What's known as Volkswagen Group Night is always a major event at European auto shows. One of the marquee attractions at Monday night's event, held before Geneva auto show media days start Tuesday, was the Volkswagen ID Vizzion concept for a large, all-electric sedan. It will be the largest car in the Volkswagen ID range of battery-electric... Volkswagen ID Vizzion concept for all-electric sedan by 2022 debuts in Geneva
What's known as Volkswagen Group Night is always a major event at European auto shows. One of the marquee attractions at Monday night's event, held before Geneva auto show media days start Tuesday, was the Volkswagen ID Vizzion concept for a large, all-electric sedan. It will be the largest car in the Volkswagen ID range of battery-electric...
Most of the U.S. was unaware that modern electric cars got their start in California between 1996 and 2002. Many of the earliest owners and EV advocates from those days remain involved 20 years later, though their names may be familiar only to a small group of activists. One of those people is Paul Scott, who's been part of several important...
The 2019 Jaguar I-Pace SUV that debuted Thursday beat all the German luxury makes to the punch in launching a viable competitor to the looks and capabilities of electric cars offered by Tesla. The 14-year-old Silicon Valley startup has attracted huge attention for the stunning acceleration of its cars, particularly the "P" performance versions...
A funny thing happened to Toyota Prius hybrid sales last month. Almost one in three Prius hybrids sold in the U.S. were the Prius Prime model—the one with a plug. Toyota may be the large automaker least friendly to cars that plug in, so what's that all about? DON'T MISS: Toyota Prius hybrid sales have tanked: here are 4 reasons why In the...
Total sales by Jaguar Land Rover are a fraction of those by its rivals Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz. Arguably, that has required the British luxury maker to be more agile and more creative to compete. While Audi has discussed its plans for an all-electric crossover utility version for more than two years now, Jaguar's electric-car plans only broke...
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...
Sales of plug-in electric cars tend to be lower during the winter months, unlike the rest of the market, and February was little exception to that rule. After a whiz-bang December that took 2017 sales to their highest-ever number—just under 200,000 battery-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles sold in the U.S.—January numbers fell back...
Over the next three years, numerous long-range electric cars will come to market at prices below $40,000. That will expand the pool of potential buyers to those interested in plug-in vehicles but unwilling to consider one rated at less than 200 miles. Those new owners will learn the DC fast charging along highways to enable longer road trips...
While Dyson may be best known worldwide for high-tech vacuum cleaners, the company has a strong affinity for what the British call "boffins," which roughly translates to "eccentric genius inventors." With a slight resemblance to Doc Brown of "Back to the Future" (as played by Christopher Lloyd), company founder James Dyson epitomizes the type. Now...
The battery packs of most modern electric cars are far different than those in your mobile phone or other portable devices. In most cases, they include hundreds or thousands of cells, arranged into modules, and usually surrounded by channels containing liquid coolant to keep the battery in its desired temperature range. Now a new video shows...
Using electric cars as police vehicles has some distinct advantages. Among them are near-silent operation, maximum acceleration from 0 rpm, and a novelty factor that can lead to friendly, beneficial interactions between officers and citizens. Now, the small Maryland city of Hyattsville, a suburb of Washington, D.C., has a 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV...
Drivers who buy an electric car that plugs into the power grid to recharge the battery often start to consider the source of their energy. A 2012 analysis from California, in the earliest days of modern electric cars, indicated as many as four in 10 electric-car drivers were already using or considering the addition of home solar panels to...
The first generation of mass-priced electric cars with ranges of 60 to 90 miles simply didn't have enough range to be used outside predictable daily commute duties and local errands around town. Sure, four-fifths of vehicles in the U.S. cover less than 40 miles a day—but that other fifth matters a lot when paying $30,000-plus for a new...
It's been a topic of discussion for years: What will happen when a carmaker reaches the cap on U.S. sales of electric cars that qualify for the full federal tax credit of $7,500? That number is 200,000; after the rest of that calendar quarter and the one following, the credit is halved for a further two quarters. Rough calculations indicate that...
The Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV has been a huge success in Europe, selling more than 100,000 copies there over several years. As the first and least expensive plug-in hybrid SUV, it received many incentives in different European countries and provided the first taste of plug-in electric driving for numerous families. Now, the plug-in hybrid...
Today, most people charge their electric cars at home, overnight. That's much harder for residents of multiple dwellings or those without dedicated off-street parking, increasing numbers of whom instead recharge during the day while parked at their workplace. Now Tesla plans to make it easier for owners of its cars—and only them—to...
When a mysterious company called Rivian issued a mysterious video in January 2017, it promised to "reshape mobility." As is often the case, that has turned out to involve electric cars. A year later, the company has released a few more details about its plans and its team. DON'T MISS: Chinese electric-car startup Nio gets $1 billion in funding...
Toward the end of last year, electric-car shoppers began to think about a U.S. market without the $7,500 federal tax credit for their purchases of plug-in vehicles. While the tax credit ended up surviving the massive tax-cut bill passed in December, some automakers are still about to face the end of the incentive. As designed and implemented in...
Try asking any electric-car owner or advocate, or for that matter any member of the public, which automaker sold the most electric cars last year. In North America, the answer will likely be Tesla, or possibly Nissan or Chevrolet. But we'd bet you hear Tesla most often. The correct answer for global sales of plug-in electric cars, however, was the...
The subcompact Renault Zoe hatchback has been Europe's best-selling electric car for several years now. Last year, sales soared after it received a major upgrade to its battery pack, which grew to 41 kilowatt-hours, up from 22 kwh in earlier versions, almost doubling its range to 300 to 400 kilometers (185 to 250 miles) on the European test cycle...