2011

"Although we loaded the Volt with state-of-the-art safety features, we did not engineer the Volt to be a political punching bag. Sadly, that is what it's become." That's how General Motors CEO Dan Akerson described the furor surrounding the Chevrolet Volt battery fires. A pack demolished in NHTSA...

South-Korean automaker Hyundai announced last week that it achieved a fleet-wide corporate average fuel economy of 36 mpg across its entire 2011 range. In doing so, Hyundai has essentially met U.S. 2016 Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards set for cars and light-duty trucks four years...

An animation released by General Motors depicts the modifications to Chevy Volt that will be performed by dealers to strengthen the battery compartment.

All good things must come to an end, and it's the same with the first modern electric car, the already legendary Tesla Roadster. It's long been known that Lotus Cars would build only 2,600 Roadster "gliders" for California-based Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA]. The company then installs the lithium-ion...

When we wrote last year about the 2011 Nissan Leaf being waterboarded for your safety, little did we know an even sterner test was about to challenge the safety of Nissan's electric car. The devastating and tragic results of the March tsunami shook Japan to the core, and resulted in the country's...

Rinspeed's latest concept would add both range and functionality to the Smart Electric Drive.

Engineers at General Motors are close to finalizing a set of design modifications to the Chevrolet Volt battery pack to prevent later fires in packs that have been severely damaged in accidents. The updates come in response to two fires in lithium-ion Volt battery packs that were compromised during...

Believe it or not, December 12 will mark one year since Oliver Chalouhi of Redwood City, California became the first U.S. owner of a production 2011 Nissan Leaf. For some Nissan Leaf fans however, December 12 marks the additional year that they’ve waited to be able to buy the all-electric...

Nearly every electric car on the market today comes with technology that enables you to remotely start its charging cycle, pre-cool the cabin, or check its state of charge using a smart phone or computer. But while owners of the $109,000 Tesla Roadster aren’t among those who had smart-phone...

The advocacy group Consumer Watchdog has called for the EPA to test whether the Hyundai Elantra lives up to its EPA gas-mileage ratings in real-world use; owners have complained that it doesn't.

Honda's aim with its CR-Z hybrid sports coupe was to inject a bit of much-needed excitement into a market that viewed traditional hybrids as a bit dull, a bit vanilla. Unfortunately for some, the CR-Z was neither a tire-burning machine nor a particularly parsimonious runabout. Maybe vanilla was the...

A few weeks ago we told you about a 2011 Chevrolet Volt which had caught fire in a storage yard three weeks after it was subjected to an official National Highway Traffic Safety Administration crash test. But after a second Chevrolet Volt caught fire at the NHTSA test labs last week following a...

The City of San Diego has become the first city in North America to offer an all-electric car sharing network, thanks to Car2Go. A fleet of more than 300 all-electric Smart ForTwo Electric Drives were present at the November 18 launch event. A subsiduary of Daimler North America Corporation, the...

General Motors has revealed the eight Chinese cities in which the Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car will be sold. The Volt will go on sale in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Wuxi, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Foshan towards the end of this year. However, with GM not keen to hand over some...

We tend to prefer smaller cars here at Green Car Reports. Since far more than half of U.S. car journeys are made by a single occupant, smaller could often suffice--and cost less, and pollute less. But some buyers simply need larger vehicles--or at least want them--and seven-seat sport-utility...

If the Lexus CT200h wasn't evidence enough that the Japanese luxury car maker sees downsizing as an important brand strategy, then plans for a new small hybrid engine in the GS sedan could be further proof. The smaller hybrid would join the 2013 Lexus GS 450h hybrid that was revealed at the 2011...

Talk-show host Jay Leno might own everything from vintage Model T Fords through to large-engined, gas-guzzling supercars, but it turns out his daily driver is the 2011 Chevrolet Volt he purchased last year. And in that time, Leno says, he hasn’t visited a gas-station once. Since collecting...

If you thought the Nissan Leaf was a hard sell in the expanses of North America, then you may be surprised to learn it's doing far less well in one of its natural habitats. Cities are where electric cars often make the most sense, but the fashion and luxury-conscious buyers in smog-ridden Hong Kong...

The fire marshal investigating a Mooresville, NC, fire that engulfed a 2011 Chevrolet Volt electric car has concluded preliminarily that the car was not the source of the fire.

Neither GM nor the NHTSA has been able to replicate a fire that occurred in a wrecked Chevrolet Volt three weeks after it was demolished in an NHTSA crash test.