electric

All the different incentives to purchase electric cars can be confusing. But if all the stars align and you're the lucky person who can take advantage of multiple incentives, there’s a slim chance that you could buy a brand-new 2011 Nissan Leaf for a mere $12,300. Here’s how it works...

October has been quite a month. This week we drove a pre-production version of the 2011 Nissan Leaf, the first production electric car to be sold by a major automaker in more than 80 years. Unlike the range-extended electric 2011 Chevrolet Volt, which we drove last week, the 2011 Leaf is a pure...

Five finalists were announced today for the 2011 Green Car of the Year Award, which will be presented next month at the 2010 Los Angeles Aut o Show. The five contenders span two plug-in cars, two hybrid-electric vehicles, and one high-efficiency subcompact gasoline car: 2011 Chevrolet Volt 2011...

After years of anticipation and multiple media events, the day is here: The first production 2011 Nissan Leaf will roll off the production lines this Friday at 11:30 am Japanese time. The embedded video below shows the live event, and we hope that it remains archived after the fact. We'll shortly...

October is the month of electric-car media this year, with major press rollouts and lots of coverage of both the 2011 Chevrolet Volt and the 2011 Nissan Leaf. Next year, several more electric cars arrive on the U.S. market. One is the 2012 Ford Focus Electric, and yesterday, Ford discussed volume...

Finally, after almost four years, we've driven the 2011 Chevrolet Volt in a variety of conditions, talked over our impressions, and reached a conclusion: Yes, the 2011 Volt electric car is a real car. It may be propelled by electricity. It may plug into a wall socket or a special garage recharger...

Pretty much anyone who's driven one loves the performance of the Tesla Roadster, the first modern electric car with a lithium-ion battery pack. The 2011 Chevrolet Volt is a much less radical electric car than the Roadster in certain ways, and one of them is its accelerator response. Volt: Just like...

Electric cars may run clean. But how green is the battery? Hi, this is Steven Cherry for IEEE Spectrum's "This Week in Technology." With governments around the world investing heavily in electric and hybrid cars, the demand for the batteries that power these vehicles is on the rise. The United...

What does it cost to develop an electric vehicle these days? In the case of the upcoming electric Toyota RAV4 crossover, $60 million. At least, that's the amount that Toyota will pay Tesla Motors under a contract to supply lithium-ion battery packs, electric motors, gearboxes, power electronics...

Once again, Chevrolet has upped planned production volumes of its 2011 Volt electric car in the face of strong demand and the likelihood that many dealers have more buyers than cars to sell them. In July, at a media event discussing launch markets and other details, Volt marketing manager Tony...

This will be our last word on the whole "GM Lied!" and "Is the Volt a hybrid?" controversy, which blew up yesterday at the first day of the 2011 Chevrolet Volt press launch. Late last night, GM issued a press release (largely reprised on its Voltage site) entitled "Clearing up confusion about the...

For some reason, while none of us think twice about plugging in our mobile phones to recharge overnight, the prospect of plugging in a car makes some people very nervous. On yesterday's test drive of a 2011 Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car, we visited the Detroit-Hamtramck factory where...

It's all about the Volt today, for better and for worse. On the "worse" side is the tempest in a teapot that erupted today, ably dismantled by more thoughtful commentators, over whether General Motors had "lied" about the drivetrain of the 2011 Chevrolet Volt. In brief, GM revealed today that the...

As electric cars make their way to market, one funky little vehicle has captured plenty of attention for its unusual looks. That would be the Aptera 2e. The car is more than just an exercise in styling: Aptera plans to bring the car to market in late 2011. To that end, the company has been bringing...

Put them side by side, and they could be vehicles from two different planets. The new 2011 Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car is GM's green halo car, its foray into the future of electric drive vehicles, and the focus of a huge marketing and publicity effort. The 2011 Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid...

After just shy of four years, two distinct body styles, much disbelief, and more press releases than we can count, the 2011 Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric car is here. We'll be driving the 2011 Volt this week, and we have a lot of questions about what the car is like. But we expect you do...

Oh, what a tangled web we weave in the insular little world of electric car advocates. Take the news earlier today that Universal Pictures has agreed to a request from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation that it pull a trailer for a new Vince Vaughan movie in which the B-list star...

The news came via a Facebook status from another automotive journalist: "Interesting. Phrase 'Electric cars are gay' pulled from Ron Howard movie." To which we could only respond, huh? [UPDATE: Turns out that there's even a Tesla angle too.] Turns out the upcoming movie The Dilemma, starring Vince...

Despite the hype and the near-ubiquity of the Toyota Prius (pictured), most Americans remain leery of buying alternative-fuel vehicles. That’s probably because they don’t have the basic knowledge to understand it, according to a new survey conducted by Harris Interactive. The survey...

New York City has one of the best mass transit systems of any major metropolis. But the City itself is still noisy, polluted and congested. The first two may soon be eased, thanks to continuing work from New York’s Power Authority (NYPA), which showcased a range of all-electric and hybrid...