John Voelcker, Contributing Editor
Articles
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Since Ford sold Jaguar Land Rover to Indian carmaker Tata in TK, the luxury maker has stepped out a bit.
Their green efforts have taken down several interesting technology paths that seem unlikely...
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China To Car Companies: Hand Over EV Technology To Sell HereIn pursuit of its goal to become a world leader in electric-vehicle technology, the Chinese government is considering new rules that will effectively require ceding critical intellectual property on electric car technology to Chinese owned companies. The proposed regulations from the Chinese...
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Coda To Join Tesla In Building Electric Cars in CaliforniaThere's a third electric car that will go on sale within the next six months, though you may not hear of it if you don't live in California. Joining the 2011 Nissan Leaf and the 2011 Chevrolet Volt will be the 2011 Coda Sedan, a compact four-door battery electric sedan with five seats that offers a...
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Latest Toyota Hybrid Synergy Drive Licensee: Mercedes-Benz ???Toyota leads the world in hybrid-electric vehicles, having built well over 2 million of them since 1997. That's more than half the hybrids on the planet. Now, with new electric cars about to hit the showrooms--the 2011 Nissan Leaf and 2011 Chevrolet Volt, for example--Toyota wants to cement its...
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100-MPG Auto X-Prize Mainstream Winner: Would You Drive This?After many months of testing, qualifying, and mechanical challenges--not to mention reams of press releases--today the Progressive Automotive X-Prize announced the winners of its three categories, who will split $10 million in prize money. Both winners in the "alternative" classes for two-passenger...
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More Ethanol In Gasoline: 'Minimal Risk' To Old Cars, Study SaysWe've written before about just how worried automakers are at proposals by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to increase the ethanol content of pump gasoline from 10 to 12 or even 15 percent. They fear it will damage older cars whose engines and fuel systems were never designed to handle...
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Joining the electric-vehicle party, Mercedes-Benz has released final details of its first mass-produced all-electric car, which will start coming down the line in October at its plant in Rastatt,...
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Prius Plug-In Hybrid Now By June 2012, Cheapest Plug-In In U.S.?Amidst a flurry of battery-electric vehicle announcements by automakers all over the globe, Toyota reiterated plans to launch six new hybrid models by 2012. But the company will push back the U.S. launch date for its first plug-in vehicle, the 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid. Toyota had said this...
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Caring Auto Industry Won't Let You Be Bullied By Nasty Old EPAReading the news in our automotive world never fails to surprise and delight. Take, for example, our discovery of the soliticitousness exhibited by automakers who care deeply about the delicate and fragile feelings of car buyers. Yes, those same car buyers from whom an independent dealer's job is...
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Green Materials For Ford Flex: Renewable Canadian Wheat StrawThe overall carbon footprint of a vehicle is more than 90 percent composed of the fuel used to move it around, but manufacturing plays a role too. Many automakers are quietly working to include more renewable materials into a product that's largely made of metal, plastic, and glass. The latest...
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GM Ventures Invests In Startup Michigan Battery Cell MakerIf nothing else, the new, post-bankruptcy General Motors is quicker moving than the old one. The latest proof? GM Ventures, its venture-investment arm, has quietly invested $3.2 million in Sakti3, Inc. Founded in 2007 and based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the company develops "next-generation"...
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Oh, Audi, How Could You? The French Like Electric Cars, But...Marketing missteps in naming cars quickly become legendary. There's the urban myth that the Chevrolet Nova failed in South America because in Spanish, no va means "won't go." (It's not true.) But now it turns out that Audi may have committed a blunder in naming its line of electric cars e-Tron...
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If you're a Twitter user, you may have noticed that carmakers are starting to tweet big-time. And it's not just regurgitated marketing propaganda either.
The @Ford account just tweeted the following,...
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Another Hybrid Study Misses the Point: It's Not About PaybackSometimes, you'd think that hybrid-electric vehicles were the most important development in the automotive world, if not the entire geopolitical sphere, in the last 15 years. They're not. More than a decade after they launched into the U.S. market, their market share hovers just south of 3 percent...
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Hyundai Unveils BlueOn Electric Subcompact, Its First-Ever EVHyundai took the wraps off its first-ever electric vehicle today in Seoul, showing a hatchback called the BlueOn based on the subcompact i10 model it sells in Asia and Europe. As in its 2011 Sonata Hybrid model, which will launch late this year in the U.S. market, the lithium-ion cells in its...
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2012 Chevrolet Aveo: Paris Motor Show Production Version PreviewThe current Chevrolet Aveo never set the world on fire. It filled its place in rental-car ranks and the third-car slot of suburban driveways, but no one ever really got passionate about it. If General Motors has anything to say about it, that's going to change. The production version of the 2012...
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2012 Tesla Model S: Reader Asks Why It's Different, We ReplyIf nothing else, electric cars arouse the passions of their supporters. Take the note we got from reader Ryan, who wrote: I googled "electric car update" and found your site ... saw the Nissan Leaf (100 miles per charge), Chevrolet Volt (40 miles), Tesla Roadster ... sounds great! But nothing on...
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2011 Fiat 500 Testing in Nevada: Exclusive Spy PhotoThe 2011 Fiat 500 will go on sale in less than six months, but the company is still hard at work roadtesting pre-production versions for North America. The latest proof is this photo of a Fiat 500 development prototype being road-tested outside Las Vegas, in the hot weather of Nevada. Our reader KJ...
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What did you pay for gasoline the last time you filled up? If you're in the U.S., probably about $2.70 per gallon.
But you may wish you were in Caracas, Venezuela, where enormous government... -
Nissan Limits Initial Leaf Rollout To 200 Cars In Five StatesNissan is taking orders today for the Leaf, the first mass-produced, all-electric vehicle, but it’s only offering up 200 cars for December delivery. Those Leafs will go to five states in the initial rollout market – California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona and Tennessee — which...
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Global Toyota Prius Hybrid Sales Level Off As Incentives EndTalk about up-again, down-again. It was just a year ago when a global shortages of 2010 Toyota Prius models kept supplies tight all over the world. Now, they may start to pile up on dealer lots again. Last summer, the company had just launched the all-new 2010 Prius, the third generation of the...
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GM's Volt Heads For China, But As a Chevy--Not a Buick After AllCeremonial handshakes offer photo opportunities the world over, and so it is with the arrival of the first running Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car in China. And despite earlier reports--including ours--to the contrary, General Motors plans to sell the car as a Chevrolet, rather than as a...
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Photos: Padgett's Post-Recall Prius Pedal, Accelerator ShortenedWhile the dust is now settling on a year's worth of recalls by a beleagured Toyota, the company is still working to modify millions of vehicles that are potentially involved in recalls over sudden acceleration or other safety issues. Toyota Prius models built from 2004 to 2009 are part of a recall...
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EPA Proposes Two Designs For Updated Fuel Economy Labels, Wants Your InputWant to know the fuel economy ratings of a new car you're considering? You probably already know to look at the gas-mileage window sticker. Now, for the first time in 30 years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are planning a...
John Voelcker