Electric Cars

The practice of home-building electric vehicles is not uncommon amongst hardcore EV enthusiasts. Our own Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield has converted her own EVs before, and several members on the website Ecomodder have done the same, often using the economy driver's favourite, the Geo Metro, as a...

Of all the electric vehicles planned by major automakers, few are more eagerly awaited than the BMW MegaCity 'i' all-electric urban car, expected to go into production late in 2013 or early in 2014. It's a BMW, which means it will be sporty and handle well. It's likely to be the smallest BMW since...

If you’re like us and find yourself flying too much you probably feel pretty guilty about that gas-guzzling rental car you have to use at your destination. But thanks to Enterprise Rent-a-Car, another option is now available to customers in Ontario, California: the 2011 Chevrolet Volt...

There’s something terribly fickle about the bright lights and flashy sets of the TV talk-show genre. But while Jay Leno’s chat show on NBC may have failed to receive positive viewing figures the bright orange 2009 Ford Focus electric prototype used in the show has just found a new home...

Let’s be honest: Volvo isn’t the first company that comes to mind when thinking of electric vehicles. In fact, until the display of a crashed C30 Electric at the 2011 Detroit Auto Show earlier this year we’ve seen very little from Volvo’s plug-in fleet except a few...

The first business day of every month is when automakers release sales data for the previous month. Today, we got January's sales figures, which are an improvement over last January's. But the question that we keep hearing is: Which sells better, the 2011 Nissan Leaf or the 2011 Chevrolet Volt?...

Strange as it may seem from the CEO of a company now embarking the electric car bandwagon, Audi's boss Rupert Stadler still seems apathetic at best about EVs. Of course, the aim of any big business is to grow and make money, so perhaps Rupert is thinking of the lack of short-term financial gains to...

Think back to the late 1990s. While the EV1 was making waves smoothly whirring down the freeways and highways of Arizona and California, an altogether more rugged fleet of electric utility trucks were living a less obviously electric lifestyle. Enter GM’s S10 Pickup and Ford’s Electric...

One of the biggest drawbacks to electric car ownership today is the time it takes to recharge the car when the batteries are depleted. So it comes as no surprise that the time it takes a car to charge from empty is a big selling point. A few weeks ago, Ford seemingly pulled ahead of its rivals...

Imagine a future where your electric car could talk to your home and chose the best time to charge itself based on use predictions, electricity costs and home energy demands. Except it is no-longer the future. Announced today as part of a joint venture between ECOtality, Inc., and Cisco Systems...

You’ve ordered your electric car and like many, you’ve been put off by the seemingly extortionate quote given to install a level 2 electric charging station at your home. As we’ve discussed before, sourcing your own Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE) can save you hundreds of...

Is it really all doom and gloom for electric car owners when winter weather comes, and will electric car owners be stranded in the snow as many columnists have suggested? That's the suggestion we've seen time and time again over the weekend as another band of heavy winter storms is poised to hit...

It may be the largest battery pack available in any electric car on the road today, but what happens when it is no-longer able to provide enough kick to push the 2011 Tesla Roadster Sport 2.5 from 0-60 in under 4 seconds? That’s the question answered by Tesla Motors this week as it announced...

Riding high on a bout of good press of its Chevy Volt, GM is putting $7 million into its next big bet on electric cars: cheaper, higher-energy batteries. In his state of the union address yesterday, President Obama called for the U.S. to be the first country to put one million electric cars on the...

Car-derived vans are big business in Europe. Pick a subcompact at random and chances are there will be a light delivery van variant. Usually fitted with economical diesel engines, the small size and high economy suits small businesses down to the ground. Electric delivery vehicles have been...

This coming Saturday, January 29, Mercedez-Benz will be celebrating its 125th birthday. One-hundred-and-twenty-five years after Carl Benz received the first patent for his Motorwagen, the German automaker will open its latest exhibition: New Start-The Road to Emission-Free Mobility. Sadly, however...

by Chelsea Sexton Slanted, anti-EV reporting is hardly a new thing, and I suspect we're in for a lot more of it in 2011 as plug-in vehicles hit showrooms. But the recent BBC "Mini Adventure," a 484-mile journey from London to Edinburgh in a Mini E, has caught fire like nothing I've seen in a while...

And the entry of electric cars into the U.S. market continues apace. The first 2011 Nissan Leaf was delivered in San Francisco on December 12, and the first 2011 Chevy Volt came three days later in New Jersey. Now, Smart has delivered the first example of its own electric car, the 2011 Smart ForTwo...

Initial deliveries of the 2011 Nissan Leaf battery electric car have been fitful, compared to hundreds of Chevy Volts sold each week. But Nissan's first modern mass-produced battery electric car continues to rack up accomplishments (and the company says it will be at full production by March)...

As we've discovered, some car dealers are less than enthusiastic about the prospect of selling and servicing electric cars. Luckily, others are more game. Either way, what can you expect from your local electric car dealership when you take your shiny new EV in for a service? Training You'd be...