2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV electric car: owners’ impressions after a year

John and Mimi Porter of San Diego, California, with their new 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV, in Feb 2017Californians got the chance to buy Chevrolet Bolt EV electric cars before everyone else, and the compact hatchback has sold well in the state, aided by its 238-mile rated range Last February, readers John and Mimi Porter of San Diego shared their first impressions of the new silver Bolt EV they had purchased the previous month. Now we have a...

Costa Rica to become Latin American electric-car pioneer?

Arenal volcano, Costa Rica, by Flickr user Adam Baker (Used under CC License)Costa Rica isn't what you'd call a bastion of automotive sales. The Central American country ,wedged between Nicaragua and Panama, is home to 4.8 million people who buy just 154,000 vehicles annually—less than 1 percent of the sales in the United States. But that won't deter the Costa Rican government from greening its fleet. It now aims to...

GM promises it can make money on all-electric cars by 2021

2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV pre-production vehicles at Orion Township Assembly Plant, March 2016Radically new powertrains are widely assumed to lose money for the companies that launch them. Toyota's hybrid-electric system, launched in Japan in 1997, likely didn't break even until sometime after the 2004 launch of the second-generation Prius. Long-range battery-electric vehicles are the same, according to analysts and insiders: the question...

Ford 300-mile all-electric SUV may be named Mach 1; due 2020

Teaser for Ford Mach 1 electric SUV due in 2020The big new debuts at the 2018 Detroit auto show are largely pickup trucks, one of them being the new mid-size 2019 Ford Ranger. Ford also introduced a new Bullitt Mustang, honoring the 51st anniversary of the legendary 1968 movie, and a high-performance ST version of the Edge crossover. (Is it the Edgest Edge?) But as for new hybrids or plug-in...

Tesla wins another, licensed to sell electric cars in Rhode Island

Rhode Island license plate. Image courtesy of Wikipedia.Tesla can now add another notch to its sales board. Rhode Island will allow the direct sale of Teslas and has issued a state dealer license to the company to open a dealer in Warwick. Additionally, the city itself issued its own license to the electric-vehicle manufacturer, which plans to take over the former site of a Hyundai dealer in the city...

2019 Audi e-tron electric SUV deliveries start in Europe this fall

Audi e-tron Quattro concept, 2015 Frankfurt Auto ShowThe first member of Audi's forthcoming wave of electric cars is expected to start landing in European driveways this fall, possibly neck and neck with the Jaguar I-Pace. The all-electric Audi e-tron SUV will have dimensions similar to the Audi Q5 SUV and should offer enough charge from its 95-kilowatt-hour battery pack to drive roughly 300 miles...

Tesla Model 3: what parts breakdown says about high-volume electric car

2017 Tesla Model 3, 2017 Los Angeles Auto ShowTesla CEO Elon Musk has aspirations of vertically integrating his companies as much as possible, trying to avoid traditional suppliers wherever he can. While Tesla has been successful in developing things like their electric motors in-house, the company still relies on others for many of the components that go into its cars. The Model 3 was...

Genovation all-electric Chevy Corvette sports car debuts at CES

Genovation GXEThe idea of an all-electric Corvette is either either a wonderful marriage of American history and electric performance or complete sacrilege. Love it or hate it, it's now a reality. A company called Genovation rolled out the creation, the Genovation Extreme Electric (GXE), at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Expo in Las Vegas this week. DON'T MISS...

Best deals on hybrid, electric, fuel-efficient cars for January 2018

2017 Chevrolet Bolt EVIs one of your New Year's resolutions to go green? We're here to help with this month's deals on electric, plug-in hybrid, hybrid, and other efficient vehicles. Against last month, the cars offering the best incentives haven't changed—but the incentives themselves have. Click ahead to find out where you can save the most as you kick off...

300,000th Nissan Leaf electric car delivered as new version kicks off

First 2018 Nissan Leaf produced at assembly plant in Smyrna, Tennessee, Dec 2017Nissan, the first automaker in the world to launch a mass-priced electric car, has a reason to celebrate this week. The automaker said on Monday it delivered the 300,000th example of its electric hatchback, the Nissan Leaf—though it did not detail whether it was one of the new second-generation cars or a remaining first-generation model. The...