John Voelcker, Contributor
Articles
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Electric vehicles are not only zero-emission and quieter and more pleasant to drive, they also clearly lower emissions of the carbon dioxide linked to climate change under most circumstances.
For...
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Tesla Model 3 drive, 2018 Accord Hybrid, future BMW i4, longer-range Fusion Energi: The Week in Reverse
Which important new electric car did we finally get a chance to drive and report on? What good-looking new 47-mpg hybrid sedan went on sale this week? This is our look back at the Week In Reverse—right here at Green Car Reports—for the week ending on Friday, March 23, 2018. Friday, we...
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5 electric cars in winter, BMW EV volume, 2019 Toyota Corolla, a little i-MiEV luv: Today's Car News
Today, we've got a fond look back at the world's first affordable modern electric car, winter EV testing in the snows of Norway, the new 2019 Toyota Corolla Hatchback, and BMW's big plans for volume production of plug-in cars. All this and more on Green Car Reports. A Norwegian club tested five...
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Appreciating the i-MiEV: oldest modern electric car still in production after 10 years
Think back, if you can, to early 2008. In the real world, that's just 10 years ago, but in electric-car time, it's several millennia. The Tesla Roadster had been announced, but hadn't yet struggled into production. The Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt were still deep in development, and the plan for a...
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BMW: we won't mass-produce electric cars until 2020, with cheaper cells
BMW sold more than 100,000 cars with plugs last year, adding together its battery-electric and plug-in hybrid models. That's roughly on a par with Tesla, and ahead of both General Motors and Nissan, two other pioneers in modern electric cars. The company has put far more plug-in cars on the road to...
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Five electric cars tested in cold Norwegian winter: how did they do?
Drivers in the parts of North America that get winter weather are deeply familiar with snow-clogged wheel wells, iced-in wipers, and weak batteries, to list just a few. Our counterparts in Norway have exactly the same challenges in winter—but they're far further along in adopting plug-in...
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Via update, CAFE support, Costa Rica electric cars, BMW i4 vs Model 3: Today's Car News John Voelcker
Today, we've got electric cars for Costa Rica, support for keeping CAFE rules, a Via Motors update, and the future BMW i4 electric sedan that looks like it will face off against the Tesla Model 3....
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All-electric BMW i4 to be production version of i Vision Dynamics concept
Very few automakers these days build concept cars just for fun, and only occasionally are they pure styling concepts intended to showcase future design language. So when the BMW i Vision Dynamics Concept emerged onto the auto-show circuit last fall, it seemed obvious it previewed a future...
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Via Motors to collaborate with Chinese maker Geely on electric trucks
Electric trucks are getting more attention now than they did eight years ago, as the world prepared for the launch of the first modern electric cars to be sold in volume. The Tesla Semi tends to draw enormous amounts of attention, while less glamorous fleet buyers are ever more favorable toward...
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Auto parts suppliers support current fuel-economy rules, overwhelmingly: survey
As the auto industry and environmental groups count down the days until the NHTSA releases proposals to revise fuel-economy standards, surveys show one industry wants the standards to stay just as they are. That is the auto-parts supply industry, according to a study released Thursday morning by...
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Mitsubishi helps Costa Rica toward goal of Latin American electric-car pioneer
Costa Rica isn't what you'd call a bastion of automotive sales. Wedged between Nicaragua and Panama, the country is home to 4.8 million people who buy just 154,000 vehicles annually—less than 1 percent of U.S. vehicle sales each year. But that won't deter the Costa Rican government from...
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2019 Ford Fusion Energi, Nissan electric SUV, Feb plug-in sales, silicon battery anodes: Today's Car News
Today, we've got a longer-range Ford Fusion plug-in hybrid, a breakthrough Nissan electric SUV, some whizzy new battery tech, and our final update on last month's U.S. plug-in electric car sales. All this and more on Green Car Reports. The 2019 Ford Fusion Energi, the company's sole plug-in hybrid...
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Plug-in electric car sales in Feb better than Jan lows, winter doldrums not so bad (final update) John Voelcker
Sales of plug-in electric cars tend to be lower during the winter months, unlike the rest of the market, and February was little exception to that rule, though not as bad as it could have been.
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Silicon anodes to boost lithium-ion battery capacity within a few years
The main impediment to mass electric-car adoption is price, and the driving force behind that is the cost of lithium-ion battery cells. The performance of those cells improves at about 7 percent a year, give or take: Either the same cell costs 7 percent less after a year, or a carmaker gets 7...
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Nissan electric crossover utility with AWD will be breakthrough: exec
Could a specific vehicle give electric cars the breakthrough they need to reach the mass market? So far, neither the world's highest-selling battery-electric model—the Nissan Leaf—nor the Tesla Model S, starting at $75,000, has sold in mainstream U.S. volumes. You might ballpark that...
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In what segments will electric cars do best by 2025? Twitter poll results
As U.S. car buyers increasingly opt for crossover utility vehicles of all sizes over passenger sedans and hatchbacks, that shift has come to pose a problem for electric cars. The bulk of battery-electric models on offer today are compact five-door hatchbacks without available all-wheel drive. Think...
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2019 Ford Fusion Energi plug-in hybrid gets 25 miles from revised battery
Ford was the first U.S. carmaker to sell a hybrid-electric vehicle, as well as the second to offer a plug-in hybrid. But since 2013, the carmaker hasn't released a single new electrified vehicle—including battery-electric cars as well as the two types of hybrids. Now, Ford has released...
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Porsche execs on future electric cars, utilities lobby for EV tax credit, new Twitter poll: Today's Car News
Today, we've got a long and detailed summary of what we learned about Porsche's Mission E and future electric cars, some new lobbying partners to extend the plug-in purchase tax credit, and our latest Twitter poll. All this and more on Green Car Reports. This week's new Twitter poll asks when you...
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With Tesla likely to hit 200,000 electric cars sold in the U.S. later this year, it will begin a phasedown process during which the income-tax credits available to its buyers start to dwindle on a...
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Porsche execs on 2020 Mission E, more electric cars to follow
Auto journalists often relish interviews and roundtable sessions with German executives and engineers. They usually haven't been beaten into submission and forced to stick to scripted talking points, as have too many of their U.S. counterparts. Most German auto executives also speak excellent...
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When do you expect to buy your first battery-electric car? Take our Twitter poll
Plug-in vehicles, both battery-electric and plug-in hybrid cars, now represent slightly more than 1 percent of U.S. new-vehicle sales. That number is expected to rise steadily in future years, but cars with plugs will remain a rarity in many areas of the country for some time to come. Readers and...
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2018 Leaf vs Bolt EV packs, electric motorcycle guide, CA defiant, Model 3 first drive: Today's Car News
Today, we've got our long-awaited drive report on the 2018 Tesla Model 3 Long Range, a battery comparison for the Bolt EV and new Nissan Leaf, some California defiance, and our annual electric-motorcycle buyers guide. All this and more on Green Car Reports. Over the weekend, as we do every seven...
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2018 Tesla Model 3 Long Range: first drive review of 310-mile electric car
“The Tesla Model S was a moment. The Model 3 is a product.” That pair of sentences perfectly summarized the several hours we spent last month with the 2018 Tesla Model 3 kindly loaned to us by reader Jeff Southern of Atlanta. We’d covered more than 100 miles on a variety of...
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CA attorney general: we will fight looser fuel-economy, emission rules
Last Tuesday, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt said the agency does not intend to let California set the agenda for national emission limits on vehicles. He suggested to Bloomberg the EPA plans to cut emission rules aggressively to respond to carmakers' pleas for easing of the corporate average fuel...
John Voelcker