Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV)

  • BYD Qin EV300

    It's been several years since Chinese electric-car maker BYD retreated from plans to sell cars in the United States, but now it may be ready to get more serious about the market. BYD has found success in building and selling electric buses for public transportation agencies, but it has not yet launched a vehicle for private consumers. The company plans to focus more on selling to the private sector in coming years, and to expand its efforts in heavy-duty electric vehicles as well. DON'T MISS: China's BYD built more plug-in cars than any other maker last year The latest information comes from...

  • 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid
    2022 Toyota electric car to use solid-state batteries: updated report

    Toyota has long claimed battery-electric cars are suitable only for limited uses, and promoted hydrogen fuel cells as the best zero-emission vehicle technology. Pushed by China's increasingly tough emission rules, the company recently—and reluctantly—committed to building all-electric...

  • National Drive Electric Week 2014: Eyeing a Tesla in Ottawa. Photo by Ottawa Centre EcoDistrict.
    National Drive Electric Week to be bigger than ever: 175 events so far

    The White House's energy week may have been low on renewable and zero emission technology, but National Drive Electric Week is poised to make up for it. Each year, Plug In America, the Electric Auto Association, and the Sierra Club join forces to implement one week of electric car events, parades...

  • 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV
    When will sales of of electric and gas cars be equal, globally? Poll results

    It's now clear that much greater numbers of plug-in electric cars will be sold in coming years and decades than have found buyers to date. With battery costs falling faster than expected, and toughening regulations in China requiring higher volumes of electric cars, the onus is on the world's...

  • Teaser for Fisker EMotion debuting on August 17, 2017
    Fisker: about those graphene electric-car batteries? Never mind

    Fisker's promise to bring advanced, solid-state graphene cells to the battery pack of its upcoming Emotion electric car is officially dead. Automotive-grade graphene batteries have yet to be perfected, but Fisker was poised to become the first company to utilize the technology. The batteries...

  • Volkswagen ID model lineup, Photo: Groenl7
    Volkswagen's 5 electric cars start in 2019: what we know so far

    As Volkswagen works to look toward the future, following its damaging diesel deceit, electric cars and plug-in vehicles will be front and center in its product publicity. The German automaker has already hinted at its future electric cars with a handful of concepts, but its first high-volume...

  • 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV electric cars outside dealership    [photo: Patrick Reid]

    One of the biggest tests of an automaker's discipline is what it does when sales start to ebb and inventories of unsold cars swell. Does it keep the production lines churning, and dial up its incentives to keep new-vehicle deliveries flowing? Or does it prioritize profitability and suspend production until inventories are back where they should be? DON'T MISS: Bolt EV electric car sales after 6 months: how do they compare? General Motors is now doing the latter, after seeing its inventories bulge to 105 days' worth of sales by the end of last month, according to a report by the Reuters news...

  • Robert Bollinger on Day One of Bollinger Motors, in empty garage, Hobart, New York, late 2015
    Why Robert Bollinger decided an electric utility truck was 'obvious'

    One week from today, in a pricey supercar club in Manhattan, journalists, electric-car advocates, and perhaps a few celebrities will gather for the unveiling of a new electric vehicle. It's not another fast, luxurious sedan or crossover utility vehicle. Instead, it's an electric utility truck...

  • 2017 Hyundai Ioniq Hybrid, Ioniq Electric, and Ioniq Plug-In
    Hyundai-Kia electric-car production to soar to 50,000 next year

    Korean siblings Hyundai and Kia will aggressively increase production of electric cars next year, according to a report in the Korean press. The production increase comes amid the combined automaker's goal to become the second largest maker of green vehicles (hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and electric...

  • Teaser for 2018 Nissan Leaf debuting on September 6, 2017
    2018 Nissan Leaf to have e-Pedal: here's what that means

    No, the new 2018 Nissan Leaf electric car isn't going to have only a single pedal—despite at least one headline late yesterday claiming that. Honest. But the "e-Pedal" in the next generation of Nissan's highest-volume plug-in vehicle does offer some interesting new features. DON'T MISS...

  • Expansion of Tesla Supercharger site in Rocklin, California    [photo: George Parrott]
    Tesla Supercharger electric-car charging sites in CA surge (photos)

    In January 2016, before the public introduction for pre-orders of the Model 3, Tesla had 585 Supercharger locations around the world. By the end of June 2016, that number had climbed to 655. Then the potential of 400,000-plus reservations for the more affordable Model 3 pushed Tesla to promise it...

  • Volkswagen ID model lineup, Photo: Groenl7
    VW intends to price its ID electric car five-door hatchback aggressively

    Volkswagen intends to take on the growing global electric-car market in an aggressive way, given the automaker's range of I.D. electric-vehicle concepts over the last couple of years. While a complete portfolio of electric cars will eventually find their way into production, the first high-volume...

  • Lucid Air

    The image of the electric car as the future of passenger vehicles has led to a wealth of start-up companies hoping to cash in on the newest type of automotive propulsion. Starting a company—an automobile company at that—is not an easy task, however. Now Lucid Motors (nee Atieva) may be on the brink of discovering that. A new report suggests that Lucid recently approached Ford Motor Company to discuss a total sale of the electric-car company to the huge Detroit maker. DON'T MISS: Lucid Air electric luxury sedan: a Tesla Model S owner's take According to Bloomberg, Ford and Lucid...

  • Teaser for Tesla Model Y electric SUV due for reveal in 2019
    When will Tesla Model Y crossover to go into production? Poll results

    The Tesla Model 3, the first mass-market electric car from the Silicon Valley carmaker, is now nominally in production. Scaling up from a trickle of hand-assembled cars to 10,000 units a month is Job One to keep Tesla afloat by letting it sell cars to hundreds of thousands of hand-raisers globally...

  • 2016/2017 Team ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport Formula E race car
    Why all electric-car owners should follow Formula E racing

    In North America and Europe, the old saying—"Win on Sunday, sell on Monday"—probably no longer applies. That is, winning races over the weekend probably does little if anything to boost sales of passenger cars and light trucks, certainly not the way it did in the U.S. in the 1950s and...

  • 2017 Renault Zoe
    European electric and plug-in hybrid sales for Jan-May 2017

    Another month, and another round of European electric car sales data is ready for dissemination. Electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles continue to earn a healthy share of the European car market, and it's clear there's still a definitive electric car for Europeans. That is the...

  • New York City ePrix FIA Formula E electric-car race, Red Hook, Brooklyn, July 2017
    11 things you need to know about Formula E electric-car racing

    We've just spent a packed, very hot weekend at the New York City ePrix, the first time the FIA Formula E electric-car racing series has come to the country's media capital. It was our first Formula E race, and like many who follow electric cars, we learned a lot. More than that, we got a better...

  • Longer-range Renault Zoe electric car, introduced at 2016 Paris Motor Show
    Renault Zoe still dominates Europe electric-car sales; longer range boosts sales

    Ask a North American driver to name companies that make electric cars, and you'll probably hear Tesla, maybe Nissan, and perhaps Chevy or BMW or Toyota. Chinese drivers may be more likely to say BYD (and perhaps Tesla), but Europeans will likely name Renault. (And Tesla.) The Renault Zoe, now in...

  • Tesla Model 3 design prototype  -  reveal event  -  March 2016

    There's no denying Tesla has accomplished a lot since the Model S was introduced in 2012. It pioneered the luxury electric car segment and put an unrivaled charging network into place through its Supercharging stations. On one side, it certainly seems like Tesla is poised for electric vehicle domination—and that's what one German analyst believes. DON'T MISS: Why Tesla's Elon Musk Must Sell 6 Million Electric Cars To Make History Analyst Alexander Haissl of Hamburg, Germany's Berenberg Bank predicts Tesla will ultimately end up with an electric car monopoly, according to Forbes. How has...

  • 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV electric car, June 2017 road trip from VA to KY and back  [Jay Lucas]
    Electric-car road trip: lessons learned in Chevy Bolt EV over 1,300 miles

    Launched in December, the 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV is the first mass-priced electric car to go on sale with a rated range of more than 200 miles: 238 miles combined, according to the EPA. Most owners use their Bolt EVs for daily commuting and trips, just like any other car. But road trips are an...

  • Lucid Air electric luxury sedan prototype  [photo: David Noland]
    Lucid Air electric luxury sedan: a Tesla Model S owner's take

    It’s a cool spring morning in Menlo Park, California, in the heart of Silicon Valley. In a two-story concrete-and-glass building on Constitution Avenue, just down the block from Facebook’s vast fortress, a group of automotive engineers and designers is working to create the...

  • Tesla Gigafactory battery plant in Nevada
    VW says it needs '40 gigafactories' for electric-car batteries by 2025

    VW Group remains one of the world's three largest carmakers, along with Toyota and General Motors, but the German automaker foresees challenges ahead. Specifically, Volkswagen believes the industry will face a shortage of lithium-ion batteries if new investment is not made soon for additional cell...

  • Teaser for 2018 Nissan Leaf debuting in 2017
    If 2018 Nissan Leaf has 200-mile range, what will it cost? Poll results

    At the moment, the Tesla Model 3 is getting lots of media attention and electric-car buzz now that the company says its first production car has rolled out of the factory—even if features, specs, and pricing isn't yet known. Meanwhile, the 238-mile Chevrolet Bolt EV is at roughly 9,000 cars...

  • 2013 Tesla Model S, in July 2017   [photo: David Noland]
    Life with Tesla Model S: the challenges of selling her at last

    It was time to let her go. She is my 2013 Tesla Model S, serial number 003662, in dark green, now with 76,000 memorable miles. The best car I’ve ever owned, by far. She had taken me to 33 states and roughly 100 Superchargers, through deserts, mountains, and tropics, with total reliability...

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