New car sales

The records just keep on tumbling, as Toyota announces a new milestone for its Prius line of hybrids. That figure is three million--the cumulative global sales total through June, for all Prius models since the car debuted in Japan in 1997. Since then, the Prius has gone through three main...

The fans have spoken: Over 100,000 people have now signed a White House petition asking for Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] to be allowed to sell its cars directly in all fifty states. Started by one Tesla supporter on June 5, support from across the electric car world piled in with signatures increasing...

Maybe there's a future for battery leasing among U.S. electric-car buyers after all. Nissan had considered leasing battery packs separately before launching its 2011 Leaf, but ended up choosing to sell or lease the entire car. So the 2013 Smart ForTwo Electric Drive is the first car in the country...

Last month, the Nissan Leaf passed the Chevrolet Volt to take this year's top spot among plug-in electric cars for sale. Now Chevy is fighting back. It announced that it will offer $5,000 cash back on remaining 2012 Volt range-extended electric cars, and $4,000 on 2013 models, according to...

The Canadian plug-in electric vehicle market in May was a good news/bad news sandwich: Sales held roughly steady from April, but dropped 40 percenton a year-over-year basis. Rounding out the month with some good news, May almost certainly marked the sale of the country's 3,000th electric car from a...

Win some, lose some. Tesla's had a very good year thus far, but it was recently dealt legislative defeats in two states where it had hoped to sell its electric cars. In Texas, the state legislature declined to make an exception to existing rules that make it illegal for automakers to sell cars to...

Plug-in car sales continued at a steady pace in May, with early estimates of perhaps 6,500 to 7,000 sold overall. As always, precise figures are impossible because Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] does not report monthly sales as every other carmaker does. We'll refine our totals as more reports come in...

It may be that short sellers and naysayers aren't the only ones a bit surprised these days at the positive press received by electric-car maker Tesla. Yesterday, Germany luxury-car maker Audi issued a rather unusual press release in which it pointed out that it sells more cars than Tesla Motors...

Tesla's Model S might be making all the headlines, but there's a smaller, more accessible electric car with equally high expectations placed upon it. That electric car is the Renault Zoe, sold only in Europe and tasked with making electric cars a usable proposition for the masses. And to a small...

For a long time, the Toyota Prius was the only game in town for high fuel-efficiency vehicles. Starting with the 2004 model, it really came to define the public image of a hybrid car. Now, though, as hybrids and plug-in cars are slowly growing their share of the market, Prius sales have fallen--not...

Ford's hybrid sales have been on a roll this year, with two new models for 2013 now in showrooms across the country. The company sold almost 30,000 Ford and Lincoln hybrids from January through April, just about triple the number in its best comparable previous period, which was 2011. That led some...

The Toyota Prius has come a long way since hitting the market over a decade ago. Back then, at the turn of the 21st century, it was no more than a fuel efficient but ultimately unappealing curio, bought only by a select few. Fast-track to 2012 and it was one of the world's highest-selling cars...

Most Canadians will remember last month for the introduction of the country's new $5 and $10 bills, which arrived just in time for the playoff-hockey betting season. Canadian electric vehicle enthusiasts may remember April 2013, on the other hand, as the month the Toyota Prius Plug-in fell into...

Nissan should be pleased with its Leaf sales over the first few months of this year--not only is it beating last year's monthly rate, but it's on a level with the previously higher-selling Chevy Volt. Not so in Australia though, where the car is still struggling. In fact, it's struggling enough...

There's a new hybrid in the mix these days--or at least a new version of one that's been on the market for a couple of years. The 2013 Lincoln MKZ Hybrid has now, finally, rolled out nationwide. It follows a troubled launch for the latest generation MKZ mid-size luxury sedan that even Lincoln...

One or two locations appear time and time again when it comes to electric or hybrid vehicle sales. If you didn't think California was up there, then you've not been paying much attention. Oregon too--in Portland, the Nissan Leaf actually outsold other Nissan models last month. And of course Lima...

Just how popular are hybrid cars? 40 percent more in 2012 than in 2011, according to the latest study from Experian Automotive. In fact, a little more than that--40.9 percent to be precise, with overall market share increasing from 2.2 percent to 3.1 percent in a single year. It's a stark...

Europe has been the source of some excitement over electric cars in recent months, as several new models have all hit the market in quick succession. The third-generation Smart Electric Drive arrived at the end of last year, and the last few months have seen the new Renault Zoe and 2013 Nissan Leaf...

The established German luxury brands--Mercedes-Benz and BMW--have sold cars in the U.S. for decades. So how could Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] possibly be beating them at their own game? The answer lies in how you define sales: It appears that the Tesla Model S electric sport sedan is outselling both...

People love their SUVs. You can't move for the things these days, but the good news is they could be getting smaller. An influx of compact SUVs and crossovers in recent years has struck a chord with buyers, and sales have grown at a faster rate than the rest of the industry in the first three...