Jameson Dow

After last week’s moves to force more pollution and lower clean air standards on California, the Environmental “Protection” Agency threatened this week to pull California’s federal highway funding if California doesn’t bow to their pressure and allow more pollution in their state.

We’ve now learned that two states – Minnesota and New Mexico – will join California’s efforts to reduce tailpipe emissions in response to the EPA’s actions. Both states plan to adopt both California’s Zero Emission Vehicle mandate and its tailpipe emissions standards.

Expand
Expanding
Close

On Thursday, the Environmental “Protection” Agency moved to revoke California’s authority to set higher emissions standards, established more than 50 years ago under the federal Clean Air Act, after signaling the move earlier in the week.

The EPA’s announcement stated that their main focus was to set a unified, national rule for fuel efficiency standards. However, there was already a unified, national rule for fuel efficiency standards in place under President Barack Obama until the EPA repealed that rule earlier this year, causing regulatory uncertainty for automakers who opposed the repeal.

California’s Air Resources Board (CARB) reacted to this news by voting 12-0 to accept an agreement made between the state and automakers to voluntarily exceed federal emissions standards, roughly meeting the previous national standard in defiance of the federal rollback.

Expand
Expanding
Close

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has announced that the Tesla Model 3 has won its highest safety award, Top Safety Pick+, after achieving “good” ratings across the board in all of their test categories. The Model 3 is the second battery electric vehicle to win the award, after the Audi e-tron won it last month.

The Model 3 has won several other safety plaudits, including 5-star ratings in all categories and the lowest probability of injury ever tested from NHTSA, 5 stars from from Euro NCAP, while being hailed as setting a “new safety technology benchmark,” and 5 stars from the Australiasian NCAP.

Expand
Expanding
Close

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is attempting to revoke California’s authority to set its own emissions rules, a right enshrined in federal law that California has had for over 50 years. We recently covered why the EPA will have a hard time winning this fight.

In a move that seems to come straight out of George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth, the administration has applied the acronym “SAFE” to their effort. This stands for, if you can believe it, “Safe and Affordable Fuel Efficient vehicles.”

The problem is that this rule is neither about safety, affordability, or fuel efficiency.  And we need look no further than the EPA’s own analysis, and statements from its former career scientists, to show this.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Six months after youth took to the streets around the world demanding climate action, more climate strikes are scheduled this coming week. The strike events are mostly planned for Friday, September 20 and 27, but several more will take place in the interim.

There are a total of over 3,500 events happening in 117 countries, with 800 events planned in the US alone. The events are largely organized and led by youth, but anyone who desires climate action is welcome and encouraged to walk out and attend your local demonstration.

Expand
Expanding
Close

In the latest step in the Environmental “Protection” Agency’s (EPA) losing battle against clean air and clean cars, the agency plans to announce a revocation of California’s well-established authority to regulate vehicle emissions tomorrow, reports Automotive News.

This move is no surprise, as ever since oil industry pawn Scott Pruitt was nominated as head of the EPA (later replaced by coal stooge Andrew Wheeler), the agency has been signaling its intent to revoke California’s ability to set its own emissions standards.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Today, Mazda confirmed that they’ll be unveiling a new EV at the Tokyo Motor Show next month, according to Automotive News.

Mazda has been prepping a new EV, with prototypes recently spotted testing in a “CX”-style crossover body.  But Mazda says that this new EV will be a “brand new model,” rather than using the CX-30 body that has been spotted on prototypes.

Expand
Expanding
Close

The heavily anticipated Porsche Taycan was fully unveiled two weeks ago, with exciting performance and charging specs and quite a high price to boot. The car has been touted as the first real electric “sport sedan” challenger to Tesla from an established manufacturer, and has attracted a lot of attention and comparisons as a result.

The Taycan is a big departure for Porsche in that it’s their first EV, but there are definitely some ways it really feels like a Porsche. For example, the Taycan offers an insane amount of options — something Porsche is famous for. One of those options is Porsche’s “Electric Sport Sound,” a $500 option that adds fake, electric-like engine noises to the car.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Tesla has been having some issues with service lately, with long waits for some simpler fixes. These issues have been magnified by the internet, and by Tesla’s natural press/social media draw, making the situation seem quite dire when individual service horror stories are magnified by Tesla’s popularity.

But according to British magazine What Car?‘s annual reliability survey, Tesla is doing quite well when compared to other manufacturers. In a survey of 31 manufacturers, Tesla ranked 4th, with a score of 96.9%.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Plug In America hosts its 9th annual Drive Electric Week next week at events all around the US and the globe. There are currently over 300 events registered in the US, Canada, Australia, Belgium, Mexico, New Zealand, Taiwan and Slovakia.

These events are often attended by manufacturers and local dealers who host test drives, and the bigger events include booths from companies in green industries, food, and activities for the family that makes for a fun weekend event. Most of all, all events are attended by local EV owners, and it’s a great way to talk to people about their real experiences of owning an EV.

Expand
Expanding
Close

The Tesla referral program received a tweak tonight, doubling the number of free supercharging miles given for using a referral code.  Previously, both the current and new owner would get 1,000 miles of free supercharging, but Tesla has doubled that to 2,000 miles for cars delivered before the end of this month.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Are you looking for information on the Tesla Pickup Truck release date? It will most likely be unveiled in November, according to Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Expand
Expanding
Close

We’ve been covering the developments in the fuel economy/emissions fight between the Environmental “Protection” Agency (previously run by an oil stooge, now run by a coal lobbyist, and staffed by commissioners who wrongly think air pollution isn’t harmful) and the environment they claim to protect, and today we’ve heard another doozy from the federal government.

After automakers made an agreement with California to voluntarily have higher standards than required by the EPA and thus save consumers money and improve health, the Department of Justice is now investigating those automakers under antitrust laws, seemingly with no legal justification other than anger over the embarrassment this has caused to their boss who considers himself a “dealmaker” and yet has failed to make a deal.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Porsche is launching the Taycan tomorrow, which has led to a lot of excitement and anticipation among EV fans.  Finally, another performance-oriented EV is hitting the market.  This excitement has translated to 30,000 preorders for Porsche even before Taycan’s “official” reveal (which Fred Lambert will be covering tomorrow).

But according to a survey out today from Autolist, average consumers are still more excited about the veteran in the market: the Tesla Model S.

Expand
Expanding
Close

The highly-anticipated Rivian R1T electric truck has been spotted undergoing winter testing in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, according to a post a rivianforums.com.

The truck is still a preproduction model, but has some changes from the concept we saw last year at its LA Auto Show unveiling.  Among these are a new color, new charge port placement, interior changes and a slightly redesigned rear end.

*Update: Rivian has clarified that these vehicles have a lot of “non-production representative content.”  In particular, the production interior is going to look much more like the concept car than the test vehicles seen in this post.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Autolist has released a new survey showing consumer attitudes on electric cars. Among other questions, consumers were asked what their biggest reasons were for not buying an EV, and the answers were pretty much what you’d expect.

The top reasons given were range, price, and charging. But the problem is that these concerns are, by and large, out of date.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Los Angeles has one of the larger concentrations of Teslas in the world, so where better to set a record for the most Roadsters assembled in the US than at Tesla’s Design Center in Hawthorne?

Yesterday, Tesla Club LA did just that (with thanks to Tesla for providing the location and chargers), and managed to get 37 Roadsters into the same parking lot, in what we’re pretty sure is a record.

Expand
Expanding
Close

After seeing the first non-employee review of the upcoming Porsche Taycan this morning, Porsche has now announced that the Taycan will be debuted worldwide with three simultaneous events in Germany, China, and Canada.

The event will be livestreamed on Porsche’s website, at a link that currently shows a countdown timer stating the time until the stream goes live.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Formula E has had a wild season this year, with unpredictable, close racing and tight championship battles for both drivers and teams.  It’s finally coming to an end this weekend in New York, with races on both Saturday and Sunday to finish out the season.  Jearn-Eric Vergne and Techeetah currently have a big lead for the drivers’ and teams’ championships respectively, but anything could still happen in these last two races.

The track is in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood, located near the Brooklyn cruise terminal.  The track offers great views of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty.  We’ll have Seth and Phil on-site at the ePrix this weekend, so if you want live updates from the track, check out our Instagram.

Expand
Expanding
Close

A common refrain about electric cars is that they’re fine for city driving but can’t do road trips.  This has been disproven many times, and Tesla owners in particular have an easy time on road trips due to Tesla’s excellent Supercharger network.

But today we’ve seen yet another reason not to worry about the capability to take EVs on long trips, as Bjørn Nyland has managed to drive 2,781km (1,728mi) in 24 hours in a Tesla Model 3 Long Range AWD.  Nyland set this record on IONITY quick chargers in Germany because currently, that network is significantly faster than Tesla’s Superchargers.

The previous record was 2,644km, set last year in a Model 3 by the Austrian G-Electric team including German Horst Lüning. Lüning previously held the record before that with 2,424km in a Model S.

Expand
Expanding
Close

Volkswagen has been racking up EV records with its ID.R all-electric racecar, and today the VW ID.R piloted by Romain Dumas managed to beat a record which has been held for 20 years — Nick Heidfeld’s record run of the Goodwood hillclimb in the 10-cylinder McLaren MP4/13 which dominated the 1998 Formula 1 season.

The previous record was 41.6 seconds for the 1.86km (1.16mi) hillclimb course.  Volkswagen managed to bring that record down to 41.18.  They have more runs to go this weekend, so it’s entirely possible that the record might be lowered again.

Expand
Expanding
Close

The Formula E championship is coming up on its last few races of the season, with only this and the upcoming doubleheader in New York left to round it out.  This weekend Formula E returns to Switzerland for only the second auto race in the country in more than half a century.

In 1955, Switzerland banned auto racing nationwide in response to the 1955 Le Mans disaster where hundreds of spectators were killed or injured by a horrific crash.  This ban remained in place for 60 years until the country repealed it in 2015 – but only for electric racing.  The move was made to attract Formula E to the country, and last year Zurich held the first race in Switzerland since the ban was implemented.  This year the race moves to a new track in the de facto Swiss capital city of Bern with an interesting feature near the exit of turn 4 – an actual bear pit.  Like, a pit.  With bears in it.

Expand
Expanding
Close