Green Car News

  • 2017 Toyota Prius Prime and 2017 Chevrolet Volt with Green Car Reports editor John Voelcker

    In May, the Toyota Prius Prime plug-in hybrid was the highest-selling car with a plug in the U.S. for only the second time ever. Last month, however, the Chevrolet Volt recaptured its usual spot at the top of the plug-in sales charts for those manufacturers who report monthly sales. Chevy sold 1,745 Volts, slightly down from the May number of 1,845, but still enough to push the six-month total into five figures, at 10,932. DON'T MISS: Plug-in electric car sales for May: best Bolt EV, Prime months yet; Leaf, Volt rise too Added to that were deliveries of 1,642 Bolt EV 238-mile battery-electric...

  • 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV autocrossing, Photo: Terry Krebs
    Chevy Bolt EV electric car does many things: autocrossing is one

    The idea of performance and electric cars normally don't go hand in hand, unless the topic is a Tesla Model S P90 D. Outside of that one high-performance electric vehicle, casual electric cars are hardly the racer's choice, but one owner felt otherwise. Brian Ro, the owner of a 2017 Chevrolet Bolt...

  • 2013 Jaguar XK 2-door Convertible XKR Air Vents
    Are Eco settings on cabin ventilation systems a safety hazard?

    As corporate average fuel economy requirements that started in 2012 continue to tighten, automakers have turned to an entire arsenal of tactics to reduce the fuel their vehicles burn. Downsized and turbocharged engines, transmissions with many more gears, lighter-weight structures, better...

  • Volvo S90 production in Daqing, China
    Volvo to electrify all cars from 2019: 'end of internal-combustion engine alone'

    Volvo has announced a major leap forward in an effort to embrace an electrified portfolio of vehicles. The Swedish automaker will go all-electrified come 2019; every single vehicle it launches will feature an electric motor in some usage. To be clear, this is not the immediate end of the...

  • Chevrolet Colorado ZH2 hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicle
    Chevrolet Colorado ZH2: first ride in hydrogen fuel-cell Army truck

    Olive drab isn't the only green thing in the U.S. Army. Currently undergoing testing at Fort Carson in Colorado, the Chevrolet Colorado ZH2 hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle illustrates the unlikely intersection between eco-friendly powertrains and the demanding needs of a vehicle that may be deployed to...

  • BYD e5. Photo by CarNewsChina.com.
    China revises electric-car incentives to reward longer ranges

    It's long been official policy for China that the country's automakers will become the world's highest-volume producer of electric cars. (It also intends to dominate lithium-ion battery cells and photovoltaic solar panels, for the record.) But the government policies and incentives to achieve that...

  • ZF's rear-wheel steering concept

    Today, we've got some long-awaited Tesla news, two discouraging reports on energy and science from Trump's government, and some promising technology for longer range in electric cars. All this and more on Green Car Reports. Over the weekend, we ran down the most important green-car stories from last week. We also noted that the Aston Martin RapidE electric luxury sedan would be delayed a year as Chinese partner Le Eco departs the scene. Today, we reported on Tesla CEO Elon Musk's tweets that Tesla Model 3 deliveries would start at the end of this month. The EPA under Trump will embark on a...

  • President Donald Trump (Photo courtesy Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons)
    What Trump's 'Energy Week' policies actually mean

    The White House declared this past week "Energy Week" and offered up a few key points on which the Trump administration plans to focus to unleash what it calls a new American dominance in energy. However, neither the initiatives nor the proposed policy changes hone in on where the world is heading...

  • Electric motor, shown in 'How Does an Electric Car Work?' video by Learn Engineering
    Better electric motors can boost electric-car efficiency

    One of the greatest challenges faced by modern electric cars is the vehicle's range, which is largely proportional to the energy capacity of the battery. Range anxiety often keeps buyers out of electric cars and in their fossil-fuel powered counterparts. Most of the attention given to solving the...

  • Coal, by Flicker user oatsy40 (Used Under CC License)
    Trump EPA to hold unneeded 'critique' to challenge climate science

    The best analog to EPA administrator Scott Pruitt's latest action might be for the U.S. Geological Survey to undertake a "scientific critique" of theories that the world is round. After all, numerous authoritative sources over the years have raised doubts that the Earth is not flat. Surely their...

  • Tesla Model 3 Driving on a Public Road
    Tesla Model 3 production to start Friday, deliveries July 28

    As he had promised he would late one evening last week, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk has tweeted out some updates on the upcoming Model 3. He expects first production Model 3 electric car, with serial number 001 ("SN1"), to be completed this Friday, July 7. The first 30 customers to buy Model 3s...

  • Aston Martin Rapid-E concept
    Aston Martin RapidE electric luxury sedan delayed to 2019 as Williams replaces Le Eco

    Among electric-car owners and advocates, tiny British sports-car maker Aston Martin has become a company to watch. That's largely due to its CEO for the last few years, Andy Palmer, who had previously led product development at Nissan while it launched the Leaf electric car. Palmer had ambitious...

  • 2017 Kia Optima Plug-In Hybrid

    Why are President Trump's pro-fossil-fuel, anti-renewable energy policies facing fierce pushback—and from where? What makes us say two-motor hybrid systems are superior to those that use only a single motor? This is our look back at the Week In Reverse—right here at Green Car Reports—for the week ending on Friday, June 30, 2017. Friday, we noted that we've driven a lot of plug-in hybrids lately, which has led us to conclude that two-motor hybrid systems are simply better than those using only a single motor. Meanwhile, the influential Insurance Institute for Highway Safety...

  • 2017 Kia Optima Plug-In Hybrid
    Electric-car lessons, better hybrids, Tesla crash data, rigging renewable energy: Today's Car News

    Today, we've got a video on some sleazy politics, information on Tesla insurance claims, an opinion on which kinds of hybrids are best, and some lessons learned on electric cars. All this and more on Green Car Reports. The influential Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says Tesla Model S cars...

  • Photovoltaic solar power field at Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee
    Montana solar-power law rigging caught on live video, regrettably

    The U.S. is coming up to its Independence Day holiday, in which we celebrate the Declaration of Independence from England and reflect on our history and traditions as a nation. This is an interesting time to do that, and there's a cynical argument to be made that backroom politics is as American as...

  • 2017 Toyota Prius Prime Premium
    Why two-motor hybrid systems are better than those with just one

    Six years ago, we wrote that a number of single-motor hybrid systems were about to enter the market. They represented a new approach to a technology pioneered in 1997, when the first-generation Toyota Prius was launched in Japan. Through 2010, all the full-hybrid vehicles introduced by Ford and...

  • 2017 Chevrolet Bolt EV
    To honor Energy Week, lease an electric car: 10 lessons from new EV driver

    The White House has declared this week the inaugural "Energy Week," and what better way to mark the occasion than by driving electric cars? Cars that plug in to use grid energy for travel are a great catalyst for reducing energy consumption and reducing our use of fossil fuels. Now one reporter who...

  • 2017 Tesla Model S
    IIHS says Tesla electric cars have higher miles, more costly repairs

    The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the Highway Loss Data Institute has once again confirmed the Tesla Model S electric car is an outlier. While the Model S gets high ratings for its crash safety, it also seems to incur higher insurance losses than competing conventional cars. Higher...

  • 2018 Buick Regal TourX

    Today, reports say BMW will reveal its Tesla Model 3-fighter this fall, PG&E concludes electric cars can be kinder to the grid, ChargePoint raises more money, and the 2018 Honda Fit gets Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. All this and more on Green Car Reports. It's been a busy week for ChargePoint, which is not only taking over management of GE's electric-car charging network but also closed a $125 million funding round, with Daimler leading and Siemens participating. More news on the fuel-efficient 2018 Honda Fit, whose updates we now learn will include offering Android Auto and Apple...

  • BMW i3 electric car charging in 'EV Charging Only' space, Santa Clarita, CA  [photo: Steve J. Myung]
    Utility V2G test with BMW shows electric cars can aid the grid

    As the demand for electric cars grows, utility companies are considering their effect on local power grids—both positive and negative. Recently, California's PG&E and BMW wrapped up a pilot program testing experimental vehicle-to-grid technology to see if electric cars could actually aid...

  • 2019 BMW 3-Series, portion of spy shot from Motor Authority  [Image via S. Balfauf/SB-Medien]
    Fall debut for electric BMW 3-Series to fight Tesla Model 3: report

    In August 2016, when the first U.S. ads for the BMW 330e plug-in hybrid sport sedan hit the airwaves, they carried an interesting promise. "You will wait, and wait, and wait some more," the voiceover intoned, "all before that electric-car company's new model ever even arrives." That would be the...

  • 2017 Renault Kangoo ZE           [photo: Yannick Brossard for Renault]
    Renault Kangoo ZE small electric van now on sale with longer range

    French automaker Renault has given its small light commercial electric vehicle a handful of upgrades, including a significantly longer battery range. The Renault Kangoo ZE is now officially on sale with a longer rated range, a more powerful charging system, and a heat pump to keep the little van...

  • 2018 Honda Fit
    2018 Honda Fit: new safety features, style, Sport model, smartphone connectivity added (update)

    Honda's smallest of vehicles—the Fit hatchback—has received several updates for the new model year, its fourth for the current-generation version. The 2018 Honda Fit now has incremental styling modifications, additional safety features, a new optional audio system with Android Auto and...

  • 2014 BMW i3 REx fast-charging at Chargepoint site, June 2016  [photo: Tom Moloughney]
    ChargePoint gets $125 million funding, will manage GE's electric-car charging network (update)

    It's been a big week for the ChargePoint electric-car charging network. On June 27, it announced it would take over management and operation of General Electric's charging network of 1,800 commercial and roughly 8,000 residential charging sites, made up of its DuraStations and WattStations. Then...

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