Electric Cars

Are electric cars appliances? They plug in, use electricity and certainly have more computers in them than most consumers have in their entire home. But should they be sold in conventional car dealerships or somewhere else? Japanese retail chain Yamada Denki has tried to answer both questions, by...

Whilst the 2013 Volkswagen Golf Blue eMotion might be responsible for many of the company's EV headlines, their smaller Up concept is possibly even more intriguing. The Wolfsburg maker has just revealed the third in a trio of electric taxi concepts. Following Berlin and Milano versions, the latest...

Think is a Norwegian based manufacturer of electric cars and is the same company behind the original ‘Th!nk’ electric car that went on sale in the U.S. during the late 1990s. Back then Think was owned by Ford, which sold it in 2003 to Swiss company Kamkorp Microelectronics. In 2006...

You may not realise it, but automakers often work together on shared projects, vehicles or technology improvements. But when the top two electric car makers in the world agree to work together, even we find that interesting. Enter Mitsubishi and Nissan. Both poised to start selling their own...

As recently as last week, it became apparent that the current federal 50 percent incentive towards the cost of installing an electric car charging station would expire on the 31st December this year. This would be particularly bad news to the vast majority of upcoming EV owners, many of whom...

When I met last month with Volkswagen to ride inside a prototype 2012 Golf Blue e-motion, I was eager to experience this all-electric version of its popular 2011 Golf hatchback. It will go into production as a 2013 model. But I also knew something the VW public relations corps didn't: the location...

If you were to draw up a listof places least in need of encouraging towards the use of electric cars, California would probably be right up there. As well as being the home of companies such as Tesla Motors and Coda Automotive, many EV manufacturers usually pick at least one city in the State to...

Who needs soap operas when you’ve got the auto industry? One Chinese automaker is providing enough gossip, misdirection and sneaky dealings to keep script writers happy for years. Despite officially killing off its F3e electric car last week, Chinese battery firm turned electric vehicle...

Add another entry to the growing list of electric vehicles going on sale in the next year or so. Think North America, maker of the two-seat City electric car, announced that its 2011 Think City had been approved as a zero-emission vehicle by the California Air Resources Board (CARB). The approval...

We’re often contacted by would-be electric car owners worried that they will not be able to have the required EVSE installed at their home. But the first ever 2011 Nissan LEAF customer to take delivery of their new car isn’t a home-owner. Olivier Chalouhi rents an home in Redwood City...

The first page of a new chapter in green-car history was written yesterday, as Nissan formally handed over a 2011 Leaf electric car to Olivier Chalouhi of Redwood City, California. He was the very first person in the U.S. to order the all-electric vehicle, and the first to take delivery. Leaf...

It's finally here! Well, the trailer is anyway... We announced just under a month ago that the long awaited sequel to the film Who Killed The Electric Car?, the logically titled Revenge Of The Electric Car (ROTEC), would be previewed with a trailer released when 10,000 people became fans of the...

Naming new car models is always tough. The latest head-scratcher is GM's decision to rebrand the replacement for its Aveo subcompact as the 2012 Chevrolet Sonic, a name better associated in the U.S. with hedgehogs or hamburgers. But that's nothing compared to the challenge of naming electric-car...

If it ever really needed to be said, Japanese car tastes can be... "alternative", to put it in polite terms. As well as their Kei-Jidosha class of city cars that are absolutely miniscule compared to U.S. monsters, the country has produced some fairly crazy production cars over the years. That trend...

Just as the excitement is growing over the first dealer deliveries of the 2011 Chevrolet Volt and 2011 Nissan Leaf, eagle-eyed EV enthusiasts have spotted General Motor’s previous electric car on Google’s Street View. Is it serendipity or a more carefully timed disclosure to coincide...

Let us run a few engines past you. A warbling flat six. A growling V8. The howl of an inline four changing cam profiles. The smooth buzz of a rotary. How about some names now? Hemi. Vortec. Powerstroke. VTEC. Renesis. Ecoboost. Noticing a pattern? The first list is clearly engine layouts, and the...

If you’re a parent you’ll know how eager companies are to convince your kids how important their product is. Be it the latest toy, a new film release or even a holiday location, advertising companies know that pester power is one of the most effective ways to get a parent to make a...

Is small the new large? In the next few months we’ll see three different electric vehicles hit the market from automakers keen to break into the city car market. But historically two-seat cars have made up less than 2% of total U.S. car sales. Why would an electric car be any different?...

Just days after Nissan confirmed that customer deliveries of the 2011 Leaf would commence in Japan on December 20, Nissan USA has confirmed that the very first customer vehicle will be delivered in a few days’ time, on December 11. The delivery will be to an unnamed Northern Californian...

The F3e is officially dead. According to sources cited by China Business News, the battery firm turned electric-car maker has ceased plans for commercial production of its four door electric sedan. There has been little mention of the all-electric sedan since its plug-in hybrid sibling, the F3DM...