Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board, set the tone for last week’s Advanced Clean Cars Symposium when she emphasized the “need to use every tool that is available” to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from cars.
Nissan has announced its intention to create a fuel-cell vehicle powered by ethanol instead of the traditional hydrogen. Nissan executive vice president Hideyuki Sakamoto cited a few reasons for the move towards ethanol:
Two years before the release of Tesla’s long-awaited $35,000 Model 3, Tesla finds itself at another crossroads that may threaten the company’s welfare.
It’s an ill wind that doesn’t blow somebody some good, and it’s an ill pollution day that doesn’t have an upside somewhere.
Things are not looking too good for Tesla these days. One of the most painful developments was Consumer Reports’ decision to remove its “recommended” rating and downgrade it to “worse than expected.” The magazine had once rated Tesla the best ever tested.
I decided on the raw power of a corn-ethanol-fueled McLaren 12C Spider with a twin-turbo 3.8 liter V8 engine. In practical terms, this means it can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in 2.8 seconds.
Tesla’s showing all the signs of a company in trouble: bleeding cash, securitized assets, and mounting inventory. It’s the trifecta of doom for any automaker, and anyone paying attention probably saw this coming a mile away.
Tesla’s pitch wasn’t that it would compete with Bentley or Porsche in the exclusive ultra-luxury ranks. Surely the federal government didn’t create $7,500 EV tax credits to give tech billionaires a discount on a six-figure SUV, or to hand Tesla a competitive edge against Lamborghini or BMW. No, Tesla and Musk promised nothing less than to revolutionize transportation.
Over the past 6 weeks, 3 new products have hit the US market after exactly zero had arrived in almost the first 8 months of the year. If everything goes as planned, there should be at least 6 more to come in the last quarter, leading to much higher, record breaking EV sales in America.
By now, the depth of Volkswagen’s deception is clear: The German automaker deliberately misled American regulators by installing software on 11 million vehicles that reduced emissions during testing, but allowed the emissions to increase by 4,000 percent once they got out into the real world where people live and breathe.
