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Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn resigned on Wednesday. While this blog's primary focus is the BMW i3, I occasionally sprinkle in some featured EV products and discuss topics not necessarily i3-centric, but are instead just general electric vehicle information. In light of the recent revelations that Volkswagen has been deliberately cheating on emissions testing for many years now, I wrote the following article for Green Car Reports . So far, no other automaker has been caught as VW has - with proof that they purposely installed a "defeat device" on the vehicles so the cars would curb their emissions only during actual emission testing. However it's fair game to speculate if other OEMs may also be exposed as cheaters now that the EPA knows what they have to look for, and how to expose it. It will certainly be interesting to watch this all unfold. In any event, Volkswagen is going to face huge fines for intentionally violating Federal emission standards and I wanted to...

My name is Harold and I was born electric on August 19 th , 2014.   There are two parts to my story here.   The first is about my path to selecting and buying the i3,   and the second is about my experiences owning and driving the i3. PART 1:    “IF YOU’RE NOT PART OF THE SOLUTION,   THEN YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM.” When it comes to global warming,   I’m embarrassed to say that for far too long my wife and I were part of the problem.   We’re a two car family,   and over the years we’ve driven a series of big, luxury, premium fuel guzzlers.   As recently as 2007 we each had one of the full-size Range Rovers. Yikes, and yuck! I gradually realized this was not tenable,   but I found it very, very hard to give up the comfort (I’m 6’3 and don’t fit in most cars) and sportiness of a big luxury SUV. The very thought of shoehorning myself into the ugly and painfully boring Prius hybrid was enough to make me puke. So my first tentativ...

My i3 REx. Will it now cost me $3,900 more than my contract calls for? It what can only be categorized as a major misstep, BMW of North America has announced that the i3 with range extender is not tax exempt in the state of New Jersey as what was previously reported. Back on January 27th, BMW of North America manager of Electric Vehicle sales and strategy Jacob Harb told his client advisers on a conference call that the i3 REx would be treated as a zero emission vehicle in New Jersey, and qualify for the state's Zero Emission tax exemption . That was big news at the time for New Jersey residents including myself, and was one of the final deciding factors for me to actually choose the REx version over the BEV i3. "The sales tax exemption in NJ only applies to zero-emission vehicles--and as such, does not apply to the i3 with range-extender as it does not apply currently to any vehicle with an internal combustion engine."... "Any assumption that the i3 with range-e...

British actor and comedian Robert Llewellyn maintains a video blog called Fully Charged where he reviews electric cars and discusses all aspects of the plug-in vehicle industry. Llewellyn is an electric vehicle enthusiast and produces some really interesting and informative electric vehicle content in the series and I'm a big fan of his. The latest topic he tackled is the "Long Tailpipe" argument which many people who do not support the switch to electric vehicles like to use in their argument against them. The Long Tailpipe argument basically states that electric vehicles are not zero emission at all, since the electricity that powers them comes from dirty sources like coal. Since EVs don't actually have tailpipe emissions, to be fair they say the real tail pipe stretches all the way to the power plant that generated its fuel, thus the long tailpipe. There is no denying that the argument has truth to it. Much of the world's electricity is made by burning coal, ...

A little over a month ago we learned that BMW i3 REx buyers in New Jersey wouldn't have to pay sales tax on the vehicle as the State was including it in the zero emission vehicle tax exemption. That will obviously help i3 REx sales immensely since it will likely save the average i3 REx buyer in New Jersey about $3,500. There was never a question of whether the BEV i3 would be tax exempt, since it is truly a zero emission vehicle, but the i3 REx isn't. The range extended Chevy Volt, for example is not tax exempt in NJ. The reasoning behind the i3 REx exemption is two fold. First, the i3 REx has about an 80 mile all electric range which is more than double the Volt's. This means for most buyers the i3 REx will likely be driven on electric much more than the average Volt owner drives their car on electricity. Secondly, the i3's range extender isn't as robust as the Volts. You could easily drive the Volt all the time without ever plugging it in. I don't know why you...