2018 Honda Clarity Plug-In Hybrid first drive

2018 Honda Clarity Plug-In Hybrid drive, Napa Valley, Caifornia, Dec 2017There's a new plug-in hybrid in town, and it could expand the audience for cars that provide useful electric range for daily driving while retaining an efficient gasoline engine for longer trips. The 2018 Honda Clarity Plug-In Hybrid is the third and most important model in the Clarity lineup, which already includes the hydrogen Fuel Cell model as...

2017 BMW i3 REx: drive review of range-extended electric car

2017 BMW i3 REx range-extended electric car     [photo: Chris Neff]When the history of modern electric cars is written, the BMW i3 will likely go down as something of an anomaly. Its carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic body shell, aluminum underpinnings, and battery-electric powertrain with an optional range extender are a combination not offered by any other maker, now or perhaps ever. We spent four days and 316...

New approach to electric-car battery cooling: immerse cells in coolant

XING Miss R Lithium-Ion Battery PackRegardless of how your vehicle is powered—whether it be an internal-combustion engine or a battery pack powering an electric motor—most powertrains have a common enemy: heat. For Taipei-based XING Mobility, heat is a major concern for its high-performance Miss R model as its battery cells need to rapidly discharge to generate its...

Volkswagen ID electric car production date now set: November 2019

Volkswagen ID electric car concept, 2016 Paris auto showSince the Dieselgate scandal broke more than two years ago, Volkswagen has spent a great deal of time talking about its plans for electric cars. It has rolled out three concept vehicles within the new Volkswagen ID family, and discussed its dedicated electric-car architecture that will underpin all of them. Now, the company has committed to a date...

Plug-in electric car sales in Canada, Nov 2017: the vaulting Chevy Volt

2017 Chevrolet Volt in Vancouver, BC, CanadaA record 582 Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrids were sold in Canada last month, two months after Chevy delivered a then-record 483 Volts in September. The achievement is even more impressive considering Canadian car sales dropped by 15 percent between the two months, as the industry enters its slow season. The November Volt sales are more than the 536...

Judge sides with Tesla, slams dealer association in Missouri

Tesla Store Los Angeles [photo: Misha Bruk / MBH Architects]Since Tesla began selling electric cars directly to customers throughout the U.S., the electric-vehicle maker has had to play franchise-law whack-a-mole in multiple state courts. On Tuesday, Tesla scored a decisive victory when the Missouri Court of Appeals reversed a lower court's ruling that would have left Tesla without a state dealer license...

How many Model 3s will Tesla deliver by Dec 31? Twitter poll results, again

2017 Tesla Model 3, 2017 Los Angeles Auto ShowWhat a difference a few months makes. In June, one month before the delivery of the first 30 Tesla Model 3, we polled our Twitter followers on how many of the lower-priced electric cars Tesla would deliver by the end of this year. The view then was pretty rosy, with more than half the respondents saying the company would have sold more than 10,000...

Jeep Wrangler Plug-In Hybrid to go into production in 2020

Mopar-modified Jeep Wrangler features all-new items from the performance parts catalogLooking back at last week's Los Angeles auto show media days, one new vehicle sucked up a disproportionate amount of attention and airtime. That would be the new 2018 Jeep Wrangler, a once-in-a-decade redesign of the iconic off-roader that's the linchpin of the Jeep brand image worldwide. While the new Wrangler itself had long been...

2018 Nissan Leaf electric car now rolling off lines in Tennessee

First 2018 Nissan Leaf produced at assembly plant in Smyrna, Tennessee, Dec 2017The 2018 Nissan Leaf electric car will start to appear at Nissan dealers in January, the company said Monday. That availability came in an announcement that the second-generation electric car officially went into production the same day at Nissan's sprawling assembly plant in Smyrna, Tennessee. It's one of three locations globally that will build...

Configuring a Tesla Model 3: buyer walks through the process with us

2017 Tesla Model 3 electric car online configuratorVery few of the 455,000 people who put down $1,000 to reserve a place in line for the Tesla Model 3 electric car have received the opportunity yet to configure their cars online and place a firm order. The volume of Model 3s is still apparently at low numbers—a few hundred last month, according to rumors and reports—as the company...