Featured (was)
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It's been a vision of the future for decades now: self-driving cars that let you get in, specify your destination, and then curl up for a bit more sleep, waking when you arrive. That kind of anywhere-any-time autonomy remains some years in the future, most engineers suggest. Automakers are already adding individual active-safety systems that will be the building blocks of future self-driving cars, however, including adaptive cruise control, lane-correction assist, automatic emergency braking, and others. DON'T MISS: What is a self-driving car? (SAE levels explained) Now Robert Llewellyn of...
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Lessons learned from early electric car: 2011 Nissan Leaf at 90,000 miles
Being a pioneer isn't easy. When you're pioneering new automotive technology, it can be challenging and sometimes costly. Just ask anyone who owned an early turbocharged sport sedan, for instance. That also applies, in some cases, to some of the first modern electric cars, and in particular the...
John Voelcker -
2018 Nissan Leaf: more spy shots of electric car's second generation
The more camouflaged spy shots that emerge of a car being tested on public roads, the closer it likely is to being introduced. After seven years of the first-generation Nissan Leaf electric car, a redesign is due—some might say overdue. Now we have a second set of spy shots of the 2018 Leaf...
John Voelcker -
First 'release candidate' Tesla Model 3 driven: video posted by Elon Musk
The news earlier this week that the Tesla Model 3 would skip its usual "beta" development phase came as a shock to the industry and even to Tesla fans. With no reported sitings to date of Model 3 development versions on the roads, that seemed a startling and risky thing for Tesla to do. Especially...
John Voelcker -
Another Chevy Bolt EV electric-car owner weighs in on pros and cons
We've had a 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV electric car in our fleet for a handful of days, and have been thinking about our impressions of the car in everyday use. While a major snowstorm cut half the days out of our test run—with a 7-foot snowdrift blocking the road to my house—we've been...
John Voelcker -
Electric cars only need 100 miles of range, some carmakers say; is it true?
Hyundai first made the argument that energy efficiency in electric cars is just as important as their range, as part of its launch of the Ioniq Electric hatchback, EPA-rated at 124 miles. Now Honda is making that argument as well, based on a news report it confirmed saying that the Clarity EV...
John Voelcker -
Fleeing my home in New York’s Hudson Valley for California during February and March has a number of charms. Currently at the top of the list: reading about Winter Storm Stella while watching the surfers at Rincon Beach. For electric-car nuts like me, however, there’s another California perk that’s not far behind: the wide availability of the Chevy Bolt. Back home, I’d been hankering for a Bolt test drive for months. As a long-time Tesla Model S owner, I was eager to see how it compared to the gold standard of electric cars. DON'T MISS: Chevrolet Bolt EV: Green Car...
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Why I canceled my Chevy Bolt EV electric-car order: a reader explains
The advent of affordable 200-mile electric cars promises to increase public acceptance of cars with plugs—or at least that's the hope of both carmakers and advocates. The first of those, the 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV, is now entering the market, state by state, to great acclaim. But not every...
John Voelcker -
2017 Hyundai Ioniq Electric: first drive review of 124-mile electric car
For the first six years of electric cars, from 2011 to 2016, we've had a variety of mass-priced cars with ranges of 62 to 107 miles. This year, in 2017, we got the Chevy Bolt EV, at 238 miles. But there's a new competitor as well. This is the 2017 Hyundai Ioniq Electric. DON'T MISS: 2017 Hyundai...
John Voelcker -
Chevy Bolt EV: 800-mile trip in 238-mile electric car shows challenges remain
With about twice the range of any non-Tesla electric car, the 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV has generated a great deal of excitement and won numerous awards over the last year. In combination with a nascent DC fast-charging infrastructure, it offers the possibility of much longer road trips powered solely...
John Voelcker -
2017 Hyundai Ioniq Hybrid video drive review
It's been said that the only global carmaker Toyota is really worried about is Hyundai. This year, the legendary Prius hybrid—which celebrates its 20th anniversary—has some new competition. This is the 2017 Hyundai Ioniq. It's a hybrid, but there are actually three models of the Ioniq...
John Voelcker -
Plug-in electric car sales for Feb: Volt outsells Prius Prime, Bolt EV, Leaf (final update)
Once again, it's the first day of the month following a weekday sales close, when the auto industry turns its eyes to the sales charts emerging from all automakers (except Tesla). For plug-in electric cars, the question this month remains the same as last month: how many Chevrolet Bolt EVs did GM...
John Voelcker -
The next couple of years promise to be quite interesting for electric cars. A minimum of six new models are expected in that time period, all promising ranges of 200 miles or more—which until a few months ago had been the exclusive province of Tesla Motors. The list includes two affordable 200-mile electric cars: the second-generation Nissan Leaf, and the highly anticipated Tesla Model 3. DON'T MISS: Audi e-tron vs Jaguar I-Pace vs Mercedes EQ: electric luxury SUVs compared (Dec 2016) It also includes the first production long-range battery-electric cars from Audi, Jaguar, and...
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Honda Clarity EV electric car to have only 80 miles of range: report
One of the more eagerly awaited all-electric cars coming to market this year has been the 2018 Honda Clarity EV. It's a battery-electric version of the 2017 Clarity Fuel Cell already on sale in some regions of California, powered by a hydrogen fuel cell. But unlike most of the pure electric cars on...
John Voelcker -
2018 BMW i3 preview (including battery rumors)
This year's updated BMW i3 electric car is only just arriving at U.S. dealerships after a battery-capacity boost that gives it longer range. But already some details of the 2018 BMW i3 have leaked out, in the form of spy photos and further rumors about more battery capacity yet. Unlike our usual...
John Voelcker -
2017 Hyundai Ioniq Hybrid: first drive review
The 2017 Hyundai Ioniq isn't one car but three, with a unique choice of powertrains. The volume seller will be the Ioniq Hybrid, a dedicated hybrid (as is the Toyota Prius) with a 58-mpg combined EPA fuel-economy rating for its base model. But you can also get it as a battery-electric car (starting...
John Voelcker -
Next Leaf, Bolt EV range, Ioniq prices, Tesla updates: The Week in Reverse
Which eagerly awaited electric car finally broke cover—and what worried question did those spy shots prompt? Why does Toyota think plug-in hybrids will catch on with customers more quickly than electric cars? This is our look back at the Week In Reverse—right here at Green Car...
John Voelcker -
Chevy Bolt EV is basis for 'huge range of electric cars': GM CEO Mary Barra
It's common practice in the industry for automakers to base multiple different models on the same basic platform or architecture. This allows them to amortize the development costs of new platforms across a wider range of products. It also means that two seemingly dissimilar models—such as a...
Stephen Edelstein -
It's the long-missing member of the trio, the last of three affordable electric cars with 200-plus miles of range expected to go into production this year. But until now, we've heard almost nothing about the 2018 Nissan Leaf. All we knew was that the second generation of the world's highest-volume electric car would have more mainstream styling and a version with at least 200 miles of range. SEE SPY SHOTS HERE: 2018 Nissan Leaf spy shots Now the first spy shots of a "mule" test vehicle have emerged. Ten separate images were published within the last 24 hours on Motor Authority and various...
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Plug-in hybrid price guide: every 2017 model, with specs
The number of plug-in hybrid cars has expanded greatly over the past few years. If you've had trouble keeping track of all of these new plug-in cars, fear not. A couple of weeks ago, we gathered the relevant data for every battery-electric car on sale today, and presented it to you in one place...
Stephen Edelstein -
Why aren't there more hybrid crossover utilities and SUVs?
It's one of the most frequent questions asked by shoppers interested in utility vehicles with better gas mileage: why aren't there more hybrid SUVs and crossovers? Following the 2012 demise of the much-loved Ford Escape Hybrid, it took four years for the 2016 Toyota RAV4 Hybrid to emerge. This...
John Voelcker -
2017 Chevy Bolt EV electric car: new owner's first impressions
As the first mass-priced electric car with more than 200 miles of range to hit the market, the 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV has attracted a great deal of attention. It's won numerous awards, including the Green Car Reports 2017 Best Car To Buy title, and received rave reviews from a wide variety of media...
John Voelcker -
2018 Porsche Panamera 4 E-Hybrid: first drive review
In the plug-in hybrid game, you move forward or get left behind. When the hybrid maker is Porsche, that applies to power as well as efficiency. The 2018 Porsche Panamera 4 E-Hybrid is the replacement for the previous Panamera S E-Hybrid, and it gets more power, performance, and efficiency in a...
Kirk Bell -
Emissions rules could cost 1 million jobs, Ford CEO tells Trump: what's behind that number? (further updated)
Among his actions during a whirlwind first week in office, U.S. President Donald Trump met last week with the CEOs of U.S. automakers Fiat Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors. He met on two consecutive days with Mark Fields, CEO of Ford, in fact. Fields was part of a group of manufacturing...
John Voelcker