Range-Extended Electric Vehicle

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...

Over the past decade, Cadillac has been trying to build--or rebuild--its reputation as a world-class luxury brand. Style, luxury, and performance all play into the mix of its new products, but it may take another decade for the world to think of Cadillac in the same category as German luxury...

Mitsubishi is only the second global volume carmaker to sell a plug-in electric car in the U.S., but battery electric minicars like its 2012 'i' won't be a high-volume segment any time soon--if ever. The company sells far more Outlander crossover utilities than 'i' electric cars, so the launch of...

Sometimes online news sites can build complete stories--almost entirely hypothetical--around a single factoid. This is one of those stories. The factoid is that General Motors registered its intent to use the name Electra on a product in the category of "Motor land vehicles, namely, automobiles...

Rotary engines aren't known for their green credentials, but if Mazda's latest plans come to fruition, they may be granted another lease of life. Most frequently seen in Mazda's sports cars over the years, Wankel rotary engines are associated variously with ultra-smooth power, poor fuel economy...

It may be hard to imagine, but the Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car is about to enter its third model year. The new 2013 Chevrolet Volt will offer a slightly higher all-electric range, up from 35 to 38 miles. Its base price of $39,995 will not change. Next year's Volt will also receive a...

It's quite the morning for electric-car news today, but we didn't want to let one from yesterday slip by either. After a lumpy start to sales of the Chevrolet Volt, it appears that California dealers now can't keep the range-extended electric car in stock. According to an analysis of registration...

Hope springs eternal, as Alexander Pope notably said, and so it is in the world of plug-in hybrid vehicles. A new British partnership has unveiled two drivable prototypes of a lightweight plug-in electric urban delivery van with a small diesel range extender. The two companies, Intelligent Energy...

Oh dear. This could get ugly. The owner of a new 2012 Fisker Karma that burned to the ground in Sugar Land, Texas, is trading accusations with Fisker. The fire destroyed two other cars and damaged the garage it was stored in and other parts of the house. The owner reported a smell of burning rubber...

You may remember that last August, we broke the story that what is now called the 2014 Cadillac ELR electric coupe got the green light for production by GM's overlords. An abashed GM confirmed the story a few days later and released the name of the new model, known until then as the Converj concept...

If you want a 2013 Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car, searching the web may not get you much. Chevy hasn't yet put details of next year's Volt model on its website, for instance. But it did release ordering details to its dealers, and the intrepid sleuths at GM Inside News uncovered them...

Fisker wants critics to know that it takes quality seriously, and that the automaker is making an effort to offer superior customer service.

Buoyed by record monthly sales of its Chevy Volt hybrid electric plug-in car in March, General Motors will resume production of the Volt at the Detroit Hamtramck plant one week early, the United Auto Workers told Talking Points Memo on Tuesday night. “They’re adding a week of production...

Despite the travails of Fisker Automotive, it's safe to say this: Henrik Fisker knows how to design striking cars. The Fisker Atlantic unveiled last night is a stunning mid-size sport sedan. Or, perhaps, sport sedan concept, since it wasn't shown in motion. The Atlantic range-extended electric...

You may have heard and read more than you want to on the media distortions and lousy reporting about the Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car. Former GM product czar and climate-change skeptic Bob Lutz has been a lonely voice in his series of Forbes pieces slamming the distortions (the most...

So you got yer gasoline cars, and yer electric cars. And yer extended-range electrics, and yer plug-in hybrids. Sure, old news, been there, done that. How about an electric car with a gasoline engine you can swap in and out as you need it? Think of it as a range-extended electric car (like the...

General Motors announced yesterday that it would replace the 120-Volt charging unit provided with every Chevrolet Volt, to provide what GM spokesman Randy Fox called a "more consistent charging experience." Back in July, we reported that some of the charging units provided in Volts were...

The last U.S. volume carmaker started from scratch by entrepreneurs whose brand is still with us was Chrysler, and that was in 1924. But Tesla Motors and Fisker Automotive are both looking to change that. Tesla started a few years ago with its electric Roadster sports car, and is about to introduce...

Orders have been coming in ahead of projections for the European Opel Ampera, but sales prospects may be looking up in the U.S. too for GM's range-extended electric car.

The 2012 New York Auto Show is almost upon us, and last night an unexpected invitation landed in journalist inboxes around the world. The sender was shown as "Fisker Nina Reveal," and the graphic was the simple line drawing above. The message inside was simply that Fisker Automotive would provide...