Fuel Efficiency

The regular Volkswagen Up minicar, revealed in full at the 2011 Frankfurt Auto Show, is already a favorite "forbidden fruit" of ours. What's not to like? It's a well-built, well-equipped, compact city car with a fuel-efficient gasoline 1.0-liter engine. It's perhaps one of the closest cars in ethos...

If you're in the market for a fuel efficient vehicle your choice is better than ever. Virtually every manufacturer now offers a high-mpg vehicle, but Honda could lay claim to being one of the first. Since the Civic arrived back in the 1970s, the Japanese carmaker has made fuel economy a high...

Automakers have long known there's a double standard for gas mileage. Cars have to meet higher goals, trucks have less stringent requirements. And the larger the vehicle, the lower the average fuel economy it has to deliver. The proposed fuel economy standards for 2017 through 2025 vehicles...

There are two kinds of traffic, neither of which is particularly pleasant. The first is moving traffic. It's slow, tedious, and something many of us are unable to avoid on our daily commutes. Movement is movement though, which makes stationary traffic a hundred times worse. Not only are you not...

It's a common question: Which is greener, continuing to drive my old car or buying a new, more fuel-efficient one? As with many such questions, the answer is: It depends. But one of the things it depends on is doing the math right. As much as we love CBS's The Fast Draw segments, we think Mitch...

Last year, the 2011 Chevrolet Volt struck a winning blow for green vehicles everywhere by taking the 2011 North American Car Of The Year (NACOTY) title. This year, another fuel-efficient vehicle has strode to the title - the 2012 Hyundai Elantra. It's seen off competition from the Volkswagen...

Crossover fans have been eager in anticipation of the 2013 Mazda CX-5 Crossover, and for good reason. Thanks to new SkyActiv engines, Mazda has been promising some pretty impressive fuel economy numbers. With EPA testing now complete, it appears even Mazda underestimated just how far the CX-5 will...

Chevrolet has continued its trend towards fuel-efficient small cars today with the unveiling of two new concept cars at the 2012 Detroit Auto Show. The two cars -- a four-seat, rear-wheel drive coupe called the Code 130R, and a four-seat, three-door, four-seat coupe hatchback called the Tru 140S --...

Engine coolant isn't something you often think about when considering the running costs of your car. Beyond regularly filling up the gas tank and changing the oil every so often, that other liquid doesn't really get a look in. If we told you that a special waterless coolant would improve your fuel...

How do you solve a problem like getting a nation of low income people onto the roads? That's the question that Indian carmakers Tata and Bajaj, among others, are trying to answer. Indian automotive mogul and man at the helm of Jaguar Land Rover, Ratan Tata, tried to revolutionize Indian transport...

There's a popular comparison going around the internet that conveniently links the gas mileage of a car made nearly 30 years ago with one made today. That comparison involves the 1980s Honda CR-X HF, and the modern 2011 Honda CR-Z. At 41 mpg city and 50 mpg highway under current EPA ratings, the...

Living in a country where safe, comfortable and fast cars are often easy to come by, you can forget that some countries aren't quite the same. Take India, for instance. While the $2,400 or so charged for a Tata Nano might raise eyebrows in the U.S, the tiny, narrow body, basic interior and...

We all know that most electric cars are more energy efficient than their gasoline counterparts, but just how do you improve on the limited range most electric cars have? For some automakers like BMW, the answer lies in making an electric car as lightweight as possible. For others, the answer is to...

Honda will move away from traditional, fastener-based construction techniques on its small vehicles to embrace more welding, which will reduce both cost and overall vehicle weight.

St. Nicholas has a bit of a job on his hands around this time of year. His elves may get the whole year to make toys, but the Christmas Eve flight Santa makes is a logistical nightmare. Just think about it - delivering millions of presents in the space of just 24 hours? And you thought your local...

In theory, designing the world's cheapest car for a market in which millions of people are beginning to earn the sort of money that will let them buy a car is a masterstroke. In practice, it hasn't been quite that easy for Tata with the Nano. Amidst concerns about flaming Tatas and with lower sales...

When they're feeling confident, automakers boast about their specs, ratings, and performance with direct comparisons to the competition. It's horsepower for specialty cars like the perennial Camaro-Mustang duel, but increasingly for mainstream and green cars, it's miles per gallon. Yesterday, we...

As well as the BR-Z sports car, Scion buyers in 2012 will be getting their hands on the 2012 Scion iQ, a funky minicar sold in other markets as the Toyota iQ. The iQ variations don't stop there, however. As you might be aware, British luxury car maker Aston Martin has bought the rights to build its...

One week ago, we got the first teaser photos of the 2013 Dodge Dart, the all-new compact sedan that will replace the unloved and obsolete Dodge Caliber hatchback. Now, we've got more. Chrysler has released two more photos, in this case of the instrument cluster and touchscreen center stack in the...

The impact of new gas-mileage rules on passenger cars gets all the attention, but proposed increases apply to commercial vehicles too. That means that automakers will be redesigning their commercial vans for better fuel efficiency too. In 2013, Ford will start building its full-size Transit van in...