Green Car News

The rate at which we use fuel even on an individual basis can be pretty surprising. If you do just 10,000 miles per year at 30 mpg, you'll use 333.3 gallons in a year. That's around 2,800 pounds, or the weight of a small compact car--the sort of car that'd do around 30 mpg in the first place. On a...

It’s not every day Chevrolet executives talk about launching at car that competes directly with … a Volkswagen. The new 2014 Chevy Cruze Diesel, however, aims directly at the only affordable compact four-door sedan with a diesel engine sold in the U.S. until now: the Volkswagen Jetta...

Better Place, the electric-car service that pioneered battery swapping for passenger cars, filed for bankruptcy yesterday in Israel. A statement on the Better Place website said it had applied to a court for an orderly dissolution of the company to protect "the rights of its employees, customers...

The new 2014 Chevrolet Impala is a big five-passenger family sedan, the largest one Chevy sells. While it was launched earlier this year with a 303-horsepower 3.6-liter V-6 engine, it can now also be ordered with a 196-hp, 2.5-liter four-cylinder Ecotec engine that produces 186 lb-ft of torque...

The long-promised announcement from Tesla Motors on expansion of its Supercharger network has been delayed by the company's billion-dollar fundraising, and this week's payoff of its entire Department of Energy loan. But Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] still plans a rapid expansion of the network of...

The Nissan Leaf is no stranger to videogames. Last year, we had a little race between a Leaf and the Toyota Prius--albeit in the realistic but completely virtual world of Gran Turismo 5. But what you can't do in Gran Turismo is virtually charge your virtual Leaf with virtual solar panels--something...

Many things can signify summer--the weather finally being warm enough to ditch those outer layers of clothing; TV ads taking a distinctly more cheery tone; maybe simply hunting around for your sunshades for the first time in six months. It's now possible to have fun in the sun and get good gas...

Hydrogen is often lauded as a fuel of the future--a way to offer the combined benefits of electric vehicles and combustion cars in one, simple package. The reality is a little more complicated, as you might imagine. But one of hydrogen's long-standing issues, the cleanliness of its production...

The 2014 Chevrolet Cruze Diesel went on sale this week at a handful of top Chevy dealers, and company executives said two of its first three buyers were new to diesel cars. The new diesel Cruze, fitted with a 151-horsepower 2.0-liter turbodiesel four-cylinder engine built in Germany, is GM's first...

It might not be going on sale to U.S. consumers, but the BYD e6 will eventually appear in the U.S. in commercial fleets--perhaps to a taxi stand near you. Taxi duties seem to be the e6's true calling, and it's already operating in China in just such a role. Now it's going on duty in Hong Kong too...

Yesterday we reported that two companies, VL Automotive and China's Wanxiang Group, had put in a bid for struggling automaker Fisker Automotive. It's now become clear just how little the ailing plug-in carmaker is worth to investors and buyers, with Reuters revealing the VL and Wanxiang bid...

You learn something new every day: Cholesterol, a little like bacteria, comes in body "good" and "bad" forms. All those low-cholesterol spread adverts have been lying to us! What's more worrying is that good cholesterol can change into bad cholesterol, and it could be car exhaust fumes that make it...

Ah, politics. Yesterday, Tesla paid off the balance of its U.S. government loan, using proceeds from its $1 billion-plus offering of stock and warrants last week, as CEO Elon Musk had said Monday it would in a tweet. The amount settled yesterday was $451.8 million, following installments paid by...

It's official: Cars really are getting more efficient. Not that there isn't a long way still to go, but virtually every month statistics emerge to suggest the average fuel efficiency of vehicles in the U.S. has gone up another few fractions of a percent. There are still winners and losers though...

One of the biggest hurdles for the proliferation of electric cars has been their high relative cost. While that is to be expected with any new technology, electric cars have received a lot of flak for being just too pricey for the market. That’s starting to change, however, especially now...

We've been thinking a lot about natural-gas fueled vehicles, for reasons that will become clear in due course. Writing about green cars can occasionally be awkward, because there are different audiences for diesels versus hybrids, for plug-in electric cars, and for other types of alternative fuels...

The U.S. is sitting on top of a fuel goldmine, it seems. Not shale gas or crude oil, but fresh water and suitable land to produce 25 billion gallons of algae-based biofuel--a month's worth of the country's fuel needs each year. The discovery comes from the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific...

Lexus has announced a coupe version of its compact luxury sedan, the IS, will go on sale in 2014. The company hasn't confirmed whether a hybrid version will be made, though with the latest IS inspired by last year's LF-CC concept, itself a hybrid, such a thing is likely. The coupe is expected to...

Two companies that make apps to let electric-car drivers locate nearby charging stations will merge, they announced today. Recargo and Xatori will combine their communities and unify their apps, creating a single directory of more than 20,000 charging points across the country. Recargo currently...

Previously unknown brand VL Automotive surprised Detroit Auto Show goers earlier this year by unveiling the Destino--a V-8-powered luxury sedan based heavily on the Fisker Karma. Now, with Fisker Automotive circling the abyss, Bob Lutz-backed VL is reported to have bid for the ailing luxury...