mpg

  • 2010 Toyota Prius

    One million gallons a day is a lot of oil. According to estimates late last week, that could be the daily rate of oil escaping from the Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico. To put that number in perspective, we decided to look at what it would take to compensate just for the lost gasoline. We asked, How many Toyota Prius hybrids would you need to sell to offset the loss? Turns out you'd have to sell almost 1 million Priuses globally to conserve enough gasoline to offset the amount wasted as the escaping oil pours into the oceans and fouls the beaches. Here's how the math works. An...

  • 2010 Chevrolet Silverado Hybrid
    GM Sells 570 Hybrid Pickups To Phone Company, Jubilation Ensues

    Last year, General Motors sold about 7,200 of its full-size hybrid SUVs--but just 1,600 hybrid pickup trucks using the same system. So the company took the unusual step last Friday of issuing a press release to announce that it had sold 576 of Silverado Hybrid pickups in one fell swoop. The buyer...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Cruze Eco
    You'll Save Money With Higher-MPG Cars, But It'll Cost You

    New Federal standards for higher average gas-mileage in vehicles sold from now to 2015 will save consumers money on fuel. But the cars themselves are likely to cost more, according to a study released yesterday by the National Research Council. Regular readers know we've been saying that it'll be a...

  • Ford Escape Hybrid Cargo Space (Seats Up)
    Roundup: Hybrid SUVs and Crossovers from Ford, Toyota, Chevy

    Our reader Celeste wrote to ask us about available hybrid SUVs and crossovers, and we thought our answer might be useful for the site. At the moment, there are three main hybrid SUVs sold in the U.S. Each of them also has variations sold under other brands. All are likely to be durable, as their...

  • 2011 Ford Fiesta
    Are Goals For 40-MPG 2011 Ford Fiesta Subcompact Too Ambitious?

    We're eagerly looking forward to the arrival of the 2011 Ford Fiesta, the first truly modern subcompact from Ford in many years. The greenest Fiesta is rated at 40 miles per gallon on the highway, and the car has been widely praised for its dynamic styling, the high-quality interior, and an array...

  • 2011 Ford Fiesta
    2011 Ford Fiesta Gets 40 MPG Rating

    The 2011 Ford Fiesta is officially the most fuel efficient model in its class, with the EPA announcing today that the ultra-funky hatchback and sedan rates in at 29 mpg in the city and 40 mpg on the highway when equipped with the smooth shifting six-speed PowerShift dual clutch transmission. To put...

  • 2009 Ford Escape Hybrid

    Yeah, yeah, we know. The only people who buy hybrids are the ones who want to show off their green credentials. They're effete, elite coastal residents who probably drove Subarus before they got their hybrids. Uh huh. Tell it to the Marines. Or, more accurately, tell it to the Israel Defense Forces. According to an article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz yesterday, no less a fighting force than the IDF is evaluating whether to buy Ford Escape Hybrids to cut its fuel consumption. The Escape Hybrid crossovers would largely be used as field-force support vehicles. They might also be pressed...

  • Euro-spec 2011 Ford Fiesta in New York City
    3 Green-Car Trends: Smaller Cars, More Turbos, Luxury Hybrids

    Everyone has opinions. But if you had to wrap up what's happening in green cars today by naming three trends, what would they be? The ever-eager publicists at auto-classified site AutoTrader.com sent us their list of three changes in the world of eco-friendly vehicles. We've reproduced them below...

  • Tough Tractor Trailer
    Long-Haul Truckers Beg For Rescue From Nasty Gas-Saving EPA

    It's pretty rare when a group of drivers begs a government agency to regulate them. But when it could avert what they think would be even worse regulations from another agency, anything's fair in love and war. The drivers in this case are the nation's long-haul truckers or, more precisely, the...

  • 2010 Chevrolet Silverado
    GM To Invest $890 Million In Making Its V-8 Engines Save Gas

    Going green on the road may involve smaller engines, electric cars, and clean diesels, but it also requires making all engines far more fuel efficient. To that end, General Motors will announce this morning that it will invest almost one billion dollars in five separate plants to build a new, far...

  • Golden Gate Bridge, connecting San Francisco and Marin County, California
    Earth Day Special: The 'Hybridest' Green Cities in the U.S.

    Today is Earth Day, and in honor of that event--it started 40 years ago as a nationwide teach-in on environmental issues--we bring you a list of the greenest cities in the United States. It's not actually our list; it comes from Cars.com, which based its ranking on the percentage of car shoppers...

  • 2010 Toyota Prius
    Surprise! Yes, Fuel Efficiency (Still) Matters to Car Buyers

    What a shock! Who'd ever have thought it? Will wonders never cease? Yes, yet another survey shows that fuel efficiency matters to car and truck buyers. And that more than half say their next vehicle will get better gas mileage than their current ride. Fuel efficiency: It matters Capital One Auto...

  • First 2011 Chevrolet Volt built on production tooling at Detroit Hamtramck plant, March 31, 2010

    It's been one of the most-asked questions about the 2011 Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric car: So what kind of gas mileage will it get? Despite confusion around Chevy's claim of 230 miles per gallon, what people wanted to know was simple: After the battery is depleted, when the car's gasoline-powered generator switches on, what gas mileage does it get? Now we have an answer. The Volt's chief engineer, Andrew Farah, said in a briefing yesterday that not only was the 2011 Volt achieving its target of 40 miles of electric range, but it was also meeting the goal of 50 miles per gallon in...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Cruze Eco
    How the 2011 Chevy Cruze Eco Stays Slim, Trim & High-Mileage

    We've written already about the 2011 Chevrolet Cruze Eco high-mileage model launched at the New York Auto Show. Now we've had a chance to sit down with Gary Altman, GM's vehicle chief engineer for compact cars-North America, and find out exactly how they did it. In addition to predictable...

  • Barack Obama
    Obama and EPA Launch 34.1-MPG Fuel-Economy Rules for 2016

    The other shoe has dropped: Yesterday, two U.S. government agencies jointly announced the final fuel-economy rules for model year 2012 through 2016 vehicles, giving automakers a single national set of standards and averting the threat of state-by-state regulation. Starting with 2012, automakers...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Cruze Eco
    2010 New York Auto Show Preview: 40-MPG 2011 Chevy Cruze Eco

    The trend started in Europe, and now every car make seems to have a green sub-brand. For a while, Chevy used the "XFE" label, but its highest-mileage 2011 Chevrolet Cruze is to be called the Eco. The EPA hasn't released final gas-mileage figures, but Chevrolet expects the 2011 Cruze Eco to be rated...

  • 2011 Hyundai Sonata First Drive
    Fuel Efficient Fours Gain Ground on V-6s, V-8s In New Cars

    At December's Los Angeles Auto Show, Hyundai made a big splash by saying it would no longer offer V-6 engines in its Sonata midsize car or its Tucson compact crossover. Instead, it replaced them with higher-performance, more fuel-efficient four-cylinder motors. But Hyundai's just one of many makers...

  • Cash for Clunkers banner with Mercury Sable, Albany, New York
    Clunkers Program Worked, Didn't Hurt Car Sales, Study Says

    A new study concludes that last summer's government-funded "Cash For Clunkers" program didn't hurt car sales rates in future months, and in fact did just what it set out to do: get old, low-mileage cars off the road and stimulate auto sales in the U.S. An analysis by Maritz Research refutes one of...

  • 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid

    Just yesterday, we reported on Ford's first-ever 300 hp/30 mpg ratings for the 2011 Mustang. The company has vowed to achieve best-in-class fuel economy numbers for every new model it launches. Certainly the 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid clears that bar, trouncing any other mid-size sedan with an EPA fuel economy rating of 41 mpg city, 36 mpg highway. Camry Hybrid lags behind By comparison, the Toyota Camry Hybrid gets 33/34 mpg, and the Nissan Altima hybrid is rated at 35/33 mpg. Now Ford [NYSE:F] sales data shows that the Fusion Hybrid is bringing in more buyers new to Ford than ever before, with...

  • 2011 Mustang V6
    2011 Ford Mustang V-6 With 305 HP Rated At 31 MPG Highway

    Ford's on a roll lately, selling more cars in the U.S. than General Motors last month. And it's vowed to achieve best-in-class fuel economy numbers for every new model it launches. So the news today that its revised 2011 Ford Mustang with the 3.7-liter V-6 engine has been rated at 19 mpg city, 31...

  • 2011 Ford Mustang V-6  -  30 mpg
    More Than 30 MPG Highway: The New Benchmark For Green Cars?

    So what exactly IS a "green car"? At both the Los Angeles Auto Show and Detroit Auto Show, you could find the word "green" all over the place. LA has been pitching itself for years as the greenest auto show, with fewer muscle cars and more hybrids, clean diesels, and so forth than any other U.S...

  • 2007 Ford Edge,  Detroit Auto Show
    Higher MPGs From EcoBoost Engine For 2011 Ford Edge Crossover

    Continuing the trend of raising gas mileage by using smaller, more powerful engines, Ford is set to launch its first four-cylinder EcoBoost engine in the 2011 Ford Edge, which will be unveiled at the 2010 Chicago Auto Show next week. We've written before about Ford's EcoBoost system, which uses...

  • 2010 Toyota Prius 5dr HB II (Natl) Angular Front Exterior View
    New Hybrid Scorecard Slams Carmakers For Loading On Luxury

    It's long been known that hybrid buyers often choose them over luxury cars, and aren't buying them solely for the payback in gasoline savings. But a new Hybrid Scorecard, launched by the Union of Concerned Scientists, slams carmakers for inflating their prices by loading luxury into fuel-efficient...

  • Ford CEO Alan Mulally at 2010 Washington DC Auto Show
    Ford CEO: Fuel-Efficient Engines Pose Tough Fight for Hybrids

    Ford has built hundreds of thousands of hybrids since 2004, but unlike Toyota, it hasn't staked its future on the pricey technology that mates an electric motor to a combustion engine. Ford's CEO Alan Mulally says that's because hybrids will face continuing competition from increasingly more...

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