Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV)
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One of the features associated with the 2013 Tesla Model S all-electric luxury sport sedan is the dedicated Supercharger network of DC quick-charge locations. Since the first stations went live last September, there have been only eight locations in California and the Northeast Corridor. Now Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] is planning to open more locations. in the company's latest blog post, George Blankenship, Tesla's vice president of worldwide sales and ownership experience, said that the network will grow--and soon. "We will be adding Supercharger coverage in many areas over the next three to...
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Phinergy 1000-Mile Aluminum-Air Battery: On The Road In 2017?
It's the sweetest dream of every electric-car fan: a battery that could store enough energy to offer up to 1,000 miles of real-world range. While it's not going to arrive in showrooms any time soon, Israeli startup Phinergy thinks its aluminum-air energy storage device might just be that battery...
John Voelcker -
Charging Etiquette Fail: Why Electric-Car Owners Resent Plug-In Hybrids
With almost 100,000 plug-in electric cars on U.S. roads now, congestion at charging stations is starting to crop up. And that has brought to light an issue of electric-car charging etiquette that may prove challenging: Should battery-electric cars get precedence over plug-in hybrids? The question...
John Voelcker -
Renault Zoe Electric Car Road-Test Video: No Translation Needed
What the Nissan Leaf is in the U.S.--the highest-volume battery electric vehicle on the market--the Renault Zoe hopes to be in Europe. French carmaker Renault has a wide-ranging alliance with Nissan that includes electric cars. Together, the two carmakers have delivered more than 70,000 electric...
John Voelcker -
How To Get A Tesla Model S 'Elon Musk Signature Edition'
Why would Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk take a Sharpie to the sun visor of an all-but-new Tesla Model S electric sport sedan? It wasn't a question we'd considered until a reader tipped us off to a photo on Flickr that showed just that. And we were intrigued enough to contact Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA}...
John Voelcker -
Volkswagen e-Up Electric Minicar: Forbidden Fruit For Europe Only
The next 18 months will see a number of plug-in vehicles enter the market from Volkswagen, as the company has promised for several years. Today, first details of the Volkswagen e-Up minicar were released--with the car being shown at the company's Annual Press and Investors Conference, held at its...
John Voelcker -
The 2013 Nissan Leaf electric car has some lofty sales goals associated with it--certainly higher than the 9,750 deliveries that Nissan averaged each year in 2011 and 2012. So it's encouraging to see a new television ad for the 2013 Leaf that actually highlights the fun and special features of driving electric cars. The new ad is a quick-cut 30-second spot that packs a lot into its voiceovers, with visuals of an attractive young couple on a dinner date in their new Leaf. You can watch it below. Experienced electric-car advocates, among them Chelsea Sexton, have pointedly criticized much of...
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Life With 2013 Tesla Model S: The Good & The Bad At 600 Miles
Two weeks and 600 miles ago, I took delivery of a 60-kWh 2013 Tesla Model S electric sport sedan. I won't dwell on the ear-flattening acceleration, nor the magic-carpet ride and handling, nor the mesmerizing 17-inch touch screen controls. Those features have been exhaustively analyzed and reported...
David Noland -
Nissan Leaf Electric Car Reports Own Battery-Cell Failure Via Carwings
Wouldn't it be nice if your car could tell you not just that something was wrong, but that something might be about to go wrong? A Nissan Leaf in Washington state did just that, and owner Rob Greenlee only found out when he got a call from his local dealership asking him to bring it in for a...
John Voelcker -
BMW i3 Electric Car: ReX Range Extender Not For Daily Use?
The upcoming 2014 BMW i3 electric car is generating a lot of quiet excitement--especially for its optional "ReX" range extender, a tiny two-cylinder engine that fits under the rear deck to power a generator. The i3 will be only the third high-volume dedicated battery electric car on the market...
John Voelcker -
Tesla Model X Electric Crossover Pushed Back A Year To Late 2014
Now that Tesla appears to be delivering hundreds of its Model S electric sport sedan each week, public attention inevitably turns to its future. Specifically, the next vehicle it plans to launch, the Model X all-electric crossover utility vehicle--which will offer optional all-wheel drive. But...
John Voelcker -
Nissan Replaces Electric-Car Unit Executive To Boost Sales
It's no secret that Nissan hasn't sold as many battery electric cars over the last two years as it had planned. The company just sold its 50,000th Nissan Leaf last month, but it had hoped to sell up to twice that number between the start of production in late 2010 and the end of last year. Now the...
John Voelcker -
Cars of the future--especially those from the past--always exert a powerful pull on our imaginations. They range from the outlandish (no wheels) to the bizarre (extreme styling exercises) to the jaw-dropping (powered by tiny nuclear powerplants). While the Fifties and Sixties may have been the height of extravagant future fantasies, the Seventies had its own crop of futuristic ideas. In 1973, photographer Frank Lodge attended the First Symposium on Low Pollution Power Systems Development, held in October in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The focus of the conference was on technologies that could reduce...
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GM Working On 200-Mile Electric Car, Says CEO Akerson
Last summer he dropped a hint that it might be possible. Now Dan Akerson has confirmed it: GM is working on an electric car with a 200-mile range, according to its CEO. The chief executive officer of General Motors made the comment yesterday at an energy conference, as reported in Reuters. He...
John Voelcker -
Life With 2013 Tesla Model S: Getting Supercharged In Winter
As the brand-new owner of a 60-kWh Tesla Model S, I was eager to try out a Supercharger, the ultrafast 90-kilowatt DC fast-charging stations that Tesla is establishing along Interstate highways across the country. Model S owners--and nobody else--will be able to plug in and grab up to 150 miles of...
David Noland -
Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Electric Drive Supercar: First Drive Video
It was a Mercedes-Benz icon before it became a performance flagship. Now it's a messenger for the future: the gullwing's going electric. The SLS AMG Electric Drive electric car is closing in on series production, converting the octane-addicted supercar to fit a greener vision of the future. We've...
Martin Padgett -
Feb Plug-In Electric Car Sales: Leaf Supply Low, Volt Recovers
U.S. sales of plug-in electric cars continued at a reduced level, as seems to happen every winter. The best-selling electric car, the Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car, logged deliveries of 1,626 units, compared to 1,140 last month. That's a better number than the 1,023 Volts sold in...
John Voelcker -
Should Electric Cars Have Visible Charge Indicators For The Public?
It's a standard fitting on most plug-in electric cars: a visible light to show when it's recharging, often with a different indicator for when it's done. Those lights, often on top of the dashboard and visible through the windshield, aren't yet standardized. They come in red, orange, and green;...
John Voelcker -
Almost two years ago, I took delivery of one of the very first 2011 Nissan Leafs to be imported into the United Kingdom. With its two-year anniversary approaching, and more than 32,000 miles on the clock, has our family's opinion of the Nissan Leaf changed? What has life with the car been like? And do we regret buying it? Just as we said last year, our 2011 Nissan Leaf has generally aged appropriately. But let's start at the beginning. In late March 2011, we drove our new family car 45 miles home from the dealership, plugged it in for the first time, and named the resplendent red car Hiro...
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2014 BMW i3 Electric Car Price: How Much Will It Cost?
With the 2014 BMW i3 electric car launch getting closer, the rumor mill is heating up. BMW will unveil its first production battery electric car at this fall's Frankfurt Motor Show, after showing a number of concept cars in both four-door and coupe forms. It has already given rides in BMW i3 test...
John Voelcker -
My 2013 Tesla Model S Electric Sport Sedan: Delivery at Last!
After 1,386 days of waiting, I first glimpsed my new 2013 Tesla Model S electric sport sedan at a local discount tire store. The Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] delivery rep who was bringing the car up from the New Jersey distribution center to my house in New York's Hudson Valley had called me from the...
David Noland -
Tesla Stock Sinks After Release Of 2012 Financial Results
Yesterday was a bumpy ride for the stockholders of electric-car maker Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA]. Following the company's Wednesday release of its 2012 financial results, including an after-hours conference call, the stock plummeted yesterday. Before the earnings call, it had closed Wednesday at...
John Voelcker -
Ford Focus Electric Won't Sell Well, Says Ford
Some makers are investing in battery electric cars and doing their darnedest to make them market successes--think Nissan or Tesla, for example. Ford does not appear to be one of those companies. Since the second month that its plug-in hybrid C-Max Energi went on the market, its monthly sales have...
John Voelcker -
2013 Nissan Leaf: 75-Mile Range 'Anticipated' In New Test By EPA
It's the last piece of information on the new and updated 2013 Nissan Leaf electric car that everyone's been waiting for: its range. The projected number, Nissan says, is 75 miles--but that shouldn't be compared to the 73-mile range of the 2011 and 2012 Leaf models. That's because the EPA changed...
John Voelcker