Free Republic

President Barack Obama promised to put a million more hybrid and electric cars on the road during his tenure, but new research shows drivers are trading them in to buy sports utility vehicles (SUVs). The auto-research group Edmunds.com found that “22 percent of people who have traded in their hybrids and [electric vehicles] in 2015 bought a new SUV.” This number is higher than the 18.8 percent that did the same last year, but it’s double the number that traded in their electric car for an SUV just three years ago. Edmunds.com reports that only “45 percent of this year’s...

Sales of the Nissan Leaf and other electric cars have dipped thus far in 2015, and automakers have resorted to price cuts to boost interest in plug-ins.

Did Georgia just pull the plug on the electric car market? Many people are wondering after state legislators voted to eliminate a tax credit that last year helped catapult metro Atlanta to the highest U.S. market share for plug-in electric vehicles. The same bill will impose a $200 registration fee -- the nation's highest -- on noncommercial EVs. When the governor signs the bill, as expected, Georgia will go from first to worst on its support for the EV market. The electric vehicle tax credit ends June 30; the EV fee starts the next day. Local car dealers say they're...

Imagine you wanted to get in your electric car and drive a considerable distance. It wouldn’t take long for your car to run out of power, so you would have to have another car, one using gasoline, to drive behind you to make sure you reached your destination. That’s a description of “renewable energy”, wind and solar, in America today because they both require backup from traditional energy sources such as coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear. And “renewable energy” based on “free” sun and wind power costs more to produce and purchase. Need it be said that the sun...

Jake Pultorak chuckles at the mention of “range anxiety,” the fear among some electric vehicle owners that their car's battery will run out of juice before the driver can find a charger. “I had that as a gas-car driver, but the anxiety was over how much I had to pay to get where I was going,” said Pultorak, 44, of Franklin Park, who has owned an all-electric Tesla Model S for about two years. Worries at the gas pumps have diminished over the past nine months as the global crash in oil prices brought the cost of gasoline to its...

Hybrid powertrains used to always tag vehicles as optimized for fuel efficiency. But that’s changed in very pronounced ways the past several years, as the fastest supercars in the world--from McLaren, Ferrari, and Porsche--have all adopted some form of hybrid technology that helps with acceleration and performance. And increasingly, with models like the McLaren P1 and Porsche 918, automakers are showing how wealthy owners can stay electric-only and free of tailpipe emissions for lower-speed use in urban city centers, saving the zany acceleration times for the racetrack and the countryside. The latest to go hybrid is the Swedish supercar maker...

...Mr. Hoban expects between 100 and 150 of the leased vehicles to be returned to his Capitol City Nissan dealership on a monthly basis over the next two years as their leases expire. The problem: used Leafs aren’t attracting much demand. With gas prices down 33% from a year ago, and buyers cooling toward electric vehicles, some auto makers are offering deep discounts or attractive leases on battery-powered vehicles and plug-in hybrids. Nissan, for instance, slashed the price of a new Leaf by $6,400 in 2013 and is now offering a $199-a-month lease, or $3,500 cash back and 0% financing...

If one raises the topic of electric vehicles (EVs), everybody seems focused on Tesla these days. How many vehicles have they sold? Is Apple a would-be competitor? Where’s the stock going? And of course Tesla and its EV brethren have tremendous potential to reduce overall energy consumption and pollution, if sold in significant volumes. To date, there are over 250,000 EVs on the road, which is a solid start. But if one really wants to cut down on fuel use through electrification of vehicles, it might make sense to focus on the types of vehicles in which the most energy...

The European edition of The Wall Street Journal has said in an editorial that Tesla Motors should stop accepting federal and state subsidies. “Last year Tesla made a roughly $150 million killing from selling ZEV credits. That’s up from $130 million in 2013, $32 million in 2012, and $3 million in 2011. All told in 2014 Tesla sold about $216 million in credits,” the newspaper said. It goes on to say, Capitalism needs visionaries, but its reputation suffers when companies worth billions soak middle-class taxpayers for profits. Turn off the taxpayer tap, Mr Musk. It would earn you more friends...

The new 2016 Chevrolet Volt is sleeker, has more electric range, higher gas mileage, a fifth seat, and should be both faster and quieter on the road. ... For the record, the new transmission and final drive unit is formally known as the 5ET40 Electrified Transaxle. The pair walked us through the five separate operating modes of the new Voltec system: two electric-only, and three blended.

China’s electric car boom: should Tesla Motors worry? by  Levi Tillemann February 19, 2015, 7:00 AM EST   Up until recently, China has been an underperforming electric vehicle market, while Tesla has been an over-achieving electric vehicle company.Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk has threatened to fire key executives from his China team after weak sales of the automaker’s luxury electric cars. And last week, the company’s chief marketing officer in China resigned. Although the media widely covered the management shakeup, the press has largely ignored the context: a massive boom in China’s market for electric cars. For after years of...

War makes strange bedfellows. Over the past decade, the Koch Brothers have become a major political force, funneling money from their family company into organizations that support conservative politicians and causes--including the denial of climate change. So Charles and David Koch wouldn't seem like enthusiastic supporters of electric-car maker Tesla Motors. Yet the Koch-funded group Americans for Prosperity is one of 10 signatories on a letter sent to U.S. governors and legislators urging them to support Tesla's direct-sales business model.

Conventional Chevy Silverados being transformed into plug-in hybrid trucks at VIA Motors’ high volume assembly plant.Think of it as a Volt with a flat bed. Via Motors’ “electrified” 4WD Chevy Silverado entered commercial production last month. That’s a first for the company — founded in 2010 — that retrofits GM pickups and vans and turns them into $85,000-plus plug-in hybrids that can also function as roving generators. (More on pricing below.) It’s no coincidence that the concept is similar to the Volt. The chairman of Via Motors is Bob Lutz, father of the Chevy plug-in hybrid. It’s also no coincidence...

Drivers trying to calculate whether it's practical to own an electric car are facing a new math. U.S. gas prices have fallen more than $1 per gallon over the last 12 months, to a national average of $2.06, according to AAA. That makes electric cars — with their higher prices tags — a tougher sell. "Fuel savings are not top of mind to many consumers right now," says John Krafcik, president of the car shopping site TrueCar.com. Automakers have responded by slashing thousands of dollars off the sticker price of electrics. Incentives averaged $4,159 per electric car last year, up...

People who own all-electric cars where coal generates the power may think they are helping the environment. But a new study finds their vehicles actually make the air dirtier, worsening global warming. Ethanol isn't so green, either. "It's kind of hard to beat gasoline" for public and environmental health, said study co-author Julian Marshall, an engineering professor at the University of Minnesota. "A lot of the technologies that we think of as being clean ... are not better than gasoline."

Back in the good old days when President Obama didn't have so many dings on his record, he promised that by 2015 there'd be more than 1 million electric cars on the road. Well, with just days to go, he's only about 826,000 or so cars short of that goal. Instead of 200,000 Nissan Leafs on the road today -- as Obama's Department of Energy predicted in 2011 -- there are less than 70,000...

For October, the results did improve somewhat however, as 1,439 Volts were sold, which was up 3% from last month, but still off 29% from the 2,022 sold last year at this time. For the year, 15,979 Volts have been sold, which is down 14.9% from the 18,782 sold through the first 10 months of 2013. General Motors now faces a couple problems trying to finish out 2014 strong: •Production – the Volt’s Hamtramck, Michigan facility has been idled since mid-August as part of a previously announced $384 million dollar investment into the facility that is currently seeing the Voltec...

The 40-foot green machines, which as prototypes are priced at about $1 million each, are made by New Flyer Industries. The all-electric propulsion system was built by Siemens. Regular diesel-powered buses cost $400,000 to $500,000 each, and diesel-electric hybrid buses cost about $700,000, according to the CTA. CTA officials estimated the electric buses will reduce energy costs by more than $25,000 a year per bus, or roughly $300,000 over the average 12-year bus life span. The electric bus demonstration project is funded by a $2.2 million grant received in 2011 from the Federal Transit Administration, plus about $300,000 in congestion...

Stephen J. DUBNER: As you likely know, the American automobile company Tesla makes some of the most desirable–and expensive–electric cars in the world. The company is currently valued at roughly $31 billion. Compare that to the $55 billion market cap of the Ford Motor Company.Tesla, however, last year sold fewer than 25,000 cars while Ford sells more than 6 million vehicles a year, or roughly 240 vehicles for every single Tesla. Tesla currently has just one vehicle in production, the Model S luxury sedan. In the U.S. the starting price is a bit more than $70,000.Americans buy more Model S’s...

Environmentally conscientious, wealthy car enthusiasts are in luck! The much-hyped "D" unveiling came last week as Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, presented what appears to be a very impressive version of its plug-in Model S electric car called the P85D. Boasting 691 horsepower, 687 ft/lb of torque, AWD and a blazing 3.2 second zero to sixty time, the new rich peoples' toy is expected to cost in the neighborhood of $120,000. In fact, the car is so darn impressive that the only obvious question is why in the world do we need to give the affluent purchasers of cars like...