It's one thing not to qualify for a product rebate, bonus, or credit. It's another to qualify, then have to pay it back. That's what Germany said Wednesday, alleging that 1,050 Tesla buyers weren't eligible for an incentive aimed at spurring electric car sales. The 1,050 people who bought or ordered a Tesla Model S and received the Federal Office... Germany claws back clean-car bonus from Tesla Model S owners
It's one thing not to qualify for a product rebate, bonus, or credit. It's another to qualify, then have to pay it back. That's what Germany said Wednesday, alleging that 1,050 Tesla buyers weren't eligible for an incentive aimed at spurring electric car sales. The 1,050 people who bought or ordered a Tesla Model S and received the Federal Office...
Charging network EVgo has installed second-life batteries from two BMW i3s to its charging station in Union City, California, the company announced last week. The two batteries each store 22 kwh of electricity to help balance the load on the power grid when electric cars are charging at peak times, according to a report in Charged EVs. EVgo says...
Mainstream automakers that have been building electric cars are getting the message that they're on the wrong road. As Nissan, Ford, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz and others have churned out low-range, and sometimes uninspiring electric hatchbacks, they've seen the success Tesla has had in building desirable, sleek, high-performance—even...
Tesla isn't the only one with a lot riding on the financial success of the Model 3. CEO Elon Musk has called ramping up production of the Model 3 a "bet the company" decision, and said that if the company couldn't build 5,000 of the cars a week, Tesla would "die." Thousands of individual and institutional shareholders stand to make a fortune or...
We review the fuel economy of the 2018 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV. Lexus mulls hybrid systems for its F-series performance cars. Big oil refineries voice skepticism over electric cars. And the results are in from our latest Twitter poll. All of this and more on Green Car Reports. Green Car Reports spent time with the Outlander PHEV and found it...
Tesla shook up the luxury car world by showing that performance cars could be electric. After the German brands followed suit, Lexus could be the latest automaker to follow suit. In an interview at the recent Goodwood Festival of Speed, brand CEO Yoshihiro Sawa told British auto magazine AutoExpress that Lexus may add hybrid power to is F Sport...
A recent survey by the World Refining Association shows some oil industry executives are becoming concerned about how the proliferation of electric cars may affect their business. A core of respondents, however, seem unconvinced that electric cars are a threat. In the survey published late last month, 61.1 percent of professionals in the oil...
The Mitsubishi Outlander plug-in hybrid is something of a missing link in the market for plug-in cars. There are finally plenty of choices for those who want to dispense with gas entirely and buy a small hatchback. Several electric SUVs are coming, but the only one that really lives up to the automotive ideal of driving anywhere you want at a...
Green Car Reports readers and Twitter followers are clearly fired up when it comes to plug-in hybrids. When we asked in last week's Twitter poll how many miles are enough for a plug-in hybrid, we got two to three times our usual responses. We asked the question because plug-in hybrids come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and capabilities. The main...
Details surface on Polestar's second model, the Polestar 2 electric sedan. Volkswagen says it will build electric cars in the United States. A new report claims peak oil could come as early as 2036. And we ask what kind of electric-car racing interests our readers in a new Twitter poll. Of this and more on Green Car Reports. The Polestar 2...
Most people buy electric cars to reduce oil consumption, but oil companies keep selling more oil every year. Now, a new study by oil industry consultancy Wood Mackenzie predicts that the demand for oil will start to decline as early as 2036, when autonomous cars become more popular. That forecast comes much earlier than many big oil companies...
Volkswagen plans to build two of its upcoming electric cars in the United States. VW's North American CEO, Hinrich Woebcken, told British magazine Autocar that the models will be built in the United States and sold domestically. Presumably this means the ID Crozz electric crossover SUV and the ID Buzz, the long-awaited successor to the VW...
A Volvo executive has revealed a few details of the Polestar 2, an electric sedan that will follow next year's Polestar 1 performance coupe. The Polestar 2 will be a sedan and is expected to debut sometime in 2019, according to an interview that British publication Autocar conducted with Polestar COO Jonathan Goodman last week in at the Goodwood...
Electric cars are showing up at races from mountaintops to drag strips to New York harbor. The cars are quiet—and fast. Yet the series don't seem to have taken race fans by storm. READ THIS: Volkswagen's ID R Pikes Peak race car shows why you should care about electric car racing Two challenges stand out as reasons that electric racing...
The EPA rates the Tesla Model 3 Performance variant. Formula E closes out the final season featuring a two-car strategy. Solar investments tumble amid the trade war. And automakers ramp up efforts to reuse electric-car batteries. All of this and more on Green Car Reports. EPA MPGe figures are in for performance version of the Tesla Model 3, and...
Electric cars and solar power fit together like a hand in a glove. Charging with solar power, electric cars can drive using almost no non-renewable energy. Now according to a report in Bloomberg New Energy Finance last week, solar investment has dropped by 19 percent worldwide in the second quarter following a trade war between China and the U.S...
A new picture by an early buyer of a Tesla Model 3 Performance shows the car's EPA rating of 116 MPGe. That's down 14 MPGe, or almost 11 percent from the base long-range Model 3's rating of 130 MPGe, owing to the battery's and bigger motors' higher output. The EPA does not yet list the rating on its own site, but the car has to have a legal rating...
Watching electric cars race is different than watching a race with conventional race cars. Most notably, the sound of squealing tires stands out as the loudest sound you hear—when drivers burn rubber at the start to warm up the tires, try to out-brake each other into tight turns, or overcook corners. In most auto races, engine sounds largely...
Tesla is the first automaker to reach the 200,000-car limit for federal electric-car tax credits. Pininfarina plans for a new line of exotic electric cars. And we have the best deals on plug-in, hybrid, and other fuel-efficient vehicles. All of this and more on Green Car Reports. Tesla delivered its 200,000th car this past week, which means the...