As Tesla ramps up production of the Model 3 and continues to deliver cars to its long list of reservation holders, many buyers are wondering when they will be able to configure Model 3s with "D" all-wheel drive or with the smaller base battery pack. We can't yet address the smaller battery packs, but CEO Elon Musk left a clue for buyers waiting... When will Tesla Model 3 all-wheel-drive, lower-range models be available?
As Tesla ramps up production of the Model 3 and continues to deliver cars to its long list of reservation holders, many buyers are wondering when they will be able to configure Model 3s with "D" all-wheel drive or with the smaller base battery pack. We can't yet address the smaller battery packs, but CEO Elon Musk left a clue for buyers waiting...
The Tesla Model S occupies an interesting position among "luxury" sedans and hatchbacks. It's far from the best-equipped vehicle compared to mid-size and full-size competitors from Audi, BMW, Jaguar, and Mercedes-Benz, but that doesn't seem to matter to its 200,000 or so buyers to date. The good looks, fast and silent performance, and the...
General Motors has consistently declined to fund public charging stations that increase the utility and long-distance potential of the electric cars it sells. The company said firmly two years ago it had no intention of spending money on a charging network, a stance that distinguished GM from BMW, Nissan, and Volkswagen, not to mention Tesla. On...
Amidst nine months of "production hell" for the Tesla Model 3 electric car, the company's next vehicle has somewhat fallen off the radar. According to a report Wednesday by Reuters, Tesla has now put out requests to suppliers for initial bids on parts for the Tesla Model Y, its high-volume crossover utility intended to be more affordable than the...
For 15 years now, Buick has been a far more important brand in China than it is in North America: four out of five Buicks sold globally are purchased by Chinese buyers. The brand has a wider range and variety of vehicles in that country, along with numerous models U.S. buyers never lay eyes on. So Buick's announcement that it will take the wraps...
Honda has adopted an unusual strategy with its Clarity, creating a whole new model for its green car, separate from its mainstream midsized sedan, the Accord. While the Accord is available as a conventional hybrid, the Clarity sedan will encompass three models: a battery electric with 89-mile range, a 48-mile plug-in hybrid, and a fuel-cell...
In the beginning, there was Tesla, although it wasn't started by current CEO Elon Musk. While Musk has now become synonymous with the electric-car brand, Tesla was actually founded by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, who had previously founded and sold a eBook reader company. While both left the company in 2008, they have kept their hands in...
Nikola Motor Company, which is working to produce two Class 8 semi trucks to compete with Tesla's upcoming electric Semi, is showing some signs of success—and apparently rubbing Tesla's nose in it. The Salt Lake City-based company announced last week that it would refund all deposits it has taken on its battery-electric and hydrogen semi...
What do you do when the year you planned for your round-the-world trip in an electric car turns into two—and you still haven't reached your destination? If you're taking such an ambitious trip, it helps to have a name as whimsical as Wiebe Wakker. He's the Dutchman undertaking this adventure in a Volkswagen Jetta Sportwagen converted to run...
As Tesla has shown, not all fast charging is created equal. Now owners of the new 2018 Nissan Leaf are complaining that that the car's "fast" charging is not always as fast as advertised. Owners have found that the car's electronic management software dials back charging speeds with each successive fast charge on any given trip. Nissan says this...
While global demand for the Hyundai Ioniq Electric appears to be strong, supplies have remained limited. The battery-electric compact hatchback, rated at 124 miles of range by the EPA, forgoes the "weird styling" of contenders like the previous Nissan Leaf. In the U.S., however, the all-electric Ioniq has been limited in sales to certain areas of...
In January 2007, Jaguar dropped a bombshell, in the form of the C-XF concept sedan it unveiled at that year's Detroit auto show. The sleek, fastback shape, simple rectangular grille with recessed mesh, and swept-back cat's-eye headlights yanked Jaguar design out of its fusty retro-traditional straitjacket and catapulted it into the 21st century...
As a nation, the U.S. takes lots of road trips, because most of the country has no viable mass transit between city pairs. If electric cars are ever to enter the mass market in North America, they have to be usable on those road trips. Last year, our reader Jay Lucas of Alexandria, Virginia, wrote an account of his road trip in a new 2017...
After a Detroit auto show that was about little except pickup trucks and a new Jeep, followed by a tepid Chicago show, New York proved to be relatively rich in interesting new green cars. The standout was clearly the 2019 Hyundai Kona Electric, the 250-mile battery-electric small hatchback that will go on sale before the end of the year. While it...
The monthly report on sales of plug-in electric cars may well have come to a close this month. General Motors, makers of the Chevrolet Bolt EV and Volt, said it will only release sales figures quarterly starting after its Tuesday release of deliveries for the month of March. Interestingly, the company adopted an argument used by Tesla for almost a...
Tesla reported Tuesday that it built 34,494 electric cars in the first quarter of 2018, by far its largest quarterly production total ever. But all eyes were on one number: the production of Model 3 sedans, which was 9,766 vehicles out of that total. Of the rest, 11,730 were Model S hatchback sedans and 10,070 were Model X crossover utility...
With more than 300,000 Nissan Leaf electric cars on the road, some more than six years old, battery degradation is becoming more and more of an issue. The different rates of capacity loss are a topic of much discussion among Leaf owners, but it now seems likely that Nissan's choice of passive air cooling rather than active liquid cooling has...
Sales of plug-in electric vehicles in China were almost four times those in the U.S. last year, and the gap is expected to widen this year. The world's largest car market is engineering a massive shift over the next two decades away from cars with combustion engines toward battery-powered cars. It is a way for China to address hazardous air...
With a new, all-electric Mini E set to arrive in dealerships in a year or less, BMW wants to highlight the idea of a Mini Cooper powered by batteries. That's what led it to display an "old Mini" converted to electric power at a reception before last week's New York auto show. Sadly, the car wasn't on display at the show itself because—as...