To no one’s surprise, the California Air Resources Board (ARB) has announced that Tesla has sold by far the largest number of zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) credits of any automaker for the last 12 months. The California ZEV Regulation requires vehicle manufacturers to produce low-emission vehicles, including a certain number of ZEVs (battery electric or fuel… Read more »
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Cadillac ELR keeps it quiet
Naturally, the 2014 Cadillac ELR’s interior is silent when running on battery power. The luxury coupe’s engineers went to great lengths to keep it that way when the range-extending generator kicks in. ELR uses active noise cancelling, a technology that samples noise and generates a sound wave with the same amplitude but with inverted phase,… Read more »
2014 Cadillac ELR to go on sale in January for 76 grand
What’s built on the same platform as the Volt, has the same powertrain, and costs more than twice as much? The 2014 Cadillac ELR plug-in hybrid, which will go on sale in January with a sticker price of $75,995, including destination charges. GM plans to produce only a limited number of the luxury sedans, and… Read more »
Jaguar Land Rover seeks partner to develop hybrids
Like all the world’s automakers, Jaguar Land Rover is working hard to build cleaner cars. The European Commission’s emissions mandate requires a 20% reduction in fleetwide emissions by 2015. The venerable British brand isn’t exactly famous for fuel-efficient models – the rugged Defender safari mobile and Inspector Morse’s enormous red Mark 2 come to mind…. Read more »
Plug-in sales settle back in September
After setting a new monthly record (11,073) in August, plug-in sales retrenched in September. The month’s total of 8,027 was still the third best of the year, and the fourth best of all time. Plug-ins’ lower September sales reflected the larger market – overall US auto sales were down 4% compared to September 2012, partly… Read more »
BMW announces new electric scooter
How do you tell when an automaker is serious about selling EVs, as opposed to just building a couple of “halo” models to keep the government happy? One indication could be that a company plans to electrify several different segments of its product line. It’s also a good sign when the new electric models fit… Read more »
Dual battery pack could give next-generation Tesla unprecedented range
Is Tesla working on a new type of hybrid pack that combines two different battery technologies to deliver a huge increase in range? This question has been floating around the discussion groups for a few months, but several outlets reported it as breaking news this week after a couple of stock analysts discovered the story… Read more »
Battery makers expect to cut prices in half by 2020
Executives at two leading battery makers said this week that the cost of lithium-ion batteries is steadily declining, and could well drop to half of today’s price by 2020. “We have an internal target to go down by at least a factor of two by 2020,” said LG Chem Power CEO Prabhakar Patil, at this… Read more »
BMW Concept X5 eDrive
BMW is looking highly charged in Frankfurt this year. Its first production EV, the i3, is taking center stage, but the boys from Bavaria have plans to electrify other segments of their product line, and this new concept vehicle might be a preview of things to come. The Concept X5 eDrive (not an SUV, mind… Read more »
Connecting Europe’s charging networks
Many have posed the question of why the EV market in Europe has lagged behind the market in the US, considering the Continent’s higher fuel prices and strong green tradition. While there are several plausible answers, on closer examination the question itself makes little sense, because in fact there is no European EV market, but… Read more »