2011

  • 2011 Honda Insight

    The Toyota Prius is the best-selling hybrid vehicle of all time and recently passed three million sales globally and a million in the U.S., over more than a decade. And when fuel prices rise, so has demand for the Prius and other high-mileage vehicles. So then, why hasn't it for the Honda Insight? Ever since its introduction more than two years ago, the Insight hasn't been able to find the same traction in the green-car market. Numbers count While the Insight has a shape that's nearly as distinctive as that of the Prius, fuel economy might be one of the key reasons: While the Prius comes with...

  • Hyundai BLUE-WILL Hybrid
    2011 New York Auto Show: Hyundai Gives Prius Competitor Green Light For Production

    Two more 40-mpg cars will arrive from Hyundai in the “next couple of years.” This comes from an executive interview conducted by Inside Line at the 2011 New York Auto Show. What is even more interesting is that one of those 40-mpg cars that Hyundai has confirmed will be moving to...

  • BMW ActiveE electric car, at BMW Manhattan media event, April 2011
    BMW Exec Trashes Electric Cars, Tax Credits at Launch of ActiveE

    In the rulebook of product promotion, remembering to not say horrible things about your product has to be number one. It’s a shame BMW North America President and CEO Jim O’Donnell seems to have forgotten that fact while taking part in a public event. Speaking on Monday at an event in...

  • 2012 Nissan Leaf Nismo RC Concept, New York Auto Show, April 2011
    Nissan Leaf Nismo RC Concept: New York Auto Show Live Photos

    Blue light bathed the concept car in the corner before Nissan launched its 2012 Versa sedan at the 2011 New York Auto Show today. The images were so striking we thought we'd bring you a photo gallery of Nissan's electric race-car concept, just so you can see it from all angles, looking like nothing...

  • Suzuki Kizashi EcoCharge Concept
    Suzuki Kizashi EcoCharge Concept Hybrid: 2011 NY Auto Show

    Suzuki has had a rough time of it lately, with its only new product being the well-received but still low-volume Kizashi sports sedan, halfway between a compact and a midsize car. But for this week's 2011 New York Auto Show, they're display a couple of Kizashi concepts that point toward what the...

  • 2011 Toyota Prius
    How Much Gasoline Can You Save With A Hybrid Or Plug-In Car?

    As of the middle of April, gasoline is approaching $4.00 per gallon across the United States and oil is surging past $110 per barrel. More and more energy observers are talking about "$5 per gallon fuel" here in the U.S. So how do you minimize your gasoline costs and maximize your mileage? What...

  • 2011 Hyundai Elantra

    The 2011 Hyundai Elantra compact sedan, entirely redesigned for this model year, has won rave reviews and is selling like gangbusters. We found many things to like in the stylish little Hyundai, and as part of our series of quick road-test and review videos, we listed the top five. Check out the video below to see what we liked, from its exterior styling to the interior space. Fuel economy, of course, is a big part of the equation. Over a mixed test route of more than 300 miles, with slightly more highway driving than around-town use, we got just a shade north of 34 miles per gallon. Whether...

  • 2011 Audi A3 Sedan e-tron Concept
    Audi A3 e-tron Concept Packs Plug-In Hybrid Drivetrain

    After sticking to diesel for a long time as its sole green strategy, Audi is now storming ahead into smaller, hybrid, and electric cars with a fierce vengeance, seemingly determined to make up for lost time. Today the automaker’s green onslaught has gone up another notch with the unveiling of...

  • Value of Zero Nissan Ad
    Nissan’s New Electric Car Ad Zeroes In On Weird Coincidences (Video)

    What links a 1985 novel about a drug-addicted rich boy with the 2011 Nissan Leaf? Nothing, or something? It turns out to be both. You see, the 1985 novel Less Than Zero, later dramatized in 1987 as a film featuring a fresh-faced 22 year-old Robert Downey Jr., has a remarkably similar title to...

  • BMW ActiveE electric car, at BMW Manhattan media event, April 2011
    BMW ActiveE Lease Price: $499 A Month For Electric 4-Seater

    The choices among electric cars just keep getting better, as BMW has now announced the lease details for the first stage of its evolution into BMW-branded electric cars. The ActiveE, an all-electric version of the 1-series, will be available for lease requests later this summer. It will be offered...

  • Hybrid parking spot, by Flickr user rscottjones
    Attention, Shoppers: Infiniti QX56s, Diesels Are NOT Hybrids

    It will come as a horrible shock to the driver of the pale green Infiniti QX56, but the 2-ton-plus full-size sport utility vehicle is not actually a hybrid. Nor, for that matter, is a Volkswagen Passat TDI--though it at least has a diesel engine, which gives higher gas mileage than the QX56's...

  • BMW ActiveE
    BMW ActiveE Electric Car Priced At $499 Per Month, $2,250 Down

    Electric cars, at the moment, cost more to buy than gasoline cars of similar size and with similar features, powertrain excepted. Leases on electric cars from mass-market brands like Nissan and Chevrolet are often a little more competitive. The 2011 Nissan Leaf is $349 a month, the 2011 Chevy Volt...

  • 2011 Hyundai Elantra

    The 2011 New York Auto Show is kicking off this week, with new compact car entries that include the all-wheel-drive 2012 Subaru Impreza, among others. But a strong new contender this year that's already selling fast is the 2011 Hyundai Elantra, which we recently road-tested over our usual route of 300-plus miles. Watch the video at the bottom of the page for our two-minute review. That test route, by the way, includes both long stretches of highway and a variety of around-town uses, from mall visits to suburban cul-de-saccing, and even a little bit of urban stop-and-go. We got slightly more...

  • Electric-Car Charging Stations Pop Up All Over, Hotels Included

    While AllCarsElectric posts are regularly written from at least three countries, occasionally we get to cover electric-car events in our own back yard--specifically, Palo Alto, California. On Friday, we attended a ceremony to inaugurate the first electric-car charger installed at any hotel in very...

  • Nissan Leaf Nismo RC Concept
    2011 New York Auto Show Preview: Nissan Leaf Nismo RC Concept

    It might be just three days away from its official unveiling at the 2011 New York Auto Show, but Nissan just can’t help sharing its latest electric vehicle a little early. Called the Nissan Leaf Nismo RC - that’s Racing Competition - the all-electric race-prepared car looks a little...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Volt destroyed in Barkhamsted, CT, garage fire; image from WTNH News 8 report
    Electric-Car Fire: Flaming Garage Shows Media Ignorance

    A garage caught fire, destroying the two cars inside. That's what we know. One of the cars inside was a brand-new 2011 Chevrolet Volt, and the other was a home-converted electric car. But because of that, what we've gotten from various media is inaccurate at best, and potentially quite misleading...

  • EcoCAR2 teams will modify a Chevrolet Malibu. (PRNewsFoto/Argonne National Lab, Roy Feldman)
    EcoCar2 Will Challenge College Teams To Build Greener Cars

    The winning team for the third and final year of the first EcoCar Challenge has yet to be announced, but the next three-year competition has already been unveiled. On Wednesday, representatives from the U.S. Department of Energy and General Motors officially launched EcoCar2, whose tagline will be...

  • GreenCarReports.com editor John Voelcker reviews 2011 Chevy Cruze Eco and 2011 Hyundai Elantra
    2011 Hyundai Elantra Vs 2011 Chevrolet Cruze Eco (Video)

    Two of the newest compact cars on the road today are the 2011 Hyundai Elantra and the 2011 Chevrolet Cruze. Now we've driven both of them, testing each car with a six-speed manual transmission. In the case of the Chevy, we drove the 2011 Cruze Eco model, which gets the highest EPA gas mileage...

  • 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee

    It's the news Jeep fans all across the country have be waiting years for. That one little tidbit execs at Jeep love to deny but no longer can--that the Jeep Grand Cherokee will be offered with an advanced VM Motori turbodiesel engine in the U.S. by 2013. The information was reportedly revealed straight from the mouth of Fiat-Chrysler boss Sergio Marchionne. The Jeep Grand Cherokee is no stranger to diesel power, though the last we saw it here in the U.S. was in 2008. Unlike the previous Daimler-sourced unit, the next diesel in the Jeep Grand Cherokee, as mentioned, will be built by...

  • 2013 Audi A3 leaked official sketches
    Redesigned Audi A3 Getting New Sedan Model, Six Different Power Sources

    Audi is currently working on a new generation of its A3, a preview of which we got at last month’s 2011 Geneva Motor Show in the form of the Audi A3 Sedan concept. Since then we’ve received these official sketches showing the design of the production version due early next year. While...

  • gas pump
    Miles-Per-Gallon Is Just Stupid. No, Really, It Is.

    Americans aren't stupid. We're just badly informed. And occasionally, stubborn. Why else would we ignorantly cling to using miles per gallon as the way to measure how efficiently a car uses fuel? But maybe you don't quite see the problem. OK, so here's a little test: Which saves more gasoline...

  • 2011 Lexus CT 200h Hybrid in New Orleans
    2011 Lexus CT 200h: Remixed Campaign Speaks to Younger Segment

    When we previewed the 2011 Lexus CT 200h in the New Orleans French Quarter last year we were pretty impressed by the direction Lexus was going. The entire car was designed to go after a younger segment—a segment that was looking for luxury, but wasn’t quite ready for the matured image...

  • 2011 Scion tC
    2011 Scion tC Coupe Scores Five Stars In Overall Crash Tests

    When looking for a sports coupe how many people think about safety? Okay, so that is a rhetorical question, but the reality is that sports cars aren’t necessarily thought of as the pillar of automotive safety. Scion is looking to prove otherwise, like they proved to the automotive world on...

  • 2011 Coda Sedan at Hertz Global EV rental launch, New York City, December 2010
    Coda Automotive Needs Funding to Finish Delayed Electric Sedan

    What does $50 million buy you? We can think of plenty of good things we could do, but according to Californian electric car firm Coda Automotive, $50 million is how much it needs to bring its four door all-electric sedan to market. According to The New York Times, Christopher Rose, the...

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