Nissan Leaf: the car that made EVs normal and burned the people who believed first America was the Leaf’s biggest market and the scene of its worst betrayal. The car that finally made the electric vehicle normal — affordable, five-seat, buy-it-at-a-dealer normal — also cooked its own batteries in the American Southwest and left its … Read more
Tesla Roadster: Tesla didn’t invent it, but it knew how to sell it Tesla didn’t invent the Roadster from scratch. It took the idea from someone else’s prototype that nobody wanted to build, licensed its electric technology, and turned it into a production car on a Lotus base — then sold it as the Big … Read more
Toyota RAV4 EV: the hybrid giant built two good electric cars and let both die For 25 years Toyota told the world the battery electric car wasn’t ready. And it was right often enough to look like the smartest company in the room. The trouble is that while it preached patience, Toyota built two of … Read more
GM EV1: the electric car its owners loved and General Motors ordered crushed People loved it. They wrote letters. They offered checks. They promised to cover every repair out of their own pockets just to keep it. General Motors said no, took the cars back, and fed them into the crusher — with their drivers … Read more
Rimac Nevera R: the man who built the world’s fastest car no longer believes in it The quickest-accelerating production car ever made didn’t come from Detroit. It didn’t come from Stuttgart, Maranello or Silicon Valley. It came from Croatia, a country with no car industry to speak of, built by a guy who started in … Read more
