John Voelcker, Contributing Editor
Articles
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How times change.
Startup Bright Automotive announced last week that, once the company completes its funding, its advanced plug-in hybrid Idea delivery van would be assembled under contract by AM...
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Audi To Sell Electric Urban Concept, Join The Not-Quite-Car Parade?If one is a fluke and two is coincidence, then three makes a trend for sure. Audi is close to approving plans to build a limited number of the all-electric two-seat Urban Concept vehicle that it launched at the recent Frankfurt Motor Show, according to CAR magazine in England, If built for sale...
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Forget Ford, Honda, Toyota: Is Zipcar A Brand Of Car Now?Not so long ago, car-sharing was routinely dismissed by carmakers as a thing that silly San Franciscans might do, but real Americans wouldn't. But that view is changing, fast. In August, Ford said it would provide 1,000 cars to Zipcar over two years, largely as a way to get college-age drivers and...
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BMW Pairs Electric And Traditional Turbos To Boost EfficiencyTo improve fuel efficiency, engines are gradually shedding accessory drives. Electric power steering is now commonplace, and electric air conditioning compressors are used on hybrid cars to keep them cool while the engine's off. Now, BMW has taken a new tack to electrifying ancillary equipment...
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2012 Ford Focus Electric Sales To Squeak Into 'End Of Year'Only a handful of 2012 Ford Focus Electrics are likely to be sold by the end of calendar 2011.
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Ford Focus Electric Vs Chevy Volt: Which Would You Buy, And Why?Well, now the news is out: The 2012 Ford Focus Electric, the company's first-ever mass-market battery electric vehicle, will be priced at $39,995. Perhaps not coincidentally, that's exactly the price of the 2012 Chevrolet Volt, crosstown rival GM's extended-range electric vehicle (achieved by some...
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Lincoln plans to roll out an onslaught of seven new products over the next three years, each designed to underscore the luxury brand's separation from the mass-market Fords on which they're based.
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October Electric Car Sales: Chevy Volt Outsells Nissan LeafNew-car sales figures are out for October, and in the plug-in electric car arena, Volt supporters can let out a muffled cheer. Finally. The hometown favorite outsold the imported Nissan Leaf by almost 260 units, the first time in many months it's been able to best the battery electric hatchback...
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Who Hates High-Mileage Cars? Your Local Auto Dealers, That's WhoSometime next month, the EPA and NHTSA will release final draft rules that increase corporate average fuel economy standards to 54.5 mpg by 2025. Most--although not all--carmakers have signed off on the standards, but opposition has hardly died down. The latest group to take up the fight against...
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2012 Chevrolet Sonic LT 1.8-Liter Hatchback: Drive ReportIt's autumn, so what better way to highlight the changing leaves than a tomato-soup red Chevy Sonic subcompact? Three weeks ago, we drove our first new Sonic: a high-end 2012 Sonic LTZ sedan with the 1.4-liter turbocharged engine. We liked the little turbo, and found the sedan roomy and comfortable...
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Next Fiat 500 Minicar: Abarth 'Hot Hatch' Sports VersionThe 2012 Fiat 500 Abarth model to be launched in November at the 2011 LA Auto Show will be the fastest, best-handling model yet in the growing Fiat 500 minicar line.
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How Scary Are Electric Cars? BOO !!! It's A Nissan Leaf Batt-Mobile!Electric cars are incredibly dangerous. They electrocute you if you take them through a car wash. In fact, just looking at them is dangerous. Why, they might cause heart attacks because they're so ... different. OK. Turning off the sarcasm key on our computer, we give you--for your Halloween...
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With good reason, it's often said that the toughest auto endurance testing in the world is in taxi duty on the streets of New York City (and Jakarta, and Beijing, and Rio).
While the New York City...
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Electric Cars A Failure? Ha! They've Driven 35 Million MilesIf you read only certain subsections of the "news," you might be forgiven for thinking that plug-in electric cars have been a sales disaster. They haven't. The Tesla Roadster, Nissan Leaf, and Chevrolet Volt are all built in quite small numbers, and their sales have been commensurately low...
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GM To Build Electric Motor For Chevy Spark EV DomesticallyChevrolet announced today that it would build the electric motor for its upcoming Spark EV battery electric car in a plant in Maryland. The carmaker also released the power specification for the motor, which will offer 85 kilowatts (114 hp) of peak output and roughly two-thirds of that in sustained...
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More Fisker Bad News: EPA Calls 20-MPG Karma A SubcompactIt's been a tough week for Fisker. The startup electric-car company finally got its car approved for sale, many months late, only to have the EPA rate its gas mileage at just 20 mpg in range-sustaining mode. Now, a new wrinkle to those ratings has come out: Based on the volume measurements it uses...
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Where Will Chevy Spark EV Be Built? Maybe It's Michigan?Two weeks ago, Chevrolet unveiled its 2013 Spark minicar and confirmed that it would offer a Spark EV all-electric model--a story GreenCarReports broke the night before. But within a few days, an intriguing question came up: Where does GM plan to build its first new all-electric car since the late...
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Fisker's Federal Fiasco: Loans, 20-MPG Electric Cars, Shoddy ReportingCoverage of the low-interest loans granted by the Energy Department to Fisker Automotive has often been remarkably shoddy, so we provide some much-needed context and background.
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There's been a fair amount of commentary in politics of late about "American exceptionalism," the notion that the U.S. is qualitatively different from any other country in the world.
It is...
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Electric Fiat 500 Spied Testing In Michigan, Intro For 2013 LikelyAlmost two years ago, in January 2010, a mysterious electric version of the Fiat 500 appeared the Detroit Auto Show on the Chrysler stand. Then, two months later, Chrysler said it would sell an electric 500 in the U.S. market. Engineers at the company's Auburn Hills, Michigan, headquarters would...
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2012 Honda Civic HF: Quick Drive Of Higher-MPG CivicFive months ago, we drove the 2012 Honda Civic Hybrid--which gave us slightly more than 45 mpg using "Econ" mode. That's the best gas mileage of any Honda Civic in recent memory. So we were eager to test the new-for-2012 Civic HF model, which forgoes the electric motor and lithium-ion battery pack...
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Buick Verano Hybrid Coming--But Not Until 2015Remember The Purloined Letter, the classic Edgar Allen Poe story where a letter is hidden by storing it in plain sight? General Motors may not have realized it, but the industry trade journal Automotive News seems to have published a previously unannounced piece of its future model plans--right out...
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Could Fisker Karma's Low MPGs Hurt DoE Car-Tech Loan Program?Fisker Automotive may have sensed that the 20-mpg EPA rating on their 2012 Karma electric sport sedan was not good news. The company simply omitted the statistic from their press release announcing that the EPA had legally certified the Karma--meaning it can now be sold to retail buyers. Fisker...
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2012 Fiat 500 Minicar Named IIHS Top Safety Pick Despite SizeThe Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has named the 2012 Fiat 500 minicar one of its Top Safety Picks despite the diminutive car's size.
John Voelcker