Electric Cars

When it comes to service costs and fuel, everyone knows that electric cars are far cheaper to run than gasoline cars. Even with a plug-in car, however, you still have to pay your local utility company for the electricity used to charge it. Like gas prices, electricity prices are on a steady, upward...

There’s no denying that electric cars have lots of torque from standstill, meaning they can out-accelerate most cars in the stop-light derby to 30 mph. But what happens beyond that? Could a car like the 2012 Tesla [NASDAQ:TSLA] Model S Performance beat the sporty, race-bred 2013 BMW M5 in a...

After testing the 2013 Smart ForTwo Electric Drive, we were given the opportunity to try out another of Smart's electric vehicles. Unlike the city car however, this vehicle has only half the number of seats, and half the numer of wheels. It's also, technically speaking, a hybrid--using an electric...

With the first 2013 Nissan Leaf electric car expected to roll out of the Smyrna, Tennessee, plant in mid-December, many rumors have been flying about what changes the updated Leaf will have. Now we have the first spy shots showing some of the modifications Nissan has made to create a new, less...

Ask owners to give you a list of fears associated with their electric cars, and a few charging concerns are bound to be on the list. Usually, they include not finding somewhere to charge, or that a charging station isn’t accessible for some reason. Now a new one can be added to the list: not...

It's hard to miss a Mercedes-Benz compact hatchback when it's wrapped in a shiny blue-chrome finish. That was the attention-grabbing color the luxury German maker used at the recent Paris Auto Show to distinguish its two electric models, the 2014 SLS AMG Electric Drive all-electric supercar and the...

If you're looking to reduce your driving costs, should you buy an electric car? It's a question many have asked in the past, and the results tend to vary depending on the electric car selected, and the cost of driving in your area. As gasoline prices hit $5 per gallon in some areas of California...

How much does it cost to charge your electric car? Do you know? That might initially sound like a simple enough question to answer, but in some homes--especially ones signed up to time of use electricity metering--it’s often far from straightforward to find an answer. Now a new smartphone app...

New battery charge estimation algorithms developed by engineers at the University of California (UC), San Diego, are on the verge of vastly improve the capabilities of current lithium-ion batteries. The changes center around improving charging times, potentially allowing for batteries that charge...

Plug-in electric car sales are growing in the U.S., with the Chevy Volt in particular going from strength to strength. The 2012 Nissan Leaf, however, is not doing so well. Despite being one of the earliest electric cars on the market, it's been outsold three to two this year by the Toyota Prius...

One big advantage of electric cars is reduced maintenance. With no internal combustion engine, there is no oil to change, no exhaust system, no transmission, no myriad of moving parts to break or wear out, and no air or fuel filters to clog up. With regenerative braking, brake pads last virtually...

Ever since a handful of Nissan Leaf owners in Arizona noticed that their cars had started to suffer from premature battery aging, Nissan has been criticized for its apparent lack of transparency on the subject. Just over a week ago, Nissan announced it had asked electric car advocate Chelsea Sexton...

With perhaps the exception of British electronic synthesizer group Add N to (X) and a certain risqué music video, the concept of plugging in an electronic gadget isn’t what most people would think of as the most...ahem...suggestive of acts. But Toyota’s latest Japanese social...

Hey Chevy, listen up: Aliens in electric car ads don't have to be annoying--just ask Smart. The maker of diminutive city cars has ditched all references to performance, specifications and efficiency in its latest ad (via Autoblog) for the third-generation Fortwo Electric Drive, instead giving us a...

The 2012 Tesla Model S electric sedan is already competent handler, but it could get even better for Model S Performance buyers. Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] has announced that it's developing a new suspension setup aimed at improving the car's already-talented dynamics. According to Wired (via Motor...

It looks like Tesla may just have done it again. Compared to Nissan's challenged public responses to hot-weather range-loss problems in its Leaf electric car, a recent move by Tesla to offer free Supercharging to early buyers of the 60-kWh version of its 2012 Model S looks like brilliant customer...

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Smart took that advice to heart; its 2013 Smart ED3 is the third generation of its all-electric version of the two-seat ForTwo minicar. And it's the first one that's really a viable car under normal driving conditions. It's also the least expensive...

What Google can do with a Toyota Prius, someone else can do with a Nissan Leaf. At least, that’s the message NIssan wants to send after showcasing its own take on Google’s automated car at the 2012 Ceatec exhibition in Japan. As Engadget reports, the self-driving Nissan Leaf can move...

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has weighed in with his verdict on startup electric-car maker Tesla Motors: It's a "loser." So, for that matter, is another startup that's still in business, Fisker Automotive. The two car companies were lumped in with a pair of bankrupt businesses...

If you’re a fan of electric motorcycles, you’ll know that Californian-based Zero Motorcycles likes to update its range of all-electric motorcycles one a year. And, unlike many automakers and motorcycle companies, that means more than just a few new paint options and handlebar tweaks. In...