Best Car To Buy
-
Despite a long list of green-car debuts anticipated over the next couple of years, this year hasn't exactly brought a bevy of new electric models. As we wait for the market to blossom with new entries in coming years, we have three strong contenders for this year's top position—our Best Car To Buy 2019. To qualify for Green Car Reports’ Best Car To Buy, a vehicle must be all-new or substantially updated over the previous model year. It also had to be widely available in October 2018—or be made fully available to us for testing and evaluation, with near certainty of its...
-
Why Ioniq and Leaf didn't win: notes on Green Car Reports Best Car To Buy 2018
The 2018 Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid, a plug-in version of the much-lauded new minivan, won our Green Car Reports Best Car To Buy 2018 award because it brings a partially zero-emission vehicle into an entirely new market segment. The Pacifica is our favorite among minivans, though we'll be curious to...
John Voelcker -
Green Car Reports Best Car To Buy 2018: Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid plug-in minivan
In 2011, Green Car Reports launched an award for the new car, or family of cars, that represented the best green vehicle introduced for the model year. The Nissan Leaf won that year because it was the sole affordable battery-electric vehicle on the market. Over the next seven years, more than two...
John Voelcker -
Which car would you pick as Best Car To Buy 2018? Poll results
As we do every year at this time, our editors have gotten together, analyzed and discussed and argued, and come up with what we think is the Green Car Reports Best Car To Buy 2018. We covered our process in a series of articles, including one that lays out the qualifications and rules. To be...
John Voelcker -
Finalist for Green Car Reports Best Car To Buy 2018: Hyundai Ioniq
Hyundai is known in the auto industry as an aggressive and very capable competitor, and the world's largest makers watch it closely and take it very seriously. The company didn't introduce its first hybrid car in the U.S. until 2011 and, frankly, that year's hybrid Sonata sedan wasn't very good...
John Voelcker -
Finalist for Green Car Reports Best Car To Buy 2018: Nissan Leaf
If any electric car aside from the Tesla Model 3 can be called "long-awaited," it would be the redesigned 2018 Nissan Leaf. First thought to arrive as a 2016 model, it was widely assumed to be a 2017 to go head-to-head with the 238-mile Chevrolet Bolt EV launched last December. In the event, the...
John Voelcker -
In early October, when we announced our three finalists for the Green Car Reports Best Car To Buy 2018 award, they represented a diverse set of approaches to making cars greener. They included a plug-in hybrid minivan (the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid), a range of powertrains—hybrid, battery-electric, and soon plug-in hybrid—in a single car (the Hyundai Ioniq), and one battery-electric model (the 2018 Nissan Leaf). That's huge progress over 10 years ago, when the greenest cars you could get were either conventional hybrids or natural-gas vehicles. DON'T MISS: One of these 3 vehicles...
-
Green Car Reports Best Car To Buy 2018 finalist: Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid
If ever a green family vehicle had a rocky launch, it would be the Chrysler Pacifica Hybrid. Only two months after deliveries of the eagerly awaited plug-in hybrid seven-seat minivan began in April, sales were halted for several when a potentially faulty diode was identified. In June, 1,368...
John Voelcker -
Seven years of Green Car Reports Best Car To Buy winners
As we head into final deliberations for the Best Car To Buy 2018 award, it's worth looking back over our first seven years of winners. The list of seven different models or lineups gives a sense of just how far green cars have come—and how fast they've evolved since 2011. Our first award that...
John Voelcker -
Which green cars didn't make the list for Best Car To Buy 2018?
After the usual intense discussions and debates, we announced our three finalists for the Green Car Reports Best Car To Buy 2018 award earlier this week. The Tesla Model 3 was not among them, because we have to drive a car in order to evaluate it as a finalist—and Tesla declined to provide us...
John Voelcker -
One of these 3 vehicles will be Green Car Reports' Best Car To Buy 2018
Fans of green cars have spent much of the past year eagerly waiting for a pair of electric cars to be revealed to the public and then to go on sale. By far the most attention and hype has been focused on the Tesla Model 3, the Silicon Valley carmaker's lower-priced and much higher-volume vehicle...
John Voelcker -
Chevrolet Bolt EV: Green Car Reports' Best Car To Buy 2017
Each year, Green Car Reports chooses a new car, or a family of cars, as the best green car introduced in that model year. In 2011, our very first award, we picked the first-ever modern electric car to be sold in high volumes. Six years later, we've picked the spiritual successor to that car, one...
John Voelcker -
On Monday, Green Car Reports will name its 2017 Best Car To Buy. It will be the seventh time we've given the award, and it's worth looking back to see how far green cars have progressed in those seven years. We were lucky to start the award in 2011, the year two remarkable cars arrived on global markets: the Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf. DON'T MISS: Nissan Leaf: GreenCarReports Best Car To Buy 2011 2011: Nissan Leaf It was a tough choice, but in the end, we gave our 2011 award to the world's first modern battery-electric car. That year, the Leaf's EPA range rating was 73 miles. In...
-
Green Car Reports 2017 Best Car To Buy nominee: Toyota Prius Prime
The 2017 Toyota Prius Prime is a far, far better plug-in hybrid than its predecessor. It defaults to electric-only operation, it has 25 miles of EPA-rated electric range, and in electric operation, it is by far the most energy-efficient vehicle you can buy this year in the U.S. And when it reverts...
John Voelcker -
Green Car Reports' 2017 Best Car To Buy nominee: Tesla Model X
Pretty much any Tesla electric car is bound to start a conversation. The low, tiny 2008 Roadster, the sleek and Jaguar-esque 2012 Model S sedan, or the company's latest car, the 2016 Model X crossover utility vehicle. But as we experienced first-hand, the Model X has the most attention-getting...
John Voelcker -
Green Car Reports 2017 Best Car To Buy nominee: Chevy Bolt EV
The announcement of the Chevrolet Bolt concept car came like a thunderclap at the 2015 Detroit Auto Show. After unveiling the 2016 Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid, General Motors CEO Mary Barra rolled out a bright orange five-door hatchback electric car. It would have 200 or more miles of range, she...
John Voelcker -
Which green cars didn't make the cut for Best Car To Buy award?
We have a slim field of only three new green cars this year competing for the Green Car Reports 2017 Best Car To Buy award. They are the 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV, the 2016 Tesla Model X, and the 2017 Toyota Prius Prime. There's a much longer list of new vehicles that didn't make the cut this year;...
John Voelcker -
One of these 3 cars will be Green Car Reports' Best Car To Buy 2017
The past year has been one of anticipation among green-car advocates, who've spent many months waiting for certain vehicles to emerge into production. At the start of the year, it was the Tesla Model X luxury electric utility vehicle, built in very low numbers for several months at the end of 2015...
John Voelcker -
Every year, Green Car Reports picks a new car or model line that we feel is the best green car for that new model year. This year, we picked a car that's the all-new version of one that was revolutionary when it was introduced several years ago. The latest version improves on it in pretty much every dimension. This year, the Green Car Reports Best Car To Buy 2016 is the Chevrolet Volt. DON'T MISS: 2016 Chevrolet Volt First Drive: Plug-In Hybrid Home Run The second generation of the Chevy Volt stays true to the original, and radical, concept of a range-extended electric car. But it also fixes...
-
Green Car Reports 2016 Best Car To Buy Nominee: 2016 Toyota Prius
The Toyota Prius hybrid occupies a special niche in automotive history. It's the world's best-known and best-selling hybrid car, and it's the halo vehicle for one of the world's three largest automakers. This year, there's an all-new 2016 Prius, and it's quite a different car from its predecessors...
John Voelcker -
Green Car Reports 2016 Best Car To Buy Nominee: 2016 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid And Plug-In Hybrid
Hyundai is widely viewed as one of the most aggressive car companies in the world. In global industry terms, it's relatively young, having designed and sold its first car only in 1975. But the South Korean company has ambitious plans, including many on the green-car front; it wants to have the...
John Voelcker -
Green Car Reports 2016 Best Car To Buy Nominee: 2016 Honda Civic
It's important to understand how important a car the Honda Civic compact sedan is in the U.S. market. Between the Civic sedan and its coupe sibling, Honda sells more than 300,000 of them a year--or roughly 20 times this year's sales of the Chevy Volt. The Civic nameplate is more than 40 years old...
John Voelcker -
Green Car Reports 2016 Best Car To Buy Nominee: 2016 Chevrolet Volt
The first Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car won all sorts of awards in 2011, the year it was introduced. But it didn't win that year's Green Car Reports Best Car To Buy award, because we deemed the world's first mass-priced high-volume battery-electric car more significant. That car, the...
John Voelcker -
Green Car Reports 2016 Best Car To Buy Nominee: 2016 Audi A3 e-Tron
We were impressed by our first drive of the U.S.-spec 2016 Audi A3 e-Tron Sportback, enough so that it's the first of five nominees for our Green Car Reports 2016 Best Car To Buy award. The compact hatchback is powered by a 150-horsepower 1.4-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine combined with a...
John Voelcker