John Voelcker, Contributing Editor
Articles
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Once again Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk has released some new product information, this time on the 2016 Tesla Model X electric crossover utility vehicle.
And he did it via his most frequent method of...
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More Model 3 mania, electric bikers, Porsche design, fuel-cell futurism: The Week in ReverseHow many depositors had put down $1,000 each for a Tesla Model 3 electric car one week after the car's launch at the end of March? And, what may be your best deal these days in a fuel-efficient used car? This is our look back at the Week In Reverse--right here at Green Car Reports--for the week...
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Tesla Model 3 depositors vs Chevy Bolt EV: sea change or double standard?More than 325,000 potential buyers have put down $1,000 apiece for a Tesla Model 3 electric car that they won't get for two years, if not considerably longer than that. Which must frustrate the electrification team at General Motors deeply. The 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV with more than 200 miles of...
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Fuel-cell concepts from 50 years ago: famed designer Brooks StevensMost car buyers would be hard-pressed to name a single automobile designer working today. But it wasn't always that way: names like Raymond Loewy and Harley Earl were known well outside the design studios where they created the "cars of tomorrow." A half-century-old concept from designer Brooks...
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Next Nissan Leaf to be followed by electric SUV, sports car?While the Tesla Model 3 and Chevrolet Bolt EV have gotten the lion's share of electric-car press lately, the Nissan Leaf remains the best-selling plug-in vehicle in history. The 200,000th Leaf was sold globally sometime in January, putting the electric hatchback at roughly twice the volume of any...
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Tesla Model 3 reservations rise to 325,000 after one weekGetting more than a quarter of a million people around the world to put down $1,000 apiece for a car they won't get for another two years is a remarkable feat. When Elon Musk took the wraps off the Tesla Model 3 last Thursday evening, a screen on stage showed more than 100,000 deposits. But by the...
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Two years ago, Ford successfully fought efforts by Tesla Motors to register the name "Model E" for what we now know as the Tesla Model 3, unveiled last week to great fanfare.
Now it appears that the...
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Tesla Model 3 deposits now 300,000 or more; what does this imply?Three days ago, when Global Equities Research projected more than 300,000 reservations for the Tesla Model 3 electric car by the start of this week, that number seemed outlandish. And yet, by the end of Saturday, the global total had reached 276,000, according to a tweet by Tesla CEO Elon Musk...
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Tesla Model 3 madness, Prius Prime preview, VW diesel dealers: The Week in ReverseHow many reservations had come in for the planned 215-mile, $35,000 Tesla Model 3 electric car a day after the unveiling? And, who are the "other victims" in the ongoing Volkswagen diesel-emissions cheating scandal? This is our look back at the Week In Reverse--right here at Green Car Reports--for...
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Latest drone footage of Tesla Gigafactory shows progressLast night's Tesla Model 3 electric car unveiling is getting all the attention today, with at least 135,000 reservations booked for the car. But to get the $35,000 Model 3 out the door with the announced 215-mile range, a generation of lithium-ion cells will be required for its battery. And that's...
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2017 Hyundai Ioniq product team discusses U.S. hybrid, electric marketsThe 2017 Hyundai Ioniq lineup of hybrid, electric, and plug-in hybrid hatchbacks won't hit the market until late this year, but Hyundai product executives are eager to talk about the cars. At a roundtable during last week's New York Auto Show, product planning vice president Mike O'Brien and...
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Electric Car Pledge: is carbon the right reason to get buyers to switch?Buyers have many different reasons for choosing a plug-in electric car. Creating marketing campaigns that address all of them has bedeviled highly-paid professionals for five years. A new campaign urging North American drivers to make their next car an electric vehicle inadvertently highlights the...
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Eager buyers have already put down deposits to reserve a Tesla Model 3 in those time zones where Tesla Stores are already open today, including both Sydney and Melbourne in Australia.
Meanwhile,...
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Tesla mulls Federal suit over state franchise laws banning it from selling electric carsCoffins made by monks don't often figure into either legal decisions or the electric car industry, but they do at the moment. Tesla Motors is weighing whether to sue in Federal court over various state franchise laws that prohibit it from selling Model S and Model X electric cars online to buyers...
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BYD electric-car sales may triple this year, Chinese maker saysChina's BYD eked out a global victory in electric-car sales last year, selling more plug-in cars than BMW, General Motors, Nissan, Renault, or Tesla. The company delivered nearly 62,000 battery-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles last year, almost entirely in China. Now, the company projects that...
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How GM plans to market Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid, Bolt EV electric carHybrids are pretty well-known at this point, and battery-electric cars are conceptually simple: You plug them in like a mobile phone. But explaining plug-in hybrids to car buyers at large—it's a hybrid, but it also plugs in, but only for double-digit range—has proven to be very hard. As...
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VW diesel scandal now 6 months old; what have we learned?The actual six-month anniversary of the Volkswagen diesel-cheating scandal came 10 days ago, and news has continued to bubble up since then. Most recently, all three parties who must agree on a regulatory settlement (the EPA, the powerful California Air Resources Board, and VW itself) were granted...
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As Model 3 approaches, Audi exec says: 'Tesla did everything right'German automakers, especially the luxury brands, are not necessarily known for humility, modesty, and deference. So for an executive at such a company to acknowledge that a U.S. upstart that didn't exist 15 years ago "did everything right" is remarkable. That's exactly what one Audi executive said...
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Carlos Ghosn, who runs automakers Nissan and Renault, is one of the few auto executives who'll regularly take questions from a roomful of more than 100 journalists.
At last week's New York Auto Show,...
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Here's the Tesla Model 3 reservation agreement for ThursdayWe're pretty much expecting Tesla Model 3 enthusiasm to build to a fever pitch over the coming week. Thursday, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk will reveal the design of the $35,000, 200-mile electric car that the company plans to use to vault itself into sales of hundreds of thousands of cars a year...
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Plug-in Prius Prime, Outlander delay, Bolt EV assembly line, Mirai manga: The Week In ReverseWhich popular and important plug-in hybrid model made its world debut in New York this week? And, what European brand is returning to North America with an electric car? This is our look back at the Week In Reverse--right here at Green Car Reports--for the week ending on Friday, March 25, 2016...
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Deadline for regulators, VW to agree on diesel changes extended to April 21"Six months is enough," said Judge Charles Breyer in February, when he imposed a March 24 deadline for regulators and Volkswagen to agree how to modify 580,000 diesel vehicles. Except that it wasn't. Yesterday, Judge Breyer extended the deadline four weeks, to April 21, at the request of all...
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2017 Toyota Prius Prime plug-in hybrid: 22-mile range, styling updates: Live photos and videoThe 2017 Toyota Prius Prime, the new plug-in hybrid version of the world's best-selling hybrid car, was unveiled this morning at the New York Auto Show. The second plug-in version of the Prius hybrid, it will carry an EPA range rating of 22 miles from the 8.8-kilowatt-hour battery pack, according...
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2017 Hyundai Ioniq debuts in NY: 110-mile Electric range, 25-plus for Plug-In: Live photosThe 2017 Hyundai Ioniq lineup of hybrid, electric, and plug-in hybrid hatchbacks made its U.S. debut today at the New York Auto Show. Unlike the all-white models shown in the world debut a few weeks ago at the Geneva Motor Show, the U.S.-spec models were silver (Electric), blue (Hybrid), and...
John Voelcker