2011

There’s something quite fun about winning a competition two years in a row, especially if you’re preoccupied with impending court cases. So when its sexy two seat all-electric Roadster sport romped home in first place at the Fifth Monte Carlo Alternative Energy Rally Tesla’s board...

Since 2008, Barack Obama has consistently promoted the goal of having 1 million advanced technology vehicles on U.S. roads by 2015. The number refers to plug-in vehicles that use grid power, stored in lithium-ion battery packs, to operate their electric traction motors. Regular hybrids like the...

Toyota announced today that it's sold more than one million of its Toyota Prius hybrid vehicles. The Prius went on sale in the U.S. market nearly eleven years ago, and while it wasn't the first hybrid on sale here—that title would go to the original Honda Insight two-seater—it has...

The 2011 Denver Auto Show, a show that saw an increase in size and participation this year, closed on Sunday. The results proved what most of us in the auto industry felt about the show—there were more people and more manufacturers out on the floor. Officially, the 2011 Denver Auto Show was...

Earlier this year we heard that the a United Nations committee on noise levels in plug-in vehicles was about to mandate that all plug-in cars be made to emit artificial noises when traveling at low speed. But as we’ve illustrated in the past, we’re not entirely convinced that forcing...

Cutting carbon emissions is complex. And there are a lot of myths and misinformation out there. The effective impact of some actions--reusing your grocery bags, for instance--is relatively low. Other methods, things that many people never even consider, are considerably more effective. For...

If you’re in the market for an electric car there are currently very few highway capable vehicles available. But for those in the U.K. another option will soon be on the market courtesy of an Indian firm which aims to make its electric cars the market leaders. Tata Motors, unfortunately...

The 2011 Chevy Volt continues to outsell the 2011 Nissan Leaf, but during March, the Japanese battery electric car at last started to move noticeable numbers of cars--almost five times as many as it sold in February. The two major-manufacturer plug-ins currently on the market sold a total of 906...

Electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla says BBC TV show Top Gear falsely stated that the Tesla Roadster could only travel 55 miles before needing to recharge, according to Top Gear executive producer Andy Wilman. Wilman said the team behind Top Gear, a show that touts the latest and greatest cars...

One way for potential buyers to get familiar with electric cars is to rent one. Several rental companies, among them Enterprise, have announced plans to rent 2011 Nissan Leaf and other electric models at selected locations. Renting an electric car lets you spend far more time in one than the...

Cars with electric drive motors are now midway through their second decade, and ideas from hybrids and electric cars are starting to filter back into mainstream gasoline vehicles. Ford, for one, adapted several ideas from its hybrid vehicles to reduce the fuel consumption of its 2011 Explorer...

Auto Shows give you the opportunity to experience many different cars in a single venue. It also lets you see cars that you wouldn’t be able to see any other place and compare similar models side by side. Chevrolet has you covered in the Camaro department at the 2011 Denver Auto Show. Okay...

This year’s 2011 Denver Auto Show (DAS) has a lot to offer consumers from demonstrations to manufacturer ride and drives to concept vehicles that will “fuel the future.” Wednesday marked the opening of the largest Denver Auto Show in history at some 500,000 sq. ft and it also...

As what can only be a positive sign for the Rocky Mountain region, Nissan has brought a 2011 Nissan LEAF to the 2011 Denver Auto Show. Since Denver is my home base I feel that it is important to make sure that the general public knows that they can go to the 2011 Denver Auto Show, pay their $10...

The Denver Auto Show has a standing tradition of having an awards ceremony for the manufacturers, a ceremony that AllSmallCars.com has been covering four its third year in a row. The awards are sponsored and conceived by the Rocky Mountain Automotive Press (RMAP), an organization of professional...

We have talked a lot about the 2011 Chevrolet Volt from the time it was a concept all the way through to the launch of the production car. There is no doubt that the Volt is changing the automotive industry. We have seen people young and old interested in the newest battery electric plug-in hybrid...

The problem with shooting video is that there's always one thing you forget to say until the camera's gone. Especially if it's low-budget and done on the fly. That's when the onscreen talent tends to forget to qualify some of the things they say. Like, for instance, this discussion of the unlikely...

A concern raised over upcoming electric-drive cars--the all-electric 2011 Nissan Leaf, the 2011 Chevrolet Volt, and the 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid--is what happens to their lithium-ion battery packs once the car's life ends. Images of those battery packs tossed over cliffs or littering...

General Motors and its brand strategies have been through a lot of turmoil in recent years. Now, GM is down to just four brands in North America--Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, and Cadillac--and is rapidly taking Chevrolet global, including its Malibu midsize model. Buick survived only because of its...

If you’re a regular reader of AllCarsElectric then you’ll know that electric cars are much cheaper to run than gasoline cars once you’ve actually purchased them, but electric cars in Washington state are just about to get a little more expensive to run thanks to a proposed law...