Which green car broke the Consumer Reports new-car rating system?
And, what automaker did we hear may be planning an all-electric car before the end of next year?
This is our video look back at the Week In Reverse--right here at Green Car Reports--for the week ending on Friday, August 28, 2015.
Friday, we explored why owners of the BMW i3 REx range-extended electric car do what's called "coding"--modifying the software to give them functions available in other markets but not in the U.S.
Those include getting more gasoline into the tank, conserving battery range, and even activating the AM radio that BMW North America suppressed.
On Thursday, we covered yet another rave for the Tesla Model S from Consumer Reports.
In this case, the magazine said, the Model S P85D performance version scored so high that it "broke the ratings," which had to be adjusted so the car wouldn't score 103 on a scale of 1 to 100.
Wednesday, we looked at the economics and the throughput of fueling sites for gasoline and diesel, and for hydrogen, and compared them to DC quick-charging stations for electric cars.
Our conclusion was that fast-charging sites may be cheaper to build than many analysts have assumed--and that they already provide better throughput than the newest hydrogen stations will.
On Tuesday, we had another Tesla P85D story: Two Norwegian drivers set a new distance record, driving more than 450 miles on a single full charge of the battery.
The EPA rates that car's range at 253 miles combined, but we do have to note that the pair drove at an average of just 24 miles per hour.
We kicked off the week on Monday with a source telling us that Hyundai plans to launch an all-electric version of its so-called Prius fighter before the end of next year. It's an aerodynamic five-door hatchback that will come as a hybrid, a plug-in hybrid, and a battery-electric car.
That would give Hyundai a single car with a range of models that could compete with both the all-new 2016 Toyota Prius (seen in our spy shots last week) and the Chevrolet Bolt EV and next generation Nissan Leaf.
Sounds like 2017 is going to be an exciting year for new green cars, doesn't it?
Finally, we wrote up two days of driving the all-new 2016 Smart ForTwo minicar. The little two-seater's 8.8-foot length stays the same, and so do its gas-mileage ratings, but it's a much better car than its predecessor.
Its turning circle is ridiculously small, at just 22.8 feet, which means you can do doughnuts in any two-lane road, and grab parking spaces out from under the noses of larger and less agile vehicles.
It's got more power, better acceleration, more airbags, and at last a competitive interior.
But it's still not a gas-mileage champ, though its size leads most people to assume it gets 50, 60, even 70 miles per gallon. It's actually rated at 36 mpg combined.
An all-electric version coming late next year should offer much better efficiency.
Until next week, this has been the Green Car Reports Week in Reverse update.
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