Renault Samsung Motors have unveiled the new SM3 Z.E. at the Daegu International Future Auto Expo in South Korea. Determined to upgrade its electric vehicle range to meet customer demand, and buoyed by the EV expertise it has gained over the past eight years, Groupe Renault is continuing to renew its line-up, the latest example being the new version of the SM3 Z.E. which first appeared in 2013.
The autonomy of the Renault Samsung Motors SM3 Z.E. – the market’s only three-box saloon – has been increased by 57 percent to 213 kilometres based on the Korean type approval cycle.
Battery power has been upped to 36kWh with no increase in weight and, with the average daily trip in South Korea standing at 40 kilometres in 2016 according to a Korean Transportation Safety Authority (KOTSA) report, the new SM3 Z.E. is capable of running for approximately five days on a single charge.
This increase in autonomy and the model’s spacious cabin will permit the SM3 Z.E. to address the strong demand expressed not only by retail customers, but also by state-run fleets and taxi operators. Indeed, 1,200 cars were purchased by South Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare last April, while the model is also popular as an EV taxi in Seoul, Daegu and Jeju Island.
What new hybrid and plug-in cars are coming from Ford, which has been notably silent on that front since 2013? How does fossil-fuel-loving EPA administrator Scott Pruitt define the word "environmentalism"? This is our look back at the Week In Reverse—right here at Green Car Reports—for the week ending on Friday, November 24, 2017. This... 
Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a bet that he'd build the world's largest lithium-ion battery in Australia in 100 days. If his company failed, Musk would personally pay for the project, but the battery is now ready for its first test ahead of full operation—and on schedule. The massive 129-megawatt-hour battery will plug into South Australia's... 
By now it's clear that the Trump Administration is doing everything it can to end U.S. government efforts to address climate change. Climate-science deniers sit in powerful government positions, language on climate change has been eradicated from websites, and the U.S. is now the sole nation in the world that plans to withdraw from the Paris... ![Estimated U.S. energy consumption in 2016 [graphic: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory]](https://images.hgmsites.net/tmb/estimated-u-s-energy-consumption-in-2016-graphic-lawrence-livermore-national-laboratory_100634001_t.gif)
One of the interesting side effects of plug-in electric cars turns out to be a greater awareness of energy sources and uses. A 2012 California study, for instance, showed roughly four out of 10 electric-car drivers either had or were considering solar panels to provide electricity to their home. And because electric cars everywhere in the U.S... 
Today, a possible plug conflict for electric cars, a redefinition from the EPA chief, a study suggesting Big Oil will wane, and our latest Twitter poll. All this and more on Green Car Reports. We'll be running a light schedule of stories for the next four days as we celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday weekend in the U.S. Meanwhile, we've still got... 
The latest study on the future of transportation paints an increasingly dim picture for the oil industry, though it suggests that the industry is in no danger of collapse. Instead, Big Oil will lose its dominance in the transportation sector over a 25-year period as electric cars and mobility solutions (ride- and car-sharing services) become more... 
When the first few thousand electric cars went on sale in California in the mid- to late 1990s, they used various different charging methods, each with its own dedicated charging stations. That proved an impediment to adoption, given the high cost of installing different infrastructure for different makes of car. For lower-rate charging, that... 
![EPA administrator Scott Pruitt [photo from 2014]](https://images.hgmsites.net/tmb/oklahoma-attorney-general-scott-pruitt-2014_100584650_t.gif)
EPA head Scott Pruitt will likely go down as one of the most controversial agency chiefs in that agency's history of almost 50 years. The former Oklahoma attorney general, who sued the EPA 14 times on behalf of fossil-fuel interests during the Obama administration, has a radically different view of how the agency should operate compared to most of... 
China's announcement in early September that it planned to set a date to end sales of new vehicles with combustion engines should have rocked the global auto industry. The world's largest car market, at roughly 30 million vehicles a year, will at some point permit only zero-emission vehicles to be sold. That will accelerate the development... 
Today, we've got news on future electric cars from Nissan, Renault, and Toyota, some thoughts on more time in a Hyundai Ioniq Hybrid, and a sales race between the Chevy Volt and Toyota Prius Prime. All this and more on Green Car Reports. Toyota's reluctant moves into electric cars will include its own battery-powered car in China, and EVs made by... 
Compared to the U.S. sales of, say, full-size pickup trucks, the monthly reports on deliveries of plug-in hybrid and battery-electric cars contain some fairly low numbers. The Ford F-Series routinely sells 80,000 a month or more, while the most any plug-in car has ever sold in the U.S. is about 3,000 a month. (That statistic excludes Tesla, since... 
We've now spent more than 1,200 miles in a variety of Hyundai Ioniqs, but the bulk of them were covered in the conventional hybrid version of the five-door compact hatchback. That's the highest-volume version, while the battery-powered Ioniq Electric sells in lower numbers and the plug-in hybrid version won't hit the market until early next year... 
Carlos Ghosn has been an advocate of electric cars for years, but after initial disappointment, he's ready to take on the segment with even greater focus. The CEO of the Renault Nissan Alliance that now includes Mitsubishi predicted the rise of electric cars nearly a decade ago, and oversaw the first-generation Nissan Leaf and Renault Zoe... 
Toyota made its future battery-electric car project public this past April after an "agonizing" decision to depart from its sole focus on a future powered by hydrogen fuel cells as its sole zero-emission vehicle technology. Mostly, that shift is due to China and India—two major auto markets that call for phasing out the internal-combustion... 
Today, we've got a different approach to electric trucks, a complicated combustion engine, more solar power, a plug-in future Ford, and some worries about U.S. competitiveness. All this and more on Green Car Reports. Over the weekend, as we do every seven days, we ran down last week's most important green-car stories. The Toyota Prius V hybrid... ![Buick Velite 5, for sale in China, at 2017 Shanghai auto show [photo: Ronan Glon]](https://images.hgmsites.net/tmb/buick-velite-5-for-sale-in-china-at-2017-shanghai-auto-show-photo-ronan-glon_100604550_t.gif)
The first automobile was invented in Germany in 1885 by Karl Benz, but it was the U.S. that led the building of the global 20th-century automobile industry. Through the turn of the current century, the U.S. new-vehicle market was the world's largest, and General Motors was for decades the world's largest car company. Neither of those is still the...