There'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... 2018 Honda Clarity Plug-In Hybrid first drive
There'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...
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...
By now, many people would likely produce the correct answer when asked, Where in the U.S. are electric cars most popular? That would be California, which last year had almost seven battery-electric and plug-in hybrid cars registered per 1,000 people. But five other states have more than two plug-in vehicles per 1,000 residents—and we're...
Battery-pack prices are the lowest they've ever been, and like a yoga-obsessed limbo contestant, they're primed to go even lower. A report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, based on a survey of "more than 50 companies," states the average cost of a electric-car battery pack is now $209 per kilowatt-hour. But the real shocker is the report's claim...
An Instagram post by an "outdoor living design and construction firm serving the Chicago Southland" seems to confirm a total of 1,230 reservations for Tesla's new all-electric truck. Elemental Landscapes of Illinois posted a screenshot of its reservation for three Tesla Semi trucks, showing a reservation number EO000001230. If the reservation...
As it gears up for volume production of battery-electric cars starting in 2019, Volkswagen Group spends a lot of time talking to the press about its future plans for the vehicles. We already know its first electric car that year will be the compact hatchback Volkswagen ID, and the first to be sold in the U.S. will be the VW ID Crozz utility...
Regardless 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...
If you want to make electric vehicles the new normal, why not turn boring delivery vehicles into zero-emission boxes? That's the plan of The Climate Group's new EV100 organization, launched in October, which is focused on electrifying fleets and "making electric transport the new normal by 2030." The companies that join EV100 make a public...
Since 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...
A 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...
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...
Jaguar’s upcoming first entry into electric vehicles is undergoing final validation in Los Angeles, a year after the British brand revealed the I-Pace Concept at the 2016 Los Angeles Auto Show. Jaguar wrapped the new I-Pace in a pseudo-mule livery and plastered a hashtag on its side as engineers performed final range and durability testing...
With Porsche promising ultra-fast charging for its Mission E electric car, Honda isn’t going to let the German automaker keeps its 15 minutes of charging fame. Honda aims to develop cars that can grab enough juice from the grid for 240 kilometers (150 miles) of range in 15 minutes flat. Fifteen-minute charge times are key to bringing...
What 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...
Looking 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...
Since Tesla’s reveal of its new Semi and Roadster models, many technical analysts have been left scratching their collective heads. How can Tesla promise performance metrics far exceeding what’s currently physically and economically possible? According to one analyst, it may not be a matter of what batteries can do now, but what they...
The 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...
Very 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...
While such autonomous players as Uber, Tesla, and Waymo have already opened their car doors to the public, GM's autonomous subsidiary Cruise Automation has held its cards close to its vest. This past week, the Detroit-based automaker and Silicon Valley-based subsidiary allowed select members of the press a sneak peek of what’s to come from...