By Barbara & Bill Schaffer It seemed a bit strange to be plugging in our BMW 3 Series test car, but there it was, the 2017 BMW 330e plugged into the 120v outlet in our garage. We normally think of BMWs as the ?Ultimate Driving Machines? but this one looked more like something called the…
By Barbara & Bill Schaffer Over the last few years we?ve have driven about a dozen different all-electric vehicles and the more we drive an EV, the more we like them. Sure, we still have a twinge of range anxiety each time, but the comfort level keeps improving and part of that is because the…
By Barbara & Bill Schaffer Buying a Nissan Leaf is something like buying a refrigerator. You plug the refrigerator in and it is great for preserving foods, keeping drinks cool and keeping your ice cream freezing until it?s time to indulge. The Nissan Leaf works the same way, you plug it in an it gives…
By Barbara & Bill Schaffer Owning the 2016 Hyundai Sonata Plug-In Hybrid is a lot like having your cake and eating it too. This good-looking sporty sedan is fun to drive, comfortable and it gets phenomenal fuel economy. Like many of the popular mid-size sedans, the Hyundai Sonata now comes in a variety of drivetrain…
By Barbara & Bill Schaffer Seattle ? The last time we drove a Kia Soul EV you couldn?t even buy one where we live in Southern Washington, near Portland they were only sold in parts of California. But as supplies of vehicles is increased, fast chargers are installed and the dealership personnel are trained and…
Barbara & Bill Schaffer After a week driving the 2015 Volkswagen e-Golf for our normal running around and shopping, we concluded it could be a perfect second car for our lifestyle. For the other car we?d need something like one of the Volkswagen TDIs (diesels), because we take several longer road trips each year…
By Barbara & Bill Schaffer So, there we were in the 2015 Kia Soul EV, zipping silently through traffic on our way to Kohl?s department store. We live in the northeast part of the Portland (Oregon) Urban Metro area and even though there are several Kohl?s stores closer, we decided to push our comfort level…
By Barbara Schaffer Dana Point, Calif. ? Kia recently invited me to Southern California to sample a couple of their latest not so mainstream vehicles — an electric car and a minivan, which Kia prefers to call a multi-purpose vehicle, which actually makes more sense. Kia didn?t have a cake or blow out candles, but…
?Fiat 500e Cinquecento has an electrifying personality? Fiat?s iconic 500 experienced an absence from the North American marketplace for more than 25 years. It?s disappearance possibly due to dependability issues and the premise that FIAT was an acronym for ?Fix It Again Tony?. Whether or not that was a factual perception, Fiat always generated a…
By Barbara & Bill Schaffer It?s been about a year since Infiniti?s new boss Johan de Nysschen decided to change the names on all Infiniti models and restructure the lineup. (Now that that?s happen, Nysschen has jumped ship and moved to another luxury brand but the new model names remain.) While we think it was…
