Boris Johnson Lays Out U.K. Plan for a ‘Green Industrial Revolution’
Goals include ending sales of gas and diesel cars by 2030, achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and, perhaps, pleasing a new sensibility in Washington.
These are not good times for the makers or owners of diesel cars, particularly in their European stronghold, where on average half of all new vehicles had been sold with diesel engines. Strict new real-world emission tests have proven hard to meet, consumers are starting to shy away from buying new diesels, and the values of used cars with diesel...
It's starting to look like China will lead the world in adoption of plug-in electric cars, but which carmaking nations will follow it? While electric cars were launched simultaneously in Japan and the United States, Europe lagged somewhat behind. Now, however, Germany—home to the largest piece of Europe's auto industry—appears to be...
First Paris, then a pair of German cities, and now the Eternal City. Two weeks ago, the mayor of Rome announced on her Facebook page that the city would ban diesel cars altogether by 2024. It's not clear whether the ban applies solely to the older, most-polluting diesels as it does already in Paris, or to any vehicle with a diesel engine. CHECK...
That huge intake of breath you may have heard from across the Atlantic Ocean was the sound of German carmakers gasping at a court decision handed down on Tuesday. After a week's delay in issuing its ruling, a German court decided that individual cities in the country may ban vehicles with diesel engines to reduce air pollution. The decision could...
As of today, there are 39 hydrogen fueling stations in the U.S., all but four of them in the state of California. They serve roughly 39 million Californians, whereas 284 million Americans outside the state have no access to hydrogen fuel-cell cars nor stations at which to refill them. Germany, on the other hand, has 83 million residents—and...
It's been six months since General Motors completed the sale of its Opel division in Europe to PSA Group, the French parent of the Citroën, DS, and Peugeot brands. With the sale came licenses to run out the model life of GM-designed vehicles sold as Opels (and Vauxhalls in the U.K.) while PSA developed successors on its own underpinnings. Now...
Sometimes it's the task of the Tesla communications department to explain, or provide context, or simply clean up the confusion after CEO Elon Musk says or tweets something about the electric-car maker. In the latest case, it was Musk's statement about Tesla Model 3 production equipment that required the good people of the company's long-suffering...
It's 41 degrees F outside. Your electric car, rated for 100 miles, has been charging all night in the cold. Ahead of you lies a 80-mile drive. How confident are you that you'll make it to your destination? What if you want to set your climate control to a comfortable 70 degrees F? Germany's AutoBild wondered the same thing, so it gathered some of...
Europeans will soon have the opportunity to enjoy quiet, emission-free, long-distance motoring with far shorter charge times when driving electric cars along Germany's autobahns. The charging network Allego has rolled out its first 175-kilowatt ultra-fast charging stations—dubbed "Ultra E"—at its first location in Kleinosthei, along...
Five years ago, an electric-utility think tank issued a dire warning to its members: Your century-old business model is ending. The continually falling costs of renewable energy generation, especially solar panels, would begin to erode utilities' business from its most profitable customers, the study said. Now, in Germany—hardly known for...
A scrappage scheme in Germany launched by Volkswagen to take the dirtiest diesels off the road has been extended beyond its planned end date of this month. Two years after the diesel emissions scandal that cost it over $25 billion, Volkswagen is extending an incentive program aimed at owners of diesels certified under the older Euro 1 through Euro...
One of the most powerful automotive CEOs in the industry at a company that once found monumental success in diesel-powered cars has delivered a commandment to European governments from atop his throne in Wolfsburg. Thou shalt not subsidize diesel. That commandment, from VW CEO Mattias Müller, is about as predictable as one might expect from...
It has become an article of faith among some Tesla fans and owners that the company will inevitably rise to compete with and ultimately defeat the titans of the global auto industry. This belief is especially prevalent for the luxury sector, where three German carmakers dominate the global market for pricey and admired vehicles of all sorts. About...
While Volkswagen's diesel scandal has fallen out of the public eye in the United States, its effects continue to be felt in Europe, where diesel-powered cars have long reigned supreme. Falling sales of diesel vehicles in many European countries are somewhat balanced by a boost for electric and plug-in hybrid cars across the continent. The latest...
This year's Frankfurt motor show was big, busy, and full of new concepts and production cars spanning the gamut from small electric cars to exotic supercars with prices in the millions. Every German maker showed one or more electric or electrified concepts, and renewed talk of driving on electricity could be heard in every presentation. But...
The first vehicle in history considered to be an automobile was the Benz Motorwagen of 1885. It was also the first vehicle from an automaker that has been around for the duration of the industry: we know it today as Mercedes-Benz. In other words, the company has been building cars for 132 years. DON'T MISS: Mercedes to launch 10 electric cars by...
Audi’s vision of future mobility primarily centers around an array of long-range electric cars scheduled to debut in the coming years under the "e-tron" badge. These are intended to be Tesla killers, as they’re often called in Germany. But there’s another kind of tron with a “made in Germany” label as well, and...
The Volkswagen diesel scandal has largely fallen out of the public eye in the U.S., as VW and Audi buy back and modify roughly half a million noncompliant vehicles sold from 2009 through 2016. In Germany, meanwhile, the major sellers of diesel vehicles—not only VW Group but also Mercedes, Opel, and Fiat—have agreed to modify 5 million...
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the country's leader, has detailed why she believes electric-car quotas are not a viable answer to emission and other issues plaguing Europe. Merkel, a member of the conservative Christian Democratic Union, instead urged a much bigger-picture strategy, rather than a demand that more Europeans simply move to...