What are your hopes for plug-in cars in 2019? Twitter poll results

2019 Chevrolet VoltWhen we asked our readers what they most hope for in the new year in the electric-car world last week our readers put a priority on making electric cars more affordable and easier to drive everywhere over having more new models to choose from. In our Twitter poll last week, we asked our followers, "What are your hopes for plug-in cars in 2019?"...

Some used electric-car prices start tracking higher

2015 Nissan LeafYes, really. Used electric cars have appreciated in value, in some cases. Call it a market adjustment or a momentary blip. You have one more thing to toast this new year: that the value of your electric vehicle probably isn’t plunging as rapidly as it was. It may, actually have gone up in value in recent months. Actual...

Tesla cuts prices $2,000, almost hit 250,000 vehicles in 2018

2017 Tesla Model 3Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk made a multi-layered end-of-year push, focused on Tesla's final days and weeks of $7,500 federal EV tax credit eligibility. And with more than 90,000 vehicle deliveries in the fourth quarter of the year—a new record for the California electric-car maker—it appears to have worked. According to Tesla, it...

Trump relaxes coal emissions standards (again) over holiday week

EPA Acting Administrator Andrew WheelerFor the second time in a month, the Trump administration has rolled back emissions restrictions on coal-fired power plants. Early in December, the EPA announced a new proposal that would undo carbon-dioxide limits on coal plants, overturning one of President Obama's signature climate change programs, the Clean Power Plan, which never went into...

Volkswagen tests mobile DC fast charging station for urban network gaps

Volkswagen mobile DC fast chargerAutomakers 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...

Iron Man 2 reunion: Musk friend Larry Ellison named to Tesla board

Tesla Motors, Palo Alto, CaliforniaTesla announced Friday that it has added two independent directors to the company's board: Kathleen Wilson-Thompson and Larry Ellison. Yes, it’s that Larry Ellison—the Oracle founder, and one of the richest men in the world, who made a cameo alongside Musk in Iron Man 2. Ellison lives a jet-setting lifestyle—including a lot of...

California white and green carpool stickers expire New Year’s Day

Carpool lanes I-5, Seattle, Washington [Credit: SounderBruce-Wikimedia Commons]California plug-in car drivers with white or green carpool stickers can no longer use carpool lanes starting Tuesday. The state passed a new program last March that invalidates both the white stickers for electric cars and the green stickers for plug-in hybrids with the start of 2019. For many of those drivers, the state provided a way to extend...

Pickup drivers target Tesla Superchargers in “ICEing” incidents

Dodge flatbed blocking a Tesla Supercharger in Tennessee, fake charging [CREDIT: freckletan, Reddit]People are jealous of things they can't (or don't) have. In a spate of incidents reminiscent of "rolling coal," truck drivers have begun seemingly intentionally blocking whole banks of Tesla Superchargers across parts of the South. Photos shared across Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit over the weekend showed all kinds of trucks blocking...

Plug-in hybrids to charge again in Beverly Hills

EVgo charging station in Union City, California with resused BMW i3 battery backupBanning plug-in hybrids from public chargers is no good. That's the conclusion of a new California law signed in September, which forbids cities from restricting access to public chargers for any type of electric vehicles in the state. After making a big splash by banning plug-in hybrids from its public chargers last April, the city of Beverly...