John Voelcker, Contributing Editor
Articles
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For decades, the flagship of every German luxury maker’s line has been its largest sedan: the Audi A8, BMW 7-Series, and at the pinnacle, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class.
But times change.
The BMW...
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Why Chargeway matters: making EV charging comprehensible for buyers, dealers, utilities, networks
Ask anyone what kind of fuel their next car will take, and you'll likely get one of three answers: regular, premium, or diesel. Ask that same person what kind of charging an electric car takes, and you'll probably get a blank stare. Ask a salesperson at a car dealer how he explains the different...
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Toyota hybrid repairs, new EV delivered, lessons of 9 years, candy from Elon Musk: Today's Car News
Hybrid repairs to keep customers happy, nine years of green-car lessons, the first of a new electric car is delivered in LA, and Tesla offers us candy. Sort of. We think. All this and more on Green Car Reports. It appears that Elon Musk is starting a candy company, announced (of course) via...
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Transitions at Green Car Reports
If you can get them to admit it, many reporters and writers consider editors’ notes to be self-indulgent. Sometimes they’re necessary, however—and this is one of those times. Regular readers of Green Car Reports may have noticed that our writing staff has changed in the last few...
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7 things we learned in 9 years, and where green cars are headed
More than four years ago, this site looked back at its first five years of coverage to assess what had changed—and what we'd learned. Now, we're repeating the exercise. By February 2014, Green Car Reports had published about 9,800 news articles. The number is now up to more than 16,800. Much...
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An Earth Day question: When will we see 'tailpipes' on cars as morally wrong?
With increasing availability of zero-emission cars over the coming years, when will citizens at large start to question the idea that every vehicle has an "exhaust pipe" that just belches harmful substances into our shared air?
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Hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles are rolling out to California buyers in small numbers with two models on the market, and hydrogen stations slowly expanding outside a narrow slice of Los Angeles.
The...
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Some Chevrolet Bolt EVs get new battery pack for sudden loss of power: here's why
It's every electric car owner's nightmare: the car indicates that remaining range has suddenly plummeted to zero, the battery pack stops providing current, and the car won't run. For some 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV drivers, that scenario has happened in real life. The problem has resulted in a program...
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2018 Leaf vs e-Golf, BMW i3; Model 3 ills; what carmakers want; gas range anxiety: Today's Car News
A U.K. review of several popular electric cars, what carmakers really want to happen to fuel-economy rules, a new Jeep with old-fashioned gas mileage, vampires and phantoms in the Tesla Model 3, and range anxiety for gasoline-car drivers. All this and more on Green Car Reports. Over the weekend, as...
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2019 Jeep Cherokee gas mileage review
While plug-in electric cars are steadily growing in sales, they still pale in comparison to the hundreds of thousands of compact crossover utility vehicles sold each year by virtually every major carmaker. In 2017, Toyota's most popular vehicle became the RAV4 small SUV, supplanting the Camry...
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Carmakers want emission, CAFE tweaks, not huge rollbacks, but won't say so publicly
As promised, the Trump administration has embarked on regulatory rollbacks across many fronts, some immediate and others taking longer. It remains unclear whether the EPA's plan to loosen carbon-dioxide emission limits for 2022 through 2025 vehicles will survive inevitable court challenges...
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Gasoline range anxiety 100 years ago made electric-car charging seem easy
Electric cars have the great advantage that their batteries can be recharged anywhere there's electricity. It may not be particularly fast, though modern plug-in vehicles get at least 60 miles overnight, and often double or triple that. But a century ago, drivers of gasoline cars had just as much...
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Tesla Model 3 dates, Clarity Plug-In test, CA vs EPA, future electric Buicks: The Week in Reverse John Voelcker
When will all-wheel-drive and lower-range versions of the Tesla Model 3 go on sale? What about its Model Y crossover sibling?
What might a restyled 2019 Toyota Prius hybrid look like?
This is our...
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2018 Honda Clarity Plug-In Hybrid: weekend drive review
For several years, the Chevrolet Volt was the sole plug-in hybrid with electric range notably above 20 miles—though it became clear Chevy never figured out how to market its virtues to the public at large. Now it has a strong competitor in the form of the 2018 Honda Clarity Plug-In Hybrid, a...
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Possible retrofits in Germany for dirtiest diesels could cost carmakers more
These are not good times for the makers or owners of diesel cars, particularly in their European stronghold, where on average half of all new vehicles had been sold with diesel engines. Strict new real-world emission tests have proven hard to meet, consumers are starting to shy away from buying new...
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Audi, BMW, Mercedes large electric luxury sedans to aim above Tesla Model S?
The Tesla Model S occupies an interesting position among "luxury" sedans and hatchbacks. It's far from the best-equipped vehicle compared to mid-size and full-size competitors from Audi, BMW, Jaguar, and Mercedes-Benz, but that doesn't seem to matter to its 200,000 or so buyers to date. The good...
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GM, EVgo to build Chevy Bolt EV fast-charging network, for Maven drivers only
General Motors has consistently declined to fund public charging stations that increase the utility and long-distance potential of the electric cars it sells. The company said firmly two years ago it had no intention of spending money on a charging network, a stance that distinguished GM from BMW...
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Deal between EPA, California on auto emissions may still be possible
Over the many months EPA administrator Scott Pruitt signaled his intention to revisit the Obama administration's emission limits for 2022 through 2025 vehicles, California warned that it would not go along with any reductions. The state has been allowed to set its own emission standards for...
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Two years ago this month, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles essentially threw in the towel on the "automobiles" part of its name.
Canceling the compact Dodge Dart and the mid-size Chrysler 200 sedans, the...
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Buick to launch new electric, plug-in hybrid models in China; what about US?
For 15 years now, Buick has been a far more important brand in China than it is in North America: four out of five Buicks sold globally are purchased by Chinese buyers. The brand has a wider range and variety of vehicles in that country, along with numerous models U.S. buyers never lay eyes on. So...
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2019 Toyota Prius will be restyled to look more like Prime: report
Global sales of compact hatchbacks are hardly surging, and fuel economy for all types of vehicles is steadily improving. Even given those factors, though, the fourth-generation Toyota Prius hybrid has had an especially rough road since its launch as a 2016 model. At just 108,661 deliveries across...
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SF Motors electric cars, emissions vs gas mileage, Honda Clarity poll, UK engine ban: Today's Car News
A Tesla founder has a new startup car company, the British utility would be OK with more electric cars sooner, reporters are getting a crucial distinction wrong, and we've got a new Twitter poll on the Honda Clarity. All this and more on Green Car Reports. The national electric utility in the U.K...
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EPA does not set fuel-economy limits: get this right, journalists!
Journalism as an industry is under great pressure these days. There are far more people writing "content" than in past decades, and in general they are having to produce more of it for less money than they did 10, 20, or 50 years ago. That's no excuse, however, for getting the basics wrong. DON'T...
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Britain's electric utility backs earlier ban on new cars with engines, in 2030
Norway and The Netherlands started the trend a few years ago, though they're relatively tiny car markets. Then France and the U.K. joined in. China, the world's largest new-car market by far, is doing it—though the country hasn't decided when. All of those countries plan to ban, or work the...
John Voelcker