Future Cars

While Toyota remains coy about the launch date of its fourth-generation Prius hybrid, a company executive has confirmed that the car is coming "soon." Jim Lentz, CEO of Toyota North America, didn't release any specifications on the car when he mentioned it during the groundbreaking for an expansion...

BMW may build an all-electric SUV in South Carolina.

When General Motors CEO Mary Barra announced the Chevrolet Bolt Concept, it changed everything in the world of electric cars. She said it would have a battery range of 200 miles, cost $37,500 before incentives--putting it squarely into the mass market--and be sold in all 50 states. Now spy shots...

Trademark filings for model names usually present a mystery. What a carmaker is planning when it registers a specific name can be hard to impossible to ascertain. And so it is with the case of "Prius Prime," a new model name that may expand Toyota's line of Prius hybrids at some point in the...

The all-new fourth-generation Toyota Prius is getting closer and closer to launch, as witnessed by an increasing number of spy shots of prototypes testing all over the world. Two weeks ago, a heavily camouflaged Prius was recorded on video fueling up at a North American gas station. Now, new shots...

You may not hear about the thermal efficiency of engines much: It's the ratio of how efficiently they use the energy in the fuel they burn. Conventional gasoline engines have long run about 25 percent, diesels at 30 to 35 percent. But the gasoline engine to be used in the next generation of the...

Chrysler may add electric all-wheel drive to the next-generation Town & Country minivan.

Patent applications reveal designs for possible Porsche electric and fuel-cell models.

With most of the data now in for April sales of plug-in electric cars, it's looking as though the first four months of 2015 aren't seeing notably higher numbers than those of 2014. As always, there's some slop in the numbers because Tesla Motors, Fiat Chrysler, and Kia Motors refuse to break out...

It's now clear that we'll see a slew of all-electric luxury vehicles with ranges of 200 miles or more from German makers Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz starting in 2017 or 2018. What's less clear is whether those vehicles will be developed as electric cars from the ground up or whether they'll be...

We'd missed it until now, but pricing for the 2016 Volvo XC90 T8 'Twin Engine' plug-in hybrid SUV was released earlier this month. The base XC90 T8 Momentum trim level carries a sticker price of $69,095, which includes a mandatory $995 delivery fee. The sportier XC90 T8 R-Design starts at $70,995...

Well, they did it. General Motors confirmed yesterday that its upcoming 200-mile battery-electric car will be named the Chevrolet Bolt EV. That's Bolt-with-a-B, not Volt-with-a-V. The Volt-with-a-V is Chevy's now-established plug-in hybrid compact hatchback. DON'T MISS: Why 'Bolt' Is A Really...

Of the four prestige German auto brands, BMW is clearly the most aggressive in its plans for plug-in electric cars in various segments. Last year it launched the BMW i3 battery-electric small hatchback and the sexy BMW i8 plug-in hybrid sport coupe. According to reports out of Germany, the next...

The idea is as cool as it is durable: An all-electric reincarnation of the classic Volkswagen Bus, beloved people carrier of the Sixties and Seventies. It was first mentioned fully five years ago, when Volkswagen showed an all-electric taxi concept based on an updated minivan with all the design...

Designing, engineering, testing, producing, and selling cars run by anything other than gasoline engines is hard, expensive, and challenging. Carmakers routinely lose money on the first generation of new technologies--Toyota, for example, with its first-generation Prius hybrid. But while hybrid...

Volkswagen will decide whether to get more involved with battery startup QuantumScape.

We know very little about the plug-in hybrid version that Fiat Chrysler will launch sometime after the new 2017 Chrysler Town & Country minivan is unveiled next year. But while a spate of plug-in hybrid SUVs and crossover utility vehicles is just about to enter the U.S. market, only Chrysler...

The Tesla Model X should be arriving in buyers' driveways within six months, if the company keeps to its latest schedule and starts delivering the all-electric SUV in the third quarter of this year. But Tesla Motors is being uncharacteristically quiet about its next model line, saying it'll simply...

With the all-new 2016 Audi Q7 now launched at last week's Geneva Motor Show, and a diesel plug-in hybrid model to follow, luxury maker Audi can turn its attention to its next utility project. That would be a stylish all-electric crossover SUV that takes direct aim at the Tesla Model X, which is...

Honda's latest statement indicates its fuel-cell car may not arrive in the U.S. until 2017.