Batteries

We've been watching it roll closer for years, and now it's all but here: A new era of electric cars. Just three or four months from now, the first highway-capable electric vehicles sold in volume by global automakers will appear in showrooms in California and other regions. By the end of 2011...

Think of the 2011 Chevrolet Volt and very little seems conventional about it. With a range of 40 miles per charge and a range-extending gasoline engine used to provide extra power when the battery pack is depleted, Chevrolet is keen to push the car’s green credentials. Built at the Hamtramck...

There's no better time to make a public announcement than when you have the President of the United States with you. Today,President Barack Obama visited the Detroit-Hamtramck plant where GM is building its 2011 Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric vehicle. And the company took full advantage of...

How fast, how far, and how long? These are the three most important questions asked of any electric car coming to market. Just like their gasoline counterparts, drivers want to know their first electric car won't leave them foundering at the lights, stranded on the freeway, or taking forever to...

Forgive us our weariness, please. It's only Thursday, but the barrage of news about the two upcoming electric cars that will go on sale for the 2011 model year is wearing us down. Nonetheless, we have manfully pulled ourselves together to bring you the video at the bottom of this piece, in which...

The big news in green cars today will be the noon release of pricing and ordering information for the 2011 Chevrolet Volt, GM's upcoming range-extended compact electric car. But GM had more noteworthy news today, all the way from the other side of the world. General Motors, the company pilloried...

Three weeks ago, Chevrolet unveiled two new launch markets for its 2011 Volt electric car and described some of the things dealers would need to do in order to be granted the privilege of selling GM's most advanced and most eagerly awaited car in decades. Now it appears that pretty much every Chevy...

Four months from now, the world's first extended-range electric vehicle will start showing up at dealers. The 2011 Chevrolet Volt will introduce car buyers to the idea of a range-extending combustion engine that turns a generator to power the car electrically. But the generator in an E-REV can be...

We've written before about the schedule for the 2011 Fisker Karma, which (like many other electric cars) has slipped a bit since the car was first unveiled. Now Fisker's newest dealer, located in none other than LA's epicenter of green consciousness--namely Santa Monica, California--says that the...

Having recently visited Smith Electric Vehiclesin Kansas City, Missouri, president Barack Obama is now on his way to the Compact Power battery plant located in Holland, Michigan. The specialized plant will be supplying the upcoming Chevrolet Volt range-extended vehicle with its lithium-ion battery...

Ask most consumers to describe an electric car and the chances are they will talk about the Tesla, the 2011 Nissan Leaf, maybe the 2011 Chevrolet Volt. They almost surely won't think of the large, luxurious, and expensive Range Rover. They may talk about how expensive EVs are. And unless they're...

[UPDATE: Tesla spokesman Ricardo Reyes says the original report via Bloomberg that Tesla would develop two separate electric models for Toyota was erroneous, and may have been further confused later by the fact that Tesla had developed two prototype RAV4 vehicles.] ++++++ UPDATE: Citing Japanese...

One of the many unknowns about Toyota's partnership with Tesla was whether it would result in a jointly produced car. That won't be known for many months yet, but Toyota has already taken a first step: It's building Tesla's battery into a test car so it can compare the Silicon Valley startup's...

Remember the bright yellow Mercedes SLS AMG E-Cell prototype we wrote about back in June? Equipped with a four-motor, all-wheel-drive system the SLS AMG E-Cell is capable of putting out more than 525 horsepower onto the road and packs electric supercar performance into the iconic gullwing body. As...

Launching a brand-new car make is a tough task; just ask General Motors (RIP Saturn). But if you're electric-car startup Coda Automotive, you have at least one plus (it's a pure electric car, which is sexy) to offset several potential minuses (who's Coda? it's made in China? I can't buy one outside...

Speculation about what models will join an expanded Toyota Prius lineup has run rampant since Toyota confirmed at January's Detroit Auto Show that it would add more body styles to the current five-door hatchback. One candidate: the Auris Hybrid, effectively a hybrid version of the Corolla hatchback...

CODA Automotive, builder of electric cars and batteries, is diversifying its manufacturing operations, which had previously been based mostly in China. The company says it will be opening a lithium-ion battery factory in Ohio that could add more than 1,000 jobs to the local area.The creation of so...

BMW's chief executive officer, Norbert Reithofer, has confirmed that the company's ActiveHybrid 5 sedan will go on sale as early as next year. Reithofer told shareholders yesterday at BMW's annual meeting that the car it showed at the Geneva Motor Show in March as the BMW Concept 5-Series...

With GM's 2011 Chevrolet Volt now in pre-production and due to launch in November 2010, Former GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz fully supports range-extended electric vehicles but remains doubtful of the near future of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. In an interview with GM-Volt.com before his retirement...

Toyota has come under some fire from electric-vehicle enthusiasts for what some perceive as a grudging, halfhearted approach to building vehicles that plug in. Its first U.S.-market plug-in vehicle--not including a thousand or so RAV4 electric crossovers a decade ago--will be the 2012 Toyota Prius...