John Voelcker, Contributing Editor
Articles
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After a long and tortured development process and a short life, GM has quietly euthanized its Cadillac ELR range-extended electric luxury coupe.
The derivative of the first-generation Chevrolet Volt...
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2016 Mini Cooper Clubman gas mileage reviewWe're fond of Mini Coopers around here. The little British cars are fun to drive, often produce smiles from others, and in their latest incarnation, are considerably more fuel-efficient than they used to be. We've already tested the third-generation Mini hardtop in both its three-door and the new...
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Tesla talks to LG, Samsung about Model 3 battery cell suppliesSince the start of Tesla Model S electric-car production in 2012, the company's lithium-ion cells have been supplied by its Japanese partner Panasonic. That applies to the more recent Tesla Model X crossover SUV as well—and Panasonic was also an early investor in Tesla Motors shares, owning a...
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Gas-mileage error halts sale of GM's large SUVs; new labels on the wayIt would appear that every automaker is rechecking its gas-mileage calculations these days. The ongoing VW diesel-emission cheating scandal and Mitsubishi's recent admission that it misstated fuel-economy results in Japan for more than 20 years have led to renewed public attention to how makers are...
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Tesla wants to sell electric cars in Michigan; state couldn't care lessYou don't see a lot of Teslas in Michigan. It's not because the three U.S. automakers headquartered there aren't interested in the electric cars produced by a Silicon Valley company founded just 12 years ago. It's because state laws bar the company from selling its cars online to state...
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Tesla hires Audi veteran as new vehicle-production VP; predecessor took leave of absenceFollowing the departure of two top manufacturing executives, electric-car maker Tesla Motors has hired a manufacturing executive from German luxury maker Audi. The company announced the news late Friday in a release sent to news media. The executive, Peter Hocholdinger, will join the Silicon Valley...
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Energy storage has never been the subject of more research, capital investment, and business interest than it's experiencing in this decade.
With lithium-ion cells at the forefront of both electric...
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2017 Chevy Bolt EV sales could go as high as 80,000, says analystThe question of how many electric cars can be sold in a single year remains a topic of hot debate as the U.S. market awaits the launch of the 200-mile Chevy Bolt EV at the end of this year. The world's best-selling electric car, the Nissan Leaf, had its highest-sales year in the U.S. in 2014, when...
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Fix for Audi, VW, Porsche V-6 diesels closer to approval: reportLast November, the EPA announced that nearly 100,000 cars and SUVs fitted with VW Group's 3-liter V-6 diesel engines violated the Clean Air Act. The agency said at the time that their emissions were up to nine times the legal limit in some circumstances. While that's better than the figure of "up...
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Ford CEO Mark Fields confirms 200-mile electric car coming (updated)What a difference a week makes. In late April, Ford's director of electrification programs and engineering, Kevin Layden, said the 100-mile range of the 2017 Ford Focus Electric would suffice for most drivers. But then on Ford's second-quarter earnings call, CEO Mark Fields announced that the...
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Tesla says it will build 500K cars a year by end of 2018; can it?When Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk said two years ago that the electric-car maker planned to be building half a million cars a year by the end of 2020, it seemed an ambitious stretch goal. When he said on last week's quarterly earnings call that the company was pulling that goal two years ahead to...
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Smaller, cheaper Toyota Mirai fuel-cell car coming in 2019, company saysTo increase the reach of its hybrid cars, Toyota launched the Prius C subcompact in 2012 as a smaller, less expensive alternative to the Prius Liftback that's the linchpin of its lineup. Now, Toyota says it may be planning to do something similar with its Mirai hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle. The 2016...
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Another study confirms electric cars have lower carbon emissions, in Minnesota this time John VoelckerIt's a very reasonable question: electric cars themselves have no tailpipe emissions, but what about the power plants used to recharge them?
After more than a dozen studies and five-plus years of...
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2017 BMW i3, electric-car sales, VW diesel woes, charging-station funds: The Week in ReverseWhat electric car will get a 50-percent larger battery capacity for 2017—and a range of over 100 miles as a result? And, which completely non-green cars did we have a blast driving at high rates of speed around a Phoenix race track? This is our look back at the Week In Reverse--right here at...
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Chevy Bolt EV electric car to be GM-Lyft self-driving car testbedIt's the season of autonomous-car announcements, apparently. This week Google and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles announced that the Silicon Valley giant would use the Detroit automaker's 2017 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid minivans for its self-driving car research. Now, General Motors has said that the Lyft...
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Plug-in electric car sales for April 2016: Volt romps, Leaf stagnates (update)After the usual winter doldrums at the start of the year, April proved to be a good month for plug-in electric car sales in the U.S. March was a record-breaking month, and as April results come in today and tomorrow, last month's pace seems to be robust as well. As usual, the two highest-volume...
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VW diesel buyback: what other automakers paid for used vehiclesA main aspect of the agreement between VW and the EPA to settle its diesel-emission cheating scandal is an offer by Volkswagen to buy back all 482,000 2.0-liter TDI diesel vehicles sold from 2009 through 2015. The details of that agreement won't be made public until June 21, and won't be finalized...
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How BMW can compete with Tesla electric cars: future i5, plug-in hybrids, says advocateFor a decade now, Tesla Motors has been the "black swan" of the auto industry. It's a California company startup, founded from scratch, using a new powertrain, that against all odds has sold more than 100,000 electric cars and created a brand known worldwide. You can almost hear the grinding of...
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Sometimes the language and imagery of a news story is so startling that you're drawn to read it despite yourself.
(The writer gets double points if it you're lured in without the phrase, "...and...
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Mitsubishi retests U.S. fuel economy after EPA request, confirms 2013-2017 ratings (update)The dominos continue to fall as more and more carmakers are investigated for accuracy in their testing of emissions and fuel economy over longer periods of time. While European buyers had complained for years that EU fuel-economy ratings diverged from real-world results, nothing much happened until...
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Race-driving SRT Hellcats and Vipers: tales from the dark sideTo say that high-speed driving isn't particularly green would be an understatement. But elements of the skills taught at driving schools across the country are vital for any driver to know. Those include how different cars handle, depending on whether the front or rear wheels are driven, and how to...
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Volkswagen misses own deadline for diesel-cheating report, now expected by end of yearTen days ago, a major milestone in the Volkswagen diesel cheating scandal was reached. On Thursday, April 21, VW and the EPA agreed on the broad-stroke outlines of a plan to buy back or modify for 482,000 2.0-liter TDI diesel cars sold from 2009 through 2015. Almost lost in the coverage of that...
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2017 BMW i3: up to 114 miles of range from 50-percent battery increaseFor its fourth year on the market, the 2017 BMW i3 electric car gets a huge boost in battery capacity and hence its EPA-rated range. The battery capacity rises 50 percent, from 22 to 33 kilowatt-hours, and the company says the rated range for the battery-electric version will be up to 114 miles...
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Electric-car battery costs, Germans vs Tesla, more cheating probes: The Week in ReverseWhat kind of fuel would you expect to buy at a True Zero filling station? And, which four carmakers will introduce new or updated all-electric cars for 2017? This is our look back at the Week In Reverse--right here at Green Car Reports--for the week ending on Friday, April 29, 2016. Friday, we...
John Voelcker