John Voelcker, Contributing Editor
Articles
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Honda officially revealed the production version of its hydrogen fuel-cell sedan at the Tokyo Motor Show.
The company released two photos late last month that show the car and its interior--which it...
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Honda Civic, Scion iA Drives; Tesla Reliability; Nissan Electric Aims: The Week In Reverse (Video)Why does Nissan think it can boost electric-car sales by a factor of 10 in just five years? And, what did VW say about electric cars as it prepared to launch its so-called "clean diesels"--which we now know weren't clean at all? This is our video look back at the Week In Reverse--right here at...
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Tesla Take Two, Nissan Electric Goals, No VW Reprieve In U.S.: Today's Car NewsWe've got lots of stories on infrastructure today.
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Battery Breakthrough To Boost Nissan Electric Cars To One In 10 Sales Around 2020, Exec SaysBack in November 2009, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn said 20 percent of his company's sales would be electric cars by 2020--and that electric cars would make up 10 percent of global sales. But Ghosn was widely pillored for his projections just a few years later, when Nissan Leaf sales proved slower than...
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VW: Newest Diesel Engines Had No 'Defeat' Software, Legal In EuropeOne of the many complications of the VW diesel emission scandal is that the 482,000 affected cars in the U.S. encompass three different types of engine and emission-control system. In Germany, Volkswagen has investigated its newest generation of 2.0-liter diesel engines to find out if they too...
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Wringing Out Car-Making Efficiencies: Honda's 'Green Path' DetailedIt's well established by now that the energy required to extract raw materials and turn them into a finished car is considerably less than the energy that car will consume over its lifetime to move itself around. But that isn't stopping manufacturers from chipping away at the huge amounts of energy...
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Almost any new electric car tends to be pitched as a "Tesla competitor" these days, down to the 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV subcompact hatchback.
Yesterday, however, British specialty carmaker Aston...
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2017 Chevy Bolt EV Development: GM, LG Chem Reveal Deep PartnershipWhen General Motors CEO Mary Barra unveiled the 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV concept last January at the Detroit Auto Show, the 200-mile electric car was a shock to the industry. But equally startling was the launch schedule that emerged over the following months: The Bolt EV is to go into production...
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Tesla Model S: Too Many Problems To Recommend, Consumer Reports SaysEvery honeymoon comes to an end sooner or later, and so it was with Consumer Reports and its former paramour, the Tesla Model S electric car. As part of its yearly reliability report on cars sold in the U.S. market, the respected consumer magazine said it could no longer recommend the Model S...
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2016 Scion iA: Gas Mileage Review Of High-MPG Subcompact SedanGas-mileage ratings are rising every year in virtually every vehicle segment, but most buyers expect smaller cars to deliver the highest numbers of all. That's true, to a point, although minicars like the Smart ForTwo two-seater and the Fiat 500 tend to be rated lower than longer and more...
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Even In 2007, As VW Designed Dirty Diesels, It Said Electric Cars Were The FutureMany journalists tend to have pack-rat tendencies, but sorting out old press kits, files, and magazines can have unexpected rewards. So it was for auto writer John Rettie, who recently uncovered an interesting tidbit in an issue of Driver, the in-house magazine sent out by Volkswagen of America to...
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'Numerous' Advantages To Laws Mandating Car Dealers, Tesla 'Inconvenient': NADA ChairmanCount on the car-dealer lobbyists of America to keep fighting the good fight on behalf of the state franchise laws that protect their members' businesses by making it illegal for you to buy a car directly from a carmaker. And, for that matter, to throw in comments about the supposed consumer...
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The 2016 Honda Civic may be the most radical redesign of the Civic in its 40-plus-year history.
The tenth generation of the car that made Honda's reputation, both in North America and around the...
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Self-Driving Tesla, New Prius Details, Big Electric VW Coming: The Week In Reverse (Video)Which new electric car is generating comparisons to the hated HUMMER? And, what eagerly awaited new green car has had dribs and drabs of information trickling out for weeks now? This is our video look back at the Week In Reverse--right here at Green Car Reports--for the week ending on Friday...
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EPA: 'Long List' Of Questions On New VW Diesel Software FeatureA couple of weeks ago, Volkswagen seemed confident that it would be just a matter of weeks before it made some simple tweaks and got its 2016 lineup of TDI diesel vehicles certified by the EPA. That was before the existence of a second, and different, piece of software--previously undisclosed by...
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Tesla Autopilot: The 10 Most Important Things You Need To KnowTesla Motors is now rolling out its much-awaited "Autopilot" software for the Model S electric car, and it has revealed a number of things about how the autonomous driving system is intended to work. While an explanatory conference call on Wednesday afternoon lasted less than an hour, Tesla CEO...
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Electric VW, Secret Software, Prius Info, Car Charging Rates: Today's Car NewsWe've got lots of stories on infrastructure today.
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Buying An Electric Car: Why Charging Rate, DC Quick-Charging MatterWe all know how to compare horsepower, acceleration, and gas mileage. Practical car buyers know to look at cargo volume, too. But when it comes to buying your first electric car, there are a few things you need to know about charging. Like the better-known measurements, the rate at which a plug-in...
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The 2016 Toyota Prius hybrid has made its world debuts and should arrive at U.S. dealers starting around January. But specific details have been surprisingly sparse.
Yesterday, Toyota released a few...
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VW Electric Plans, Few Prius Details, Green-Car Deals: Today's Car NewsWe've got lots of stories on infrastructure today.
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VW To Focus On Electric, Plug-In Hybrid Tech, Slash Spending Due To Diesel ScandalThe Volkswagen diesel-emission cheating scandal has caused executive heads to roll, cars to be yanked off sale, and regulators to pore over real-world emission data with a laser-like focus. It has made the future of the VW Group as the world's largest carmaker seem far more perilous than it did...
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2016 Toyota Prius: A Few Details On Engine, Hybrid System ReleasedWhile it has unveiled the all-new 2016 Prius hybrid twice--once at a glitzy event in Las Vegas, once at the Frankfurt Motor Show--Toyota has been very stingy with technical information about the powertrain that will let the car earn promised EPA combined ratings of 55 mpg or better. At an event in...
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VW Diesel Acceleration, Fuel Economy Fall Without 'Cheat Mode' (Video)As Volkswagen works overtime to figure out what changes it will make to 482,000 TDI diesel cars sold in the U.S. with a "cheat mode" that let them comply with emission rules, an obvious question arises. What will those cars be like to drive and own when they're fixed? Consumer Reports, one of only...
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VW Diesel News, Tesla Model Y, Electric Ford Ad: Last Week In Reverse (Video)
Which story, now in its third week, shows no sign of letting up on the news, technology, or massive public humiliation front? And, what CEO tweeted about a mysterious new future model--and then deleted the tweet? This is our video look back at the Week In Reverse--right here at Green Car...
John Voelcker