Charged with Electric Vehicle News and Views
A leaked memo shows that the Trump EPA will try to freeze fuel economy standards and circumvent California rules. Electric-car drivers in L.A. will no longer get free access to coveted toll-lanes. A Tesla driver in Britain shows how not to stop driving, and Toyota reveals new electric C-HR in China. All this and more on Green Car Reports. After... 
Some people just don't want to drive. And some of them get their wish. That's what happened to Bhavesh Patel, who lost his driving privileges in Britain after leaving the driver's seat of his Tesla Model S after he had engaged the Autopilot system. Last May, according to the British Independent newspaper, Patel set the Autopilot while he was... 
Toyota announced a third electric car for China at the Beijing auto show last week. In addition to the plug-in Corolla and Levin sedans, the company will electrify its C-HR hatchback for the Chinese market according to a report in British car magazine AutoCar.. China requires automakers to sell a certain percentage of their cars as electrics... 
After announcing its intention last month to roll back emissions standards that require cars to get higher fuel economy, the EPA is now circulating a proposal in Washington to freeze the standards at 2020 levels through 2026. The story was first reported by the Los Angeles Times, and confirmed by Reuters. The proposal so far is a draft, which... 
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority just cut back on a big reason that drivers buy electric cars: free access to toll lanes in the county. Caltrans, the state department of transportation, still allows electric cars to use high-occupancy vehicle lanes statewide. However, the toll lanes in Los Angeles County are managed... 
Trucks use an awful lot more fuel than cars. Consequently, the fuel you can save from making small improvements can be massive. That’s what Bob Sliwa aims to do when he sets out from San Diego, Calif., on May 17 in his Shell Airflow Starship record truck. Hauling his full-sized trailer fully loaded to the truck's 80,000 pounds capacity, he... 
What ever happened to electric-car company BYD? And what's BMW's new electric-car strategy? This is our look back at the Week In Reverse—right here at Green Car Reports—for the week ending on Friday, April 17, 2018. On Friday, we took learned some more details about the new diesel F150, and had a chance to offer some driving... 
Porsche builds its own super fast electric-car charging network. road trip gas mileage review: Can the Toyota Camry Hybrid XLE live up to its 44 mpg highway fuel economy rating? And students vote for and fund the first battery-powered all electric bus fleet at the University of California Irvine. All this and more on Green Car Reports. Porsche... 
BYD is a Chinese electric car company that was founded to "Build Your Dreams." Now it claims to be the biggest electric vehicle company in the world—and it's building buses. We're not sure who dreams about buses, but the company is now building the first battery-powered, all-electric bus fleet at the University of California, Irvine... 
The grim reaper might be coming for sedans, but the 2018 Toyota Camry isn’t ready to go. Today’s Toyota Camry suffers from multiple personality disorder, which, I discovered after 800 miles behind the wheel, might also be its biggest asset. Dressed up in Camry XSE trim, it wants to be a sports car. Slumming it with hubcaps, the Camry L... 
Porsche is getting its dealerships on board with selling electric cars, in preparation for its upcoming Mission E electric sedan, by insisting that each of the company's 189 U.S dealerships install fast charger with enough juice to charge the car's big, 300-mile battery to substantially full in just over 20 minutes. Presumably during this time... 
Ford has a gem of a diesel engine under the hood of the 2018 F-150 Power Stroke—as long as drivers aren’t enamored with good fuel economy. Wait, what? After a day of driving F-150 diesels in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains near Boulder, Colorado, unladen, with beds loaded up with heavy building materials, and with big trailers... 
Passenger cars at Ford have short lives. The automaker announced Wednesday that it would pare its lineup to just two cars: The Mustang and a new Focus Active crossover, which is based on the next-generation Focus unveiled this month. The Ford Fiesta, Fusion, Taurus, and Focus hatchback and sedan will not be renewed for future generations in the... 
After Lexus introduced a new ES 300h hybrid yesterday, we finished out test drive in the considerably more luxurious LC 500h coupe. Honda introduced its new electric car for China, and it's based on the small HR-V SUV that it sells here. And we take a deep dive into the next technology that will make gas engines more fuel effiicent. All this and... 
As fast as electric cars are improving and expanding, there are some things that gas engines do better—many experts agree that gasoline engines will be around for several decades. Developing electric cars and refining gas engines aren't mutually exclusive. Vehicle electrification will continue to expand rapidly, and internal combustion... 
Ever since Honda announced 10 years ago that it would build an SUV based on the Fit, it also talked about building a hybrid version of the new car. Indeed, a hybrid version of the HR-V is already on sale in much of the world, where the car is known as the Honda Vezel. At the Beijing auto show this week, Honda took the concept one step further with... 
As the industry marches toward greener cars, battery and hybrid drivetrains are expanding into vehicle segments never before concerned with fuel economy ratings or much with emissions. No segment is excluded from this progress, not even luxury grand tourers. Toyota, along with its luxury division Lexus, is the king of hybrids, so it was no... 
Lexus reveals its new ES sedan, complete with its hybrid counterpart, the ES 300h. Fuel economy and power both go up. If California didn't have enough incentives for its citizens to buy electric cars, the state's biggest utility, PG&E is offering a $3,000 rebate for its customers to buy a new Nissan Leaf. BMW releases more details about its...