Last year employee parking lots overflowed at Tesla’s Fremont, California, plant. By comparing the headcount of Tesla's factory at present versus historically, it’s easy to grasp why the facility has seemed so crowded. At its heyday, Toyota and GM needed 4,400 people at Fremont. Tesla has an on-site workforce estimated to be... Tesla Model 3 teardown underscores missed opportunities
Last year employee parking lots overflowed at Tesla’s Fremont, California, plant. By comparing the headcount of Tesla's factory at present versus historically, it’s easy to grasp why the facility has seemed so crowded. At its heyday, Toyota and GM needed 4,400 people at Fremont. Tesla has an on-site workforce estimated to be... 
Mercedes-Benz is launching a new trial for fuel-cell cars in Germany, with aims to study real-world use patterns. Mercedes will begin leasing its GLC F-Cell fuel-cell SUVs to fleet customers in Germany for $917 a month, according to a report in Automotive News Europe (Subscription required.) No information was available about how many GLC F-Cells... 
Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a 50-kw fast charger that they say costs half as much as conventional DC fast chargers, is more efficient, and only 1/16th the size. Instead of being mounted on concrete slabs, sometimes in two locations, with a transformer behind a fence and a charge station box by a parking space, the... 
A new report shows that emissions from producing large battery packs for electric cars could cancel out improvements from their low emissions for years. The report comes from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, which is usually optimistic about electric cars. In May, the analytic arm of the finance publishing house predicted that electric cars will make... 
If you have a strong position regarding the EPA's proposal to freeze fuel economy standards at 2020 levels through 2026, speak out. Tomorrow is the deadline for making public comments that are part of the legal record. A zinc-air battery project is backed by a big name and claims to have achieved the $100/kwh cost barrier and plans to find its way... 
Israel and Britain recently joined a growing list of countries that plan to phase out sales of gas and diesel cars and trucks. Most of the countries have set a target date between 2030 and 2050 to convert all new-vehicle sales to electric power. A few, such as China, have announced plans to set such a date in the future but have not yet determined... 
Once a leader in electric cars, BMW now says it expects 85 percent of its cars still to have internal combustion engines by 2030. Speaking to Australian reporters for GoAuto at the Paris auto show earlier in October, BMW board member for development Klaus Froehlich said, “A very optimistic scenario says 30 per cent of BMWs will be pure... 
Until now, solid-state lithium-ion cells have been the likely path forward for battery technology, potentially finding their way into some production vehicles by 2025. But one other battery possibility is increasingly looking viable for the near future: zinc-air. The firm NantEnergy has made some new and exceptional claims about its latest zinc... 
Readers who want to make their voices heard in objection to (or support of) the EPA proposal to freeze fuel economy standards have until tomorrow to get their comments in. The EPA proposed in early August to undo Obama-era rules requiring cars to reach increasingly stringent fuel-economy targets through 2025. Called the Safer Affordable... 
![Massachusetts updates green-car parking signs at Logan Airport [CREDIT: JOHN BRIGGS]](https://images.hgmsites.net/tmb/massachusetts-updates-green-car-parking-signs-at-logan-airport_100676069_t.gif)
Bureaucracies have some funny ways of saying they were wrong and you were right. Even if they can't tell you they made a mistake, it's nice to see them fix a problem they created. The latest bureaucracy to demonstrate this is Massport, which operates the parking garages at Boston's Logan International Airport. Their mistake was issuing me a... 
Will Tesla see a groundswell of interest in its new, $45k Model 3 Mid Range, and is it doing the right thing in (perhaps temporarily) dropping the Full Self-Driving option from the configurator? And how might Nissan price its upcoming longer-range version of the Leaf electric car? This is Green Car Reports’ look back at the Week in Reverse... 
Friday marked exactly two years since Tesla announced that every one of its cars was being produced with the hardware needed for Full Self-Driving. Friday was also the first full day that Tesla removed the option from its configurator—at the same time that it introduced a new $45k Model 3 Mid Range, effectively splitting the difference... 
A new shorter-range Tesla Model 3 drops into the mix—but not the $35,000 model that many deposit-holders have been waiting for. Porsche will add a more utilitarian hatchback design to its upcoming Taycan electric-car lineup. And VW gives its vehicle lighting more of a message. All this and more on Green Car Reports. Tesla released a... 
Teaming with a new Norwegian battery supplier and a Belgian recycling company, BMW is aiming to build a fully sustainable future battery supply chain. The company announced on Monday that it formed a partnership with Northvolt, which is building Europe's largest battery factory for electric cars in Sweden. At the same time BMW is working with... 
Porsche announced Friday that it will expand its high-powered upcoming electric-car lineup from one model to two, with a new stretched-roof crossover hatchback joining the standard Taycan liftback. The Taycan electric sedan is a Tesla Model S competitor scheduled to go into production in 2019. It started out as the Mission E concept. The new... 
Audi agreed on Tuesday to pay a $928 million fine to put the diesel emissions-cheating scandal behind it in its home country, Germany. The 800 million Euro fine to German authorities, consists of $923 million (795 million Euros) in profits the company made selling diesels that didn't comply with emissions standards plus the maximum fine of $5.8... 
U.S. emissions of global-warming greenhouse gases fell 2.7 percent in 2017, despite the Trump administration's efforts to revive coal use in the U.S., the EPA announced on Monday. The EPA released data for 2017, showing an even larger 4.5 percent drop in emissions from power plants compared with 2016, as more coal plants are retired. So electric... 
Those who’ve waited faithfully for the more affordable $35,000 version of the Tesla Model 3 to be built could finally get what they’ve been wanting soon—especially if they live in California, don’t mind a little more battery than what they’d planned for, and are okay with a creative view on the bottom-line numbers... 
Tesla acquires land in Shanghai. Jaguar releases MPGe and range numbers for its new I-Pace electric crossover. Google Maps adds electric-car charging locations. And BMW reveals details of its upcoming electric i4. All this and more on Green Car Reports. Tesla announced it has now acquired the land in Shanghai to build its long-awaited second... 
Now that it has finally delivered the first retail example of its I-Pace, Jaguar has released official range and MPGe estimates for this new luxurious electric crossover. As we reported on Monday, the I-Pace is rated at 234 miles of range, a little short of the 240 that Jaguar indicated it was aiming for in earlier press drives. For comparison...