Very few automakers these days build concept cars just for fun, and only occasionally are they pure styling concepts intended to showcase future design language. So when the BMW i Vision Dynamics Concept emerged onto the auto-show circuit last fall, it seemed obvious it previewed a future production model. Especially since, as many observers... All-electric BMW i4 to be production version of i Vision Dynamics concept
Very few automakers these days build concept cars just for fun, and only occasionally are they pure styling concepts intended to showcase future design language. So when the BMW i Vision Dynamics Concept emerged onto the auto-show circuit last fall, it seemed obvious it previewed a future production model. Especially since, as many observers...
Electric trucks are getting more attention now than they did eight years ago, as the world prepared for the launch of the first modern electric cars to be sold in volume. The Tesla Semi tends to draw enormous amounts of attention, while less glamorous fleet buyers are ever more favorable toward plug-in electric trucks for known urban routes within...
As the auto industry and environmental groups count down the days until the NHTSA releases proposals to revise fuel-economy standards, surveys show one industry wants the standards to stay just as they are. That is the auto-parts supply industry, according to a study released Thursday morning by Calstart, the national clean-transport industry...
Today, we've got a longer-range Ford Fusion plug-in hybrid, a breakthrough Nissan electric SUV, some whizzy new battery tech, and our final update on last month's U.S. plug-in electric car sales. All this and more on Green Car Reports. The 2019 Ford Fusion Energi, the company's sole plug-in hybrid model this year, gets a battery-capacity boost and...
The main impediment to mass electric-car adoption is price, and the driving force behind that is the cost of lithium-ion battery cells. The performance of those cells improves at about 7 percent a year, give or take: Either the same cell costs 7 percent less after a year, or a carmaker gets 7 percent more energy capacity for the same price. Those...
Could a specific vehicle give electric cars the breakthrough they need to reach the mass market? So far, neither the world's highest-selling battery-electric model—the Nissan Leaf—nor the Tesla Model S, starting at $75,000, has sold in mainstream U.S. volumes. You might ballpark that figure at, say, 100,000 units a year, since the most...
As U.S. car buyers increasingly opt for crossover utility vehicles of all sizes over passenger sedans and hatchbacks, that shift has come to pose a problem for electric cars. The bulk of battery-electric models on offer today are compact five-door hatchbacks without available all-wheel drive. Think BMW i3, Ford Focus Electric, Hyundai Ioniq, Kia...
Ford was the first U.S. carmaker to sell a hybrid-electric vehicle, as well as the second to offer a plug-in hybrid. But since 2013, the carmaker hasn't released a single new electrified vehicle—including battery-electric cars as well as the two types of hybrids. Now, Ford has released details of its slightly updated 2019 Ford Fusion...
Today, we've got a long and detailed summary of what we learned about Porsche's Mission E and future electric cars, some new lobbying partners to extend the plug-in purchase tax credit, and our latest Twitter poll. All this and more on Green Car Reports. This week's new Twitter poll asks when you expect to buy your first all-electric car (or, if...
With Tesla likely to hit 200,000 electric cars sold in the U.S. later this year, it will begin a phasedown process during which the income-tax credits available to its buyers start to dwindle on a set schedule. General Motors is likely to hit the same cap a couple of quarters after Tesla. Now those two companies are lobbying for an expansion of...
Auto journalists often relish interviews and roundtable sessions with German executives and engineers. They usually haven't been beaten into submission and forced to stick to scripted talking points, as have too many of their U.S. counterparts. Most German auto executives also speak excellent English, so fewer translators are involved, removing a...
Plug-in vehicles, both battery-electric and plug-in hybrid cars, now represent slightly more than 1 percent of U.S. new-vehicle sales. That number is expected to rise steadily in future years, but cars with plugs will remain a rarity in many areas of the country for some time to come. Readers and followers of this site are presumed to have a...
Today, we've got our long-awaited drive report on the 2018 Tesla Model 3 Long Range, a battery comparison for the Bolt EV and new Nissan Leaf, some California defiance, and our annual electric-motorcycle buyers guide. All this and more on Green Car Reports. Over the weekend, as we do every seven days, we ran down last week's most important...
“The Tesla Model S was a moment. The Model 3 is a product.” That pair of sentences perfectly summarized the several hours we spent last month with the 2018 Tesla Model 3 kindly loaned to us by reader Jeff Southern of Atlanta. We’d covered more than 100 miles on a variety of highways, back roads, and suburban stop-and-go...
Last Tuesday, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt said the agency does not intend to let California set the agenda for national emission limits on vehicles. He suggested to Bloomberg the EPA plans to cut emission rules aggressively to respond to carmakers' pleas for easing of the corporate average fuel economy rules for 2022 through 2025 that they had...
It's one of the major questions for any electric-car buyer: How long will the battery pack last? And what would it cost to replace it if I do need a new one sometime down the road? Now a new video looks at that question, comparing the different thermal-management technologies in the batteries of the new 2018 Nissan Leaf and the Chevrolet Bolt EV...
While mid-size sedans are losing the U.S. sales battle to crossover utility vehicles, they still sell hundreds of thousands of units each year. An entirely redesigned Honda Accord launched for 2018 just a few months after a redesigned version of its U.S. arch-rival the Toyota Camry, but the Accord won numerous awards for its design, features, and...
Which CEO actually admitted that underestimating electric cars was probably unwise? What did Ford reveal about its plans, finally, for new hybrid and plug-in electric cars? This is our look back at the Week In Reverse—right here at Green Car Reports—for the week ending on Friday, March 16, 2018. Friday, we consulted with colleagues...
Today, it's largely about a big Ford event yesterday that discussed future products, including hybrids and electric cars. We've also got poll results ranking electric cars and a new luxury electric Audi for the early 2020s. All this and more on Green Car Reports. We covered Ford's planned new hybrids and electric cars, revealed at an unusual "Ford...
The "Ford Uncovered Future Product Forum" held Thursday for journalists was a break in recent tradition for Detroit's second-largest automaker. The abrupt firing of CEO Mark Fields last May was an indication that Ford's board of directors wasn't happy with progress in preparing the company for a turbulent and uncertain automotive future. But the...