Tesla’s share of the home-solar market continues to slide

Tesla Solar RoofIf you’ve seen the light with electric cars, chances are you’re at least curious about home solar. Solar can help contribute to vehicle charging, and it can help reduce the load from the electrical grid during peak charging times. And as part of energy management systems, electric cars themselves (their traction batteries) could...

2020 Ford Explorer Hybrid first drive review: Muscle over mpg

2020 Ford Explorer Hybrid  -  First Drive  -  Portland OR, June 2019Hybrid systems aren’t all tuned for the highest possible fuel efficiency. You can use the boost of an electric motor system to actually increase the capability of a vehicle without using more fuel—which in turn saves fuel as you don’t have to opt for a bigger vehicle or bigger engine. Such is the case with the hybrid system Ford...

How can rural drivers go electric? Twitter poll results

Tesla Model S electric-car road trip, Route 66 Museum, Elk City, Oklahoma  [photo: David Noland]Are we at the point in time when electric cars will work for everyone? When we brought you an account, earlier this month, of how an electric car wouldn’t work in the rural Midwest—in the winter, for a medical emergency—our comment system went into thermal runaway. In short, there were a whole lot of criticisms, and some crying...

Nissan Leaf batteries are lasting a very long time

2011 Nissan Leaf prototypeSince even before the first market deliveries of its Leaf electric car in late 2010, Nissan has made frequent mention about the need to create second-use demand for the Leaf's battery packs. It turns out, they may need to see many of those ideas put into place. According to comments made last month by a Nissan-Renault executive, citing charging...