EVs have many advantages over legacy vehicles, but towing capacity is not (yet) one of them. When John Voelcker recently tested the new Ford Lightning F-150 for Charged, he confirmed that towing a sizable trailer can cut the vehicle’s range in half. Of course, a fossil fuel pickup will also take a huge range hit… Read more »
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Startup led by Tesla alums aims to build electric RVs
As is the case with a legacy vehicle, towing a trailer with an EV greatly reduces range—as John Voelcker found in his recent test of a Ford F-150 Lightning (see the latest issue of Charged), towing can reduce range by 40% or even more. But what if the trailer had its own electric powertrain? That’s… Read more »
2022 Ford F-150 Lightning First Drive: Ford’s most valued model is now electric
Ford knows trucks, and demand for its F-150 Lightning shows truck buyers may not be as afraid of EVs as many think. The 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning pickup truck may be the first real mass-market electric vehicle sold in the US. Used by individual owners and businesses alike, pickups are a massive part of the… Read more »
2022 GMC Hummer EV Edition 1 first drive: five tons of fun
The rebooted electric Hummer is an absurd vehicle, in some ways, but it’s an extremely well-executed absurdity. How do you review a 5-ton electric truck that accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in about 3 seconds? No other vehicle on the market is even close to direct competition. And comparing it to mass-market EVs like… Read more »
2022 Lucid Air: The makers of the first 500-mile EV should be taken seriously
Created by engineers with years of EV experience, the 2022 Lucid Air is a stunning debut that confronts Tesla—and Mercedes-Benz—with a new competitor. It’s been a long time coming, but the 2022 Lucid Air has been worth the wait. The new carmaker’s all-electric luxury sedan not only competes directly with the aging Tesla Model S,… Read more »
Our Next Energy tests 750-mile battery pack in a Tesla Model S
A two-year-old Michigan startup, Our Next Energy (ONE), has built a custom battery pack that recently propelled a modified Tesla Model S for 752 miles. John Voelcker, writing in Car and Driver, reports that ONE retrofitted the car with a pack that stores twice the energy of Tesla’s original, and fits in exactly the same… Read more »
2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5: Strong new electric SUV competitor
Hyundai’s new compact EV crossover is good enough to sell every unit the company imports—the question may be how high that number will be. The 2022 Hyundai Ioniq 5 is the Korean brand’s first dedicated electric vehicle, positioned at the heart of the fastest-growing part of the market: compact crossover utilities. The premium electric SUV… Read more »
NADA partners with Chargeway to help dealers inform car buyers about EVs
Auto dealers are a well-known bottleneck for EV sales, but it’s not (entirely) because they’re a bunch of gas-loving Luddites. EVs are unfamiliar to most consumers, and it takes valuable time to explain them to shoppers. Most salespeople don’t have the needed product knowledge, and EV sales are such a small part of the market… Read more »
Why is Hertz deploying a huge fleet of Teslas? Hint: it has little to do with emissions.
Are rental car customers ready for EVs? We’re going to find out. Rental giant Hertz theoretically began introducing EVs to its fleet in 2011, and competitors soon followed. However, they were offered only in select markets, sometimes at super-premium prices. Meanwhile, Teslas became popular on the peer-to-peer rental network Turo. Now Florida-based Hertz, which rents… Read more »
Stellantis and LG Energy Solution to build battery factory for North American EV market
Stellantis and LG Energy Solution have agreed to form a joint venture that will produce battery cells and modules for North America at a new production facility. The companies are obviously fans of EV journalist John Voelcker, who praised Ford and GM for announcing new battery facilities in a recent Car and Driver article, and… Read more »