Some who are new to electric cars might be a little tickled at first to hear their vehicle making space-age lightsaber sounds—a safety feature in the interest of making sure the blind and pedestrians don’t miss your vehicle approaching. The delight surrounding what’s initially perceived as something fun can quickly turn to dismay... Lightsaber or V-8 rumble? Electric cars could soon give you more sound choices
Some who are new to electric cars might be a little tickled at first to hear their vehicle making space-age lightsaber sounds—a safety feature in the interest of making sure the blind and pedestrians don’t miss your vehicle approaching. The delight surrounding what’s initially perceived as something fun can quickly turn to dismay...
With the new results announced Thursday for one new IIHS crash test for the Chevrolet Bolt EV, all the evidence and test results are finally in for this compact electric car. And it’s so, so close. The Bolt is so close to an IIHS Top Safety Pick or Top Safety Pick+, that is. It actually has earned the TSP+ award in the past, although that...
The Tesla Model 3 has been run through the full battery of crash tests from the IIHS, and there are some reassuring results to report. It’s earned a spot on the insurance-industry-funded group’s Top Safety Pick+ honor roll, and it’s now one of just a few sedans to achieve both that and a flush of five stars in federal tests. The...
The EPA today is expected to reveal its hotly contested plan for emissions and fuel economy. Honda revealed its CR-V Hybrid for the U.S. And Mercedes-Benz has made a deliberate decision not to compete in the range race. This and more, here at Green Car Reports. The 2020 Honda CR-V Hybrid finally has a U.S. arrival date: early next year. This model...
Honda is at last revealing the first electrified SUV for its U.S. lineup, and it’s a hybrid version of the brand’s best-selling model in the U.S., the CR-V. The automaker has announced that this higher-mileage 2020 Honda CR-V Hybrid will be U.S.-produced and widely available. It leads Honda’s plan to electrify the brand’s...
With the launch of the Mercedes-Benz EQC earlier this year for Europe, some seized on the fully electric luxury crossover’s driving range as a sign the brand just wan't keeping up. The EQC hasn’t yet been rated for range by the U.S. EPA (or arrived here yet) but with 80 kwh of usable rated capacity it’s expected to slot in for...
The EPA is expected to formally announce Wednesday how it plans to revoke the waiver that permits California to set its own greenhouse-gas standards under the federal Clean Air Act, according to media reports. The timeline for the move, which is aimed to lay the groundwork for a single set of national fuel economy standards, comes via Bloomberg...
The Chevy Malibu Hybrid and its Voltec-based powertrain are gone. Volkswagen talks us through how it might price its mass-market electric vehicles in the U.S., and why the Buzz is two years behind the leading edge. And states are fostering EV adoption in a wide range of ways. This and more, here at Green Car Reports. GM is discontinuing the last...
Scott Keogh has been at his post as CEO of Volkswagen Group of America for less than a year, and yet when asked about the timing of VW’s electric Microbus revival and why it arrives later, in 2022, his answer sounds entirely second-nature. “From dealers, consumers, my mom, dad, it’s the car; we get it,” he explains with...
With the ID 3, Volkswagen is officially launching the first of a new wave of EVs that it’s conceived as “electric vehicles for millions, not millionaires.” The U.S. won’t be getting the vehicle that kicks it all off—the Golf-sized ID 3. Instead we’ll be getting a larger model (rumored to be called ID 4 or ID 4X)...
A major supplier indicates that 800-volt tech is coming to another major automaker’s platform in 2022. The 2020 Prius gets a few more features. And CATL is looking at a plant in the U.S. This and more, here at Green Car Reports. The Chinese battery giant CATL last week announced some advances in its cell technology. It’s targeting a...
China’s Contemporary Amerex Technology Co., better known as CATL, has in the past several years become a global battery giant. Last week one of its senior executives revealed to Reuters that the company is considering a manufacturing expansion into North America, even though the market for EVs will lag that of China and Europe. The company...
Last week, in coordination with the Frankfurt auto show, Delphi Technologies announced it will be the first major supplier for the auto industry to produce an 800-volt inverter—a component that Delphi underscores is one of the enablers to allow 800-volt charging and effectively halve charging times compared to today’s 400-volt systems...
For many decades, so-called crate engines—most often V-8s—have been the basis for adding more excitement to old cars and trucks. But what about an electric motor system that’s disguised as a V-8? Electric GT, of Chatsworth, California, is in the process of doing a “TLC build” electric conversion of a 1970 Toyota FJ40...
Which automaker looked back to the late-’70s hatchback era with an electric concept car? And why is your favorite green-car site interested in a claimed record lap time at California’s Laguna Seca track? This is our look back at the Week In Reverse—right here at Green Car Reports—for the week ending September 13, 2019...
Audi shows how very futuristic concepts can still be off-road-focused. Tesla wears “Plaid” at the track. And VW shows wall chargers to go with its electric cars. This and more, here at Green Car Reports. Tesla announced Wednesday that a Model S set a new track record at California’s WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. Turns out the...
Earlier this week at the Frankfurt auto show, Audi revealed a strikingly different adventure-vehicle concept car that’s designed to show, according to the brand, “a comprehensive concept for sustainable mobility off the beaten track.” The AI:Trail completes a quartet of concepts with similarly colon-punctuated names—the...
Mercedes-Benz envisions an all-electric S-Class. Hyundai hatches an electric future with a hip design. BMW has a fuel-cell plan. And Honda prices its forbidden-fruit electric hatchback. All this and more here at Green Car Reports. The Mercedes-Benz Vision EQS concept, doesn’t aim to entirely replace the S-Class, but it does completely...
BMW announced Tuesday that it is working on a next generation of fuel-cell drive systems, to first be presented in a limited-production version of the BMW X5 in 2022, and then in a more widely available model starting in 2025. In a release accompanying the announcement, BMW said that the i Hydrogen Next fuel-cell development vehicle revealed at...