The eagerly anticipated premiere event for the Lordstown Endurance electric pickup prototype held Thursday revealed very little new information about the product. Instead, the event included an aspect that Silicon Valley—or Detroit, usually—likes to keep out of its technology and vehicle events: having them become overtly political... Lordstown Endurance electric pickup: A premiere, a political rally, and a pushback to summer 2021
The eagerly anticipated premiere event for the Lordstown Endurance electric pickup prototype held Thursday revealed very little new information about the product. Instead, the event included an aspect that Silicon Valley—or Detroit, usually—likes to keep out of its technology and vehicle events: having them become overtly political...
While the current Presidential administration remains hostile to nearly any effort to reduce carbon emissions, two members of Congress have introduced a bill to expand electric-car charging infrastructure. Called the Electric Vehicle Freedom Act, the bill calls for the construction of a network of fast-charging stations along major highways within...
General Motors CEO Mary Barra announced an accelerated sustainability push for the automaker Wednesday during a presentation for investors, and showed no sign of backing down from the company’s plan for an all-electric future that's out of sync with the talking points from either California or the Trump administration. “We believe...
Tesla hasn’t run a single traditional TV ad so far. Yet one political ad that’s been running in Iowa might as well be a Tesla commercial. It’s a campaign spot for Andrew Yang, and while Green Car Reports doesn’t usually dive so deeply into political commercials, this one is something different—consisting of what plays...
A draft of the final rule for the Trump administration’s plan to relax national fuel economy regulations is currently in White House review, with a requirement for annual 1.5% mileage increases from 2021 through 2026. It now includes carrying over the existing framework for calculating fleet averages forward, as well as the current system...
Buyers of Tesla and GM electric vehicles will soon be ineligible for the federal EV tax credit. Meanwhile automakers (GM most recently) are grappling with production locations and long-term labor negotiations amid uncertainties over how EVs will play into new federal emission and fuel economy rules. It might be time to revisit how the federal...
There’s a small footnote in the chapters of history being written on Capitol Hill this week: One of President Donald Trump’s signature reforms—to subvert California’s right to set its own emissions standards—now seems like scribbles in the margin on the pages of his administration's legacy. For the electric-car...
States are increasingly turning to electric cars for improved air quality and lower costs, but the ways those states are promoting EV use and adoption vary dramatically. That's according to a report released this week by the National Governors Association after it conducted workshops across the U.S. and studied how states are using and, in some...
The EPA and California Air Resources Board have moved slowly in the past year, failing to reach a consensus on key issues between the federal department's proposals to roll back emissions-based fuel economy standards and the state's decades-old ability to set their own. Tensions boiled over this week when EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler sent a...
In these days when the political dividing lines can seem insurmountable, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents have something in common: Regardless of their political affiliation, a majority say that they view electric vehicles positively. A new survey from Climate Nexus has found that 77 percent—a strong majority—views EVs...
Now that the federal plug-in tax credit has begun to wind down on the U.S.-made Chevrolet Bolt EV, members of Congress propose to do something about it. Democrats have proposed several bills in Congress to remove the manufacturer-based 200,000-car cap on the credits and extending them for 10 years, and a new proposal by California Democrat Ro...
Our current President, Donald Trump, has made it abundantly clear where he stands on electric cars. It’s quite a contrast to our former President, Barack Obama, whose administration widely supported policy fostering more fuel-efficient vehicles, greener energy, and the path to more vehicles that plug in. This weekend marks the last one for...
President Trump hasn’t minced his words—or his policy—in declaring that he doesn’t think electric cars are a good idea. At a Thursday night rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Trump took his electric-car criticism to a new (and somewhat hard-to-follow) level, jumping from jabs about the Green New Deal, to suggesting that the...
Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy and state attorneys general from California and Maryland said Friday that they will vigorously fight proposed rollbacks by the EPA to federal emissions standards ahead of public hearings scheduled for next week. "We’re not interested in taking a punch. We want to counter-punch," California Attorney General...
Last week the Trump administration unveiled a broad drawdown of fuel-economy regulations that had been aimed at cutting emissions from passenger vehicles. In the 978-page proposal, administration officials argued those rules implemented by the Obama administration would create lighter, potentially more fuel-efficient vehicles that would be less...
Sixteen states joined an effort this week to petition courts to review a rollback of an Obama-era regulation that capped the number of "glider" trucks, Transport Topics reported. Glider trucks are new bodies fitted with older diesel engines that predate emissions controls. Those trucks can emit up to 43 times more carcinogenic particulate matter...
Following a public spat over climate change legislation, oil giant ExxonMobil has pulled its membership from the Koch brothers-backed anti-climate-change lobbying group, American Legislative Exchange Council. Neither ExxonMobil nor ALEC has commented publicly on the reasons for the company's departure, but the move comes after ExxonMobil had an...
The announced retirement Wednesday of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy could have dramatic and detrimental effects on environmental quality. Since the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in 2006, Kennedy has been a pivotal vote on the court, siding with the majority on at least two crucial rulings to expand the reach of the EPA. The...
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt left little to chance in trying to make the agency more friendly to the oil industry after he took office last year, according to new emails revealed in a report by Buzzfeed News. The Sierra Club obtained the emails through a Freedom of Information Act request and shared them with Buzzfeed, according to the report...