First Drive Reviews

Yeah, we drove the pink one. The 2013 Chevrolet Spark, the first Chevrolet minicar in many, many years, comes in a remarkable array of pastel colors, including one called Techno Pink. One of two Sparks we tested yesterday came in that very distinctive shade; the other was Salsa (lime green). Other...

The new 2012 Toyota RAV4 EV is quick, relatively fun to drive, and the only all-electric crossover utility vehicle on the market today. It has a good, intuitive touchscreen display and instrument cluster that shows both the maximum possible range and a constantly updated range based on both the...

If the ideal electric car has a real-world range of 100 miles or more and the practical utility that American families buy crossovers for, the future may be arriving this year. The 2012 Toyota RAV4 EV has every bit of space that the gasoline versions do. Its Tesla-engineered battery pack and...

When auto writers drive test cars, they're usually loaned out from carmakers' regional fleets. So when we asked for an 2012 Nissan Versa sedan to test over a four-day weekend, following our brief test drive of the all-new Versa in May, the car we got seemed rather familiar. It was, in fact, the...

Yesterday, Honda delivered its first Fit EV electric car to private buyers--or, more accurately, private lease customers, since the car isn't available for outright sale. Only 1,100 lucky lessors in a small handful of states will ever get behind the wheel of a 2013 Honda Fit EV, because for Honda...

With Tesla Motors opening new Tesla Stores at a rapid pace, the 2012 Tesla Model S all-electric sport sedan has now been seen by hundreds of thousands of people. Thus far, however, very few of them, however, have gotten behind the wheel. Tesla's working to change that, with a traveling nationwide...

After an hour in a 2012 Tesla Model S all-electric sport sedan, one thing became clear: It's a viable car. The Model S gives Tesla Motors a shot at turning into a real car company. That's a provisional judgment; as many journalists have noted, 10-minute drives or an hour driving and riding in...

The 2013 Honda Fit EV is a fun and well-executed little all-electric hatchback. It's quick, handles decently, gets the highest EPA efficiency rating of any vehicle on the market (118 MPGe), and its rated range of 82 miles is longer than that of the somewhat larger Nissan Leaf. Too bad you have very...

On Friday, Tesla Motors delivered its first production Model S electric sedans to retail customers, an event the company webcast live. Watch the 26-0minute video above if you want to relive the glorious event. While Green Car Reports wasn't there, we've watched the deluge of coverage and read the...

It's not all that fuel efficient, but it's more fun to drive than we expected. That's our reaction to a quick drive last month in a blue 2012 Volkswagen Beetle. It's the entirely redesigned follow-on to the former New Beetle model that was perhaps best known for its dash-mounted flower vase--which...

Unlike other carmakers--including BMW with its ActiveE program--Audi has chosen to use only in-house drivers to test the fleet of electric A3 e-tron prototypes it has brought to the U.S. So we're pleased to be among the few media outlets to drive an Audi A3 e-tron, one of just 17 such cars in North...

Downsizing: The car industry's buzzword for both consumers shopping for smaller cars than their previous model, and carmakers equipping their models with smaller, more efficient engines. Both are linked to lowering the cost of driving, but the latter is most interesting from an efficiency...

Ever since Lexus launched the RX 400h hybrid SUV in 2005, gasoline-electric hybrids have been an integral part of the Lexus lineup. Cleverly combining performance, luxury and economy, they allow luxury buyers to avoid the compromises that might otherwise be associated with making a luxury vehicle...

The all-new 2013 Nissan Altima 2.5 does a surprisingly good job of blending fuel economy, performance, comfort and value in a midsize sedan.

When Lexus rolled out its HS 250h hybrid sedan a few years ago, there was a lot of head-scratching. The HS 250h was rather cramped inside, had a powertrain that was way too noisy for a Lexus, and was rated at just 35 mpg city, 34 highway—barely better than the Camry Hybrid of the time, which...

Most Chinese carmakers have backed away from plans to attack the U.S. market, and their hopes of dominating electric cars have slowed. But Chinese maker BYD continues to develop and test the e6 all-electric crossover utility it hopes to sell in the U.S. within a couple of years. Now, we've had the...

Though it has wandered through a handful of brand identities and images over the past decade, Acura continues to reinvent itself. This time, the next new thing is a hybrid using Acura's first ever implementation of Honda's familiar hybrid system (on a modified Civic platform) in the 2013 ILX. Entry...

The 2012 Ford Focus Electric is the company's first-ever production battery-electric vehicle, and that alone makes it noteworthy. But the fact that it's also pleasant to drive--somewhat on the fun side of unremarkable--means that it's the first compact all-electric competitor to the Nissan Leaf...

GreenCarReports was invited to the island of Ibiza to test Renault's latest electric effort. The Twizy isn't your average electric vehicle, so this won't be your average review. Instead, we'll aim to answer some of the multitude of questions we were asked via the site and via Twitter. What is it?...

We've been following the progress of Volkswagen's up! for quite some time. First, we saw the up! Lite concept. Then the up!, a rear-engined minicar. VW then teased some electric up! taxis, before we finally saw the production version - and several more concepts - at the 2011 Frankfurt Auto Show...