Honda Civic, Scion iA Drives; Tesla Reliability; Nissan Electric Aims: The Week In Reverse (Video)

Why does Nissan think it can boost electric-car sales by a factor of 10 in just five years?

And, what did VW say about electric cars as it prepared to launch its so-called "clean diesels"--which we now know weren't clean at all?

This is our video look back at the Week In Reverse--right here at Green Car Reports--for the week ending on Friday, October 23, 2015.

Friday, we wrote about a Nissan executive who said a battery breakthrough enabling 200-mile range will let the company boost its electric-car sales by as much as a factor of 10.

The Leaf electric car was 1 percent of last year's overall sales. But with a new-generation battery, said corporate officer Hiroto Saikawa, that could rise to 5 percent--and 10 percent "in the near future" after that.

On Thursday, we covered a trip to Honda's assembly plant in Marysville, Ohio, where the company detailed its "Green Path" program to reduce the energy used in vehicle manufacturing.

It turns out there's no silver bullet. It involves a lot of incremental improvements, though a new state-of-the-art $210 million paint line will cut energy used to paint vehicles by 18 percent.

Wednesday, Consumer Reports dropped a bombshell: It stopped recommending the Tesla Model S due to the lack of reliability its owner surveys had revealed.

A couple of days later, we looked at a slightly different take on its data: What if newer Tesla buyers are just pickier than the eagerest early adopters?

On Tuesday, we covered our gas-mileage test of the 2016 Scion iA subcompact sedan--which came in at an impressive 38 miles per gallon.

The little Scion sedan is actually a Mazda 2 underneath. We liked it when we first drove it, and after spending a few days with it, we like it even more.

Monday was another drive of another new small sedan, the completely redesigned 2016 Honda Civic.

It's longer, lower, and wider, with two new engines and much racier fastback looks. At 35 mpg combined, its gas mileage is considerably better than last year's Civics.

Over the weekend, we discussed China's latest Five-Year Plan--and looked at whether it could provide a huge boost to electric-car sales there.

Finally, we hit several more stories last week on the Volkswagen diesel emission scandal. But the one that most amused us came from an old issue of VW Driver magazine.

Just as VW was ramping up in 2007 to launch its so-called "clean diesel" cars, the company wrote that it expects "all cars will eventually be electric."

Until next week, this has been the Green Car Reports Week in Reverse update.

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Source: Honda Civic, Scion iA Drives; Tesla Reliability; Nissan Electric Aims: The Week In Reverse (Video)