It remains unclear whether Tesla will survive as an independent company, given that it's had exactly two profitable quarters in its 12-plus years of existence. And yet, last week, Tesla briefly passed General Motors to become the most valuable U.S. automaker by market capitalization. It had passed Ford last week, and long ago surpassed the value... Q: Why is Tesla worth more than GM? A: The sins of Detroit
It remains unclear whether Tesla will survive as an independent company, given that it's had exactly two profitable quarters in its 12-plus years of existence. And yet, last week, Tesla briefly passed General Motors to become the most valuable U.S. automaker by market capitalization. It had passed Ford last week, and long ago surpassed the value...
Today, we've got our first stories from the New York auto-show preview days, a Leaf owner's take on the Chevy Bolt EV, info on the plug-in hybrid and electric Honda Clarity models, and a poll on which company follows Tesla in electric cars. All this and more on Green Car Reports. The driver of a Nissan Leaf, the world's highest-selling electric...
At the New York auto show this morning, Honda revealed the second and third powertrains for its Clarity mid-size sedan, now offered only in California with a hydrogen fuel-cell powertrain. The 2017 Honda Clarity Electric and 2018 Honda Clarity Plug-In Hybrid are powered by a battery pack and a plug-in hybrid powertrain, respectively. The plug-in...
Regardless of the number of cars they've sold—fewer than the Renault-Nissan alliance—Tesla is undoubtedly the best-known electric-car maker in the world. It delivered 76,000 cars last year, against roughly 10 million each for Volkswagen Group, Toyota, and General Motors. But its sleek, fast, electric Model S and the associated...
If you're serious about driving a green car, but not happy with your local choices, you need to move to California. The Golden State has roughly two dozen battery-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles on sale, not to mention three hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles. Electric-car advocate Kelly Olsen previous described the choice he faced: wait for the...
Today, we've got a national lease on the Chevy Bolt EV electric car, details on two new small cars for 2018, technical details on that hybrid police pursuit car, and some startling news about Tesla. All this and more on Green Car Reports. We updated our story on Dyson giving up patent rights from Sakti3, the solid-state battery maker it bought...
We're long past the days when car enthusiast publications sneered at electric cars as underpowered golf carts. Much of the credit for that goes to Tesla, the first all-electric carmaker, whose Model S won the hearts of 'buff-book' writers everywhere for its speed and shape. Now electric cars, including Teslas, have become enough of a part of the...
The hybrid mid-size sedans sold today by Chevrolet, Ford, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, and Toyota are all tuned to provide maximum fuel economy. So what did it take to fashion a standard Ford Fusion Hybrid sedan into the 2018 Ford Police Responder Hybrid Sedan that Ford introduced yesterday? The company's press release was coy with actual technical...
As the 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV rolls out across the U.S. over a nine-month period, electric-car advocates have focused intently on its sales numbers. It's fair to say that in its first four months on sale, they haven't yet broken any records. But now, for the first time, there's a national lease program for the Bolt EV that may prove attractive to...
Today, we've driven a new luxury hybrid SUV, we've got video of a Tesla Model 3 testing on public roads, and Ford introduces a police pursuit-rated hybrid sedan. All this and more on Green Car Reports. Over the weekend, we ran down our complete list of last week's news stories in our "Week in Reverse" feature. There's new video of the Tesla Model...
Last week, the California state legislature approved a $52 billion transportation-funding package. Unlike the practice in previous years, this one is to be used only for improvements to the transportation infrastructure, to begin cutting into an estimated $ 130 billion backlog of repairs and expansions. As a result of the new bill, owners of...
Upstate New York-based startup Bollinger Motors is moving forward with the development of its very first vehicle. The yet-unnamed model will take the form of an all-electric sport utility truck for off-road use, and it will ride on an aluminum chassis that tips the scale at just 295 pounds. The chassis is specific to Bollinger’s electric...
Ford made a big splash last year when it announced it would launch 13 new electrified vehicles within five years. That was widely misreported as 13 new "electric" vehicles, which is to say either battery-electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles—which isn't the case. It includes conventional hybrids as well. Today, Ford announced the second of the...
It's a single teaser shot, obviously of a Chevy front end, with unmistakable design nods to the Camaro muscle car. But the image of the Chevrolet FNR-X concept, to be unveiled at the Shanghai auto show less than two weeks hence, may be the first clue to some new GM plug-in hybrid offerings in the future. Along with a plug-in hybrid version of the...
The emergence of spy photos, and more recently video, has always been one of the standard indicators of a car nearing production. With production still said to start this July, pre-production versions of the Tesla Model 3 electric car should have been popping up in spy photos by now. Two weeks ago, Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted brief footage of what...
What's it like to ride in a fully autonomous Nissan Leaf electric car for several miles through varied city traffic? What more did we learn about the fast-charging behavior of the 238-mile 2017 Chevy Bolt EV? This is our look back at the Week In Reverse—right here at Green Car Reports—for the week ending on Friday, April 7, 2017...
Today, we have good news on electric-car buyers, a grim EPA budget, an apparently failed new battery, and production of the first plug-in hybrid minivan to hit the market. All this and more on Green Car Reports. Four out of 10 drivers globally would consider buying an electric car today, but the numbers vary a lot by country. A proposed EPA budget...
The 2017 Kia Optima Hybrid is one of a pair of hybrid mid-size sedans from the Korean maker Hyundai-Kia. It shares its underpinnings, though not a single body panel or styling flourish, with the higher-volume Hyundai Sonata Hybrid. We found it to be a comfortable, stylish sedan that gave us good fuel economy—almost as good as the car's EPA...
It's a well-reviewed new minivan design from the company that invented the modern minivan three decades ago. Unlike any other minivan, however, its large battery pack gives it 33 miles of EPA-rated electric range, and it can drive largely on battery alone despite its size, its seven seats, and its gaping cargo capacity. It's the 2017 Chrysler...
Today, we have a popular updated crossover utility wagon, a defeat for Tesla, a first drive of the new Cruze Diesel, and a radical range extender for electric cars. All this and more on Green Car Reports. Mazda's been working quietly on a rotary-engine range extender for electric cars; now it has U.S. patents to show for it. Yesterday we updated...