The best analog to EPA administrator Scott Pruitt's latest action might be for the U.S. Geological Survey to undertake a "scientific critique" of theories that the world is round. After all, numerous authoritative sources over the years have raised doubts that the Earth is not flat. Surely their views deserve to be aired. Late last week, it...
As he had promised he would late one evening last week, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk has tweeted out some updates on the upcoming Model 3. He expects first production Model 3 electric car, with serial number 001 ("SN1"), to be completed this Friday, July 7. The first 30 customers to buy Model 3s should receive them, he followed up, at a "handover...
After years of producing luxury cars in small numbers, Tesla hopes sales of its new model, priced around $35,000, will push its output to 500,000 cars a year.
Among electric-car owners and advocates, tiny British sports-car maker Aston Martin has become a company to watch. That's largely due to its CEO for the last few years, Andy Palmer, who had previously led product development at Nissan while it launched the Leaf electric car. Palmer had ambitious plans for a lineup of electric vehicles at Nissan...
Why are President Trump's pro-fossil-fuel, anti-renewable energy policies facing fierce pushback—and from where? What makes us say two-motor hybrid systems are superior to those that use only a single motor? This is our look back at the Week In Reverse—right here at Green Car Reports—for the week ending on Friday, June 30, 2017...
Today, we've got a video on some sleazy politics, information on Tesla insurance claims, an opinion on which kinds of hybrids are best, and some lessons learned on electric cars. All this and more on Green Car Reports. The influential Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says Tesla Model S cars incur higher insurance losses than competitors and...
The U.S. is coming up to its Independence Day holiday, in which we celebrate the Declaration of Independence from England and reflect on our history and traditions as a nation. This is an interesting time to do that, and there's a cynical argument to be made that backroom politics is as American as apple pie and bald eagles. Which brings us to the...
Six years ago, we wrote that a number of single-motor hybrid systems were about to enter the market. They represented a new approach to a technology pioneered in 1997, when the first-generation Toyota Prius was launched in Japan. Through 2010, all the full-hybrid vehicles introduced by Ford and General Motors used systems designed around a pair of...
The White House has declared this week the inaugural "Energy Week," and what better way to mark the occasion than by driving electric cars? Cars that plug in to use grid energy for travel are a great catalyst for reducing energy consumption and reducing our use of fossil fuels. Now one reporter who took the plunge and leased a 2017 Chevrolet Bolt...
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the Highway Loss Data Institute has once again confirmed the Tesla Model S electric car is an outlier. While the Model S gets high ratings for its crash safety, it also seems to incur higher insurance losses than competing conventional cars. Higher claim frequencies, more costly repairs, and higher...
Today, reports say BMW will reveal its Tesla Model 3-fighter this fall, PG&E concludes electric cars can be kinder to the grid, ChargePoint raises more money, and the 2018 Honda Fit gets Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. All this and more on Green Car Reports. It's been a busy week for ChargePoint, which is not only taking over management of...
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As the demand for electric cars grows, utility companies are considering their effect on local power grids—both positive and negative. Recently, California's PG&E and BMW recently wrapped up a pilot program testing experimental vehicle-to-grid technology to see if electric cars could actually aid the grid—and they did. The program...
![2019 BMW 3-Series, portion of spy shot from Motor Authority [Image via S. Balfauf/SB-Medien]](http://images.hgmsites.net/tmb/2019-bmw-3-series-portion-of-spy-shot-from-motor-authority-image-via-s-balfauf-sb-medien_100612272_t.gif)
In August 2016, when the first U.S. ads for the BMW 330e plug-in hybrid sport sedan hit the airwaves, they carried an interesting promise. "You will wait, and wait, and wait some more," the voiceover intoned, "all before that electric-car company's new model ever even arrives." That would be the Tesla Model 3, of course, the 200-plus-mile sedan...
![2017 Renault Kangoo ZE [photo: Yannick Brossard for Renault]](http://images.hgmsites.net/tmb/2017-renault-kangoo-ze-photo-yannick-brossard-for-renault_100612267_t.gif)
French automaker Renault has given its small light commercial electric vehicle a handful of upgrades, including a significantly longer battery range. The Renault Kangoo ZE is now officially on sale with a longer rated range, a more powerful charging system, and a heat pump to keep the little van efficient in the coldest temperatures. Renault...
Today, we've got some auto-industry analysis on BMW's electric cars, two updates on recent stories, a look at Tesla's latest Autopilot, and a takedown of a bizarre Swedish study of the environmental impact of electric cars. All this and more on Green Car Reports. With the BMW i5 dedicated electric crossover now apparently dead, and an all-electric...
The 2018 Nissan Leaf will likely be revealed within the next three months, but more than 100,000 older Leaf electric cars are still silently in use on U.S. roads. Some of them, especially the lowest-range cars from the two earliest model years (2011 and 2012), have started to see significant battery capacity degradation. That was the case with...
The expanded collection of sensors known as Hardware 2 continues to bring new and revamped features to the Tesla Model S and Model X electric cars. But how do the latest features offered by Autopilot stack up against those offered until last fall by the superseded Hardware 1 setup? One owner has gone through the trouble of laying everything out as...
Electric vehicles shouldn't be considered all-out carbon footprint saviors, but they can legitimately be viewed as the great minimizers. The benefits of electric vehicles over those with internal-combustion engines are vast, but a strange new study is making rounds that claims electric cars are worse for climate-change emissions. The study...
Over the last two years, Audi and Mercedes-Benz have released severa; all-electric concept cars that are thinly disguised production models to arrive in 2018 and beyond. But electric-car pioneer BMW's plans are less clear. Its sole recent electric concept car was the iNext luxury sedan shown more than a year ago; it'll be a production model in...
Today, we look at predictions of electric-car demand, offer a video showing curb-side electric-car charging from a streetlamp, report on a charging-network deal, and consider how VW could be in for more diesel pain. All this and more on Green Car Reports. The U.S. charging network ChargePoint will take over the management of General Electric's...
