Green Car News

Electric cars aren't cut much slack in the mainstream media, and any issues are usually jumped upon before facts have time to surface. Recent high-profile battery failures have been seized with zeal whether automobile-related or not, but one product safety company is aiming to curtail that with...

Your mileage may vary--but these days, it appears, your mileage may vary more than it used to. According to a new report, the gap between rated fuel efficiency and the real-world gas mileage achieved by actual drivers is increasing. In 2001, it notes, the average difference between rated gas...

It's probably safe to say that many readers of this site would love to sit down for a chat with Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk. While he's known for tweeting about the company--and autographing owners' Model S cars at publicity events--Musk is a pretty busy guy. While he can be refreshingly blunt in...

We have good news and bad news for hybrid car owners. First the bad news: basic car repairs are more expensive than they used to be. According to a CarMD survey of repair costs across the U.S., problems associated with the "check engine" light cost $367.84 to repair in 2012. That's 10% higher than...

New Yorker? Own an electric bicycle? You're probably pretty angry right now, since the city has just banned the use of electric bikes on its streets. Which would be fine, had you not just bought one, still entirely legally, from a shop. It's okay though, we have a solution--turn it into a flying...

Remind us in future to avoid drive routes confined almost exclusively to Manhattan. While they're great for showing off hybrid cars--including the 2013 Lincoln MKZ Hybrid we briefly tested on Tuesday--they take years off your life. We had a chance to put about 10 miles on the new hybrid MKZ, the...

If you've ever seen a child zipping along on a bicycle at breakneck speed the concept of putting them behind the wheel of a car is truly terrifying. Toyota still wants to give it a go though, and following on from last year's Camatte concepts, Toyota has once again displayed a brace of electric...

A report analyzing the uptake of low-carbon fuels says that fossil-fuel alternatives are actually growing faster than expected. The report, produced by a coalition of investors, utilities, and makers of alternative fuels and vehicles, suggests alternative fuels are proving more popular than...

General Motors and BMW announced on Tuesday that they had jointly completed testing new quick-charging equipment for plug-in electric cars. The charging stations, cables, and plugs were built to the new Combined Charging Standard (CCS) specification adopted by the Society of Automotive Engineers...

Information is power, right? More precisely, based on an interview last week with Mike Tinskey, Ford’s Director of Global Vehicle Electrification and Infrastructure, information is both what buyers of the brand’s Energi plug-in hybrids want to feel empowered, and what they need to get...

We're often asked why more automakers don't sell diesel-electric hybrid vehicles. There are plenty of good reasons why, but that doesn't stop people wanting the twin-pronged benefits of highway and city economy. SUV buyers could get their wish if Land Rover brings diesel-electric hybrids to the...

No single automaker has yet sold 100,000 examples of an electric car. BMW is no different, and won't be for quite some time--as its full production electric vehicles, notably the i3 city car, are yet to hit the streets. But the German automaker has got that many people interested in its i3, at...

About a month ago, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed a bill that banned electric bikes from the city's streets. (Like all bikes, they're also banned from sidewalks--not that every rider seems to know that.) And as a Navigant Research blog post points out, e-bikes were already illegal...

It isn't easy to compare gasoline and electric vehicles. Sure, you can look at EPA stickers, sit in them and appreciate the way they drive, but comparing like-for-like on an economic basis is requires some thought. The U.S. Department of Energy has simplified the process with its new eGallon...

Ford's updated Fiesta SFE is offering even better fuel efficiency for the 2014 model year. The Fiesta uses a 1.6-liter gasoline engine, developing around 120 horsepower. It's a fun little car to drive, but the main focus here is economy. With EPA-rated mileage figures of 30 mpg city, 41 highway and...

Audi looks set to add another technology to its wide 'tron' roster--hydrogen power. As Autocar reports (via Motor Authority), the company is working on a fuel cell Audi A7, with trials due to begin at the end of August. Not a word was said about the model at Audi's recent future lab tron-experience...

A great many people were disappointed--though perhaps not surprised--when green automaker Aptera closed its doors in late 2011. Its project, the Aptera 2e, promised to be one of the most efficient vehicles on the road, but the company suffered the usual startup automaker pitfalls and disappeared...

Tesla's announcement last month of its new service program sounded almost too good to be true. If anything went wrong with my 2013 Tesla Model S, promised CEO Elon Musk, instead of schlepping to the nearest service center, I would simply await the arrival in my driveway of the Tesla service tech...

Volkswagen's 2013 Passat TDI is the most efficient diesel vehicle currently on sale. Its EPA-rated figures of 31 mpg city, 43 highway and 35 combined put it above a throng of other Volkswagen-Audi diesels, and make it a prime choice for frugal highway driving. But is 68 mpg within reach? If you're...

European buyers waiting for an electric Toyota may have quite some time to wait--until the electric grid cleans up, basically. That's the word from Toyota Europe, which says it wants to see cleaner electricity generation before it commits to electric vehicles. According to Responding to Climate...