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Not all plug-in electric cars rely on battery power alone; some also have gasoline engines as backups, for longer range or more power. Last year, we identified six plug-in hybrid vehicles on sale during 2013. This year, the list gains three new entries (from BMW, Cadillac, and Mitsubishi) and loses...

Launched for 2009 and notably refreshed for the 2013 model year, the Mercedes-Benz GLK-Class luxury compact crossover has never been particularly green. But with the mid-year addition of a new diesel version, its fuel efficiency goes up by a third--which isn't bad for a pricey, heavy crossover. Two...

We weren't big fans of the first Sonata Hybrid when Hyundai launched it for the 2011 model year. But the 2013 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid has numerous updates and modifications that improve its driveability--the characteristic that can sink hybrids when buyers test them. We found the hybrid 2013 Sonata...

With two dozen hybrid models now on the market, and several mass-market plug-in hybrids as well, weighing costs and benefits can get a lot more complicated. Take, for instance, our reader Catherine Chan-Smith, who wrote to ask for advice: I've read your article on the 2014 Honda Accord Plug-In...

Sales of plug-in electric cars in April continued at roughly the same pace as in March, with sales likely totaling about 7,500 cars. Last year's first- and third-place plug-ins, the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf, are now pacing each other in sales. Their year-to-date totals are separated by less than...

The Ford Escape is one of the most popular compact crossovers on the market today, and its all-new 2013 model goes head-to-head with the Honda CRV and Toyota RAV4. Both of those vehicles were redesigned in 2012 or 2013, so crossover competition is now fierce. We spent six days with a pale green...

On Friday, Tesla held a media call to reveal another in the series of announcements touted in tweets by CEO Elon Musk. This time, the news covered enhancements to the warranty and service experience on its Tesla Model S electric luxury sport sedan. Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] is now delivering several...

Chevrolet's diminutive Spark EV will be the first car in the U.S. to offer the new SAE Combo charger for DC fast charging. Other electric cars have touted such a system, including the Fiat 500e and upcoming BMW i3 electric car, but the Spark will be the first production car available with the...

Fisker Automotive CEO Tony Posawatz didn't attend yesterday's House committee hearing on the company's loan from the U.S. Department of Energy. He's out desperately seeking saviors to avert bankruptcy for the struggling startup electric-car maker, but he still may have had the better day. The title...

The 2014 Chevrolet Spark EV has been a long time coming, but it's almost here. This morning, Chevy announced that its only battery-electric car will have a range of 82 miles and be rated at a combined 119 MPGe efficiency. MPGe, or miles-per-gallon-equivalent, is a measure of the distance a car can...

Speeding is big business. There's no money to be made from it as an individual of course, unless you subscribe to the theory "time is money". But the U.S. Census Bureau estimates 100,000 Americans are ticketed for speeding every day, at an average cost of $150 per ticket--$5.5 billion a year in...

Volkswagen has hinted at the direction of its future SUVs--and their powertrains--by unveiling the CrossBlue Coupe Concept at the Shanghai Auto Show. As is increasingly common these days, the CrossBlue is Coupe in spirit more than it is in construction, the five-door liftback body distinctly more...

When we first drove the Hyundai Sonata Hybrid in the fall of 2010, it was a pre-production car and--frankly--it wasn't very smooth. The 2011 Sonata Hybrid production car was better, but far from the standards of the best hybrids. Now the Korean carmaker has taken another crack at the car, with...

The established German luxury brands--Mercedes-Benz and BMW--have sold cars in the U.S. for decades. So how could Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] possibly be beating them at their own game? The answer lies in how you define sales: It appears that the Tesla Model S electric sport sedan is outselling both...

The 2013 Fiat 500e may be a compliance car, but its engineers created an electric car that's so much fun to drive that seemingly they want it to be more. And with remarkably aggressive pricing--the same $199 monthly lease payment as on a top-of-the-line gasoline 500--Fiat's marketers are trying...

I've been surprised and delighted by how efficiently my new 2013 Tesla Model S has been running at higher speeds. Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] hammers home the message that high speeds can drastically reduce the range of any Model S. It cautions that its original range figure of 230 miles for my 60-kWh...

Newspapers keep in their files pre-written obituaries for people who are old, known to be ill, or famous. We have a feeling we should start dusting off the one we wrote awhile back for Fisker Automotive, which laid off the bulk of its remaining employees this morning at 8 am Pacific time. Numerous...

If you publish thousands of stories a year, sometimes you get asked to speak to groups of people about your topic. Which is how we came to talk about electric cars and try to allay some popular myths to a group of New York City activists called the Sane Energy Project. In the person of cheerful...

The big news in plug-in car sales for March was Tesla's statement that it delivered "more than 4,750" Model S electric cars from January through March. That news early Monday not only sent stock in Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] soaring, it also cued up an interesting three-way horse race. Those sales...

When the news is good, you want to get it out there. Last night, Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] released a statement saying that it had delivered more than 4,750 Model S cars from January 1 through March 31 of this year. The statement came before the first quarter of 2013 had even technically ended...