Hybrids

Exit one BMW hybrid, enter another. Next March will see the U.S. launch of the 2012 BMW ActiveHybrid 5, the second hybrid sedan in the Germany luxury-car maker's lineup. And the ActiveHybrid 5 marks an important evolution: It's the first BMW that uses the single-motor hybrid system jointly...

The 2012 Buick Lacrosse with eAssist is now beginning to roll into dealerships across the country, and we've been curious to see how GM would market the car. On our preview drive this spring of a prototype Lacrosse with eAssist, we noticed that the dreaded H-word (hybrid) had been virtually...

Beyond the obvious Toyota, if any other make were to build hybrid cars, you might expect it to be Subaru. The small Japanese company's cars are revered for durability and standard all-wheel drive, and their drivers are often assumed to be on the liberal side of center. Subaru owners tend to cluster...

The Prius family of hybrid cars from Toyota is going to get a little bigger as of January when the Japanese automaker will launch a new compact hybrid car for the Japanese market: the 2012 Toyota Aqua. According to Reuters News Service, the Nikkei business daily reports that the compact gasoline...

Subaru has taken heed of customer complaints that its lineup wasn’t as efficient as those of its competitors, making its latest generation 2012 Impreza return an impressive 27/36 mpg city/highway gas mileage. Not only is the car still offered with the extra safety of all-wheel drive as...

Despite wrangling among electric-car fans over whether the 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid's 9 to 14 miles of electric range are sufficient, one factor will make the car a success, at least in California: the valued sticker that gives drivers solo access to the HOV lane.

If you remember Volkswagen’s Super Bowl advert from earlier this year involving a pint-sized Darth Vader, its 2011 Passat had a particular affinity with the dark side of the force. But as of 2013 the evil Pasatt will have a nemisis in the form of the 2013 VW Jetta Hybrid, complete with a...

Toyota has upped 2012 Prius content across most trim levels, but has made only minor changes to the car's styling.

Kicking off the car's launch in Europe, Guinness World Records has certified the Infiniti M35h hybrid as the "world's fastest accelerating full hybrid."

The hybrid graveyard is growing. BMW and Mercedes-Benz, the German luxury makers that teamed up to adapt GM's Two-Mode Hybrid to high-end luxury vehicles, have both canceled both the hybrid vehicles that used the system for 2012, after no more than three model years. Pricey and low-production We...

Toyota has just launched the production version of its 2012 Prius Plug-In Hybrid at the Green Drive Expo held in Richmond, California. Toyota will most likely launch the production version of its 2012 Prius Plug-In Hybrid at this year's Los Angeles Auto Show, to be held in mid-November. Just this...

The Chevrolet Volt is now here, on sale in most states, and ready to plug in--and to answer all your questions about what it is, how it drives, how to buy it and how to wade through all its new technology, there's only one solution. Here, you'll find High Gear Media's comprehensive coverage of the...

While Rolls-Royce may have hit the headlines earlier this year with its all-electric 102EX Phantom Concept, its large customer base hasn’t been quite as welcoming. Despite a strong customer ambivalence to anything other than a throbbing 12-cylinder engine underneath the hood of its hand-built...

Lexus is showing an all-new 2013 GS 45h hybrid luxury sport sedan at the upcoming Frankfurt Auto Show

Last month Ferrari Boss Luca di Montezemelo reiterated that his firm would never bring an all-electric car to market, declaring that he just didn’t believe in them. Instead, he said, the Italian automaker would bring out a gasoline-electric hybrid drivetrain in a few years time. However...

For a few years now, hybrid sales have been stalled at 2 to 3 percent of the U.S. market. But for the first seven months of this year, the total is at the low end of the scale: Hybrids represented 2.06 percent of sales from January through August, and just 1.98 percent of sales in August alone. The...

Innumerable design studies for a successor to the legendary E-Type Jaguar may finally have reached their conclusion: Jaguar's C-X16 concept sports coupe seems very likely to be built within a few years as the Jaguar XE. But the "production concept" to be launched at the Frankfurt Motor Show next...

The Toyota Prius is not only the quintessential hybrid-electric vehicle, but the automaker's third best-selling car line in the United States. Last year, the redesigned 2010 Prius launched with the ad tagline, "Harmony between man, nature, and machine." Tell that to the McCarthy family of Homewood...

Over a varied road test of more than 600 miles, including Manhattan traffic and upstate New York two-lane roads, we were surprised and pleased to get more than 27 mpg in our 2011 Porsche Cayenne S Hybrid sport-utility vehicle. It's fast, handles superbly, and is a pleasant place to spend...

With Fisker just starting to deliver its first Karma plug-in hybrid sports sedans--no, still not a single road test by any journalist--attention now turns toward the Frankfurt Motor Show. Next week, the company will pull the covers off a concept for what it says will be the next model in the Fisker...