Electric Cars

Daimler might only have one full production electric car at the moment, in the shape of the 2013 smart fortwo electric drive, but the company has been experimenting with several other electric vehicles over the past few years. Many of these are set to compete in the third Silvretta E-Car Rallye, a...

It may not be long before electric car owners on America's Pacific coast can drive all the way from Canada to Mexico--using quick-charge stations. Thanks to Oregon's new 'electric highway', it's now possible to charge an electric car every 25 miles down a 200-mile stretch of Interstate 5. That...

It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been driving, what type of car you have or how it happened: having a car accident isn’t nice. Normally, post-accident, your insurance company may help you find a local repairer to get your car looking good as new again. But if you have an electric...

Before the 2014 BMW i3 is officially launched as a production model, the innovative all-electric minicar is going on a whirlwind world tour--chaperoned by its more powerful, sexy, and sleek i8 plug-in hybrid sports coupe sibling. The pair of concept cars just completed the first of seven stops they...

Remember the two French guys in their Mitsubishi i (well, Citroen C-Zero)? Their eight-month, 15,500-mile journey in the tiny electric car is just one of many long-distance EV publicity drives we've seen, but certainly one of the longest. Naturally, they're not the only people to have thought of...

California has long been known for its efforts to reduce pollution from vehicles, and efforts to popularize hybrids and electric cars. The California Air Resources Board has now taken that one step further by approving a $27 million fund for its Air Quality Improvement Program (AQIP). Much of this...

Visit any major race track on any day of the week and there’s bound to be a cacophony of noise as professional race teams or enthusiastic amateurs drive lap after lap in praise to the gods of gasoline. But what would it be like if every car going around the track was powered by electricity?...

Half of this year is now gone, which means it's time once again to look at sales of plug-in electric cars--both for June and for the first six months of 2012. Coming off a streak of low sales months, 535 Nissan Leafs were sold in June, less than one-third the 1,708 Leafs delivered in June 2011...

Does electric car rental work as a business proposition? That might depend on who you ask. Because despite popular rental company Hertz having massive success with the format, backed up by other popular schemes like Car2Go, things aren't so rosy for Enterprise. According to the New York Times (via...

“To us, electric mobility means dynamics and driving pleasure” So explained Audi AG board member for technical development, Michael Dick, after racing driver Marcus Winkelhock set a new production lap record for electric cars, at the famous Nürburgring Nordschleife in Germany...

How far can your electric car travel before you need a recharge? For most electric car owners, that question is answered with a mixture of (usually inaccurate) on-board computer software and a good dose of past-experience behind the wheel of his or her car. But two planned updates to Nissan’s...

After five weeks driving a Better Place electric car in Israel, I'm gaining a deeper insight into the company's plans. The Better Place annual subscription model, including service and support, costs more than the U.S. practice of buying an electric car outright and charging it at home. How...

It may be that no one has been happier to lose a bet and write a check for $1,000 than Wall Street Journal auto writer Dan Neil. The bet he always said he wanted to lose was over the date Tesla Motors would deliver its first production 2012 Model S electric cars to paying customers--which it did at...

At the start of this year, we told you that Mercedes-Benz was planning to introduce a B Class range-extended plug-in hybrid to the U.S. market some time during 2013. Now it seems the German automaker has changed its mind, replacing plans for a plug-in hybrid with an all-electric B Class jointly...

However good the parent, the arrival of a new baby can have the unfortunate effect of making older siblings feel neglected and unloved. We didn’t expect those kind of feelings in the automotive world, but a stunt recently posted on the Internet involving a Tesla Roadster reminds us of a...

In the automotive world, development and commercialization of plug-in vehicles has varied from company to company. While some, like Nissan and General Motors, sell plug-in cars, others, like Jaguar Land Rover, are in developmental stages. Which is why we’re pleased to hear that Jaguar Land...

Frankly, we understand why Fisker Automotive and Coda Automotive might not want to release their sales data. Both companies have struggled mightily with delayed rollouts of their first plug-in electric cars. But Tesla Motors just nailed its promised late-June first delivery date for the Model S...

We have to admit, Kermit the Frog has wisdom well beyond his species. "It isn't easy being green" describes the world of electric and hybrid vehicles quite vividly, and few have found it less easy being green than Fisker Automotive, makers of the Karma range-extended luxury car. So difficult have...

The 2013 Honda Fit EV is a fun and well-executed little all-electric hatchback. It's quick, handles decently, gets the highest EPA efficiency rating of any vehicle on the market (118 MPGe), and its rated range of 82 miles is longer than that of the somewhat larger Nissan Leaf. Too bad you have very...

The Chevrolet Volt electric car, now in its third model year, has survived the bankruptcy and government-led restructuring of General Motors, politically motivated attacks on electric cars, a battery-safety investigation by the NHTSA, and some breathtakingly inept marketing efforts. But many...