2014

Do you live in California? Have you been mulling over the purchase of a natural-gas vehicle? If so, Honda wants you to know that its 2014 Honda Civic Natural Gas model is eligible for an immediate $1,000 purchase credit--but you'll need to act swiftly. DON'T MISS: 2012 Honda Civic Natural Gas...

Nissan is recalling a small number of 2014 Nissan Leaf electric cars to replace the car's inverter assembly. Just 196 cars are affected, all build during a ten-day period in April. Nissan puts the recall down to an out-of-specification control circuit board being fitted during this time. ALSO SEE...

Unless you're a Tesla owner with access to free Supercharger fast charging stations, there's no better place to charge your electric car than at home. Pick the right electricity tariff, and charging can cost pennies on the dollar next to even the most efficient combustion-engined vehicle. BMW hopes...

The 2014 BMW i3 is proving to be very effective at luring new buyers to BMW--buyers who haven't before owned one of its cars. Such buyers, known as conquests, are highly valued by carmakers, who have a much better chance of retaining a customer if they're already driving one of its vehicles. The...

Tesla Motors has some busy years ahead of it. There's the continued roll-out of the Model S in global markets, such as China and Europe. There are two new models on the horizon. And there's the enormous battery gigafactory. To that long list, Tesla has added U.K. sales--as the first cars made their...

MINIs aren't really Mini any more, but modern safety, comfort and equipment standards mean we'll never have a car quite as small as the original Mini ever again. That, and relentless niche-filling from parent company BMW means the car must be hugely profitable--something the classic car never...

There's a price war going on at the bottom of the Canadian car market. At one side, Nissan's new Micra--a small car long sold in the European and Japanese markets, but now invading the North American continent--albeit available only in Canada. On the other, the Mitsubishi Mirage. This is available...

Parking is one of those maneuvers that we all screw up now and then, no matter how experienced we are at driving. And there's nothing worse than having an audience just as you're trying to squeeze into a space. Even professional athletes can't experience that much pressure, surely? But what if your...

The all-new, third-generation 2014 MINI Cooper three-door hatchback--now called "Hardtop" by MINI--sports a longer nose, a new 1.5-liter three-cylinder engine, and an interior that at last cleans up some of the disastrous ergonomics of the previous cars. Specifically, the round display in the...

Many people approach car shopping in the U.S. looking for the largest, most luxurious vehicle they can afford, from the best brand possible. Still, at least a handful of shoppers are more focused on basic transportation--and a vehicle they know they can afford. My daughter Priscilla falls into the...

The 2014 Ram 1500 EcoDiesel is the only half-ton truck on sale this year with a diesel engine.

Hardcore Porsche enthusiasts are a picky bunch. The 1970s 914 sports car is not a real Porsche, according to them. Nor was the 924. Nor the Boxster, which saved the company in the 1990s. Or the Cayenne, and--God forbid--its diesel and hybrid variants, which have propped up Porsche's balance sheets...

Honda was the first car company to sell a hybrid in the U.S. by a few months, but it hasn't done nearly as well with its hybrids as Toyota has done with its Prius. Its first two-seat Insight wasn't close enough to the mainstream--and the first Honda Accord Hybrid in 2004 didn't post gas-mileage...

Aerodynamics are a vital component of automotive efficiency. The more air you have to push out of the way to reach or maintain a certain speed, the more energy you're using. And the more energy you use, the less efficient your journey will be. ALSO SEE: Solar Roadways Smashes Crowdfunding Target...

BMW has become the latest in a growing list of automakers to put its faith in the Chinese electric car market. The Chinese automobile market is huge: 18 million passenger cars alone were sold in 2013. That's ten times that of similarly-populated India, and around 2.4 million more than were sold in...

Driving the world's highest-volume battery-electric car in New York's Hudson Valley.

MINI has been a huge success story for its parent company BMW. Customers all over the world have fallen for the car's retro looks and wide range of models. But recently, it's fair to say MINIs products have been a bit... well, ugly. While retro works on a small hatchback, it's not necessarily best...

You know Top Gear, right? The UK car show with a trio of presenters who hate fuel-efficient cars, think electric cars are useless and like to scream around airfields in gas-guzzling supercars? Well, not quite. James May has always been a little different. He often drives to the studio in a...

This past Wednesday, May 21, I picked up my shiny new 2014 BMW i3 REx range-extended electric car from JMK BMW in Springfield, New Jersey. The car, in Laurel Grey, was the first range-extended i3 delivered in North America, and I will always appreciate that BMW gave me the honor of being the first...

Every time I visit a conventional car dealership to test-drive an electric car, I'm struck by the salesman's lack of savvy about plug-in cars. The first time I drove a Chevy Volt three years ago, the salesman barely knew how to turn the car on, and had no clue about electric cars in general. The...