Antony Ingram, Contributing Writer
Articles
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A little slice of India will soon be moving into Michigan, with the announcement that Mahindra will produce an electric two-wheeler at a factory in Ann Arbor.
India's Mahindra Group is investing in a...
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China Pollution Restrictions On New-Car Registrations Spur Scramble
If China's plans to limit license plate availability were designed to cut car buying, they're not exactly working so far. Anticipating further restrictions to cut car use--in the midst of choking pollution in many of China's cities--car sales rose a full 13 percent last month. According to...
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Electric Aircraft Are On The Way, Stylish E-FAN Makes First Flight
While electric vehicles are gaining popularity in the automotive world, the aviation industry is also looking into ways to clean up its act. French firm Airbus is best known for its large passenger jets--including the double-deck Airbus A380--but its latest project is rather smaller. The E-FAN is a...
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Ford's Three-Cylinder Engine Does Well In Fiesta; Focus Next Up
Three cylinders is about three-quarters what many U.S. consumers will tolerate, about half the number they prefer and three eighths that of what some consider ideal. It may come as a surprise then that Ford's 1.0-liter EcoBoost three-cylinder, as found in the Fiesta, is actually beating Ford's...
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BMW Designs Custom Solar Charging Station For i3, i8
Solar charging is indisputably one of the best ways of running an electric vehicle. It certainly mitigates any lingering worries about fueling your car with a smoke-belching coal-fired power plant. BMW is backing solar too, commissioning its BMW DesignworksUSA arm to design a stylish solar carport...
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U.K. To Invest $850 Million By 2020 To Promote Electric Vehicles
Despite hefty incentives, electric vehicle sales have remained stagnant in the United Kingdom. While sales doubled in 2013 compared to 2012, matching the global trend, just 2,500 vehicles found homes last year. That's less than the Nissan Leaf sells in some single months in the U.S. The UK...
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The popularity of diesel vehicles has risen in recent years, as consumers acquaint themselves with the latest generation of cleaner-burning, quieter, smoother and faster diesel cars.
All is not well...
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How Hard Is Lithium-Air Battery Research? Pretty Tough, Actually
It's hard to keep track of all the future battery technology candidates, but lithium-air battery technology is among the most widely-researched. Its biggest draw is the potential to store three times the energy in batteries the same size and weight of today's electric vehicles--providing huge...
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Micro-Hybrids To Grow Fast: More Than Start-Stop, Less Than Mild Hybrid
Micro-hybrid vehicles remain relatively unexplored in the automotive sector, but their time in the limelight may soon be due. More sophisticated than vehicles with simple start-stop systems, but less reliant on electric power than a mild hybrid vehicle, micro-hybrids are nevertheless a low-hanging...
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China Leans On Automakers To Produce Electric Cars, But Infrastructure Lags
It seems that China is facing the old "chicken and egg" dilemma, as it ramps up its push for electric car sales growth. The country wants to encourage electric car use, and is pushing automakers to sell them--but so far, the country's infrastructure lags far behind. As the ChinaEV blog notes, it's...
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New Smart Fortwo Minicar Slides In Sweden, Due This Fall? (Video)
It's fair to say the Smart brand hasn't been one of Daimler's bigger successes, but bosses will be hoping the third-generation car is closer to "third time lucky" than "three strikes and you're out". Smart's latest video suggests that new third-gen car is on its way soon, as camouflaged cars...
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Electric-Car Incentives Vary Globally--A Lot--But Generally Work
If you've bought an electric vehicle recently, chances are you may have enjoyed some of the myriad incentives currently offered on plug-in cars. Income-tax credits, purchase rebates, sales-tax exemptions, and various non-monetary incentives have been used worldwide to spur plug-in car sales growth...
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As the first customers take delivery of their new BMW i3 electric cars, it's time for the pre-launch hype to disappear and let sales do the talking.
The hype isn't hard to understand though--BMW is...
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Why European Gas-Mileage Ratings Are So High--And Often Wrong
We're often asked why cars sold in Europe seem to be so much more efficient than those on sale in the U.S. Typically, it's accompanied by the mention of some supposedly 80-mpg car sold in Europe--while the best U.S.-market vehicles barely crest the 50-mpg mark. Now, Reuters highlights one of the...
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Electric Car 'Guest Drive' Service Launches In CA To Get 'Butts In Seats'
If it's worth saying once, it's worth saying a thousand times: The best way of getting people interested in electric cars is to let people drive them. That's exactly what Electric Car Guest Drive, a California-based initiative, is doing--giving people interested in electric cars the opportunity to...
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Drive A Honda Fit With ZipCar's New One>Way Car Sharing Service
Want to drive the new 2015 Honda Fit subcompact without the high-pressure environment of a dealership test drive? You could do worse than to sign up for ZipCar's new ONE>WAY car-sharing service, which will use the new Fit exclusively when the model makes its debut. ONE>WAY could be the most...
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VW Beetle Range To Expand In 2019 As Sub-Brand To Rival Mini: Report
In the company's early days, much of Volkswagen's range centered around just one model: The Beetle. Those days may return to an extent, as the Beetle is the latest subject of Volkswagen's desire to fill every automotive niche possible. German site Auto Bild reports that the next-generation Beetle...
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2014 Nissan Juke: New Equipment, Revised Features, MPG Unchanged
The Nissan Juke's appearance in the compact crossover segment has spurred several other automakers into fielding their own entries. Three years on from its debut, Nissan has refreshed its quirky offering for 2014--though fuel economy remains unchanged. All Juke models get a 1.6-liter turbocharged...
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk isn't just planning one site for the company's future battery gigafactory--he's actually looking at two.
As a way of avoiding "last minute issues" on a possible site for the...
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Washington State Follows CA, Imposes Low-Carbon Fuel Standard
Washington State will follow the lead of California and develop its own clean-energy policy to cut the state's carbon emissions by 2020, its governor said on Tuesday. Democrat governor Jay Inslee signed a major executive order to set up a task force for acting on various climate-related issues...
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Toyota Describes Combustion Engine That Generates Electricity Directly
Despite the recent advent of usable, talented electric vehicles, combustion engines are likely to persist for quite some time, often as a component in plug-in hybrid and range-extended electric vehicles. The onus then is on refining combustion power to work harmoniously with increasingly...
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Trident Poised To Launch World's Fastest Diesel Cars
British sports car brand Trident is set to launch two new variants of its Iceni sports car--billed as the world's fastest and most fuel-efficient diesel sports cars. The Iceni convertible, the fixed-roof Iceni Magna and the Iceni Venturer wagon use a 6.6-liter turbodiesel V-8 engine to deliver huge...
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Ebuggy Electric Car Trailer Boosts Range By 300 Miles, Looks A Bit Silly
Despite protestations that electric vehicles are compromised by short battery range, most owners find the vast majority of driving is achievable on the modest 80-100 miles offered by most vehicles. Many drivers need to do a longer trip at some point, though. Do you then make that compromise buying...
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How Do You Make A Chevy Camaro Muscle Car Green? Students Have 4 Years To Try
If you're currently shopping for a fuel-efficient vehicle, the Chevrolet Camaro probably hasn't appeared on your radar. With combined economy of 22 mpg for the most efficient, V-6 automatic model, that's not a huge surprise. But given some time and some of the finest young engineering minds as part...
Antony Ingram