plug-in cars
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Ask most 10-year old girls what they do in their spare time, and the chances are they’ll give you a list including various extra-curricular clubs, playing with weebos, and watching television. But a 10-year old girl from Michigan by the name of Allison Ringold has something else to add to her list: promoting electric cars. While we’re sure Ringold has plenty of other interests on her list, the 5th grader from Michigan has built an entire website detailing the history of the electric car as her entry into the National History Day of 2012. Entitled “What Was Old Is New...
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HOV-Lane Eligible Chevy Volts On Sale In California Next Week
Earlier today,General Motors confirmed that it has restarted production of the 2012 Chevrolet Volt at its Detroit Hamtramck facility. In addition, the automaker has confirmed that it is now producing Californian-market Volts, complete with a low emissions package that enables them to qualify for...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Drive Report: Electric-Car Neophyte Uses 2011 Nissan Leaf For A Week
The reviews of the Nissan Leaf electric car have already been posted, and one GreenCarReports writer even owns a Leaf, but this isn't going to be your standard review with driving impressions. It's no secret that I'm not exactly a green-car kind of guy. When the opportunity arose this winter to...
Joel Feder -
Truth-Telling Snopes Site Goes To Bat Over Chevy Volt E-Mail
Get any good e-mails lately? Maybe a chain letter that alleges how pathetically expensive the Chevy Volt is supposed to be? Well, there's one going around--it's called "Cost to operate a Chevy Volt"--and yesterday, the investigative site Snopes.com dived into the ugly politics around the Chevrolet...
John Voelcker -
Chevy Volts And Gun Racks: A Right-Winger's Perspective
Can a Republican firearms instructor also love the series-hybrid Chevrolet Volt? The author says yes.
Kurt Ernst -
Is Tesla 'Bricking' Story Just An Angry Owner's Warranty Claim?
And now perhaps it all becomes clear. The Tesla battery 'bricking' post that was today's electric-car news story and generated reams of coverage may simply be an attempt by an unhappy owner to get Tesla Motors to replace the battery in his Roadster. At least, that would appear to be the logical...
John Voelcker -
Late last night, a sensational blog post circulated through Silicon Valley. It claimed that several $100,000-plus Tesla Roadsters were now useless as the result of a "devastating design problem," with their battery packs "bricked" from being left too long without plugging in. Early this morning, we predicted that this would be today's electric-car news story, and so it proved to be. Jalopnik picked up the post and ran it, uncritically, sans context. But we've spent the day talking, prodding, urging, e-mailing, tweeting, and generally doing what reporters do. We also reached out to the author...
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Gingrich, Here’s Five More Things You Can Fit In A Chevy Volt
GOP Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich may have jibed earlier this week that you can’t fit a gun rack in a 2012 Chevrolet Volt, but after he was proven wrong by a resourceful Volt owner, it got us thinking. What else can you fit in a Chevy Volt? Here’s five things you should easily be...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Nissan Leaf Software Update: Here’s What’s Different
A little over a week ago, we told you that Nissan had announced a complementary voluntary service campaign for all 2011/12 Nissan Leafs. With Nissan strongly encouraging owners to have their Leafs updated to the latest operating system, we decided to get the software in our own 2011 Leaf upgraded...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Nissan Leaf Enters Autocross, Gives Electrifying Performance
In the fourteen months since Nissan launched the all-electric Leaf, we’ve seen owners do just about everything with their green ride, from dressing them up for halloween to drag racing, giving them a tow hitch and even racing at Laguna Seca. But now we can add the sport of Autocross to the...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
2012 Fisker Karma Plug-In Is Real, But Will Company Survive?
After four years, an economic crisis, an industry meltdown, and plug-in cars becoming politically problematic, the 2012 Fisker Karma is on the streets at last. And it's a real car. We've driven it, shot video behind the wheel, and now we've formally reviewed it. We're still sorting out what we...
John Voelcker -
Washington State's $100 Electric Car Tax: Cheaper Than Gas Car Tax
Until recently, most electric car drivers haven’t been expected to pay an electric equivalent of gasoline taxes to help keep the roads and bridges of their state in good order. But earlier this month, the Washington state Senate passed a bill to the House which, if passed into law by the...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
When it comes to reminiscing about old TV shows, we find they fall into one of two categories -- shows we really miss, or shows so bad they make us cringe to think about. Electra Woman and Dyna Girl -- a 16 week live action kids show from 1976 -- most certainly falls into the latter category, but does at least have one redeeming feature according to our editor Marty Padgett. The heroines drove an electric car. Admittedly, it looked more like a three-wheeled speedboat than a regular car. It also had no doors, windows or creature comforts and looked about as stable as a unicycle. It could also...
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Video Shares Better Place Electric Car Battery Swap Experience
Less than a month ago, electric car infrastructure firm and battery swap specialist Better Place started deliveries of all-electric Renault Fluence Z.E. cars to customers in Israel. In the past, Better Place has explained the basics of how its rapid battery swap stations work, but what’s it...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Irate Investor Sues Fisker: A Little Lesson In Venture Capital
This is the week when driving impressions of the 2012 Fisker Karma have started to appear, as Fisker invites in waves of automotive journalists for a half-day of driving in and around Los Angeles. (We'll have our report early next week, but we had a brief drive a few weeks ago, and another with...
John Voelcker -
GE Employees Get Chevy Volt Electric Cars, All-Gas Use OKed Sometimes
Sixteen months ago, General Electric announced it would place the "largest order in history" for electric cars, to be used by its employees who are issued company cars. Now, those cars are starting to arrive and be placed with employees. And where changes are made, personnel policies are sure to...
John Voelcker -
New Chevy Volt Ad Hits Back At Critics With 'Just The Facts'
To say the Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car has become a political punching bag would be to understate the obvious. Now, GM is slowly, carefully trying to get the facts about the Volt out to the public at large, hoping to win hearts and minds in a larger battle involving electric cars...
John Voelcker -
Obama 2012 Budget Proposes Higher Tax Credit For Plug-In Cars
Two days ago, President Barack Obama released his proposed U.S. government budget for the fiscal year starting in October. And in it, he followed through on a promise from his State of the Union address last month, by proposing to cut up to $4 billion in subsidies to the oil and gas industry. The...
John Voelcker -
Back in November, we reported that Ford was planning on starting deliveries of its 2012 Ford Focus Electric to customers in New York and California before the end of 2011, with sales in other areas due to follow some time this year. In reality, while Ford technically did get all-electric Focuses to customers during 2011, it only managed to deliver 8. During January, deliveries weren’t much higher, and now the Detroit automaker is being rather tight-lipped about its future rollout plans after Mike Tinskey -- associate director of Ford’s Global Electric Vehicle Infrastructure --...
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Video: Tesla Model X Prototype In Motion
First deliveries for Tesla’s all-electric Model X crossover are still a couple of years away, but the Silicon Valley-based automaker was already hard at work selling it to potential buyers at last week’s party-style premiere, held at the automaker’s design studios in Hawthorne...
Bengt Halvorson -
Are Electric Cars Really Bad For The Planet? Simple Math Says No
We all know that electric cars charged from renewable sources of energy are much cleaner than gasoline-powered cars, but what about electric cars charged from electricity produced by a dirty coal-fired power plant? For some time, those against the uptake of electric cars have claimed driving an...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Nissan Sets 1,500 - 2,000 DC Quick Charging Target For U.S. By 2014
When the Nissan Leaf launched in 2010, it came with an optional Chademo direct current (DC) quick charging port that could enable its 24 kilowatt-hour battery pack to recharge to 80 percent in under 30 minutes at compatible quick charge stations. So far, there are only a handful of DC quick...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Nissan Announces Voluntary Service Campaign For 2011/12 Leaf
Nissan North America has announced its second voluntary service campaign for the all-electric Leaf since it went on sale in December 2010. Offered for free to all existing owners of the 11,000 Nissan Leafs that have been sold in the U.S. and Canada so far, the software update is designed to improve...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
2011 Think City Lives On, Still On Sale In Chicago Alongside BYD e6
In June last year, Norwegian electric automaker Think filed for bankruptcy for the third time in its 20-year life. Since then, Think’s misfortunes have caused battery maker Ener1 to also declare bankruptcy while its own future is now in the automotive equivalent of limbo. In one small part of...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield