Electric Cars

While fast charging for electric cars is still nonexistent--or just starting to roll out--across much of the country, California leads the way. And the state capital of Sacramento now has such stations installed both by private vendors and the local public utility, Sacramento Metropolitan Utility...

Tesla opposes other carmakers' attempts to change California ZEV rules.

Fisker says it will open a plant near its California headquarters.

A 1968 Ford Mustang is transformed into a super-fast electric drag racer.

The 2015 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid has the lowest electric range of any plug-in vehicle sold in the United States: just 11 miles. It's also among the top-selling cars that plug in, with more than 40,500 delivered since it went on sale in February 2012. Now out of production, the plug-in Prius...

With more than a handful of plug-in hybrid models scheduled to hit dealers over the next three years, buyers are curious to find out how those cars will be priced. One maker, Volvo, is positioning the plug-in hybrid version of its 2016 XC90 seven-seat SUV at the top of the range. But it appears...

The limited-production Volkswagen XL1 ultra-economy two-seater gets astounding fuel efficiency from its two-cylinder diesel plug-in hybrid powertrain. It's well over 100 miles per gallon if you use the European test cycle (which differs from U.S. tests). But at a six-figure price and a production...

Germany may increase incentives for electric cars as it works to grow their numbers.

It's one of the most common questions about electric cars: What happens to the battery packs after the car is junked? Do they just get thrown away? Will any of them be recycled? What happens to their components? The answer is electric-car batteries will largely be recycled--but that they will have...

Tesla will sell a Model 3 sedan and crossover, its CTO says.

About 15 million people buy a new vehicle in the U.S. each year, on average--but almost 40 million buy used cars in that same year. Modern electric cars have been sold in the U.S. since December 2010. Not surprisingly, they're started to show up on used-car lots. Should you buy one? The answer, of...

California's Zero-Emission Vehicle sales rules have been a major reason the state's drivers can now choose among two dozen different plug-in electric vehicles on sale today. Those rules will expand to cover more carmakers in 2018. And the behind-the-scenes jockeying by smaller makers to lessen the...

Early electric-car drivers faced the same infrastructure issues as their modern counterparts.

While BMW leads the Germans with five different plug-in electric vehicles announced, Mercedes-Benz is close behind with three. A few months ago, we had the chance to drive the 2016 Mercedes-Benz C 350e, the upcoming plug-in hybrid version of the new generation of C-Class luxury sedan. The C 350e...

These are the best lease deals on green cars for June 2015.

As an early Tesla Model S owner, I’m accustomed to waiting. After putting down a $5,000 deposit in April 2009, I waited nearly four years to take delivery of the car. And then I waited another 18 months for the vast barren Northeast Supercharger Desert to bloom, finally unleashing the...

National Drive Electric Week, the annual event devoted to advocating plug-in electric cars, will be sponsored by Nissan for the next three years, organizers announced today. The Nissan Leaf is by far the highest-production electric car in history, now closing in on 200,000 global sales since the...

When General Motors CEO Mary Barra announced the Chevrolet Bolt Concept, it changed everything in the world of electric cars. She said it would have a battery range of 200 miles, cost $37,500 before incentives--putting it squarely into the mass market--and be sold in all 50 states. Now spy shots...

Up until now, our experience with the Volkswagen e-Golf—the all-electric version of the VW Golf—has been a series of cursory encounters. In a short first drive last spring, followed by another city-loop drive, and then a brief-but-telling back-to-back drive with the Golf TDI, we found...

Used electric cars starting to enter the market in higher numbers, letting advocates suggest that if the purchase price of a new plug-in car is too high, buyers can look at used options. The usual metric of retained-value calculations can be tricky for plug-ins, though because most buyers take...