2010
-
Cleaning up a few odds and ends from last week's 2010 Detroit Auto Show brings us to General Motors' future product plans for plug-in hybrids. In the crush of reporters asking questions (known as the "scrum") after a GM announcement, a few more nuggets came to light. GM showed its striking and well-received Cadillac XTS Platinum concept car with a 3.6-liter, 350-horsepower direct-injection V-6 engine and a plug-in hybrid system that uses wall current to recharge its 8-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack in about five hours. The production version of the Cadillac XTS full-size luxury sedan...
-
Fisker Gets $115 Million, New Battery Supplier, Stays on Schedule
Last Friday, startup plug-in hybrid maker Fisker Automotive announced it had raised another $115 million in funds from private backers, including lithium-ion cell supplier A123 Systems and legendary venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Buried in the press release was a...
John Voelcker -
2010 Detroit Auto Show: New Engines for 2010 Hyundai Santa Fe
This is one we're late on posting, but it's significant nonetheless. During the 2010 Detroit Auto Show, Hyundai released details of running updates to its 2010 Hyundai Santa Fe midsize crossover utility vehicle--which is on sale, basically, now. The big news is that Hyundai has replaced both...
John Voelcker -
Nissan Planning Two Small Cars Under $10K For U.S. Market
Small cars aren't always cheap; increasingly, automakers are breaking that link with well-equipped and desirable compacts and subcompacts. Nor are small cars always green, though there's often a correlation. Now Nissan has said it will bring not one but two sub-$10,000 cars to the U.S. The company...
John Voelcker -
Toyota in Japan Gets Into The Prius Hybrid Bodykit Business
The Japanese auto show known as the Tokyo Auto Salon is full of as many customized cars--and just as much weirdness--as its domestic counterpart, the massive SEMA show in Las Vegas. And just as it did at SEMA, with its Aerius and Aemulus customized Prius concepts, Toyota brought a factory custom to...
John Voelcker -
Raging Grannies Protest Tesla's Possible Use of Toxic Dump Site For Future Model S Plant
A group of concerned activists is raising questions about one potential location for Tesla's future Model S assembly plant. The Raging Grannies spent last Saturday in front of the Tesla dealership in Menlo Park, California, asking why the electric vehicle company might build their future plant...
Robert Scardino -
Today was the first press-only day at the 2010 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, and while it was blustery and miserable outside, inside the Cobo Center, it was divine, chrome and carbon fiber as far as the eye could see. I started at the gigantic Ford display, and as I approached, they were wheeling in the 2010 North American Car of the Year, the 2010 Fusion Hybrid. I have always loved this car. It impressed me from the moment I first laid eyes on it, and especially once I got behind the wheel. I liked it more than the third-gen Toyota Prius, more than the Camry Hybrid. This...
-
Surprise: You Save Gas, Drive Better If Your Boss Watches
We don't write much about trucks here at GreenCarReports.com, but our friends at PickupTrucks.com follow them obsessively. Now they've provided the data for an obvious but revealing truth: People drive better and more smoothly, saving gas, when they're being watched. They report that truck fleets...
John Voelcker -
2010 Detroit Auto Show: Toyota FT-CH Concept To Expand Prius Line
Toyota announced this morning that it would launch a family of Prius vehicles, and unveiled a concept vehicle at the Detroit Auto Show that may foreshadow the shape of a new Toyota Prius coupe. The FT-CH concept shows a possible shape for a highly aerodynamic compact hybrid (or CH) vehicle...
John Voelcker -
BMW ActiveHybrid X6 Review
BMW's ActiveHybrid X6 is one of the most powerful hybrid vehicles ever produced. Outputting a combined 480 hp and 575 lb-ft of torque, this a hybrid to be reckoned with. Its 0-60 mph time of 5.2 seconds from a vehicle weighing in at 5,700 lb is definitely astonishing, but does this vehicle live...
Eric Loveday -
2010 Toyota Prius Is Best-Selling Car In Japan
In another sign that Toyota hit a home run with the third-generation Prius hybrid hatchback, the 2010 Toyota Prius was the best-selling car in Japan during 2009. It beat out the Honda Fit, followed by the Toyota Yaris (known in Japan as the Vitz), as well as its closest hybrid competitor, the new...
John Voelcker -
How To Get 85 MPG In a 2010 Lexus HS 250h Hybrid: Go Downhill
You have to give corporate PR guys some credit when they publish an article on the astoundingly high mileage their car got in a road test, and then dismiss the whole thing as "silly and totally unscientific." That's what Lexus magazine auto editor Clark Heideger did. When a coworker got 47.4 miles...
John Voelcker -
We Take a Look Back At Toyota In 2009
-
Toyota To Take More Heat: NHTSA Gets Prius Brake Complaints
Complaints Roll In About the 3rd Generation Toyota Prius
Jonathan McGrew -
2010 Golf TDI Gives Good Economy And Performance
Diesel Technology Has Come a Long Way From Rabbits of the Past
Jonathan McGrew -
Kia Soul 1.6-Liter Is Sure To Be a Hard Find
The Quirky and Cool Soul Wants To Have the Big Engine
Jonathan McGrew -
2nd Generation Smart ForTwo Electric Not Well Received
The Real World May Show Short Comings For the Smart EV
Jonathan McGrew -
The prices of all five trim levels of the new 2010 Toyota Prius will rise next month by $400, or roughly 1.5 to 2 percent, reflecting increased costs and an unfavorable yen-dollar exchange rate. Toyota announced the changes on December 21, buried at the bottom of a lengthy press release on the pricing for its new 2011 Toyota Sienna minivan. Prices for the 2010 Prius now range from $21,400 (for the most basic Prius I model that's not available to retail buyers) up to $28,070 for the ultra-luxury Prius V trim level. Those prices do not include a mandatory $750 fee for delivery, processing, and...
-
Hyundai Posts More Market Share in 2009
Hyundai’s Have Come a Long Way In the Last Couple Decades
Jonathan McGrew -
2010 MINI Makes the Recall List: 17 Inch Wheels Cause Commotion
Nothing Like a Recall For the Holidays
Jonathan McGrew -
EPA's Most Climate-Friendly Cars: All About Fuel Efficiency
The dirty little secrets of Top 10 lists are in the methodology, as Forbes found out with its weirdly inaccurate "10 Dirtiest Cars" list. (It's the end of the year, so it's time for a lot of Top 10s.) But we see no such problems in the EPA Green Vehicle Guide, which rates vehicles not only on...
John Voelcker -
Next Generation VW New Beetle To Arrive In 2012
After 12 Years Of the Current Car, We Wonder What Will Come Next
Jonathan McGrew -
Royalty Drives Fisker Karma Plug-In Hybrid, Journalists Not So Much
Not surprisingly, automotive journalists compete to be the first to drive the latest new cars. Some crave Chevies, others follow Ferrari. Here at GreenCarReports.com, we want to be among the first to drive electric cars and other plug-ins, new hybrids, clean diesels, and so forth. We've driven a...
John Voelcker