Fun Stuff
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President John F. Kennedy challenged the United States to put a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s, and the country's space agency met his challenge with five months to go. However, in 1971, NASA sent a remarkable piece of equipment into space with astronauts—the Lunar Rover—which was actually designed and built by General Motors. Now, 46 years later, we can compare GM's work on the all-electric Lunar Rover to that on its first long-range, affordable electric car, the 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV. DON'T MISS: Electric-car road trip: lessons learned in Chevy Bolt EV over 1,300 miles...
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Tesla Model 3 Easter eggs, discovered by board member Steve Jurvetson
The few dozen 2017 Tesla Model 3 owners who've already taken delivery of their electric cars will find a few surprises inside if they look closely enough. The Silicon Valley automaker handed over the first examples of its new Model 3 to customers, one of whom happens to be Steve Jurvetson...
Sean Szymkowski -
Electric Cars For Speed Freaks: Which One Is Quickest?
Debate still rages on the best way to sell electric cars. Should automakers be boasting of their environmental credentials? Or should they talk in a language people understand--money--and highlight the economic benefits? Maybe it's all about silence and refinement? Rarely mentioned is just how fun...
Antony Ingram -
How Quiet Are Electric Cars? This Nissan Leaf Shows You
If you've ever lived on a street where one of your neighbors has a noisy car, you'll have been made very aware of its presence every morning as they started it up and went to work. ALSO SEE: Do The BMW i3 And i8 Electric Cars Pose A Threat To Tesla? Unfortunately, these people never seem to go to...
Antony Ingram -
Always Wanted A Harley-Davidson-Powered Prius? You're In Luck!
It's fair to say most Toyota Prius owners are probably quite happy with their cars. Sure, they aren't the quickest vehicles on the road, and plug-in cars use even less gas. But they're quiet, efficient and easy to drive. It might not have crossed many owners' minds to swap the clean-burning...
Antony Ingram -
Electric-Car Coloring Book By Irked Tesla Employee Explains It All For You
As any electric car owner will know, there are still some surprising misconceptions about electric cars out there. One Tesla employee, annoyed at being asked the same questions over and over about electric cars--with the occasional ludicrous question thrown in--has created a coloring book about...
Antony Ingram -
Modern electric cars are nice enough, but ask them to climb a snowy bank or forge through a forest and we suspect you'd quickly find their limitations. For truly tough conditions, you need something a little more adaptable--but there's no reason you should sacrifice electric propulsion to do so. That's where the MTT-136 comes in (via Autoblog). Uninspiring name perhaps, but Canadian inventor Yvon Martel's "My Track Technology" vehicle is possibly the world's most capable, adaptable electric vehicle. It looks a little like something a villain might attempt to drive over a trapped James Bond...
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Lighting A Christmas Tree The Modern Way: With An Electric Car
Should you be one of those people among our readers who celebrates the Christmas holiday, you might be interested in having a greener Christmas. Did you know, for example, that it's greener to have a real Christmas tree than a plastic one, unless you keep the plastic tree many years? The real ones...
Antony Ingram -
Scrooser Electric Scooter: "A Harley-Davidson For The Sidewalk"
One of the main criticisms of electric cars is that they often lack the sort of raw appeal that makes you want a product, transcending any notions of buying because you need it. Oddly, the world of electric two-wheelers hasn't had this trouble, particularly as you delve into the realms of simple...
Antony Ingram -
Fun For $40,000? Electric Plane Beats Electric Car Every Time...
$40,000 will get you plenty of electric cars these days, including the recently-unveiled 2014 BMW i3. They can be fun on the right road, and it's great knowing you aren't using any gas... but there have to be bigger electric thrills elsewhere, right? The GreenWing eSpyder could be what you need to...
Antony Ingram -
Razor Launches New, All-Electric Performance ... Ummmm ... Vehicle
The trouble with kids is that they just don't have enough ways to injure themselves these days. If you're a parent who thinks this should change, then we can't think of anything with better arm-breaking potential than the Crazy Cart from Razor. What the Crazy Cart is, is a shrunken electric go-kart...
Antony Ingram -
Flying Electric Bicycle Debuts In Prague, Will NYC Ban These Too?
New Yorker? Own an electric bicycle? You're probably pretty angry right now, since the city has just banned the use of electric bikes on its streets. Which would be fine, had you not just bought one, still entirely legally, from a shop. It's okay though, we have a solution--turn it into a flying...
Antony Ingram -
If you've ever seen a child zipping along on a bicycle at breakneck speed the concept of putting them behind the wheel of a car is truly terrifying. Toyota still wants to give it a go though, and following on from last year's Camatte concepts, Toyota has once again displayed a brace of electric family-friendly cars at the Tokyo Toy Show. The Camatte57s takes the previous concept and chops the roof off, but maintains some of the previous version's features. Those include adjustable seat and pedals, allowing trusting parents to adjust the driving position for their children, and body panels...
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Toyota Prius Over $150K In Singapore, Vin Diesel Not Impressed
If you ever feel cars are getting too expensive, consider yourself lucky you don't live in Singapore. The country, an island located on the tip of mainland Malaysia, is smaller than most cities, and one of the most prosperous nations in the world. Due to its (lack of) size, traffic is a big...
Antony Ingram -
Nissan Leaf, Solar-Canopy Charging Station In New SIMS Game
The Nissan Leaf is no stranger to videogames. Last year, we had a little race between a Leaf and the Toyota Prius--albeit in the realistic but completely virtual world of Gran Turismo 5. But what you can't do in Gran Turismo is virtually charge your virtual Leaf with virtual solar panels--something...
Antony Ingram -
Electric Vehicle Sets Longest-Distance-Traveled Record...On Another Planet!
A vehicle journey of just over 22 miles hasn't really been cause for celebration since the dawn of the motor car itself, when low speeds and unpaved roads made it more arduous than it would have been on the equine alternative. But transpose that figure to another planet and well, it starts to look...
Antony Ingram -
New Tesla Testing Technique From Staid Consumer Reports: Drifting!
We'd not normally advise getting information directly from Wikipedia, but its opening line on the sport of drifting is as good as any other definition you'll find: "Drifting is a driving technique where the driver intentionally oversteers, causing loss of traction in the rear wheels, while...
Antony Ingram -
Build Your Own Metal-Air Battery Car: Now There's A Kit
Most of us, sadly, can't afford a brand new Tesla Model S electric sedan. Even less so, a Tesla Model S with the latest metal-air battery technology, hinted for use in the company's future products. But fret not, dear reader: There is another way to get your hands on metal-air battery technology...
Antony Ingram -
Speeding is big business. There's no money to be made from it as an individual of course, unless you subscribe to the theory "time is money". But the U.S. Census Bureau estimates 100,000 Americans are ticketed for speeding every day, at an average cost of $150 per ticket--$5.5 billion a year in revenue. There'll only ever be one "first" speeding offense though, and you might be surprised to learn that it was for an electric car. It was also a taxi driver, which you'll be less surprised about. And a taxi driver in New York at that. "Get outta here," you shout at the computer screen, reaching...
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Can An 'Ultralight Adventure Vehicle' Be An Electric Bicycle?
Got some money to burn and in need of a hobby? Perhaps some sort of adventure sport, but nothing too crazy--off-road bikes, perhaps? Not just any off-road bike though. It has to be electric, for a start. What about one of Outrider's electric recumbent bikes? Yes indeed--there is now such a thing as...
Antony Ingram -
Nissan Leaf's Great-Grandfather: The Tama EV
You might think high gasoline prices are a problem now, but at least it's relatively easy to get hold of. The same couldn't be said in Japan after the end of World War II, when the country's gasoline supplies were limited under Allied occupation. Transport was still vital, which led Nissan and...
Antony Ingram -
What 2013 Looked Like For Greener Cars, Back In 1988
The rate at which technology develops makes predicting the future incredibly difficult, but people get it right sometimes. They get it wrong sometimes too, and you'd have found a mixture of both in the April 3, 1988 issue of the Los Angeles Times Magazine, which peered 25 years into the future--to...
Antony Ingram -
Can Your Hybrid Cut Your Lawn? Here's One That Can
A Toyota Prius is many things, but a convenient lawn mower isn't one of them. Useless, right? Luckily, it is now possible to buy a hybrid lawn mower, known as the Raven MPV-710. In many ways, a hybrid mower makes sense. After all, if you're making an effort to be green, you might as well try and...
Antony Ingram -
Electric Monster Truck Crushes Puny Gasoline Cars This Weekend
Remember the world's first all-electric monster truck? If you're at the AutoRama Car Show in Kansas City, Missouri this weekend, you'll be able to see it in action. We're told it'll be "participating in two car-crush demonstrations per day", which sounds like a polite way of saying it'll be causing...
Antony Ingram