Buying Guides

There are some pretty efficient cars on sale these days, but it's fair to say that to benefit from the technology, you often have to spend a little more to start with. What if you want to spend as little as possible on fuel, but spend as little as possible on the car itself too? That's where...

Joining the Chevrolet Cruze Eco in the carmaker's greener, less consumptive vehicle lineup, the 2014 Chevrolet Cruze Diesel has been one of Chevy's most eagerly-awaited models. The car has featured several times before on Green Car Reports, so below you can find all our previous coverage on the...

You read a lot about hybrids and electric cars these days, but fuel-efficient diesel engines will be coming in certain classes of cars this year and in the future. The most recent crop of diesel launches has been in the crossover utility vehicle class, of which we've now driven three different...

The 2014 Ford Focus Electric is already available in select parts of the U.S. -- and to answer all your questions about Ford’s first mass-produced all-electric car here’s our ultimate guide to the Ford Focus Electric. For our guide, we’ve hand-picked the best information about the...

The Honda Civic originally made its name in the 1970s, arriving at the perfect time to attract tens of thousands of customers scared out of larger, thirstier vehicles by the oil crisis. Four decades down the line and the Civic still has a reputation as a gas sipper, though the modern car is...

If you're confused when someone says "Audi e-tron," and you're not sure which electric car it means, don't feel bad--we're confused too. Audi may have more branded electric car concepts, prototypes, test vehicles, limited-production cars, and planned volume-production plug-in electric models than...

So you want a hybrid car, with its high gas mileage and maybe some all-electric running--but you also need all-wheel drive. What are your options? The question came to mind after testing the 2014 Subaru XV Crosstrek Hybrid, the small Japanese brand's first-ever hybrid, which comes standard with...

Japanese automaker Honda has been in the hybrid game from the very start, releasing the quirky, two-seat Insight back in 1999. Since then, the company has sold a variety of other hybrid models, and currently offers four to U.S. consumers. We've compiled reviews and articles for each Honda hybrid to...

If you've been reading Green Car Reports over the past week, you might have seen we recently bought a 2001 Honda Insight--an example of one of the first hybrids sold by a major automaker. But what if you want to buy your own early Insight? What do you need to look out for? And more importantly...

Where are you hedging your bets when it comes to the future of automobile propulsion? Maybe you're sticking with hybrids. Maybe you've already gone all the way to an electric car, or are rolling around in a range-extended Chevrolet Volt. For some, the latest version of the Toyota Prius with plug-in...

The Toyota Prius is by far the most common hybrid car on U.S. roads, which means there are a lot of them out there for sale as used cars. A reader wrote to ask what she should keep in mind when starting to shop for a used Toyota Prius hybrid. What follows are some quick notes from our editors...

As part of the Toyota empire, Lexus was one of the first carmakers to realize the potential of hybrids, and the company now has a wide range of hybrids, competing in several market classes. So successful has Lexus's hybrid range been, that the company has now sold over half a million--and with new...

For 2014, our fourth annual Green Car Reports' Best Car To Buy award goes to the 2014 Honda Accord Hybrid. This new model of the redesigned Honda Accord sedan introduced last year is comfortable, quiet, stylish--and delivers real-world fuel economy from 40 mpg to as much as 52 mpg. And that's...

We've driven the cars. We've discussed their pros, their cons, the overall technology trends, and the many unanswered questions about the future of green cars. Now we've chosen a winner. This being a teaser post, we're not going to tell you what it is yet. That has to wait a day. But to refresh...

Even conventional gasoline cars--no plugs, no hybrids, no turbos--can be green. And we've long been looking forward to the debut of the 2014 Mazda 3, an all-new generation of the compact hatchback and sedan that have always been among the more rewarding cars to drive in the segment. With Mazda's...

The 2014 Chevrolet Cruze Diesel is a somewhat daring car, and one that diesel fans have been urging a U.S. maker to sell for years, if not decades. It's the first diesel-engined passenger vehicle sold by General Motors since 1986, and it's a fully modern car with the latest in emissions control...

The 2014 BMW i3 is the most audacious expansion of a well-known car brand in many years. BMW--the maker of "ultimate driving machines"--is using electric propulsion, a carbon-fiber reinforced body, and a Scandinavian Modern interior not in an expensive luxury sedan, but in a subcompact hatchback...

Yesterday we listed the nominees for Green Car Reports' Best Car To Buy 2014 award: two battery-electric vehicles, one hybrid, one diesel, and one very fuel-efficient gasoline car. But what do our nominees say about the state of green-car design this year? Overall, they highlight four trends to...

We're heading into the last two months of the year, which means it's time for our annual Best Car To Buy award. This is our award that picks one vehicle--or a line of vehicles--that we consider to be the greenest new vehicle(s) launched for the new model year. (That means they have to be all-new or...

With an increasing number of diesel passenger cars appearing in showrooms, car buyers have more options for fuel-efficient driving than they did only a few years ago. After a brief hiatus several years ago, when new and tougher emissions standards came into effect for diesel vehicles, the number...