Musk On VW Diesels, Best Car To Buy Nominees, Bad Electric-Car Dealer: The Week In Reverse (Video)

Which iconic Sixties vehicle may be reborn as all-electric family transport?

And, why does Tesla CEO Elon Musk think VW shouldn't bother to fix its cheating diesels?

This is our video look back at the Week In Reverse--right here at Green Car Reports--for the week ending on Friday, December 18, 2015.

Friday, we wrote about a letter sent to the California Air Resources Board by Tesla CEO Elon Musk and 44 other environmental leaders and Silicon Valley executives.

Forcing Volkswagen to make its TDI diesel cars comply with emission standards, it said, would be a huge waste of money--and hundreds of thousands may have to be crushed anyway.

Instead, the letter suggests, CARB should consider requiring Volkswagen to sell zero-emission vehicles (most likely electric cars) to offset the damage by a 10-to-1 ratio.

What do you think of that one?

On Thursday, we named the 2016 Chevrolet Volt as a nominee for our 2016 Best Car To Buy award.

We nominated the 2016 Audi A3 e-Tron Sportback and the 2016 Honda Civic as finalists on different days as well.

And we covered the also-rans too: all the cars that didn't make it onto the final list of nominees.

Wednesday we wrote another in our growing series on how hard car dealers make it to buy electric cars.

In this case, we detailed the frustrations of a writer who wanted a 107-mile 2016 Nissan Leaf. He didn't get it.

On Tuesday, we covered some of our experiences with our long-term Volkswagen e-Golf test car.

In particular, we looked at the good and the bad of VW's CarNet mobile services and the smartphone app that controls them.

Monday, we reported that the slow pace of rollout for California's hydrogen fueling infrastructure has led Toyota to provide portable hydrogen stations to six of its eight Mirai dealers.

Until the planned permanent stations open, drivers of the Mirai hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle will be able to have dealership staff refuel their cars. To half a tank, at least.

It's a short-term measure, Toyota says; the company hopes the portable fuelers won't be needed past the middle of next year.

Finally, over the weekend, we noted a rumor that Volkswagen plans to debut an electric VW Microbus concept at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next month.

That may be an update on a 2011 concept for an electric Bulli--the German name for what we call the VW bus.

That was accompanied by news that the company is working on flat battery packs for longer-range electric cars.

They're two of the many electrification stories from VW that may or may not distract public attention from the continuing VW diesel-emission scandal.

Green Car Reports wishes all its readers and viewers the very happiest of holidays and a happy, healthy, safe, and rewarding New Year!

We'll see you in 2016. Until then, this has been the Green Car Reports Week in Reverse update.

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Source: Musk On VW Diesels, Best Car To Buy Nominees, Bad Electric-Car Dealer: The Week In Reverse (Video)