Max and Fusion hybrids. That's because a lot of shoppers and buyers have been talking about it. Both cars are rated at 47 mpg combined, and neither car seems to achieve anything close to that rating in...
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2013 Ford Fusion Hybrid: Quick Winter Gas Mileage TestThe 2013 Ford Fusion Hybrid is the second of Ford's two hybrid models, both all-new for 2013. The Fusion Hybrid, unlike the C-Max Hybrid compact hatchback, is a four-door mid-size sedan aimed right at the heart of a high-volume market segment. Competitors for the Fusion lineup include the Toyota...
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Debate over the slow rollout and potentially damaging effects of gasoline with 15 percent ethanol blended in just continues to roll on.
The latest to pile on are members of the Science Committee in...
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Feb Plug-In Electric Car Sales: Leaf Supply Low, Volt RecoversU.S. sales of plug-in electric cars continued at a reduced level, as seems to happen every winter. The best-selling electric car, the Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car, logged deliveries of 1,626 units, compared to 1,140 last month. That's a better number than the 1,023 Volts sold in...
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Should Electric Cars Have Visible Charge Indicators For The Public?It's a standard fitting on most plug-in electric cars: a visible light to show when it's recharging, often with a different indicator for when it's done. Those lights, often on top of the dashboard and visible through the windshield, aren't yet standardized. They come in red, orange, and green;...
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Breast-Beating Over EPA Mileage Labels: Will Ratings Change?Obviously, fuel economy will be an increasingly big deal in years to come. The gas-mileage ratings of new cars and trucks must double (and then some) between last year and 2025. But as two recent news events pointed out once again, EPA mileage ratings on the window stickers of new cars may not be...
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Electric-Car Charger Congestion...At Least In CaliforniaElectric cars aren't evenly distributed across the U.S. By far the largest single market for them is California. And in a sign of increasing adoption rates--there are now roughly 75,000 plug-in cars on the nation's roads--some electric-car drivers are facing a new problem. Charging stations in...
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2013 Buick Encore: Subcompact Luxury Crossover, Drive ReportIt's a subcompact. It's all-wheel drive. It's sort of a crossover, sort of a small wagon. It's also a Buick. Huh? We recently spent four days and covered 373 miles in a 2013 Buick Encore, the newest and smallest entry in the five-car lineup from GM's near-luxury brand. Despite its subcompact size...
John Voelcker