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Toyota Prius remains best-selling vehicle in California, wireless charging tests underway

About one in every nine new cars in the US are sold in the California. If we're just looking at the four Toyota Prius hybrid variants, then the number becomes closer to one in three. Tesla Model S battery-electric vehicle sales? Try one in 2.7. For the second straight year, the Prius was the best-selling car in the Golden State. Toyota sold 69,728 Priuses there, almost a third of the more than 234,000 sold in the US in 2013. Prius sales in California alone were up almost 13 percent. And Toyota's ready to build upon that momentum with a new version of the Prius Plug-in Hybrid, saying that it's testing a wireless recharging system in Japan's Aichi Prefecture and will start similar tirals stateside later this year. We'll make the wild prediction that some of those tests, which involves magnetic resonance, will be in California. Meanwhile, Tesla's numbers were, in their own way, were more impressive. The California-based automaker sold 8,347 of its Model S units in the Golden State out of about 22,300 nationwide in 2012, Bloomberg News reports. In all, advanced-powertrain vehicles accounted for 9.3 percent of California new-vehicle sales, compared to 3.8 percent for the country, Bloomberg says, citing Hybrid Cars and Baum & Associates. Check out Toyota's press release on its California sales below. Prius Medals In The Golden State Toyota Prius is best-selling vehicle line in California Wireless charging testing for Prius Plug-in TORRANCE, Calif., Feb. 18, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- The Prius took home the gold in 2013 as the most popular vehicle-line in California for the second year in a row. The Prius Family (Prius Liftback, Prius v, Prius c and Prius Plug-in) took the podium in both 2012 and 2013 as the best-selling California vehicle name plate. 69,728 drivers hit the road in 2013, according to the California Auto Outlook Report, while 61,893 Californians joined the family in 2012. In the Golden State, the Prius Family outsells all other hybrid competitors combined. California drivers lead the country in adoption of vehicles powered, either wholly or partially, by electricity. 9.3% of vehicles sold in the state run on some form of electricity, according to the report. But despite the growing number of hybrid competitors, Toyota's hybrid leadership remains unmatched. In fact, one out of every two hybrids in California carries the Prius name plate.

What to do if you run out of juice in your Tesla Model S

After writing about their Tesla Model S running out of juice on the side of the road between Las Vegas and Barstow, CA recently (read about it here), the fine folks at Teslarati figured they had some 'splainin' to do. The brief explanation is headwinds. Yes, headwinds. A Model S has about 10 miles of range even after it shows a big fat "0" on its dash. Thankfully, the drivers took notes about what to do if your Model S is about to shut down like C-3PO in A New Hope. Step one is to know that the EV has about 10 miles of range (maybe 20) even after it shows "0" on its dash. Once that distance is used up, it's time to pull the car over, and even then there is enough reserve juice to power the screen for a half hour. After that, all that works are the door handles and the flashers. So, before everything goes completely dark, it's best to remember to put the car into "tow mode" and get it into neutral so that the EV doesn't have to be jumpstarted just to get it onto a truck. Also, once the Model S has been recharged from empty, it needs to be powered off in order to reset the system and not keep it in "depleted power" mode. Now you know. The way Teslarati learned all of this was that, after using a Las Vegas supercharger to give their Tesla Model what they thought would be about 240 miles worth of range for the 160-mile drive, the car unfortunately provided them with just 157 before shutting down. The culprit was a sand storm that sent 35-mile-per-hour headwinds (and probably a bit of grit) into the car as it maintained a 75-mph cruising speed. Teslarati also said elevation changes were part of the problem. Las Vegas and Barstow are both about 2,200 feet above sea level, but there are a bunch of hills in between, and we guess the declines giveth less then the inclines taketh away. Happens to the best of us.

Lexus says it's not worried about LS sales decline in face of S-Class, Model S

The Lexus LS is old. Sure, it received a refresh for model year 2013, but it hasn't had a clean-sheet redesign since George W. Bush was in office. It's the oldest vehicle in its segment, debuting in 2007, a full year before the current-gen BMW 7 Series, two years before the Hyundai Equus and Jaguar XJ and three years before the Audi A8.
This is particularly troubling as buyers flock to the heavily redesigned Mercedes-Benz S-Class, which debuted late last year, and the all-electric Tesla Model S. Despite this move, though, Lexus is (worryingly in our minds) not at all concerned.
"We don't feel it's a problem with the car," Brian Smith, VP of marketing for Lexus, told Wards Auto. "Many of the buyers in that segment want what's new and they're trying it."