Consumer Reports isn't giving all-electric cars and climate change a lot of attention

-
Image
Honda will be the next automaker to market an all-electric car as Toyota continues to sit on the sidelines. -- HACKENSACK, N.J. By VICTOR E. SASSON EDITOR Consumer Reports seems to have a blind spot for all-electric cars. The magazine's annual Auto Issue, just out, picks the 10 best new cars for 2017, but all of them use gasoline. For a full report, see: Consumer Reports smells (of gasoline)
Post a Comment

2016 Volt and Leaf expose how far auto giants have to go to compete with Tesla

-
Plugging in my Tesla Model S at home every night has become routine. I've programmed charging to start at 3 a.m., even though my New Jersey utility doesn't have lower, off-peak rates for residential customers like me. Solar panels on my roof mean charging the Model S costs me nothing.


By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The all-electric 2016 Nissan Leaf will offer two batteries yielding ranges of 84 miles and 107 miles.

The 2016 Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid comes with an Achilles heel as standard equipment: 

It still uses gasoline, fouling the air and aggravating climate change.

Major domestic and foreign automakers, especially the Germans, struggle to catch up more than three years after California-based Tesla Motors unveiled the Model S, a luxurious all-electric four-door hatchback with a range of 200-plus miles.

The next, best hope is Chevrolet's pure-electric Bolt concept, which is promised with a range of over 200 miles.

News reports say the Bolt will go into production in October 2016 with a price of $37,500.

The media haven't bothered asking, and GM officials haven't said, how the new all-electric car will be sold for only a couple of thousands dollar more than the upcoming 2016 Volt.


What were Ford and General Motors thinking when they produced the Excursion, above, and a land barge called Buick, below?



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How can Chevrolet sell an electric car with a 200-mile range for less than the Volt?

-
Image
The Chevrolet Bolt EV Concept has an ambiguous name to go along with an ambiguous production date. Many auto writers are reporting it will be available as a 2017 model with a 200-mile range, but haven't you seen many concepts that never lived up to the splash they made at the auto show?  By VICTOR E. SASSON EDITOR A bolt is a fastener. Now, Chevrolet is calling an all-electric concept with a 200-mile range a Bolt, which rhymes with Volt, the plug-in hybrid with a limited EV range it has been selling since December 2010. A new Volt is to be unveiled today at the auto show in Detroit. The official press release calls the 4-door Bolt "a vision for an affordable, long-range all-electric vehicle designed to offer more than 200 mile of range starting around $30,000." Chevrolet officials haven't explained how the Bolt can be sold in two years for thousands of dollars less than the current Volt, which has an MSRP of $34,345. In what appears to be a shot at Tesla's Model S
Read more

Do auto writers really think EV buyers would choose a Bolt over Tesla's Model 3?

-
Image
The Chevrolet Spark EV, above, and the Bolt EV Concept, below, bear a family resemblance. The Spark is available only in California and Oregon. The Bolt is scheduled to be produced as a 2017 model with a battery that will give it a range of more than 200 miles, General Motors says. The Chevrolet Bolt EV Concept. Compare the forthcoming Tesla Model 3 to the Chevy Bolt Concept. This photo is from Auto Express. By VICTOR E. SASSON EDITOR If you treat an auto writer to an espresso and pastry before a splashy press conference, he or she will write almost anything. That must be the explanation for all of those stories out of the Detroit Auto Show, setting up a confrontation between all-electric cars from Chevrolet and Tesla. Yes. Chevy is the GM division that gave us defective ignition switches, the Nova or "no va" (Spanish for "doesn't go") and the Corvair's dangerous swing-axle rear suspension. Tesla, the upstart maker of all-electric luxury cars, is working on
Read more