John Voelcker, Contributing Editor
Articles
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Remember the gas-guzzler tax allowance, nicknamed the "HUMMER deduction" because it allowed small-business owners to buy massive, heavy, fuel-sucking SUVs and deduct a large piece of the cost from...
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Tesla Model S Electric Car: Changes From 2012 Through 2015 (UPDATED)Tesla Motors only reveals its production figures every quarter, but it has now likely built up to 90,000 of its all-electric Model S luxury sport sedan. The company also doesn't group its changes and updates into model years, but makes running changes in the cars whenever the updates are tested...
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How Will VW Fix My Diesel Car, And When? A List Of All ModelsVolkswagen's U.S. CEO, Michael Horn, spent several hours yesterday testifying in front of a Congressional panel on the company's growing TDI diesel-emission cheating scandal. From that testimony, we can now break down how many cars and which models were affected, how the company expects to fix...
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VW: $50 Million In Tax Credits, Wanted Electric-Car Credits For Diesels TooBuyers of various Volkswagen TDI diesel vehicles took about $50 million in Federal income-tax credits in 2009 for the purchase of their supposedly green car. With Michael Horn, CEO of VW Group of America, testifying to Congress today, those credits--and whether the Federal government should be...
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2016 VW Diesel Lineup Withdrawn: Jetta, Passat, Golf, Beetle TDI Models May Be ModifiedMichael Horn, CEO of Volkswagen's U.S. arm, will testify today before Congress on the VW diesel-emission cheating scandal, including what he knew and when he knew it. His testimony, released yesterday, included a nugget of future product information: VW has withdrawn its application for...
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Six Possible VW TDI Diesel Fixes: From Software To New Car"You have power, you have energy, you have emissions: You get to choose two of them." That's the conundrum facing diesel-engine engineers, as summarized by Don Hillebrand, the director of energy systems research at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. And the VW diesel emission cheating scandal...
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The Tesla Model X electric luxury vehicle has widely been referred to as an SUV or a crossover utility vehicle by the media, the company, and buyers.
And indeed, it's taller and somewhat boxier than...
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Tesla Model Y, Self-Driving Semi, VW Diesel Damage: Today's Car NewsWe've got lots of stories on infrastructure today.
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VW Diesel Emission Scandal: Five Possible Long-Range EffectsThus far, it's a been a quiet start to the third week of the Volkswagen diesel-emission cheating scandal. Eight years' worth of VW TDI models, both new and used, have been taken off sale at the company's North American dealerships. We surmise its engineers are working around the clock at their...
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Tesla Model Y: Lower-Cost Electric SUV? Deleted Musk Tweet Hints At ItTesla Motors CEO Elon Musk is famous for tweeting bits of key product and company information. Looks like he's done it again, referring to a 'Model Y' that may have falcon doors as one of two future products, the other being the Model 3 affordable sedan Tesla plans to put into production late in...
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Electric-Car Sales (Tesla Too), Euro Emission Demands, Jaguar Diesels: Today's Car NewsWe've got lots of stories on infrastructure today.
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Plug-In Electric Car Sales In Sep: Waiting On Better 2016 ModelsSales of plug-in electric cars in the U.S. had a low-to-average month in September, with the sole bright spot being the astounding sales of the BMW i3 electric hatchback. Two new 2016 models, the entirely redesigned Chevy Volt and the longer-range 107-mile Nissan Leaf, should start this month, but...
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Diesel engines may be suffering in the public eye due to the scale of the Volkswagen diesel-emission cheating scandal, but luxury carmakers are pushing forward with plans to boost overall fuel...
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Tesla Delivered 11,580 Cars In Q3; Can It Meet Full-Year Goal?While it still refuses to report standard monthly U.S. sales like other carmakers, Tesla Motors now at least reports quarterly global sales of its electric cars. During the third quarter--July through September--Tesla said last week that it delivered 11,580 cars, all but six of them presumably its...
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European Makers: NOx Limits Must Rise For Real-World Emissions TestsCarmakers in Europe, Asia, and North America have met exhaust emission limits for decades, as measured by strict standardized vehicle tests on dynamometers, or "rolling roads." With the Volkswagen diesel scandal now entering its third week, U.S. and European regulators plan to test more cars under...
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Why Did Volkswagen Cheat On Diesel Emissions In Its TDI Cars?The bad news for Volkswagen just keeps on coming. In the last week, the company has fired much of its upper management, eradicated all mention of its TDI diesels from its U.S. website, and admitted that 11 million diesel vehicles have software that enabled them to pass emission tests while emitting...
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I Can't Buy A Honda Fit Hybrid In The U.S.; Can I Import One?We occasionally run articles about "forbidden fruit," or cool and desirable cars sold overseas that aren't available in the U.S. With Honda down to a single hybrid vehicle for the 2016 model year--the aging and low-volume CR-Z two-seater--it turns out one reader is looking covetously at the...
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Shape-Shifting Mercedes, Luxury Electrics, Is Diesel Dead? Today's Car NewsWe've got lots of stories on infrastructure today.
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We're just four days into the Volkswagen diesel-emission cheating scandal, but it's not too early to ask about its ultimate ramifications.
The 482,000 VW and Audi cars being investigated by the EPA...
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EPA Expands VW Diesel Probe To Audi, Porsche V-6s; All Diesels To Be TestedAmidst a growing list of probes into Volkswagen's diesel-emission cheating scandal, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expanding its investigation to cover additional diesel engines used in VW Group vehicles. The original admission by the company that it used a software "defeat device" to...
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That BMW Owner Who Got An Electric Car? The BMW's For SaleOh, those dastardly electric cars. Their siren-like allure tempts otherwise innocent drivers to abandon their life-long infatuations with ultimate German driving machines and other fine automotive specimens that deliver driving pleasure via explosions of vaporized hydrocarbons thousands of times a...
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VW: 11 Million Diesels Had Cheating Software, $7.3 Billion Set Aside; Criminal Probe ReportedVolkswagen AG said today it would adjust its third-quarter earnings to set aside $7.3 billion (€6.5 billion) for costs related to its admission that it used software to cheat on U.S. emissions tests of its diesel engines. That sum will "cover the necessary service measures and other efforts to...
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Porsche & Audi Electric Concepts, LAPD Tesla, VW Diesel Deception: The Week In Reverse (Video)Which carmaker was charged by the EPA with creating special software to cheat for years on emissions tests? And, why is the same electric car rated at both 107 miles and 155 miles of range? This is our video look back at the Week In Reverse--right here at Green Car Reports--for the week ending on...
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VW, Audi TDI Diesel Cars Had 'Defeat Device' That Violated EPA Rules, 500K Cars Recalled: BREAKINGThe announcement came out of the blue: "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will host a media call at 12 noon EST today, Friday, September 18, to make an announcement regarding a major automaker." When it was all over, German carmakers Volkswagen and Audi had been ordered to recall half a...
John Voelcker