It's clear that incentives to buy specific cars work best when they can be applied directly at the time of sale. That's why purchase rebates are widely preferred by electric-car advocates to tax credits, which may take up to 15 months to be usable, depending on the timing of the purchase and tax filing. While the federal electric-car incentive is... California now testing pre-approved electric-car rebates in San Diego
It's clear that incentives to buy specific cars work best when they can be applied directly at the time of sale. That's why purchase rebates are widely preferred by electric-car advocates to tax credits, which may take up to 15 months to be usable, depending on the timing of the purchase and tax filing. While the federal electric-car incentive is...
Production numbers for Tesla electric cars have always been slightly murky. The company announces deliveries only quarterly and refuses to break them down by country, meaning there are no sales figures that directly compare with those routinely issued by other makers. The Tesla Model 3 has endured a long, painful, and somewhat public "production...
Today, we've got half a billion dollars reportedly backing Faraday Future, a possible 'war" between California and Trump's EPA over loosening emission rules, and much more electric-car charging last year. All this and more on Green Car Reports. Struggling electric-car startup Faraday Future reportedly has $1.5 billion of new backing, and plans to...
Seven years and almost 800,000 cars after the first modern electric cars went on sale, there's still a lot wrong with the national charging infrastructure in the U.S. There's little central planning, little standardized signage or public signposting, virtually no awareness among non-EV drivers, and roaming among networks with a single membership...
With the release of proposed new and lower fuel-economy rules expected from the NHTSA by March 30, many eyes have turned to the powerful California Air Resources Board. The state's pioneering role in reducing emissions and cutting air pollution predates even the existence of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. That agency, now run by Scott...
Starting a car company is not only very, very hard—as Tesla, Fisker, and many others testify—but requires breathtaking sums of money. Now struggling Faraday Future, the electric-car startup firm whose entrepreneurial Chinese backer is facing legal action in his home country, appears to have found a well-heeled savior. The new investor...
Today, $10K off a BMW i3, what it would take to get more electric-car buyers, details on the coming Subaru plug-in hybrid, and the unlikely reason the Trump administration may use to slash fuel-economy requirements. All this and more on Green Car Reports. What would it take to get more shoppers interested in electric cars? We polled our Twitter...
How badly do you want to buy a BMW i3 electric car? Badly enough to move to areas of California where Southern California Edison will be your electric utility? If so, a new program offered through April 30 will give residential customers and SCE employees $10,000 off the purchase of any model of the i3. DON'T MISS: How to buy or lease an electric...
It's been clear that under the Trump administration, the NHTSA and EPA plan to roll back linked fuel-economy rules and emission limits on new vehicles. Now a possible justification that will be used has emerged—and it's not the one many advocates had expected. According to a Bloomberg report on Monday, the fuel-economy proposal due March 30...
In June 2013, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced he would drive a Tesla Model S electric car across the U.S. to show off the company's new Supercharger fast-charging network. Indeed, two Tesla Model S sedans successfully completed the run from Los Angeles to New York City in February 2014. Last year, Musk decided to repeat the stunt, but with a twist...
When Toyota and Mazda said last September they would form a joint venture to produce electric-car parts, that answered the question of where Mazda's future plug-in vehicles would get their electric running gear. But it sparked another question: Where did that leave Subaru, another small automaker in the Toyota orbit? A week ago Monday, we learned...
Just shy of 200,000 plug-in electric cars were sold in the U.S. last year, their seventh year on sale. That's the highest number yet, but still just a little more than 1 percent of the market. And it's far from clear that the general car-buying public at large is aware that electric vehicles exist, much less that they're viable and practical...
One of the reasons I traded in my 2013 Tesla Model S 85 last summer for a new Model S 100D was to get extra range. The newer car’s 100-kilowatt-hour battery gives it an EPA-rated range of 335 miles—70 miles more than the old car’s rating of 265 miles. Over four-plus years and 76,000 miles of driving, the 85-kwh battery in my...
Today, we've got a new state fee proposed for hybrids and electric cars, a 2018 Fiat 500e preview, a Tesla cross-country road trip, and a chart explaining the challenge for hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles. All this and more on Green Car Reports. Take our latest Twitter poll, which asks where you think we'll see the most electric-car innovation in...
Today, there are roughly 750,000 plug-in electric vehicles on U.S. roads and about 3,800 powered by hydrogen fuel cells. Proponents of each type of vehicle argue strenuously that their powertrain is a better way to produce vehicles with zero emissions from the tailpipe. Electric cars can be charged at home overnight, and electricity in many areas...
When the Fiat 500e electric minicar launched in 2013, its range was rated at 87 miles, but its most distinctive feature was its wickedly fun-to-drive character. Six years later, the fun driving remains the same—and the range has fallen slightly to 84 miles, based on changes to EPA test calculations. Meanwhile, every other electric model from...
Maine has become the latest in a growing string of states to propose adding registration fees for hybrid and electric cars to make up for tax revenue on the gasoline they don't use, or use less of. But it's also part of a much smaller group of those states in which the fees are punitive: drivers of those cars pay more than the gas taxes paid by...
It hasn't emerged much into the public eye, but some advocates and auto-industry sources have had quiet discussions on whether the U.S. will continue to lead the world in electric-car technology in a new decade. California remains the epicenter of plug-in car adoption, with roughly half the country's electric-car sales over seven years recorded...
A major contributor to electric-car sales is the program under which buyers of new electric cars qualify for a federal income-tax credit of up to $7,500. But these tax credits are not unlimited. Once a manufacturer reaches sales of 200,000 plug-in electric cars (after December 31, 2009), the credits start to phase out for that company's cars...
Today, we've got advice on buying or leasing an electric car, a possible diesel-cheating deal for Jeep and Ram, tax credits in the budget bill, and another Tesla statement after Musk said something that startled analysts. All this and more on Green Car Reports. Over the weekend, as we do every seven days, we ran down last week's most important...