Fisker Wraps Investigation of Karma Fires at New Jersey Port, Blames One Car's Vehicle Control Unit

Last week, Sandy's furious tempest resulted in 16 brand-new Fisker Karma sedans and three Toyota Prius hybrids going up in flames at a shipping facility in New Jersey after being submerged in seawater for many hours.

While we have yet to hear from Toyota, Fisker's engineers finished investigating the incident and have just released their findings through a press statement.

According to the manufacturer, the culprit turned out to be a low voltage Vehicle Control Unit in one Karma, which after being under salt water for several hours, short-circuited and caused a fire that then spread to the other 15 extended-range plug-in hybrid models parked nearby due to the strong winds blowing at the time.

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U Design: Tesla Model C Concept Study for a Compact Electric Hatch by Dejan Hristov

While Tesla Motors started its career and gained worldwide attention through its 2008 electric-powered Roadster that was built around the Lotus Elise and which has since been retired, the Silicon Valley-based carmaker has much bigger plans in store for eco-conscious consumers.

This year, Tesla launched its first entry into the automotive mainstream, the Model S electric sedan that went on sale in June, and previewed its next step in making electric cars available to a wider audience with the Model X seven-seater crossover concept that will lead to a production model within the next couple of years.

Understandably, in order to survive, Tesla will need to expand its range in other segments as well, and here's where an old acquaintance of CarScoop comes into the picture.

Dejan Hristov is an independent designer whom we came to know from his study for a Bugatti Super Sedan. This time, Hristov is proposing a smaller Tesla vehicle that he named the Model C.

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Ford C-MAX Energi PHEV Gets Access to California HOV Lanes, up to $5,250 in Incentives

California’s Environmental Protection Agency Air Resources Board (CARB) announced that Ford’s C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid MPV has been approved for the Green Clean Air Vehicle Sticker, which gives it access to the state’s much-coveted High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) Lanes. Read more »

GM to Upgrade Software on 4,000 Chevrolet Volts to Fix Stalling Electric Motor Problem

When Chevrolet Volt owner and gm-volt.com forum member "1RiverMan1" came home on October 19, he heard a phone message from his Volt advisor (sic) informing him about a potential problem with some of GM’s 2013 MY extended-range hybrids.

The issue was that on some cars, the electric motor for no apparent reason at all, stopped working while on the move. The advisor said that the steering and brakes of the Volt still worked, but added that if it were to occur, the driver must coast to a stop, power the car off, wait for 2-5 minutes and then power it up again.

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Tesla CEO Says Company-Owned Outlets are Legal, EV Adoption Requires “A New Business Model”

On Monday, May 25, Tesla opened its first store this year at the Westchester shopping mall in New York. Right from the start, NADA, the National Automobile Dealers Association, had issues with Tesla's Apple-like store approach, while many pointed out that 48 states prohibit company-owned car dealerships.

In litigation-obsessed America, it’s no surprise that the Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association has challenged Tesla’s three NYC stores. Its lawsuit was dismissed, but dealers in New York and Massachusetts sued Tesla last week claiming it was violating franchise laws.

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Cadillac Confirms that the ELR will be FWD, Do You Think GM Made the Right Decision?

On Tuesday, Cadillac added another piece to the puzzle that is the new ELR plug-hybrid coupe by announcing that the car will be manufactured at GM's Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant with production to start in late 2013.

We already know that the ELR will be closely based on Cadillac's 2009 Converj Concept and that it will borrow much of its extended-range electric technology from the Chevy Volt, combining a T-shaped lithium-ion battery with an electric drive unit and an unspecified four-cylinder engine working as a generator to power the electric motor.

What we assumed, but didn't know for sure, is whether the ELR would keep the same front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout as the Volt or if Cadillac would engineer a new platform with a front-engine, rear-wheel drive configuration.

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Battery Maker A123 Systems Files for Bankruptcy, Sells Auto Assets to Johnson Controls

Detroit-based battery developer and manufacturer A123 Systems announced today that it filed voluntary petitions for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code in Delaware.

A123 Systems, which had received $249 million in federal grants as part of the stimulus bill (having used $129 million to date), said that the petitions, which do not include its overseas subsidiaries, were made so that they can facilitate the sale of its automotive business assets to Johnson Controls Inc. (JCI).

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GM to Build New Cadillac ELR at Detroit-Hamtramck Plant Starting in Late 2013

The next big thing to come from Cadillac will be the ELR plug-in hybrid coupe, which is the production version of the Converj, a concept vehicle first displayed at the 2009 North American International Auto Show in Detroit that borrows its extended-range electric technology from the Chevy Volt.

In a keynote address at the SAE Convergence Conference in Detroit on Tuesday, General Motors North America President Mark Reuss revealed that preparations will soon be underway at the firm's Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant to build the Cadillac ELR.

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New Research Could Lead to Smaller, Cheaper and Faster-Charging Lithium Ion Batteries

Lithium-ion batteries may be employed widely in a variety of products, including hybrid and all-electric vehicles, but up until now, engineers have had a limited understanding of how lithium ions “behave”.

Professor Miroslav Krstic and postdoctoral fellow Scott Moura of the University of California, San Diego, claim they have devised new algorithms that enable them to better comprehend what’s going on inside lithium-ion batteries.

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New Tesla Model S Stuns 2013 BMW M5 in 100mph – 160km/h Drag Race

Just like cars powered by conventional, internal combustion engines (ICE), electric vehicles or EVs have their pros and cons.

While most people wouldn't consider speed as a strong point of electric cars, truth is, under certain circumstances and depending, of course, on the setup and several other factors, EVs can better their ICE counterparts, one reason being that electric motors produce all of their torque instantly.

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New GM App Shows Chevy Volt Owners the Real Cost of Charging Their Hybrid at Home

Plug-in hybrid vehicles claim to be much more fuel efficient, and thus cheaper to run, than regular models powered only by international combustion engines.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch, though; in the case of plug-in hybrids, you have to factor in the energy consumed to charge the battery at your home, which adds to the electricity bill.

General Motors’ OnStar service is currently testing an application that will inform Chevrolet Volt owners about the cost of charging their extended-range plug-in hybrid.

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Spied: Volkswagen Filmed Trying Out XL1 Diesel-Electric Hybrid

The XL1 is Volkswagen's vision of a plug-in hybrid car that returns an amazingly low combined fuel consumption of 0.9lt/100km, equal to 261 mpg US and 313 mpg UK, or to be precise, MPGe (Miles per gallon gasoline equivalent) since this figure includes the use of both the internal combustion engine and the battery.

The two-seater model was presented as a concept last year and is now heading for very limited run production starting from next year - if all goes according to plan. VW's engineers were filmed in Spain completing new tests with the car as they prepare for its introduction.

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Nissan to Facelift Leaf for U.S. Production, Add a Budget Version in Early 2013 to Boost Poor Sales

That the Leaf hasn't been the success Nissan hoped for, is not a secret. This year through September, the Japanese carmaker delivered only 5,212 Leaf EVs in the United States, down 27.6 percent from the first nine months of 2011 when it sold 7,199 units.

Both these numbers are a far cry from the 20,000 Leafs Nissan wanted to sell in the car's first fiscal year on the market.

However, Nissan isn't sitting with its arms crossed waiting for a miracle to happen, as the company plans to add a lower-cost variant to the range as part of a 2013 model facelift, Autonews reported today.

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French Minister Filmed Exceeding Speed Limit by 16km/h in Renault Zoe Outside the Elysée Palace

Saying, “Let’s see what she’s got in her” and gunning a car for all it’s worth is a phrase uttered a billion times by drivers around the world. Doing so may or may not get you into trouble.

French minister of “industrial recovery” Arnaud Montebourg, certainly got into a bit of trouble when he uttered that phrase while taking the ZOE, Renault’s all-electric supermini, for a spin outside the Elysée Palace.

Unfortunately for the minister, the TV crew that was in the car filmed him hitting 66 km/h (41 mph), exceeding the 50 km/h (31 mph) speed limit by 16 km/h (10 mph).

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Watch the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG Coupe Electric Drive Silently Navigate the Ascari Circuit

With a Ferrari F12berlinetta- and Lamborghini Aventador-beating 740HP (750PS) and 1,000 Nm (737.5 lb-ft) from four electric motors positioned close to the wheels, the SLS AMG Coupe Electric Drive that made its debut at the Paris Auto Show is the most powerful production car Mercedes-Benz has ever launched.

Despite being priced more than twice as much as the V8 petrol SLS AMG, millionaires interested in boasting their “green” credentials probably won’t be deterred by the more than half a million dollars sticker price.

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German Gov. Mulling Subsidizing EVs, Which So Far, Haven’t Made a Blip on the Sales Radar

In the first eight months of the year, new passenger car registrations in Germany were more than 2.108 million units. According to a study from the Center of Automotive Research (CAR) at the University of Duisburg-Essen, electric cars registrations in the country, were just 2.272, which accounts for a negligible 0.1 percent market share.

The thing is that Chancellor Angela Merkel has set a target of having one million fossil-free, i.e. electric- and fuel-cell powered vehicles, on German roads by 2020 – a goal which Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, head of CAR, finds “unworldly and naive” to continue pursuing.

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