The Chinese electric vehicle maker Nio, in a bid to win over new customers, is waiving the fees for something that could be a real selling point in the increasingly tight Chinese EV market: battery swapping. The company had installed 80 battery swap stations in China in 2018 and now has well over 100 of them. It had planned to install 1,100 of... Nio is providing a fully charged battery in 3 minutes for free, in China
The Chinese electric vehicle maker Nio, in a bid to win over new customers, is waiving the fees for something that could be a real selling point in the increasingly tight Chinese EV market: battery swapping. The company had installed 80 battery swap stations in China in 2018 and now has well over 100 of them. It had planned to install 1,100 of...
Five years ago, a frequent matter of debate here at Green Car Reports was whether CCS or ChAdeMO would become the electric-car DC fast-charging standard of choice in the U.S. Soon after that it became quite clear that CCS, with the weight of the European and U.S. auto industry behind it—and then the Korean industry joining later—was...
Cross the ubiquity of ordering a pizza with the form factor (and weight) of a backup “jerry can” of fuel and you’re close to what it seems the startup SparkCharge is attempting to produce with its new modular charging system. SparkCharge is a startup that won the top $1 million prize at the 43North pitch competition in 2018. It...
While public charging sessions are few and far between for most electric car owners, who typically charge at home the vast majority of the time, they can present a disproportionately high level of frustration. The mess of multiple apps, fobs, and RFID cards may soon be a thing of the past. So, too, will the late-night calls to tech support to...
Last week, when we brought you an account of how an electric car wouldn't work in the midst of a medical emergency—in the Midwest, in the winter—boy, did we (and he) get an earful from our readers. That convergence amounted to the perfect storm of difficulty for any electric car—and it's one that doesn't happen often. Still, when...
Three incredibly long days after my nearly 3-year-old son Seth doubled over and screamed his “tummy hurt” we were finally back on the freeway headed home. My mind wandered because there’s not much else on Interstate 380 in Iowa in December. Three days earlier, my wife, kids, and I traveled from Minnesota to Reinbeck...
General Motors, the nation's biggest automaker, is teaming up with construction giant Bechtel to build thousands of chargers around the U.S. with the aim of promoting adoption of electric cars. The companies will form a joint venture to build the chargers in which Bechtel will provide its expertise in construction and permitting and GM will...
In the rollout of the 2019 E-tron quattro SUV, Audi is making the claim that rated range might not be the most important thing on a road trip. The E-tron is rated at just 204 miles of estimated range, so the German automaker has some steep ground to gain versus Tesla. But it's made a case that consistency of real-world range and fast charging...
With wires running along almost every street in America where cars drive, putting EV chargers along the curb would seem a natural enough place to put them. While several other countries such as Britain have begun efforts to put charging stations on light poles, in America, chargers have been sited almost exclusively in parking lots and garages...
EVgo announced earlier this week that it will be the first charging network—other than the Tesla Supercharger network, of course—to enable a feature for its DC fast chargers that doesn't rely on RFID tags or even credit cards to be activated. The charging network will roll out the ISO Plug&Charge standard on its CCS chargers used...
If you road-trip with an electric car like a Tesla, you soon become acutely aware of miles per hour. That's not the miles per hour you see on the speedometer, but the rate at which the car will gain range when being fast-charged. That's charging miles per hour, which determines how quickly you can pull out of the charging station and back onto the...
Deliveries of the Tesla Model 3 in Europe have just started. So too have some accounts of the most significant difference included in European-market versions of the electric sedan: their CCS Combo DC fast charging port. One of those first accounts has come from the European charging network Fastned, which already operates many stations with...
Porsche plans to include three years of free DC fast charging from Electrify America with its new Taycan electric car. For now, it's a good thing the car isn't arriving too soon, as Electrify America has had to shut down many of its CCS Combo fast charge plugs over safety concerns. Mazda balances conflicting priorities (and regulators) in its...
At CES earlier this month, GBatteries demonstrated that it could charge a 60-kwh battery pack, made up of off-the-shelf lithium-ion automotive cells, to half capacity in just 5 minutes, or to a full charge in 10 minutes. Further, the company is aiming, with a technology that employs AI elements, to boost charging speeds without accelerating...
Nissan unveiled Tuesday a new version of the 2019 Leaf electric car, called the Leaf Plus or Leaf e+, that can go well over 200 miles on a charge. Although such a model has been a long time coming, the 2019 Nissan Leaf Plus stands as strong evidence that in the eight years since the first deliveries of the Leaf, Nissan has listened carefully to...
Automakers face some daunting challenges in selling electric vehicles to urban apartment-dwellers, who are often without a home charging point. As a partial response, Volkswagen has shown a portable DC fast charging unit aimed at urban environments or temporary use at events or in parking lots—and it could be a very useful part of a strategy...
EVgo launches its first ultra-fast charger in the desert. Microwave ignition claims to clean up internal combustion. And a group proposes publishing its own independent emissions tests. All this and more on Green Car Reports. "All-electric is not going to work," President Trump said in an interview with Fox News, in lashing out against GM for...
Which company's promised new diesel SUV won't be coming to America after all? What technology did Green Car Reports find we were happy won't make it to America in an electric car? This is our look back at the Week In Reverse—right here at Green Car Reports—for the week ending Dec. 14, 2018. News this week centered around the arrival of...
Hyundai decides to bin its plans for a diesel-powered version of the new Santa Fe. Porsche ups the ante on fast charging speeds. A report reveals who's really funding the campaign to unwind fuel-economy and emissions rules. And we check out the best deals on plug-in, hybrid, and electric cars for the end of 2018. All this and more on Green Car...