Due to Volkswagen’s and the Environmental Protection Agency’s incapacity to come to deal after discussions over how to fix the cars affected by the emissions tests cheating, the U.S. Department of Justice officially sued the German automaker on behalf of the EPA in federal court on Monday.
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We are kicking off the new year at Electrek with extensive coverage of everything electric vehicle related at CES in Las Vegas this week.
There might be a few surprises, but we made a quick list of the main events, especially the new electric cars debuting at the show, so you can have a good idea of what’s coming in the EV industry in the next few days:
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38 company and environmental group leaders, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, signed an open letter proposing that the California Air Resources Board (CARB) lets VW off the hook in California for having cheated on reporting emissions in its diesel cars and in return, VW would be forced to significantly invest in electric vehicles or other zero-emission vehicles.
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Volkswagen’s Chairman of Passenger Cars Dr. Herbert Diess is scheduled to give a talk and unveil a new electric vehicle concept at the upcoming CES 2016. The company released a teaser picture (see above) for the concept and rumor has it, it could be a new electric version of VW’s flagship Type 2 minibus.
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The Consumer Technology Association (CTA) announced that during the keynote address of Volkswagen’s Chairman of Passenger Cars Dr. Herbert Diess at the upcoming CES 2016, he will unveil a new all-electric concept car.
Diess is scheduled to deliver a keynote address about “electric mobility driving the automotive market” on January 5 at the Cosmopolitan’s Chelsea Theater.
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Dieselgate is starting to significantly impact Volkswagen’s sales in the US. The company published its November reports this week (see below) and the company suffered a 24.72% average decrease across all models.
The all-electric e-Golf is one of the rare model bringing the average up, but sales haven’t really increased since the scandal. They delivered 472 e-Golf units in November, up from 119 during the same period last, but it was the first month of availability in 2014. For a better comparison, VW delivered 596 e-Golfs in October.
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Volkswagen announced today that the Golf GTE Sport plug-in hybrid will make its North American debut at the Los Angeles International Auto Show, which starts November 19. Although the vehicle is still only in its concept phase, considering the “Dieselgate” situation, some expect VW to accelerate its electric car projects in order to compensate for the recent scandal, which could lead to the potential commercialization of the GTE Sport.
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Electric vehicles are here to stay, there’s very little doubt about that at this point, but which automakers are making sure that EVs are not a fad, but a trend? A new report from EV-Sales, a website tracking electric vehicle sales through car registration data, compiled the top automotive groups selling EVs in volume.
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