Hybrids

Now that the 2011 Chevy Volt is on sale, car buyers can experience electric vehicles with range-extending engines in everyday driving. And the Volt is just the start. In the future, range extenders to generate electric power will move beyond the Volt's standard car engine to purpose-built designs...

Last year, Toyota promised to launch a dozen new hybrid and plug-in hybrid models by the end of 2012. One of those new hybrid models may be unveiled in concept form at next month's Geneva Motor Show. Two Dutch websites are reporting that the company will use the show for the world debut of a Toyota...

Electronic driving coaches designed to promote more fuel efficient driving are nothing new and have been appearing in production cars for the past several years, mostly in hybrids but regular models too. Some memorable driving coaches include Nissan’s Eco-Pedal, which works by activating a...

And the hybrids just keep on coming. Earlier this morning we wrote that BMW will launch a line of front-wheel-drive hybrids in 2014. Now, the British magazine AutoExpress suggests that a new generation of the Ford GT supercar will also offer hybrid-electric drive. Competition for Porsche If so, it...

It's not just Toyota that sells multiple models of hybrid cars now. German luxury brands are getting in on the act too. BMW announced today that it was forming a joint venture with France's Peugeot-Citroen to design and build hybrid-electric powertrains. The new enterprise is an expansion of the...

Sometimes you just never know where you'll dredge up technical details on vehicles that carmakers haven't yet launched. Technology conferences can be a good source. Take, for instance, the Advanced Automotive Battery Conference (AABC) held last week in Pasadena, California. A battery systems...

Hybrid sales in the U.S. have flattened over the last couple of years, but they're going great guns in Japan. Now, an analyst suggests that the great popularity of the Prius in its home market may lead Toyota to cut the price there to keep its sales high. The Toyota Prius has been the best-selling...

Chrysler has come out of hibernation with a bang, as far as green and more fuel-efficient vehicles are concerned. The company announced Wednesday that it would partner with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to build and test prototypes of a different kind of hybrid vehicle, one that...

The littlest Lexus, the 2011 CT 200h five-door hybrid hatchback, will start showing up at U.S. dealers over the next couple of months. It's clearly a different kind of Lexus--the perplexing "Darker Side of Green" ad campaign and its associated video proved that--but Lexus is using the new car to...

Later this year Mitsubishi’s battery-powered i-MiEV will finally go on sale in the U.S., having already gone on sale in Europe and Japan and making an appearence at the 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show last November. However, it’s hard to get excited over Mitsubishi’s zero-emission...

Earlier this week we heard from Sergio Marchionne, the demanding CEO of Fiat-Chrysler, that a hybrid version of the new 2011 Chrysler 300 sedan would arrive sometime in 2013. Now, at Chrysler’s Windsor plant in Canada, Marchionne has revealed that the hybrid 300 will be joined in 2013 by a...

Ford was clearly one of the stars of last week's Detroit Auto Show, launching green vehicles and concepts across a wide range of fuel-saving technologies. The company unveiled just a single concept, the Vertrek crossover, but it's an important one. The production version of the Vertrek will be the...

Chrysler's got bigger problems right now than whether or not it builds hybrid cars. After quickly spiffing up of its line of aging, unappealing cars and crossovers for 2011, the company's engineers are deep into designing modern, fuel efficient compact and midsize Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep vehicles...

Last week, I wrote about how Ford and GM have staged comebacks that hinged in part on the carmakers’ embracing of new electronics, launching greener cars with smartphone apps and wireless and voice-command capabilities. Toyota will soon be joining the crowd by offering all of the above...

Audi loves clean diesels, but the German automaker certainly hasn't stacked its entire deck with them. In addition to the upcoming 2012 Audi Q5 Hybrid and the brand's e-Tron electric sports cars in the pipeline, it's now taking hybrids and electric cars seriously, too. And one of Audi's best...

Auto show press conferences sometimes resemble mosh pits, but savvy photographers know how to get the best angles while protecting vulnerable body parts. Photographer Joe Nuxoll got most of these shots from the event where Toyota launched its 2012 Prius V multi-purpose vehicle (or, for those of us...

At 50 miles per gallon, the 2011 Toyota Prius five-door hatchback is the most fuel-efficient car sold in the U.S. But, says Toyota, its customers told the company they needed more room--for people, for stuff, for stretching out. So the quintessential Prius hybrid is becoming not just a vehicle but...

While Toyota dominates global hybrid production, Ford was the first company to launch a hybrid SUV: the Ford Escape Hybrid, in 2004. Now, Ford is pioneering another hybrid model: the small minivan, or as Europeans call it, the people carrier. Hybrid mini-minivan Between 10 and 10:30 am today at the...

Some of the first emissions regulations in the world came about because of the way the Los Angeles Basin is shaped. Reports of smog in southern California started with the Conquistadors, and by the Sixties, LA was notorious for its foul air. California began regulating auto emissions before the...

Recently, we wrote about the move in the private sector to use electric and hybrid delivery trucks. Companies like FedEx and Frito Lay are tapping into benefits of greener cars — even ahead of the broader consumer market because they’re a hedge against volatile diesel prices and can pay...