Electric Cars
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It may not be long before electric car owners on America's Pacific coast can drive all the way from Canada to Mexico--using quick-charge stations. Thanks to Oregon's new 'electric highway', it's now possible to charge an electric car every 25 miles down a 200-mile stretch of Interstate 5. That, says NBC News, makes it the longest stretch of electric highway in the country. Click HERE to see the NBC video It's set to improve even further, as the state has funding for another 35 quick-charge stations. That'll make things pretty easy for the state's current 1,200 electric cars, and means that...
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Electric-Car Accident? What Your Insurance Company MUST Let You Do
It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been driving, what type of car you have or how it happened: having a car accident isn’t nice. Normally, post-accident, your insurance company may help you find a local repairer to get your car looking good as new again. But if you have an electric...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
BMW i Electric Cars To Tour The World Before Launch
Before the 2014 BMW i3 is officially launched as a production model, the innovative all-electric minicar is going on a whirlwind world tour--chaperoned by its more powerful, sexy, and sleek i8 plug-in hybrid sports coupe sibling. The pair of concept cars just completed the first of seven stops they...
Tom Moloughney -
Two Electric Cars, One Planet To Race Around: Who Will Win?
Remember the two French guys in their Mitsubishi i (well, Citroen C-Zero)? Their eight-month, 15,500-mile journey in the tiny electric car is just one of many long-distance EV publicity drives we've seen, but certainly one of the longest. Naturally, they're not the only people to have thought of...
Antony Ingram -
Charging Your Electric Car At Home? You’re 20 Feet From Power (Probably)
While many car buyers today are interested in making the switch from gasoline to plug-in cars, they often worry that they have nowhere to charge it at night. That worry can lead to consumers ignoring plug-in options, but a new study from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (via...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
CARB Renews Electric Vehicle Fund With $27 Million
California has long been known for its efforts to reduce pollution from vehicles, and efforts to popularize hybrids and electric cars. The California Air Resources Board has now taken that one step further by approving a $27 million fund for its Air Quality Improvement Program (AQIP). Much of this...
Antony Ingram -
Visit any major race track on any day of the week and there’s bound to be a cacophony of noise as professional race teams or enthusiastic amateurs drive lap after lap in praise to the gods of gasoline. But what would it be like if every car going around the track was powered by electricity? What would it sound like then? At last week’s highly popular Refuel 2012, electric car drivers and race enthusiasts answered that question once and for all. Luckily for us, there were also plenty of video cameras on hand to capture the action for Youtube posterity. In its fourth year, the...
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June Plug-In Electric Car Sales: Volt Stays Strong, Leaf Low
Half of this year is now gone, which means it's time once again to look at sales of plug-in electric cars--both for June and for the first six months of 2012. Coming off a streak of low sales months, 535 Nissan Leafs were sold in June, less than one-third the 1,708 Leafs delivered in June 2011...
John Voelcker -
Renting Electric Cars: Hertz Rocks, Enterprise Facing More Challenges?
Does electric car rental work as a business proposition? That might depend on who you ask. Because despite popular rental company Hertz having massive success with the format, backed up by other popular schemes like Car2Go, things aren't so rosy for Enterprise. According to the New York Times (via...
Antony Ingram -
Audi R8 e-tron Sets New Production Electric Car Record At Nürburgring
“To us, electric mobility means dynamics and driving pleasure” So explained Audi AG board member for technical development, Michael Dick, after racing driver Marcus Winkelhock set a new production lap record for electric cars, at the famous Nürburgring Nordschleife in Germany...
Antony Ingram -
Gas Station Staff Get Punk'd Electric Style With Nissan Leaf
If there's one comment we see more than any other from drivers of electric cars, it's the one about driving past gas stations with a smile, knowing they aren't using a drop. Maybe they'd get even more of a smile by driving in and filming the result--as that's exactly what Nissan has done during a...
Antony Ingram -
2012 Nissan Leaf Gets Better At Predicting Range, Charging Needs
How far can your electric car travel before you need a recharge? For most electric car owners, that question is answered with a mixture of (usually inaccurate) on-board computer software and a good dose of past-experience behind the wheel of his or her car. But two planned updates to Nissan’s...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
After five weeks driving a Better Place electric car in Israel, I'm gaining a deeper insight into the company's plans. The Better Place annual subscription model, including service and support, costs more than the U.S. practice of buying an electric car outright and charging it at home. How customers feel about this subscription payment rests on how good the extra service is. Looking back on the entire process of evaluating and buying the car, it is difficult for me to fault Better Place on customer service. I've never come across a car company that followed up and wanted to hear from me...
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Elon Musk Wins His 2012 Tesla Model S Bet, Dan Neil Pays Up
It may be that no one has been happier to lose a bet and write a check for $1,000 than Wall Street Journal auto writer Dan Neil. The bet he always said he wanted to lose was over the date Tesla Motors would deliver its first production 2012 Model S electric cars to paying customers--which it did at...
John Voelcker -
2014 Mercedes-Benz All-Electric B-Class Replaces Plug-in Hybrid Plans
At the start of this year, we told you that Mercedes-Benz was planning to introduce a B Class range-extended plug-in hybrid to the U.S. market some time during 2013. Now it seems the German automaker has changed its mind, replacing plans for a plug-in hybrid with an all-electric B Class jointly...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
With 2012 Tesla Model S Launched, Tesla Roadster Horses Around
However good the parent, the arrival of a new baby can have the unfortunate effect of making older siblings feel neglected and unloved. We didn’t expect those kind of feelings in the automotive world, but a stunt recently posted on the Internet involving a Tesla Roadster reminds us of a...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Funky Friday: Flux Capacitor Charges Up Historic Electric Drag Racing
Every Friday, those of us who work at GreenCarReports like to kick back a little with a story that, if you’ll forgive us, is more about indulging our fun side than it is educating you about green cars. In keeping with that tradition, we felt it time to combine two of our collective loves --...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Jaguar Displays XJ_e Plug-in Hybrid At GoodWood Festival Of Speed
In the automotive world, development and commercialization of plug-in vehicles has varied from company to company. While some, like Nissan and General Motors, sell plug-in cars, others, like Jaguar Land Rover, are in developmental stages. Which is why we’re pleased to hear that Jaguar Land...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Frankly, we understand why Fisker Automotive and Coda Automotive might not want to release their sales data. Both companies have struggled mightily with delayed rollouts of their first plug-in electric cars. But Tesla Motors just nailed its promised late-June first delivery date for the Model S electric luxury sedan, so we expected more. You would think the company would now try to behave like the adult car company it wants to be seen as. In one respect at least, you would be wrong. The background: On the first business day after the end of a calendar month, the auto industry engages in the...
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Fisker Admits In Ads, 'It Isn't Easy'
We have to admit, Kermit the Frog has wisdom well beyond his species. "It isn't easy being green" describes the world of electric and hybrid vehicles quite vividly, and few have found it less easy being green than Fisker Automotive, makers of the Karma range-extended luxury car. So difficult have...
Antony Ingram -
2013 Honda Fit EV: First Drive Of Honda's All-Electric Car
The 2013 Honda Fit EV is a fun and well-executed little all-electric hatchback. It's quick, handles decently, gets the highest EPA efficiency rating of any vehicle on the market (118 MPGe), and its rated range of 82 miles is longer than that of the somewhat larger Nissan Leaf. Too bad you have very...
John Voelcker -
Tony Posawatz, Chevy Volt Product Line Director, Retires From GM
The Chevrolet Volt electric car, now in its third model year, has survived the bankruptcy and government-led restructuring of General Motors, politically motivated attacks on electric cars, a battery-safety investigation by the NHTSA, and some breathtakingly inept marketing efforts. But many...
John Voelcker -
Five Forgotten Electric Cars: Do YOU Remember Them?
Amidst a throng of new launches over the past few years and a host of new models to come, some electric cars from days gone by have disappeared into obscurity. Some are surprisingly recent, others have been dead for years, but all are easily forgotten. Unless you own one, of course... Ford Ranger...
Antony Ingram -
Installing A Wireless Charging System: What It Really Takes
Electric cars of various types are often grouped as "plug-in cars," but recharging the battery pack doesn't always require an actual plug. Wireless charging, in which the car is positioned over a charging pad on the floor of a garage, is sometimes touted as a technology that will ease the adoption...
John Voelcker