Green Car News

Yes, the green paintwork was a deliberate choice. Not that the Mitsubishi Mirage, widely expected to be unveiled at the New York Auto Show next week, isn't available in any other colors. But we couldn't pass down an opportunity to drive one which matches with the site's green focus. The new Mirage...

Say "carpool lane" or "HOV Access" or "white sticker" or "green sticker," and most California commuters will begin to drool uncontrollably. The ability to drive in relatively uncrowded High-Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes with just a single person in the vehicle is a privilege that Californians will...

The first internal pacemakers were developed in the 1950s. Heart patients were naturally skeptical: How does it run? Will the battery die? Can I be electrocuted? Just two decades later, the devices had become commonplace. The Six-Million Dollar Man went prime time, and humanity was making its first...

Every month we report on sales of plug-in electric cars, which tripled last year over the total in 2011. As virtually every analyst and commentator has pointed out, electric cars have done better in their early years than hybrids did in theirs. So how is it that Car and Driver, the well-known...

Leave it to the Germans to be blunt. Volkswagen Group CEO Martin Winterkorn has rendered his company's verdict on the future of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles: They're not viable. Fuel-cell cars suffer from a lack of infrastructure, he said, will be far too costly for consumers, and use a fuel that...

Kia has retained its talent for styling and nose for value with its 2014 Kia Forte Sedan, but the same can't be said of the new car's fuel efficiency. The company has released pricing details for the new sedan, which slots in as the lowest-priced car in the segment, starting at $15,900--excluding a...

Accessories are a huge part of the auto business, and for every car, somewhere there's a business (or a few dozen) offering aftermarket items the manufacturer hasn't, can't, or won't provide. And so it turns out to be for the Tesla Model S, the all-electric sport sedan from Silicon Valley startup...

Most electric car owners charge their vehicles at home--it's one of the real perks of owning a plug-in. Some drivers may also charge at work, for most owners the second-longest stop their vehicles are likely to make. It's particularly important if your car is running low on range, or if you want to...

Media days at the New York International Auto Show start a week from today, and there's a big slate of green cars coming this year. This year's show will offer everything from vehicles heading into production that you'll find in showrooms in a few months to concepts that have little chance of being...

it might not have been the number people were hoping for, but at 75 miles, an extra two miles of EPA range for the 2013 Nissan Leaf still represents an improvement. Even more so considering the EPA's electric car testing procedure for 2013 averages results from 100 percent and 80 percent charges...

With almost 100,000 plug-in electric cars on U.S. roads now, congestion at charging stations is starting to crop up. And that has brought to light an issue of electric-car charging etiquette that may prove challenging: Should battery-electric cars get precedence over plug-in hybrids? The question...

Next week at the New York Auto Show, the 2014 Subaru XV Crosstrek Hybrid will be unveiled. It's the first-ever production hybrid vehicle from the small Japanese maker of sturdy all-wheel drive cars and crossovers. Subaru announced the debut of the 2014 XV Crosstrek Hybrid in a press release this...

People take air safety pretty seriously, so when smoke filled the cabin of a new Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft a few months back, the entire fleet was quickly grounded. It turned out to be an issue with the aircraft's lithium-ion batteries, used to power some secondary functions reducing load on...

A few weeks back, we looked at the numbers showing diesel sales in the U.S. increasing, just as hybrids are becoming more popular in Europe. That's a shift from current preferences, which sees more than half of European car sales fitted with diesel engines, but more hybrids sold in the U.S. than...

For fans of fuel efficiency, the New York Times has good news and bad news. The good news is: drivers in the U.S. are using less gas these days. The bad news is: that's driving up the cost of gas. To anyone who's taken Econ 101, that probably seems counter-intuitive -- mostly because it is. To...

It's both exciting and frustrating living in the current automotive age. Exciting, because we're truly seeing an eclectic mix of powertrain technologies being developed, the fruits of which we're increasingly able to drive. And frustrating, because there's still no surefire way of knowing what...

Eight days from now, the 2014 Jeep Cherokee 4x4 crossover will be unveiled to the world at the New York Auto Show's media preview days. Jeep released the first photos and details of the 2014 Cherokee three weeks ago, and now it's served up a video to whet our appetites further. The video is meant...

Americans and Canadians alike returned to work this week after a festive St. Patrick's Day. For sales of plug-in electric vehicles in Canada, the (idiomatic, good) luck of the Irish arrived for one U.S. automaker. General Motors sold 51 Chevrolet Volts in Canada in February, up slightly from its...

As the Geneva Motor Show finally closes its doors to the public, many will go home lusting after the LaFerrari or McLaren's P1 hypercars. For others though, the show's indisputed star was the production Volkswagen XL1--as thoroughly engineered to be economical as the others are to be fast. While VW...

Electric-car owners tend to be enthusiastic evangelists for the good points of driving on grid power. At least, the ones we hear from usually are. But there's another group of plug-in electric car owners who aren't quite as enthusiastic. In fact, up to one-third of electric-car buyers in Japan say...