Green Car News

Ethanol continues to be a political football, with the alcohol fuel coming under fire from the auto industry, environmental pressure groups, and others. The latest to line up against the corn-based fuel is a coalition of industrialized livestock and poultry producers that might collectively be...

Honda delivered its first coporately-leased all-electric Fit EV back in December 2010 to the city of Torrence, California, one month after announcing it at the 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show. Since then, Honda has continued deliveries of its Fit EV to fleet customers, but at the start of last week...

The 2013 Audi Q5 Hybrid crossover has had a long gestation, but reports say it will finally reach the U.S. market this fall. On sale in Europe for a year now, the hybrid Q5 was originally launched at the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show. Technical details had emerged even before that. Now a report in...

A few months after going on sale, the 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-in hybrid has been given an official crash-test rating by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Unlike the 5-star rated, five-door Prius liftback it is based on however, the 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid only...

Across Tesla’s ten new-design, retail-oriented stores (out of 14 total stores), there will have been over a million visitors so far in 2012.

Volkswagen is often credited with inventing the "hot hatchback", when the original Golf GTI emerged in the mid-1970s. The company could also lay reasonable claim to inventing the first diesel hot hatchback, as powerful TDI models of the car have been sold in Europe for well over a decade. Now, U.S...

Electric-car drivers in the U.S. are now asking, What is a fair price value for use of public Level 2 charging stations? In the U.S. and Europe, multiple networks of charging-spot providers have proliferated. Some are or were free, others offer a variety of payment terms, authentication systems...

It's only a few more months before Ford's first plug-in hybrid car hits the market, in the shape of the 2013 Ford C-Max Energi. The C-Max Energi is just part of a five-pronged attack on the hybrid and plug-in market this year, joining the 2012 Ford Focus Electric, and flanked by the regular C-Max...

Electric cars are getting a lot of press these days. But much of it omits the experience and viewpoints of the people closest to plug-in electric cars: the owners who paid actual money for them and drive them every day. Now, a group representing electric utilities is surveying plug-in buyers to...

Diesel engines make a lot of sense in SUVs, mitigating the gas-guzzling effects of big, heavy bodies, poor aerodynamics and large engines. The Audi Q7 TDI is a good example of this, and Audi has made further improvements for the 2013 model year car, touting 12 percent better efficiency. Audi is...

Hybrids are great. Economical, clean, soothing, relaxing, quiet, thrilling... Okay, perhaps not the last one, as thrills are conspicuously absent from many hybrids on the market today. However, some carmakers are changing that image with powerful and luxurious models--and Lexus is one of those...

Although electric cars are very energy efficient, electric car battery packs can’t store as much energy as a tank full of gasoline, resulting in much shorter driving range between fill-ups than a gas car. At present, engineers around the world are working on the problem, developing everything...

Normally, a manufacturer announcing that it will drop a four cylinder model in favor of a six-cylinder variant would lead to wailing and gnashing of teeth, to those of a green disposition. With the 2013 Toyota Sienna minivan however, it's no big deal losing the unpopular 2.7-liter four-cylinder, as...

After an hour in a 2012 Tesla Model S all-electric sport sedan, one thing became clear: It's a viable car. The Model S gives Tesla Motors a shot at turning into a real car company. That's a provisional judgment; as many journalists have noted, 10-minute drives or an hour driving and riding in...

Just one month after deliveries of the 2013 Ford Escape started, Ford has made a formal recall of all Ford Escapes fitted with its 1.6-liter EcoBoost engine. The recall is to replace an engine compartment fuel line, which is at risk of splitting and leaking fuel in the engine bay, potentially...

You only need to take a look at the current MINI range--with its hatchbacks, convertibles, coupes, roadsters, crossovers and more--to see that it's quite a challenge designing a range of cars based on a small, 1959 minicar. It's sure to make the job of updating the MINI quite a challenge--and one...

Thanks to the spiraling costs associated with building cars in Japan and shipping them to the U.S., Honda has announced that the 2013 Civic Hybrid will be made in the U.S. Currently made in Japan and shipped to customers in North America, the U.S. version of the four-door compact hybrid sedan will...

One of the reasons people make the switch from a gasoline car to an electric car is to benefit from the reduced running costs. With some careful planning -- and special time of use tariffs that make night-time electricity cheaper -- charging an electric car can be pretty cheap. But what if you...

One way to drive greener is to use fewer cars more efficiently. The average car sits stationary for 23 hours a day; surely if it were used more, we would need fewer cars overall? That's the idea behind Relay Rides, a startup company that connects private parties who want to rent out their cars for...

dealerships are showing 2012 Nissan Leaf SL models at fully $5000 off MSRP