Electric Cars

In the minds of many consumers, electric cars like the 2012 Nissan Leaf are over-priced, second-cars that are only capable of short trips around town. We’ve proven that sentiment wrong ourselves, covering just over 15,000 miles in a year in our 2011 Nissan Leaf. Earlier this week however, we...

Over the past few years, there’s been a lot of speculation surrounding the actual cost to automakers of the lithium-ion battery packs used in most modern electric cars. Unfortunately, the automotive industry hasn’t been keen to disclose any figures, but on occasion we’ve managed...

Unless you’ve been living in a tech-free bubble for the past decade, you’re probably familiar with the concept of the unboxing video. Common since Internet video-sharing site YouTube became popular, the archetypal unboxing video documents the almost ceremonial removal of a new computer...

Since it was officially launched at the end of last year, only a handful of 2012 Ford Focus Electric hatchbacks have been sold. That’s hardly surprising considering Ford has been particularly cautious about spending large amounts of money advertising its first production electric car. In...

Ask most non-electric car drivers why they haven’t even considered an electric car, and the reason they give will undoubtedly involve some form of range anxiety: the idea that an electric car will run out of juice before it reaches its destination. On the other hand, as those who own an...

The hills are alive with the sound of... well, very little, if this year's Pikes Peak hill climb will be anything to go by. Electric cars are no stranger to the hill, with Nissan entering a Leaf and Summit Motorsports setting a new electric car record in last year's event. Mitsubishi announced last...

If you ever studied business at school or college, one of the first things you probably learned is about profit and loss. In order to maximize your profits--and avoid making a loss--your aim is to maximize revenue while minimizing costs. Someone at Tesla Motors was paying attention in class, as its...

If you want a 2013 Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car, searching the web may not get you much. Chevy hasn't yet put details of next year's Volt model on its website, for instance. But it did release ordering details to its dealers, and the intrepid sleuths at GM Inside News uncovered them...

When Nissan first launched the 2011 Leaf, it introduced an online reservation system for would-be owners of the all-electric hatchback. Instead of relying on Nissan dealers to assess demand, Nissan opened up a dedicated reservation website, where those interested could pay $99 to be given a place...

How much would you pay for a tired 1997 Chevrolet S-10 pickup, especially one of unknown condition? A quick look at auction site eBay tells us that at best, even a tidy example of would be worth little more than $1000. What if that truck happened to be powered by the same drivetrain that was found...

After realising the potential of hybrids early on, Honda has been a little late to join the electric car party with its Fit EV. Better late than never, though--and now the carmaker has launched a 'readiness assessment' to determine the suitability of potential lessees. Just as with the MINI E, BMW...

Historically, automakers haven’t been fond of small electric cars capable of carrying one or two people. Lately, everyone from General Motors to Renault has shown interest in low-speed city runabouts, leading some to even bring doorless, electric runabouts to market. Unlike most automakers...

A bill signed in Colorado will now allow lessees to claim any tax credits for hybrid cars and electric vehicles, rather than the lessor. Previously, the state had allowed banks or finance companies to choose whether claim the credits themselves on lease vehicles, or to pass the credits on to the...

This is a tough time for lithium-ion cell maker A123 Systems, but the company did get one little piece of good news yesterday. The U.S. Department of Energy has agreed to lengthen the time period over which A123 can use funds from a $249.1 million grant it received from the DoE in August 2009 to...

Earlier this week, Ford announced it had signed a deal with troubled Internet content provider Yahoo to stream 10 episodes of an Internet reality show centered on its 2012 Ford Focus Electric. Called Plugged In, the show will send teams of contestants to various U.S. cities in Ford's battery...

Let’s face it: Europeans and Americans have very different tastes in cars. So much so, it is common for the same car to be subtly redesigned for each market. Now Colin Lawther, vice president of Nissan engineering in Europe, has announced that the European version of the 2013 Leaf will get a...

With no local fanfare or announcements, electric car network provider Better Place has started delivering cars to its first paying customers in Israel. One the first customers is David Rose, who reserved his car in October 2011. His home charging spot was installed a month after he submitted his...

UPDATE, Thu, April 12, 11:15 am: The Detroit News quotes an unnamed source this morning as saying that the battery pack being tested that caused yesterday's explosion at GM's Warren Technical Center contained lithium-ion cells from battery maker A123 Systems. The Chevrolet Spark EV is the only GM...

You don't hear as much worrying these days about the threat of Chinese automakers entering the U.S. market with inexpensive cars. Nor do you hear concerns over Chinese electric-car makers swamping sales of the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt, which have racked up more than 23,300 sales between them...

We all know that battery packs are the biggest Achilles Heel of the electric car, which is why automakers like Nissan and General Motors are working hard to improve the energy density, cost and lifespan of electric vehicle batteries. But once you've designed a new battery pack, how do you prove its...