Volkswagen ID R sets new EV lap record at Nürburgring

Volkswagen ID R at NürburgringVolkswagen's new ID R electric race car continues setting records. After obliterating the record climbing Pikes Peak—not just for electric cars, but for all cars—last June, on Monday, the car set the lap record for electric cars at Germany's famously demanding Nürburgring race track. At the Nürburgring, the electric ID R...

Hyundai Kona Hybrid announced for Europe, not confirmed for US

2020 Hyundai Kona HybridHyundai announced on Monday that it will introduce a new hybrid version of its Kona small SUV in Europe. The model follows the standard Kona and the Kona Electric, which went on sale in Europe last year and in the U.S. this spring. The Kona Hybrid uses Hyundai's standard hybrid system with an electric motor built into the six-speed dual-clutch...

An electric car can’t fully replace a gas-powered car in my world

2018 Tesla Model 3Three incredibly long days after my nearly 3-year-old son Seth doubled over and screamed his “tummy hurt” we were finally back on the freeway headed home. My mind wandered because there’s not much else on Interstate 380 in Iowa in December. Three days earlier, my wife, kids, and I traveled from Minnesota to Reinbeck...

Musk teases Tesla truck, opens Chinese Model 3 orders at lower price

Tesla CEO Elon Musk (r.) and Shanghai Mayor Ying Yong in Shanghai July 10, 2018In an appearance on a "Ride the Lightning" unofficial Tesla podcast this weekend, CEO Elon Musk got a little more specific about the company's highly-anticipated upcoming pickup truck. He confirmed earlier reports that the new pickup "won't look like a normal truck. It's going to look pretty sci-fi," he told interviewer Ryan McCaffrey. To be sure...

NYC taxi mpg requirements also cut pollution, study confirms

Ford Fusion Hybrid TaxiNew York City's efforts a decade ago to clean up pollution from old taxi models has worked—mostly—a new study shows. The study, by researchers at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health (in New York) and Drexel University, and published in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology, shows that the...

VW diesel mitigation: PIRG rates state plans, lacks reality check on EVs

Volkswagen TDI 'clean diesel' television ad screencapThe Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal has fallen out of the news, but VW Group recently boosted its allowance for the total costs to 30 billion euros ($33 billion). In the U.S., VW has bought back hundreds of thousands of TDI diesel vehicles and is paying two distinct 10-figure penalties. The best-known is the $2 billion that will go to create...

Rolls-Royce guns for electric airplane speed record

Rolls-Royce ACCEL electric speed record attempt airplaneWhen most people think of Rolls-Royce, they think of ultra-luxury cars, not airplanes. But a separate Rolls-Royce, spun off of the automaker in 1971, makes aircraft engines. And that company plans to go electric in tackling the world speed record for electric airplanes. To borrow a famous phrase from the automaker, if "horsepower is sufficient."...

EPA lifts smog-related ban, allows more ethanol in summer gasoline

Gas pumpToday, the EPA acted on a proposed change to expand the amount of ethanol that can be mixed into pump gasoline from June 1 to September 1. In an official announcement, the agency made no comment about how the move might affect summer air quality or pollution issues. The EPA said that it “delivers on President Trump’s promise,”...

British Columbia bans most gasoline and diesel cars after 2040

British Columbia   [image: Wikimedia Commons]British Columbia has followed through on a plan to ban sales of new gasoline and diesel cars starting in 2040. On Wednesday, the province passed the Zero Emissions Vehicles Act, which requires that all cars sold in the province by 2040 be "zero emissions vehicles." That includes electric cars, plug-in hybrids and fuel-cell vehicles—so many...

British Columbia bans most gasoline and diesel cars after 2040

British Columbia   [image: Wikimedia Commons]British Columbia has followed through on a plan to ban sales of new gasoline and diesel cars starting in 2040. On Wednesday, the province passed the Zero Emissions Vehicles Act, which requires that all cars sold in the province by 2040 be "zero emissions vehicles." That includes electric cars, plug-in hybrids and fuel-cell vehicles—so many...

EVs could get more expensive as US trade war heats up

2019 Chevrolet Bolt EVAs the U.S. government's trade war with China heats up, it looks like it soon might spill over into electric cars. Chinese state-run media outlets have begun threatening that the government will impose new tariffs on rare-earth metals used in the permanent magnet motors in electric cars as well as capacitive touch screens and electronic capacitors...

EVs could get more expensive as US trade war heats up

2019 Chevrolet Bolt EVAs the U.S. government's trade war with China heats up, it looks like it soon might spill over into electric cars. Chinese state-run media outlets have begun threatening that the government will impose new tariffs on rare-earth metals used in the permanent magnet motors in electric cars as well as capacitive touch screens and electronic capacitors...