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Since November 2006, our family has always owned at least one plug-in car and one powered by gasoline. For almost two years, our fleet has been a Nissan Leaf electric hatchback, and a used 2008 Toyota Prius. After two years and nearly 42,000 miles of driving the Leaf, however, our once high-tech...

We won't see them in the States until early next year, but today the 2014 BMW i3 electric car was revealed in production form to the world at large. Some images had already leaked, and BMW had previously released some specifications and also information on the i3's connectivity and navigation...

You've likely never heard of a Hindustan Ambassador--and unless you're an old British-car geek, you've certainly never seen a Morris Oxford Series III. But the Ambassador--fondly known as the "Amby"--is both India's de facto taxi cab and the oldest production car in the world. Now it's been fitted...

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Above is a graph comparing the relative sales volumes of hybrids (starting in 2000) to those of plug-in electric cars (starting in 2011). It comes from the U.S. Department of Energy, which tweeted the image last Friday. (We're not sure why the units on...

With just a week to go before the production version of BMW's i3 electric car is revealed, the German automaker has announced pricing for the car. The 2014 BMW i3 has a Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price of $41,350, before BMW's $925 destination fee--for a starting price of $42,275. That's also...

Ten days ago, spy shots of a new battery-electric car--from a maker that hasn't yet offered one yet--burst onto the scene. Electric-car fan Lee Colleton shot the 2015 Kia Soul EV prototype test cars connected to CHAdeMO quick-charging stations at a Residence Inn in the California coastal town of...

Aspire, Sprint, Swift, and Esteem: They’re among the most ironically inappropriate car names. But in its new EV guise, the Chevy Spark has the perfect name, on many levels. This car certainly has more than a spark of personality; it's all-electric (forget about those spark plugs); and...

That noise you heard yesterday afternoon? That was the sound of the other shoe dropping. Ford said yesterday that it will "enhance the on-road fuel economy performance" of the 77,000 2013 hybrid models it's sold over the last year, in an effort to "improve customer satisfaction." The announcement...

If you ever had any doubt that hybrids were durable--and many people do--here's a case study to set your mind at ease. A white base-model 2008 Ford Escape Hybrid has just crossed 500,000 miles, which possibly makes it the highest-mileage Escape Hybrid on the road. That's much higher than the Escape...

Every once in a while, we end up driving a car that leaves us utterly confused. The 2013 MINI Cooper Paceman John Cooper Works ALL4 we drove for a day last week is one such vehicle. It's striking, but far less functional than the MINI Countryman from which it's derived. The handling is decent, but...

With half the year now gone, are plug-in electric cars on track to double their sales last year? Not quite. As of the end of June, roughly 41,000 plug-in cars had been sold in the U.S. That number would need to be closer to last year's total of 53,000 to keep sales on pace to double the 2012 total...

Is BMW planning an ActiveHybrid X5 model for the next-generation X5 crossover, due to launch this fall as a 2014 model? That's what it appears from one reader's sighting of a camouflaged prototype in San Francisco. Yesterday, Alister Oliver wrote: I'm currently at Hawk Hill in San Francisco...

The fans have spoken: Over 100,000 people have now signed a White House petition asking for Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] to be allowed to sell its cars directly in all fifty states. Started by one Tesla supporter on June 5, support from across the electric car world piled in with signatures increasing...

On June 5, a Tesla Motors fan mounted what seemed like another quixotic effort to support Tesla in selling its electric cars directly to buyers. The petition at WhiteHouse.gov that he or she launched required 100,000 people to sign it within a month, by Friday, July 5. Suddenly, it seems that...

Tesla Motors has dodged two big bullets fired its way by New York and North Carolina legislatures and auto dealers. Last week, the New York State Senate and Assembly adjourned until January without acting on two bills pushed by state auto dealers that would have made it illegal to register a Tesla...

To date, natural-gas vehicles have come with significant compromises. The high-pressure tanks that hold enough compressed natural gas to run 200 miles or more take up many cubic feet of space in the trunk, load bay, or pickup bed. But what if you could design a vehicle that had just enough natural...

You're considering a plug-in electric car. Should you lease or buy? It's a question that all new-car shoppers face--but for electric cars, there are some special considerations. Each financing option has its pros and cons, so we've outlined the reasons you might opt for each alternative. LEASING...

Well, this is a new tactic we haven't seen before in the fight between franchised auto dealers and Tesla Motors, the Silicon Valley electric-car startup. A pair of bills in the New York State Legislature, backed by New York state auto dealers, would make it illegal to license or renew licenses for...

As predicted last month, and tweeted and teased by CEO Elon Musk, Tesla Motors showed off battery swapping for its Model S electric car at a press event last night. Held at Tesla's design studio in Hawthorne, California, the demonstration itself was simple: A Tesla Model S drove onto the stage and...

To allay fears about loss of capacity in its Leaf electric-car battery packs, Nissan announced today that it would offer what amounts to a battery leasing program after the pack goes out of warranty. The cost of ensuring minimum capacity will be $100 a month. The company now warranties the Leaf...