Range-Extended Electric Vehicle

It's been a tough week for Fisker. The startup electric-car company finally got its car approved for sale, many months late, only to have the EPA rate its gas mileage at just 20 mpg in range-sustaining mode. Now, a new wrinkle to those ratings has come out: Based on the volume measurements it uses...

Coverage of the low-interest loans granted by the Energy Department to Fisker Automotive has often been remarkably shoddy, so we provide some much-needed context and background.

When the EPA's official MPG figures were released for the 2012 Fisker Karma a few days ago, we can't have been the only ones a little disappointed with the 20 MPG figure on gasoline and 52 MPG equivalent in EV mode. There were even suggestions the low 20 MPG rating on gasoline could hurt the DoE...

Fisker Automotive may have sensed that the 20-mpg EPA rating on their 2012 Karma electric sport sedan was not good news. The company simply omitted the statistic from their press release announcing that the EPA had legally certified the Karma--meaning it can now be sold to retail buyers. Fisker...

It's been a long and painful year for Fisker Automotive, with deliveries of its 2012 Karma extended-range electric sport sedan repeatedly delayed from the original target of May. Now, with certification earlier this week from the Environmental Protection Agency that the car complies with emissions...

Proton is a totally unknown carmaker in the U.S., but the Malaysian company happens to own British sports car maker and engineering firm Lotus. A couple of years ago, Lotus launched--and recently revised--a range-extending three-cylinder, 1.2-liter Range Extender engine-and-generator set for...

Maybe you can beat 'em and join 'em at the same time? That may be what General Motors is hoping with its announcement this morning that it would develop electric cars with its longtime Chinese partner SAIC. In Shanghai this morning, GM CEO Dan Akerson and SAIC Motor Corp. chairman Hu Maoyuan signed...

The Chevrolet Volt is now here, on sale in most states, and ready to plug in--and to answer all your questions about what it is, how it drives, how to buy it and how to wade through all its new technology, there's only one solution. Here, you'll find High Gear Media's comprehensive coverage of the...

The BMW i3's bigger brother the i8 may get all the attention from sports car fans, but as the smaller and more practical of the "i" range the i3 could be considered the more relevant of the two. We were at the 2011 Frankfurt Auto Show ready to capture both i-cars in all their glory. You can find...

Startup carmaker Fisker Automotive has probably learned a lot of lessons about the timing of auto launches. Although the car went into production in March, it still hasn't been approved for sale by various U.S. regulatory bodies--including the Environmental Protection Agency--as of this month...

Fisker Automotive may still be waiting for final certification from the EPA and other regulatory bodies for its 2012 Karma plug-in hybrid sports sedan, but that's not stopping it from moving forward with its next car line. The startup automaker announced today that it would source the...

Las Vegas is better known for its excess than its frugality, but city bosses are turning that image around by trialling a fleet of electric cars, the first of which is GM's range-extended electric vehicle, the 2011 Chevrolet Volt. The trial will make the city the only government agency in the state...

Electric car manufacturer Fisker Automotive is in the process of raising a $200 million funding round that would value the company at $2.2 billion, according to a report by Fortune. It would be the company's third funding round in six months. Fisker Automotive raised $190 million just five months...

When the Cadillac ELR extended-range plug-in car goes on sale, probably in 2013 as a 2014 model, it's a given that it will cost more than the 2012 Chevy Volt. But how much more? In the spate of reports late yesterday covering GM's announcement yesterday that its 2009 Cadillac Converj concept would...

Consumer Reports conducted a wide array of use tests on its 2011 Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric car to determine its costs of operation. The answer? It depended on how the car was used.

So far, the Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric car has been sold only in North America. That's about to change, as the Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant restarts after a month of retooling that raised Volt production capacity to 5,000 cars per month. While the Volt will go to China (despite...

Electric vehicles of various sorts are just now showing up in dealer showrooms. But that leaves a quarter of a billion gasoline vehicles running around U.S. roads. What to do to clean them up? Various entities have proposed to retrofit existing vehicles with various types of electric powertrains...

Fisker Automotive still hasn't seen fit to let more than a small handful of journalists drive its extended-range electric 2012 Fisker Karma luxury sports sedan, and not yet on public roads. But founder Henrik Fisker continues to wax eloquent about the company's future plans. At the launch of the...

Diversity among electric cars is rapidly expanding, from the all-electric Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi 'i' to the upcoming Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid, which provides just 9 to 13 miles of electric range. Now, it turns out, the 2014 BMW i3--the all-electric urban four-door subcompact that BMW showed...

BMW revealed two new electric, hybrid, and range-extended models--the BMW i3 electric car and the BMW i8 plug-in hybrid