Featured (was)
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What's it like driving the Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid, the world's fastest hybrid vehicle? Ask driver Patrick Long, and he'll tell you he's "still pretty charged up (forgive the pun)" after returning to the States following two weeks of testing the car on the Lausitzring circuit outside Berlin. We had a chance to chat with Long next to one of the world's only two 911 GT3 R Hybrid models, incongruously parked outside a swanky restaurant in midtown Manhattan. He was there to announce that the groundbreaking hybrid would make its first appearance in U.S. competition in the Petit Le Mans race...
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Will EV Range Extenders Give Rise to a Rotary Renaissance?Four months from now, the world's first extended-range electric vehicle will start showing up at dealers. The 2011 Chevrolet Volt will introduce car buyers to the idea of a range-extending combustion engine that turns a generator to power the car electrically. But the generator in an E-REV can be...
John Voelcker -
BREAKING: Honda Plans Electric Car, Plug-in Hybrid For 2012Just like last week's Toyota-Tesla announcement, the rumor mill went into overdrive yesterday with talk of plans from Honda to build both electric cars and plug in Hybrids in the near future. Knowing full well how the world's largest manufacturer of internal combustion engines felt about battery...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Honda To Launch Plug-In Hybrid Car in 2013, A Year After ToyotaIt's been a time of turmoil for Honda lately, with the company doubling down on hybrids and pulling back on its clean-diesel efforts. Now, according to a Reuters report, the company will introduce both a plug-in hybrid and a fully electric car for the 2013 model year. The electric car will be...
John Voelcker -
Obama Meets The Volt: Sparks Barely FlyPresident Barack Obama’s electric vehicle tour climaxed last Thursday with a visit to the Compact Power battery plant in Holland, Michigan, where he was treated to his first extensive experience with the upcoming 2011 Chevrolet Volt. The Holland plant just happens to be the place where LG Chem...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
BREAKING: The RAV4 EV Is Returning, Tesla, Toyota ConfirmsRemember yesterday's article where we spoke about rumbles from the rumor mill at Toyota and Tesla? Industry insiders had told two auto sites that the two companies were working together on a supercar and a re-development of the classic RAV4 EV. We said yesterday that the possibility of the RAV4...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Ending weeks of speculation, Tesla and Toyota announced today that they plan to develop an all-electric version of Toyota's RAV4 small crossover, using Tesla's battery and electric drive technology in Toyota's vehicle. Last week, chairman Akio Toyoda announced that Toyota was already working to fit Tesla battery packs into test vehicles. Then, news reports had identified the two vehicles Tesla was developing for Toyota as the RAV4 and the Corolla sedan. Now the joint announcement, issued in Tokyo and Palo Alto, California, has confirmed the accuracy of the RAV4 reports, following just a few...
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Are Tesla And Toyota Re-Electrifying RAV4EV, Going Supercar?We've known for some time that Toyota and Tesla are planning on working together on an EV, despite protests to the contrary. But with two separate rumors breaking today this partnership looks ever more likely to produce not one, but potentially two very interesting cars. That's if the rumor mill...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
GM Backs Up 2011 Chevy Volt With 8-Year, 100K-Mile WarrantyToday the silence ended. We've driven the 2011 Chevy Volt Test Mule, We've cringed through the Volt Dance and we watched the Freedom Drive unfold over the July 4 weekend. While we've known about the car's 40 mile all electric range, 9 gallon fuel tank and planned 10,000 car production schedule for...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
2011 Chevrolet Volt Battery Pack Warranty: 8 Years, 100K MilesGeneral Motors announced today that it would offer an 8-year, 100,000-mile warranty on the battery pack, the charger, and the Voltec electric drive components of its upcoming 2011 Chevrolet Volt electric car. The announcement sets to rest potential worries that Volt owners might be stuck having to...
John Voelcker -
2011 Ford Fiesta Subcompact: You Gotta Wait Two More Weeks!The 2011 Ford Fiesta subcompact is one of the more eagerly awaited cars arriving in the U.S. market. Winning points for styling, equipment, and performance, it's Ford's first high-volume European car to be sold here. But eager buyers and test drivers will have to take a breath and wait for just a...
John Voelcker -
Reward For Old Fiat Owners, Finally: New 2011 Fiat 500 Special EditionIt hasn't been easy being a Fiat fan in the U.S. these last, oh, 20 or 30 years. Sneers of "Fix It Again, Tony!" due to rusty and unreliable cars were followed by Fiat fleeing the U.S. market in 1983 with its tail tucked between its legs. But now, with the imminent debut of the 2011 Fiat 500 late...
John Voelcker -
Ask most consumers to describe an electric car and the chances are they will talk about the Tesla, the 2011 Nissan Leaf, maybe the 2011 Chevrolet Volt. They almost surely won't think of the large, luxurious, and expensive Range Rover. They may talk about how expensive EVs are. And unless they're familiar with Toyota's RAV4 EV, produced in small numbers from 1997 to 2003, the concept of an electric SUV will be an oxymoron. A go-anywhere, do anything, carry everything SUV? As an EV? But a U.K. based firm is taking the concept of an all-electric SUV to a whole new level with a vehicle it claims...
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Bill Gates Backs EcoMotors’ New OPOC Engine With $23.5 Million InvestmentThroughout the history of the internal combustion engine there have been a multitude of scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs shouting claims about revolutionary new engine designs promising greater efficiency, more power, fewer emissions and lower production and running costs. However, to this...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
No, Electric Vehicles Won't Bring Down the U.S. Power GridLast week's heat wave prompted another eruption of that perennial question: Won't electric cars that recharge from grid power overload the nation's electricity system? Or put more bluntly: Will electric vehicles bring down the U.S. power grid? The answer, equally bluntly, is: No. They won't. (And...
John Voelcker -
U.S. Buyers Save Less Using EVs (But It's Not About Payback)Auto industry analysts get paid to issue reports, and most of them are vastly better at data analysis and number crunching than we'll ever be. That doesn't mean, however, that sometimes their data isn't misleading. It's important to keep context in mind, and not miss the forest for the trees...
John Voelcker -
2011 Mazda Mazda2: First Drive ReportThe 2011 Mazda Mazda2 subcompact had a somewhat strange introduction, with the car itself unveiled at the Los Angeles Auto Show but the interior not displayed until three months later. Nevertheless, Mazda's sporty little subcompact is headed for dealerships this fall, starting at the remarkably low...
John Voelcker -
Toyota Already Building a Car To Test Tesla's Battery, It SaysOne of the many unknowns about Toyota's partnership with Tesla was whether it would result in a jointly produced car. That won't be known for many months yet, but Toyota has already taken a first step: It's building Tesla's battery into a test car so it can compare the Silicon Valley startup's...
John Voelcker -
Remember the bright yellow Mercedes SLS AMG E-Cell prototype we wrote about back in June? Equipped with a four-motor, all-wheel-drive system the SLS AMG E-Cell is capable of putting out more than 525 horsepower onto the road and packs electric supercar performance into the iconic gullwing body. As our sister site MotorAuthority announced earlier this week, the official press release from Mercedes has finally been made public. Confirming many of the details which have found their way onto the Internet in past months, Mercedes press release gives a preview to the 2013 SLS AMG Electric, or...
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California Yanks Prius Perks: No More Hybrid HOV-Lane AccessYou may remember that in California, 85,000 lucky owners of three hybrid vehicles were granted special stickers giving them access to High-Occupancy Vehicle lanes, even with only a single occupant in the car. Well, their luck runs out on December 31, the last day those stickers are valid. While...
John Voelcker -
Sports Cars, City Runabouts Electrify 2010 Bridgestone Eco-RallyThe small, seaside town of Brighton UK, some 50 miles south of London, has often been the destination for many a weary Londoner keen to take in its pebbled beaches, kitsch souvenir shops and traditional fish and chip suppers. But today it wasn't sticks of sweet sugary ‘seaside rock' candy cane or...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Electric-Car Drive Report: 2002 Toyota RAV4 EV CrossoverOne of the best parts of the electric-vehicle world is the camaraderie. Someone knows someone who passes us along to a friend who knows a guy ... you know the story. Which is how we ended up in San Francisco on a sunny Friday, driving a well-used--but still reliable--example of one of the...
John Voelcker -
How Do First Responders Act Around a Crashed Hybrid or EV?Once more, a reader question prompts us to share the answer with our entire green car audience. In this case, it's about how first responders should approach accidents that involve vehicles with high-voltage battery packs, whether they're conventional hybrids (e.g. Toyota Prius) or upcoming...
John Voelcker -
2009 Volkswagen CitiGolf: Driving a Brand-New Retro RabbitMost car sites run test drives of new cars. That is, cars that you can actually buy. And now for something completely different: A test drive of an almost-brand-new, 35-year-old, 1975 Volkswagen Rabbit. It's not called that; it's called the 2009 Volkswagen CitiGolf. Same car, though--just check the...
John Voelcker