Hyundai Ioniq Electric: how maker plans to market 124-mile electric car

WaiveCar Hyundai Ioniq ElectricThe 2017 Hyundai Ioniq Electric will soon go on sale as part of a trio of Ioniq variants that also includes hybrid and plug-in hybrid models. When it arrives in dealerships, Hyundai will face the same challenge other automakers have come to know well: marketing electric cars to an uneducated and sometimes skeptical public. Instead of relying...

250,000th plug-in electric car to be sold in California alone this month

Cumulative battery-electric and plug-in hybrid sales in California to hit 250,000 in Nov 2016 [PEVC]It's long been obvious that California is the epicenter of emission reduction and electric-car adoption in the United States. And its outsize influence on U.S. environmental policy has global ramifications as well. Of the 1.25 million plug-in vehicles estimated to be on global roads by the end of this year, fully one-fifth are in the Golden State...

Does Tesla have plant, permits to build 500,000 electric cars a year?

Tesla Model 3 design prototype  -  reveal event  -  March 2016The 2017 Chevy Bolt EV is due at dealers within a couple of months, and little is known about the next Nissan Leaf. That leaves the Tesla Model 3 as the biggest question mark among electric cars. We know what the car is, since Tesla unveiled prototypes this spring. It's whether the company can get the Model 3 into production on schedule. DON'T...

CA to restrict use of term Autopilot: Tesla-owning pilot weighs in

Tesla AutopilotA recent news item from California aimed directly at Tesla's Autopilot system has me musing on words, meanings, and life and death. Last week, that state's Department of Motor Vehicles published the draft of a proposed new regulation that “…prohibits the advertisement of lower levels of automated systems, where the human driver is...

Price cut and monthly sales spike for Toyota Mirai fuel-cell sedan

2017 Toyota MiraiSometimes journalists miss the forest for the trees, and we'll plead guilty on this one. When we wrote last week that the Toyota Mirai hydrogen fuel-cell sedan was little-changed for the 2017 model year, with only one new color added, we missed one important element. That was, as several readers informed us, that while the retail price remained...

Price cut and monthly sales spike for Toyota Mirai fuel-cell sedan

2017 Toyota MiraiSometimes journalists miss the forest for the trees, and we'll plead guilty on this one. When we wrote last week that the Toyota Mirai hydrogen fuel-cell sedan was little-changed for the 2017 model year, with only one new color added, we missed one important element. That was, as several readers informed us, that while the retail price remained...

California removes limit on carpool access for plug-in hybrids

Green HOV-Lane StickerOf California's many incentives for green cars, one of the most popular is solo access to the state's carpool lanes for drivers of electric cars, plug-in hybrids, and certain other vehicles. But while California will distribute an unlimited number of "white stickers" for electric cars—as well as vehicles using hydrogen fuel cells and...