Mack plans to send electric trucks to the garbage dump

Mack Electric LR garbage truckA lot of ink, pixels, and synapses get spent trying to figure out how to make heavy duty electric trucks that can travel 500 to 1,000 miles in a day and get a fast enough recharge before heading back to work. Recent studies have shown a far more effective way to reduce pollution is to supplant short-haul machines that spend most of their time in...

Tesla’s share of the home-solar market continues to slide

Tesla Solar RoofIf you’ve seen the light with electric cars, chances are you’re at least curious about home solar. Solar can help contribute to vehicle charging, and it can help reduce the load from the electrical grid during peak charging times. And as part of energy management systems, electric cars themselves (their traction batteries) could...

EPA, CARB escalate climate change war of words in Capitol Hill showdown

EPA Acting Administrator Andrew WheelerThe EPA and California Air Resources Board have moved slowly in the past year, failing to reach a consensus on key issues between the federal department's proposals to roll back emissions-based fuel economy standards and the state's decades-old ability to set their own. Tensions boiled over this week when EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler sent a...

Hyundai rides on top with new double-decker electric bus

Hyundai double-decker electric busIf converting city buses to electric power is one of the most effective ways to reduce harmful pollution from particulate matter and nitrogen oxides in cities an even more effective way is to double the number of people they can carry. London has begun converting its iconic double-decker buses to electric models made by China's BYD, and now...

The godfather of EVs in China has turned his attention to hydrogen cars

Kenworth T680 with Toyota hydrogen fuel-cell powertrain, at 2019 CESIt's no accident that nearly half of the world's electric cars on the road today are in China. According to the International Energy Agency, of the 1.9 million battery electric vehicles on the road, 951 million are found in China. Wan Gang had a lot to do with that. The former Audi exec is now China's state science and technology chief and helped...

2020 Ford Explorer Hybrid first drive review: Muscle over mpg

2020 Ford Explorer Hybrid  -  First Drive  -  Portland OR, June 2019Hybrid systems aren’t all tuned for the highest possible fuel efficiency. You can use the boost of an electric motor system to actually increase the capability of a vehicle without using more fuel—which in turn saves fuel as you don’t have to opt for a bigger vehicle or bigger engine. Such is the case with the hybrid system Ford...

How can rural drivers go electric? Twitter poll results

Tesla Model S electric-car road trip, Route 66 Museum, Elk City, Oklahoma  [photo: David Noland]Are we at the point in time when electric cars will work for everyone? When we brought you an account, earlier this month, of how an electric car wouldn’t work in the rural Midwest—in the winter, for a medical emergency—our comment system went into thermal runaway. In short, there were a whole lot of criticisms, and some crying...

Nissan Leaf batteries are lasting a very long time

2011 Nissan Leaf prototypeSince even before the first market deliveries of its Leaf electric car in late 2010, Nissan has made frequent mention about the need to create second-use demand for the Leaf's battery packs. It turns out, they may need to see many of those ideas put into place. According to comments made last month by a Nissan-Renault executive, citing charging...

Should GM bring back Hummer, all-electric? Take our Twitter poll

2009 Hummer H2General Motors’ Hummer brand was officially retired in 2010, at a time when a new GM was emerging from bankruptcy, the recession pulled ostentatious guzzlers out of vogue, and there was more awareness about fuel efficiency. And without getting into details, gas mileage was abhorrent for pretty much the entire Hummer lineup. The Hummer brand...