Daily coverage of the world of cars.
Tesla has very high hopes for its midsize Model 3 sedan.
It doesn’t just hope to survive and sell enough copies to make the investment worth it—the electric carmaker plans to revolutionize the auto business by selling a hundred thousand or so every year.
That’s a lofty goal. All of those sales would have to come from somewhere… and the BMW 3 Series could be the sacrificial lamb. In fact, one investor believes sales of the 3 Series could “go to zero.” Continue reading >>>
One of the benefits of owning an electric car is not needing to buy gasoline. The cost savings add up year after year, even when you include the cost of electrons to recharge the batteries.
Two of the biggest concerns since the advent of hybrid and EV technology are electric range and potential cost of replacing battery packs.
Range anxiety has mostly been solved as EV range steadily increases to over 200 miles per charge. Replacing battery packs has, so far, proven to be a non-issue, but it’s bound to become one as the earliest EVs continue to age. How much should people expect to pay once the inevitable happens?
About half of what the car cost new, at least according to Chevrolet. Continue reading >>>
Few vehicles are as iconic or as long-lasting as the Volkswagen Beetle. Beetles are easily identifiable and immediately recognized as Volkswagens almost anywhere in the world.
The original Beetle, officially known as the Type 1, began production in 1939 and continued until 2003. Volkswagen built 21,529,464 original Beetles which makes the car the longest-running and most-manufactured car of a single platform ever made.
The New Beetle, as it was known, debuted in the United States in 1997 ran until 2011, when it was replaced by the current Beetle that still remains in production today.
Its existence, however, may finally come to an end, and VW’s diesel scandal may be at least partially responsible. Continue reading >>>
Next week kicks off the 2017 North American International Auto Show. Although much attention has been directed at automakers’ decisions to move away from the traditional auto show format for their new-car debuts, with companies like Chrysler choosing instead to utilize the stage at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, the show in Detroit still remains one of the biggest events in the auto world, and CarGurus is excited to report on it this year.
Continue reading >>>
What if the fledgling electric car industry was just a ruse to sell more earth-polluting fossil fuel-powered trucks and SUVs? The federal government’s fleet fuel-economy requirements and the California Air Resources Board’s ZEV credits aren’t just creating a small market for EVs, they’re fueling the fire for gas-powered vehicles that defeat the purpose of EVs.
Case in point is the new Chevy Bolt, a masterpiece EV that finally makes a practical vehicle with a 200-mile range accessible to the majority of the car-buying population.
Those who buy one, though, may not be saving the planet, but subsidizing the sale of gas-guzzlers.