Tesla sales: how much do rebates matter to buyers in Canada?

2013 Tesla Model S on Chilcotin Highway, Canada [photo: owner Vincent Argiro]The government of Ontario amended its plug-in electric vehicle incentive program in March, eliminating incentives for vehicles with a recommended price of $75,000 or more. What effect will this have on demand for Tesla’s Model S and X? Two years ago, this site analyzed the impacts on electric-car sales in British Columbia when funding for...

Tesla sales: how much do rebates matter to buyers in Canada?

2013 Tesla Model S on Chilcotin Highway, Canada [photo: owner Vincent Argiro]The government of Ontario amended its plug-in electric vehicle incentive program in March, eliminating incentives for vehicles with a recommended price of $75,000 or more. What effect will this have on demand for Tesla’s Model S and X? Two years ago, this site analyzed the impacts on electric-car sales in British Columbia when funding for...

Nissan, Sumitomo open electric-car battery recycling plant in Japan

Nissan electric-car batteryThe town of Namie, in eastern Japan, was devastated by the earthquake and tsunami of 2011, and has struggled to recover from the devastation of that day. Almost seven years later, the first new plant in town is set to open, one contributing to clean energy and zero-emission vehicles to boot. Carmaker Nissan and an arm of the giant trading company...

“Electric cars are disasters; they are evil,” says Hyundai union head

2019 Hyundai Kona Electric“Electric cars are disasters. They are evil." Not something you'd hear every day, certainly not from a powerful executive in the auto industry. Yet those are the words of Ha Bu-young, head of the Hyundai motor union, both the largest and the most powerful union in South Korea. DON'T MISS: UAW wakes up to job threat posed by electric cars, as...

EPA to ease emission limits, reports say, setting up clash with California

Chrome exhaust pipeThe omens have been accumulating for months, as bits of information dribble out of the regulatory rumor mill in Washington, D.C. Now we have the most concrete reports yet that the U.S. EPA plans to modify exhaust emission limits for vehicles in model years 2022 through 2025. The EPA delivered its draft Final Determination document to the Office of...

2019 Honda Insight: good-looking 50-mpg competitor for Prius hybrid

2019 Honda InsightTeased in January as a "concept" without an interior, the production version of the 2019 Honda Insight hybrid sedan has been revealed just before week's New York auto show. EPA ratings aren't yet final, but Honda says the new Insight is projected to achieve "up to 55 mpg" on the city cycle, and a combined fuel-economy number of "50 mpg or better."...

UPS adds battery energy storage for 118 electric vans in UK

Prototype plug-in electric delivery van with fuel-cell range extender to be tested by UPS in 2017Electric vehicles are not only zero-emission and quieter and more pleasant to drive, they also clearly lower emissions of the carbon dioxide linked to climate change under most circumstances. For fleet operators who recharge large fleets of electric vehicles overnight, however, the load on electric grids and consequent demand charges pose a...

2019 Toyota Corolla Hatchback returns at NY Auto Show

2019 Toyota Corolla HatchbackThe Toyota Corolla is the world's highest-selling nameplate, having surpassed the Ford Model T and Volkswagen Beetle years ago. It exists in a variety of models and varieties all over the world, but the U.S. hasn't always been offered the hatchback version. In fact, the Corolla lineup only regained its five-door model when Toyota shut down its...

BMW: we won’t mass-produce electric cars until 2020, with cheaper cells

2018 BMW i3sBMW sold more than 100,000 cars with plugs last year, adding together its battery-electric and plug-in hybrid models. That's roughly on a par with Tesla, and ahead of both General Motors and Nissan, two other pioneers in modern electric cars. The company has put far more plug-in cars on the road to date than its German counterparts, both Daimler...

Five electric cars tested in cold Norwegian winter: how did they do?

Winter testing of electric cars in Norway by the Norwegian EV Association (Norsk Elbilforening)Drivers in the parts of North America that get winter weather are deeply familiar with snow-clogged wheel wells, iced-in wipers, and weak batteries, to list just a few. Our counterparts in Norway have exactly the same challenges in winter—but they’re far further along in adopting plug-in electric cars, to slash the carbon footprint of the…

All-electric BMW i4 to be production version of i Vision Dynamics concept

BMW i Vision Dynamics concept, 2017 Frankfurt Motor Show    [photo: Tom Moloughney]Very few automakers these days build concept cars just for fun, and only occasionally are they pure styling concepts intended to showcase future design language. So when the BMW i Vision Dynamics Concept emerged onto the auto-show circuit last fall, it seemed obvious it previewed a future production model. Especially since, as many observers...