Montana solar-power law rigging caught on live video, regrettably

Photovoltaic solar power field at Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, TennesseeThe U.S. is coming up to its Independence Day holiday, in which we celebrate the Declaration of Independence from England and reflect on our history and traditions as a nation. This is an interesting time to do that, and there's a cynical argument to be made that backroom politics is as American as apple pie and bald eagles. Which brings us to the...

Why two-motor hybrid systems are better than those with just one

2017 Toyota Prius Prime PremiumSix years ago, we wrote that a number of single-motor hybrid systems were about to enter the market. They represented a new approach to a technology pioneered in 1997, when the first-generation Toyota Prius was launched in Japan. Through 2010, all the full-hybrid vehicles introduced by Ford and General Motors used systems designed around a pair of...

Fall debut for electric BMW 3-Series to fight Tesla Model 3: report

2019 BMW 3-Series, portion of spy shot from Motor Authority  [Image via S. Balfauf/SB-Medien]In August 2016, when the first U.S. ads for the BMW 330e plug-in hybrid sport sedan hit the airwaves, they carried an interesting promise. "You will wait, and wait, and wait some more," the voiceover intoned, "all before that electric-car company's new model ever even arrives." That would be the Tesla Model 3, of course, the 200-plus-mile sedan...

Electric BMW X3e to come in 2020, but BMW i5 defunct: what happened, and why?

2018 BMW X3Over the last two years, Audi and Mercedes-Benz have released severa; all-electric concept cars that are thinly disguised production models to arrive in 2018 and beyond. But electric-car pioneer BMW's plans are less clear. Its sole recent electric concept car was the iNext luxury sedan shown more than a year ago; it'll be a production model in...