Poking around the Plugshare & ChargePoint maps it’s clear that a long-awaited West Coast inter-city deployment of fast charging stations has begun. Last January, ChargePoint, BMW and Volkswagen jointly announced a project to deploy two strings of fast charging stations, one on the West Coast the other on the East Coast.…
Earlier this week Nissan unveiled a preview of its autonomous car technology with the Nissan IDS. Now, according to the Daily Kanban website, it’s likely that large chunks of the IDS will make up the 2018 Nissan Leaf. The writer of that piece, Bertel Schmitt, was invited to…
How good is the Tesla Autopilot feature? This feature was rolled out to Tesla Model S owners over the last couple weeks, and marks a large advance towards fully autonomous vehicles. Since then some Model S owners have posted videos of the autopilot system doing amazingly good things, and also…
At the 2015 Tokyo Auto Show, Honda showed the Clarity Fuel Cell car that’s planned for production and lease-only deliveries starting in March 2016. According to Honda, the new Clarity FCV gives all the convenience of existing gasoline cars but it’s a fuel cell vehicle and therefore has zero…
Volkswagen Group CEO Matthias Müller announced today five steps that Volkswagen will take to rehabilitate itself from the Dieselgate scandal. In reading through the proposal, I don’t quite grok how it’s going to fix the problem. There are some aspects which may help, but nothing in this indicates that upper management…
An issue raised our investigation of the Dieselgate scandal is whether independent researchers are allowed to investigate the inner workings of our cars. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was originally enacted to protect the music industry from wholesale copying of digital media, but its application was broadened to protect software…
Yesterday, Nissan unveiled a bold new concept car fulfilling the “zero emissions zero fatalities” promise made a couple years ago. It’s an all-electric car with self driving autonomous features galore. Its story is told with an enticing image gallery and a series of video’s demonstrating usage scenarios that aren’t quite the challenges…
Bob Lutz is prognosticating the death of Tesla Motors, saying the company is badly run, its costs are too high, it should be working through dealers, it should add a plug-in hybrid model, and oh-by-the-way he likes Elon Musk. Coincidentally, I see from my calendar that in exactly one…
The German press is reporting that a file (dossier) of research data in the Dieselgate (or what the Germans call Abgas-Affäre) investigation has been stolen from the prosecutors office. The Public Prosecutor is investigating this theft, which is disturbing even though it’s described as more of an annoyance because the file only…
General Motors and LG Corp announced today what they describe as an “unprecedented supplier relationship” in which LG Electronics Vehicle Components will supply most of the components of the Chevy Bolt. Car companies like GM tend to proudly manufacture the majority of car components in their own factories. Indeed, while GM turned to…
My, how the mighty have fallen. Consumer Reports today announced it cannot Recommend the Tesla Model S, despite that car being so utterly excellent that it “broke” CR’s ratings system. That is, Consumer Reports twice did a review of the Tesla Model S which awarded the car the highest ranking of…
We’re now at the electric vehicle adoption stage where people are trying all kinds of crazy things. In this case, a South Africa automotive news site has posted this video giving extremely bad advice for apartment dwellers to charge their electric car. The tactic they recommend, lowering an extension cable out…
Fracking for natural gas (gazelor de sist) is apparently coming back to Romania. During 2013 and 2014, Chevron started exploratory fracking operations in the region of Romania known as Moldova, while facing down intense anti-fracking protests. After several months during which Chevron managed to start drilling, completed an exploratory well, taking…
According to a report published on Wednesday in Der Spiegel, Volkswagen’s Dieselgate scandal was not caused a small handful of people as Volkswagen upper management has claimed. Instead, at least 30 managers responsible were involved in deciding to commit to the Dieselgate fraud, or what Der Spiegel called “Abgasaffäre”. I’ve written…
A draft bill (embedded below) being prepared in the US House Energy and Commerce Committee would increase the penalties for “hacking” cars, and gift automakers with an easy “out” on emissions control regulations. The bill focuses on reforms at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and while it contains a…
