Tesla Model 3 battery cells will turn a profit for Panasonic by next year

Tour of Tesla battery gigafactory for invited owners, Reno, Nevada, July 2016Relatively few people focus on it, but the huge Japanese electronics company Panasonic is a minority shareholder in electric-car maker Tesla. The deal dates all the way back to November 2010, the same year that Tesla completed its initial public offering after Toyota took a stake in the company and sold Tesla its Fremont assembly plant in...

Bollinger B1 electric utility truck: 6,000 signups in two weeks

Bollinger B1It seems as though online signups are all becoming all the rage among electric-car makers. The practice probably started with Tesla, but it really accelerated in April 2016 when the company revealed the Tesla Model 3 electric sedan in a hugely publicized event watched around the world. The company's first lower-priced model was unveiled in front...

Electric-car discovery, education centers are now a thing

Plug'n Drive Education Center TorontoBreaking with routine and tradition is never easy, especially when it comes to buying, owning, and operating a vehicle powered by an internal-combustion engine. Around the world, roughly 1 billion vehicle owners stop at fuel stations and keep cars powered by fossil fuels running—and have done for a century now. Inevitably, it will take more...

Better alkaline batteries, made rechargeable, to power electric cars?

Tesla Motors - Model S lithium-ion battery packAlkaline batteries have been a staple energy source for decades, but their potential has been capped by their chemical properties. Notably, alkaline batteries cannot be recharged, which means their application is often limited to single usess in small devices such as flashlights and remote controls. An alkaline battery finding its way to an...

Tesla semi truck to test self-driving, capable of ‘platooning’: report

Teaser for Tesla semi truck debuting in SeptemberWith Tesla, there's always something new coming up to keep owners, buyers, and fans excited. The company's main task over the next year is to get its lower-priced Model 3 electric car into volume assembly at high quality, a process CEO Elon Musk has called "production hell." But there's more to come, one of the new products being Tesla's promised...

Tesla Model 3 Performance version coming, after ‘production hell’ ends

2017 Tesla Model 3, in photo tweeted by Elon Musk on July 9, 2017Now that the Tesla Model 3 has officially entered production, the electric-car maker's main goal will be to ensure the manufacturing process ramps up smoothly. With 1,800 new reservations reportedly placed each day for the affordable electric sedan, Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter to confirm the company needs to get through six months of...

Best deals on hybrid, electric, fuel-efficient cars for August 2017

2013 Toyota Avalon HybridAs North America rounds out the final weeks of summer, plenty of discounts and deals remain on fuel-efficient, hybrid, and electric cars. The month of August sees a number of familiar nameplates remain as best buys, while a few newcomers arrive to represent excellent new values. Below are August's best deals on hybrid, electric, and fuel-efficient...

Plug-in electric car sales in Canada, July 2017: Golf season

2017 Volkswagen e-GolfThe Volkswagen e-Golf launched in Canada in late June, tallying 39 sales before the month’s end, and followed that with 84 units in its first full month of availability. Aided by the e-Golf, the Toyota Prius Prime and the soon-to-arrive second-generation Nissan Leaf, plug-in electric vehicles may push above 1 percent of the market for...

Go Forth Electric Vehicle Showcase in Portland: lessons learned

Chevrolet Bolt EV being charged outside Go Forth electric-car showroom, Portland   [photo: Forth]One of the challenges in getting car shoppers to consider plug-in electric vehicles is the education required. Tesla attacked this problem head on, opening its stores in malls and other sites where potential future buyers could dip their toes in and start to learn about electric cars without being pressured to sign on the line. But at all other...

New engine development at German makers to end by 2025, says supplier

BMW engineContinental, a major supplier for automakers around the world, has come out with a bold prediction: internal-combustion engine development by German automakers will essentially end by the year 2025. The supplier, which makes exhaust-gas-cleaning systems for diesel cars and nitrogen oxide-measuring sensors, lists several factors contributing to its...

Faraday Future gets $14 million; factory moved to CA from Vegas

Artist’s impression of Faraday Future’s proposed plant in Hanford, CaliforniaElectric-car maker Faraday Future has received an emergency injection of $14 million to move its FF 91 luxury electric car closer to market. The rescue funds come in the form of a loan from Innovatus Capital Partners, after Faraday Future pledged its California-based headquarters as collateral. For now, the $14 million will keep the company afloat...

2019 Mazda 3 to feature world-first HCCI engine for efficiency: report

2017 Mazda MAZDA3It's a technology that's been a sort of Holy Grail in the auto industry for at least a couple of decades. Now Mazda, one of the smallest global automakers, plans to introduce it in a radical new engine to be used in a future Mazda vehicle in 2019. It's called homogeneous charge compression ignition, or HCCI: in essence it lets a gasoline engine...

Tesla Model 3 electric car: what’s your take? Poll results

2017 Tesla Model 3 With the Tesla Model 3 electric car now in early production and an aggressive ramp rate targeted, it's getting lots of media attention. Part of that is due to the allure of the Tesla brand and fascinating with company CEO Elon Musk. Some more may be due to the widespread misapprehension that the Model 3 is the first long-range electric car for...