Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV)
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Last month, 1,642 Chevrolet Bolt EV 238-mile battery-electric hatchbacks found buyers, enough to take the Bolt's six-month aggregate to 7,592 deliveries all told. It was the latest and highest in a string of rising monthly delivery totals for the 238-mile battery electric hatchback, and it marked half a year (plus a couple of weeks) that the Bolt EV has been on sale. The car went on sale on December 13 last year, with a total of 573 sales recorded for 2016, all of them in California and Oregon. DON'T MISS: U.S. plug-in electric car sales for June: Volt passes Prius Prime, Bolt EV rises again...
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Faraday Future FF91: electric luxury sedan sets Pikes Peak record storming up mountain (video)
Faraday Future has seen its share of setbacks following January's reveal of its FF 91 electric luxury car, but it walked away with a victory at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. The troubled company not only took home a victory, but it also claimed a new record in the process. The FF 91...
Sean Szymkowski -
2017 Tesla Model 3 in pilot production: Musk tweets photos of first car (updated with video)
The 2017 Tesla Model 3 has apparently entered pilot production, following a pair of photos tweeted by Tesla CEO Elon Musk. The caption on the first of the two photos, this one black-and-white, says simply, "First production Model 3." The second photo, tweeted 40 minutes later, is in full color but...
John Voelcker -
Tesla's Q2 2017 deliveries fall slightly due to 100-kwh battery shortage (updated)
Tesla delivered slightly more than 22,000 electric cars during the second quarter of the year, split between roughly 12,000 Model S hatchback sedans and about 10,000 Model X crossover utility vehicles. That total is more than 50 percent higher than the comparable April-June number for 2016, but...
John Voelcker -
Hey, media, get it straight: "electrified" is NOT "electric," and the difference matters
OK, reporters of the world, it's time for a little chat. We know—believe me, we know—that you are cranking out a whole lot of copy, with much less support than you used to have, on far tighter deadlines, to feed a voracious, anonymous online audience whose clicks get you paid. But it's...
John Voelcker -
Driving a Chevy Bolt EV electric car across Canada, all the way
To celebrate Canada's 150th birthday, Barb Hetherington and Buddy Boyd embarked on their maiden voyage to prove electric car travel is feasible in a very large country with some very sparsely populated areas. With a 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV as their chariot, and their dog Piper for company, the...
Sean Szymkowski -
Toyota made a strong return to the Canadian plug-in electric vehicle market in June, selling 144 Prius Prime plug-in hybrids. The tally is all the more remarkable as the vehicle has so far launched only in Quebec. Why? That province is the home of Canada’s sole zero-emission vehicle mandate, patterned on California’s. Depending on the geographic distribution of June’s Chevy Volt sales, the Prius Prime might have even outsold it in La Belle Province. READ THIS: Quebec passes Canada's first zero-emission vehicle rule, to start in 2018 Toyota has sold about 100 Prius liftbacks...
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CA bill would make up for federal electric-car incentives as they expire
The state of California has a long track record of supporting electric cars and doing everything possible to ensure plug-in vehicles can be obtained by the largest number of drivers. Aside from the federal income-tax credits available nationally, the state of California has its own purchase...
Sean Szymkowski -
Tesla slams IIHS after 'Acceptable' Model S test, older NHTSA ratings cited in response
Tesla slams IIHS after 'Acceptable' Model S test, cites older NHTSA ratings in response
John Voelcker -
Plug-in electric car sales for June: Volt passes Prius Prime, Bolt EV rises again
In May, the Toyota Prius Prime plug-in hybrid was the highest-selling car with a plug in the U.S. for only the second time ever. Last month, however, the Chevrolet Volt recaptured its usual spot at the top of the plug-in sales charts for those manufacturers who report monthly sales. Chevy sold...
John Voelcker -
Chevy Bolt EV electric car does many things: autocrossing is one
The idea of performance and electric cars normally don't go hand in hand, unless the topic is a Tesla Model S P90 D. Outside of that one high-performance electric vehicle, casual electric cars are hardly the racer's choice, but one owner felt otherwise. Brian Ro, the owner of a 2017 Chevrolet Bolt...
Sean Szymkowski -
Volvo to electrify all cars from 2019: 'end of internal-combustion engine alone'
Volvo has announced a major leap forward in an effort to embrace an electrified portfolio of vehicles. The Swedish automaker will go all-electrified come 2019; every single vehicle it launches will feature an electric motor in some usage. To be clear, this is not the immediate end of the...
Sean Szymkowski -
One of the greatest challenges faced by modern electric cars is the vehicle's range, which is largely proportional to the energy capacity of the battery. Range anxiety often keeps buyers out of electric cars and in their fossil-fuel powered counterparts. Most of the attention given to solving the range dilemma has focused on the battery, but one key to more efficient electric cars may sit with the electric motor. DON'T MISS: Video explains how electric cars work, battery and motor technology included IEEE Spectrum detailed a conceptual electric motor that may unlock the potential for greater...
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Tesla Model 3 production to start Friday, deliveries July 28
As he had promised he would late one evening last week, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk has tweeted out some updates on the upcoming Model 3. He expects first production Model 3 electric car, with serial number 001 ("SN1"), to be completed this Friday, July 7. The first 30 customers to buy Model 3s...
John Voelcker -
Aston Martin RapidE electric luxury sedan delayed to 2019 as Williams replaces Le Eco
Among electric-car owners and advocates, tiny British sports-car maker Aston Martin has become a company to watch. That's largely due to its CEO for the last few years, Andy Palmer, who had previously led product development at Nissan while it launched the Leaf electric car. Palmer had ambitious...
John Voelcker -
To honor Energy Week, lease an electric car: 10 lessons from new EV driver
The White House has declared this week the inaugural "Energy Week," and what better way to mark the occasion than by driving electric cars? Cars that plug in to use grid energy for travel are a great catalyst for reducing energy consumption and reducing our use of fossil fuels. Now one reporter who...
Sean Szymkowski -
IIHS says Tesla electric cars have higher miles, more costly repairs
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the Highway Loss Data Institute has once again confirmed the Tesla Model S electric car is an outlier. While the Model S gets high ratings for its crash safety, it also seems to incur higher insurance losses than competing conventional cars. Higher...
Sean Szymkowski -
Fall debut for electric BMW 3-Series to fight Tesla Model 3: report
In August 2016, when the first U.S. ads for the BMW 330e plug-in hybrid sport sedan hit the airwaves, they carried an interesting promise. "You will wait, and wait, and wait some more," the voiceover intoned, "all before that electric-car company's new model ever even arrives." That would be the...
John Voelcker -
French automaker Renault has given its small light commercial electric vehicle a handful of upgrades, including a significantly longer battery range. The Renault Kangoo ZE is now officially on sale with a longer rated range, a more powerful charging system, and a heat pump to keep the little van efficient in the coldest temperatures. Renault revealed the Kangoo ZE back in 2010 as an electrified option for light commercial vehicle buyers, even before its 2012 Renault Zoe subcompact electric hatchback. DON'T MISS: Renault adds new Master ZE larger electric delivery van An electrified Master ZE...
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New life for old Nissan Leaf electric car: battery replacement and what it took
The 2018 Nissan Leaf will likely be revealed within the next three months, but more than 100,000 older Leaf electric cars are still silently in use on U.S. roads. Some of them, especially the lowest-range cars from the two earliest model years (2011 and 2012), have started to see significant...
John Voelcker -
Tesla Hardware 2: so what functions work in Autopilot and what don't?
The expanded collection of sensors known as Hardware 2 continues to bring new and revamped features to the Tesla Model S and Model X electric cars. But how do the latest features offered by Autopilot stack up against those offered until last fall by the superseded Hardware 1 setup? One owner has...
Sean Szymkowski -
Bizarre Swedish study claims electric cars are worse for the environment
Electric vehicles shouldn't be considered all-out carbon footprint saviors, but they can legitimately be viewed as the great minimizers. The benefits of electric vehicles over those with internal-combustion engines are vast, but a strange new study is making rounds that claims electric cars are...
Sean Szymkowski -
Electric BMW iX3 to come in 2020, but BMW i5 defunct: what happened, and why?
Over the last two years, Audi and Mercedes-Benz have released several all-electric concept cars that are thinly disguised production models to arrive in 2018 and beyond. But electric-car pioneer BMW's plans are less clear. Its sole recent electric concept car was the iNext luxury sedan shown more...
John Voelcker -
Audi e-tron Sportback, second electric car from automaker, to enter production in 2019
Audi has confirmed what was seemingly already known: the e-tron Sportback concept is headed to production. The e-tron Sportback concept was revealed at the 2017 Shanghai auto show earlier this year and the production version will arrive in 2019 bearing the same name. The brand last week confirmed...
Sean Szymkowski