Federal officials told Tesla again in October to stop advertising the Tesla Model 3 as the having "the lowest probability of injury of any vehicle ever tested by NHTSA," federal documents revealed. The notice surfaced Wednesday by nonprofit PlainSite. The response runs 79 pages, with another 450 withheld at Tesla's request. In its letter, NHTSA... NHTSA to Tesla: Stop claiming your cars are the safest
Federal officials told Tesla again in October to stop advertising the Tesla Model 3 as the having "the lowest probability of injury of any vehicle ever tested by NHTSA," federal documents revealed. The notice surfaced Wednesday by nonprofit PlainSite. The response runs 79 pages, with another 450 withheld at Tesla's request. In its letter, NHTSA...
California launched another lawsuit against the Trump administration over fuel economy regulations on Friday, this time over a federal decision to suspend planned increases in penalties for automakers who miss required targets. In announcing the lawsuit, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra accused the Trump administration of trying to make...
The EPA hasn't yet released its final ruling on a proposal to freeze fuel economy standards. However, a different federal agency—NHTSA—has finalized a rule to freeze fines on automakers who exceed the standards. The fines have been set at $5.50 per 0.1 mpg, per car the automakers produce that doesn't meet the standards, since 1997...
The federal government has crashed another Tesla Model 3. And once again, the results are something that Tesla, its owners and acolytes, and anyone considering one of these electric cars can agree is good news. With tests newly posted for the 2019 Tesla Model 3 Long Range Dual Motor (all-wheel drive) version, the entire Model 3 lineup now earns...
At its meeting on Friday, the California Air Resources Board officially confirmed that it will stick with planned increases in emissions and fuel economy standards for cars sold in the state. The move was expected after CARB said in August that it would not follow the Trump Administration's move to freeze federal emissions and fuel economy...
The 2018 Tesla Model 3 aced its federal crash-test regimen and earned top, five-star scores on all of its sub-tests, safety officials said this week. The Model 3 follows the Model S and Model X, which have both aced the NHTSA's tests. The insurance industry-funded IIHS has only rated the Model S sedan so far, and it earned mostly top "Good" scores...
Smaller, lighter cars always get the blame when politicians want to lower fuel-economy standards. They lobby that too many Americans will be driving lighter cars and that that will lead to more deaths on America's roadways. That's exactly the argument that the Trump administration made earlier this month in its proposal to weaken fuel economy...
In President Trump's plan to freeze fuel economy standards last week, the EPA and NHTSA made a strange statement. They said that two of the main technologies used to improve fuel economy standards—turbocharging and multi-speed transmissions—were not as effective as had been expected. Having studied fuel economy standards from their...
As promised, the Trump administration has embarked on regulatory rollbacks across many fronts, some immediate and others taking longer. It remains unclear whether the EPA's plan to loosen carbon-dioxide emission limits for 2022 through 2025 vehicles will survive inevitable court challenges. However, despite shrill rhetoric from environmental...
EPA administrator Scott Pruitt said yesterday the agency plans to modify rules limiting carbon-dioxide emissions for light-duty vehicles in model years 2022 through 2025. The agency, he said, had reached a determination that the limits put in place in 2012 under the Obama administration were “not appropriate and should be revised." The...
It happened again. At this week's New York auto show media days, a manufacturer rolled out yet another vehicle that it calls a "crossover" despite that vehicle having neither the ground clearance nor the all-wheel drive to qualify as a light truck. The car in question was the 2019 Hyundai Kona Electric, a 250-mile battery-electric vehicle more...
Last Tuesday, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt said the agency does not intend to let California set the agenda for national emission limits on vehicles. He suggested to Bloomberg the EPA plans to cut emission rules aggressively to respond to carmakers' pleas for easing of the corporate average fuel economy rules for 2022 through 2025 that they had...
The idea of adding noise-makers to vehicles that are "too quiet" didn't exist until the first hybrid-electric cars hit the market in 2000. Within a few years, however, organizations representing the blind began to raise alarms that cars operating at low speeds solely on electric power couldn't be heard by pedestrians who also couldn't see them...
Early in 2014, Toyota filed a voluntary recall notice with the NHTSA to fix a defect in roughly 800,000 third-generation Prius Liftback hybrids sold in the U.S. from 2010 through 2014. The company said it would make unspecified changes to software that controlled the vehicle's inverter, which varies the voltage in the vehicle's hybrid system...