Peter Rawlinson was the Chief Engineer behind Tesla’s Model S. In 2016, he helped to launch Lucid Motors, and he became the company’s CEO in 2019. (See our in-depth Q&A with Mr. Rawlinson.) Now Lucid has announced that Rawlinson has stepped down as CEO, and will transition to the role of Strategic Technical Advisor to… Read more »
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First Drive: For 2025, updated Hyundai Ioniq 5 adds XRT “off-road” model to growing lineup
It’s still the Ioniq 5 you know and love, with some useful tweaks plus hot-rod and XRT versions. The Hyundai Ioniq 5 crossover utility vehicle is now a familiar site in regions where electric cars are popular. Entering its fourth model year in North America, the square-edged hatchback gets some minor updates to styling, inside… Read more »
Scout Motors is confident it will win the right to sell EVs directly to customers
In the early 2010s, Tesla poked a couple of bricks out of the dealership wall that separates automakers from consumers in the US market. Could that wall come crashing down someday soon? The dealership model, with its leisure-suited salespeople performing their high-ball, low-ball, “let me see what we can do” dance, has been an anachronism… Read more »
Scout Motors unveils EV Terra truck, Traveler SUV concepts, including Harvester range extender
Heavy on heritage and light on details, the launch event showed Scout’s concepts for an EV 4×4 that’s every bit the equal of Jeep or Bronco. Scout Motors, the startup electric-truck maker owned by Volkswagen, took the wraps off concepts for its first two 4×4 models outside Nashville on Thursday evening. The Terra truck and… Read more »
2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz: electric Microbus finally arrives
It’s instantly recognizable as a VW Bus, but what does it compete against? And will its allure last? The 2025 Volkswagen ID.Buzz, an electric reinvention of VW’s 1960s Microbus, is finally here. After a seven-year wait, the high-style 3-row box on wheels will hit dealerships in November and December—with priority going to those dealers who… Read more »
2024 Chevy Equinox EV: Is this the electric SUV for average Americans?
It took far too long to get here, but it may have been worth the wait. The 2024 Chevrolet Equinox EV, GM’s smallest and least expensive battery-electric vehicle, is finally rolling into dealerships across the country. Now we’ve driven it, and it’s good. You can view the electric Equinox as the anti-Tesla. Where the Silicon… Read more »
GM insiders explain why Ultium EV production stalled
As the popular narrative has it, GM, Ford et al are walking back on their electrification plans because EV sales have slowed. Seldom mentioned in the headlines is the fact that GM and others have very few EVs for sale at the moment, and have fallen way behind their putative schedules for releasing new models…. Read more »
GM’s rosy year-end figures obscure the fact that legacy automakers are in deep trouble
Duplicitous doublespeak has become de rigueur dialect in the auto industry. “We remain committed to an all-electric future,” says GM as it announces a rollback of its electrification plans. “We strongly believe in EVs,” say auto dealers as they support efforts to slow the EV transition. “The greatest responsibility for us as a company is… Read more »
Kia EV9 and Volvo EX30: Are they 2024’s most important EVs?
One’s a three-row midsize SUV under $60,000; the other’s a compact hatchback that starts in the mid-30s. Now we’ve driven both. Choosing “best of” or “most important” new cars is always dicey, and doubly so with electric vehicles. New entries are announced virtually every month, and picking the 2025 models that will be most important… Read more »
Next Jeep Wrangler to be available only as a plug-in vehicle
Fans of Jeeps, with their rugged, noisy, militaristic image, would seem to be unlikely buyers of EVs. But if you look at vehicle performance rather than demographic identity, a different picture emerges. As prolific EV writer John Voelcker recently noted, off-roading is actually an ideal application for EVs. “Maximum torque at extremely low motor speeds,… Read more »