Green Car News

The price of gasoline will creep up faster than expected, the U.S. Department of Energy's latest figures show. Its monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook had previously put regular-grade gasoline at an average of $3.44 per gallon, but it's now expected to reach 11 cents higher. That's still lower than...

How long do you think Mitsubishi has been working on electric vehicles? Since a few years before the i-MiEV electric car hit Japanese roads, perhaps? Nope--1966. It surprised us too, but illustrates that the company actually has considerable experience in developing electric powertrains, even if a...

The quest toward better gas mileage and incremental gains isn't relegated just to engine and transmission improvements, or to aerodynamics or weight reduction. Even when we're not talking hybrids, the move to smart electric components can bring some significant gains. Beyond electric power...

Honda has confirmed the five East Coast locations in which its 2013 Honda Fit EV will be leased, joining the West Coast markets of California and Oregon. The electric Fit will be available at selected locations in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, New York, and New Jersey later this month. The...

Some electric cars aren't as good as we hoped--Coda Sedan, cough--while others are better than we expected. That latter group includes the 2013 Honda Fit EV and, now, according to Consumer Reports, the 2014 Fiat 500e. The battery electric conversion of Fiat's perky little 500 hatchback is powerful...

Chevy's Cruze Diesel is getting all the headlines, but there's another U.S.-built diesel due out this year--the 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee EcoDiesel. The V-6, 240-horsepower EcoDiesel is expected to achieve 28 mpg highway, and a combined figure in the mid-20s. For its type, that's not bad at all. It...

Winter testing is a vital part of developing a new car. Just as cars are expected to perform in the hottest conditions and face testing in arid places like Death Valley, cold-weather capability means owners in colder climates won't face any shocks either. That's particularly relevant for...

To the average U.S. car buyer, the Volkswagen Up minicar will seem pretty basic. Deliberately designed to compete at the bottom of the European market, it always feels like a quality product--but always like a minimalist one too, with few of the bells and whistles found on most cars--unless you pay...

California is a largely temperate state with a longstanding history of working to curb vehicle emissions. That makes it a perfect place for plug-in electric cars. The Northeastern states, on the other hand, are in the Snow Belt, meaning electric cars can lose as much as one third of their battery...

When a weather system dumps an uncommon amount of snow in your part of the world, thoughts often turn to how you might get about in it. Provided you've not got a seven-foot drift blocking you indoors, those plans might involve an all-wheel drive car. 4WD is no substitute for careful driving and a...

Last week's Chicago Auto Show had relatively few debuts; the Chevrolet Cruze diesel and a redesigned Toyota Tundra pickup truck were the most noteworthy. But the featured speaker at a luncheon thrown by the Economic Club of Chicago drew a full room: Henrik Fisker, cofounder of struggling startup...

The Nissan Leaf Nismo RC race car may have only turned a wheel in anger once outside of demo runs, but that doesn't make it any less exciting. At a glance, you might think it shares very little with the electric car that shares its name. You may even expect there to be a gasoline engine screaming...

In case you haven't heard: car sharing is big business. Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of car-sharing companies. Zipcar -- America's pioneer in the sector -- represents one type, which is similar to a traditional rental car business, except it operates on a membership model. Renters pay...

It's one of the most valued perks for plug-in electric car buyers in California: the coveted green or white sticker that lets them travel in the carpool lane with just a single person in the car. But under current law, those stickers expire on January 1, 2015--just as the yellow stickers for...

Three years after the Chevrolet Cruze compact sedan was launched as a 2011 model, it gains a new model with a diesel engine for 2014--although there appears to be some confusion over just what that variant is called. The turbodiesel sedan was launched at the Chicago Auto Show last Thursday. Absent...

Traditionally, car windows have been made from laminated glass. It's strong, shatter-resistant, and... err... transparent. Obviously. But it's also rather heavy, and as increasingly weight-conscious car manufacturers are looking for ways to shed weight, glass could now be on the diet list. Its...

Solar power and electric cars go hand-in-hand, and many owners equip their homes with solar panels to ensure the electricity they're charging with is as green as possible. That isn't always the case when charging away from home, but it would be if your local parking spot had a 'V-Tent' system. The...

Remember the world's first all-electric monster truck? If you're at the AutoRama Car Show in Kansas City, Missouri this weekend, you'll be able to see it in action. We're told it'll be "participating in two car-crush demonstrations per day", which sounds like a polite way of saying it'll be causing...

The Detroit Auto Show last month marked the debut of the a car with the lowest coefficient of drag of any production car--just 0.23. That car was the Mercedes-Benz CLA, a small sport sedan powered by a gasoline engine. Efficiency figures haven't yet been released, but we can imagine it being quite...

The right car can inspire people. Whether it's the poetic beauty of an Italian sports car or the noise of the race track, that inspiration takes many forms. For some, the all-electric Tesla Model S is their inspiration. The sleek electric sedan has certainly attracted attention far beyond that of...