Green Car News

Car buyers are notoriously fond of focusing only on the purchase price of new vehicles, without much thinking about the total cost of ownership. For electric cars that may cost twice or more what a similar-size gasoline vehicle does, that's a problem. Still, two separate pieces of evidence begin to...

Politics is never pretty, and the politics of alternative fuels seem even less so. Today, The Detroit News reports that the U.S. military's program to reduce its reliance on oil by using ethanol and other non-petroleum fuels could be de-funded in the military authorization bill that's now working...

Nissan announced yesterday that it would start building its e-NV 200 electric van in Spain next year The small van will be Nissan's second electric vehicle globally. It follows the Leaf compact electric hatchback, which went on sale in December 2010 as a 2011 model. First shown at this year's...

This story is now a couple of weeks old, but we haven't hurried to publish it. The gist is that the unique Aptera three-wheeled electric car is supposedly going to be reborn, and will return to the U.S. market sometime next year. A new company, Aptera USA, purchased the assets of the old Aptera...

Small cars are fun to drive--or at least they should be. But there may be a law of diminishing returns in adapting the very smallest cars from Asia and Europe to the U.S. market. We don't much like the driving experience in the Smart ForTwo, so we had high hopes for the 2012 Scion iQ minicar--the...

With Toyota celebrating the sale of its four-millionth hybrid, and Ford poised to launch another hybrid car in the U.S., it’s easy to forget that other automakers also make hybrid cars. Take the 2012 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid for example. Although Hyundai has only offered a hybrid version of its...

Always read the fine print. That's a lesson every car buyer should take to heart. Especially since Nissan, Chevrolet, Tesla, and Mitsubishi all now engage in a pricing practice of which they should be ashamed. It's so-called "net pricing" of their electric cars, in which the price appearing in...

There are plenty of advantages to diesel engines: High fuel efficiency, low CO2 emissions, and in modern turbocharged applications, plenty of easy-to-access torque and power. However, they aren't without their faults--expense, particulate emissions and a lack of smoothness compared to the best...

Ever since Daimler invested $50 million for 9 percent of Tesla back in May 2009, the two companies have had a close working relationship on electric car technology. Since that investment, Tesla has provided Smart and Mercedes-Benz with drivetrains for various electric cars, including...

Visiting family this Memorial Day weekend? If so, you're probably driving, as it's still the most convenient way for many people to cover most distances. With millions of people simultaneously hitting the road though, that's a whole lot of fuel being used. That's why we've compiled a list of ten...

Every year, some car models pass from our midst, often dying quietly and unnoticed. Here's our list of the green cars that are no longer with us. There were, of course, more cars than just this handful of the greenest models that died in 2012; here's a more complete list. Chevrolet Aveo While the...

Historically, when gas prices are relatively stable, fuel efficiency doesn't rank very high on car buyers' lists of priorities. But that seems to have changed recently. A new survey by the Consumer Reports National Research Center found that fuel economy was the leading consideration of 37 percent...

Since about 1930, U.S. vehicles have largely been fueled on gasoline. Diesel passenger vehicles arrived in the 1960s, and there are now about 120,000 locations in the U.S. that offer one or both fuels. Since then, several alternative fuels have been proposed but largely failed to get a...

Believe it or not, Toyota has now sold more than 4 million hybrid cars worldwide since it launched the original Toyota Prius hybrid in Japan in 1997. According to Toyota, the milestone was passed in late April, when the 2012 Toyota Prius C had only been on sale five or six weeks. But while it --...

It’s official: in one month, Tesla will deliver its first 2012 Model S electric sedan to customers in the U.S., webcasting the whole ceremony live on the Internet. A few weeks ahead of schedule, Tesla’s engineering team have been working hard to ensure that production is up to speed at...

When Toyota first announced that it was going to resurrect its iconic RAV4 EV after an absence of nearly ten years, electric car fans rejoiced. After all, the original 1997-2003 RAV4 EVs are so reliable and so beloved that they still command a high price at auction. When the production version of...

We've already brought you news of Mitsubishi's two challengers for this year's Pikes Peak hillclimb, but now the Japanese firm has revealed its purpose-built prototype, set to take to the stage on July 8. While a largely stock Mitsubishi i will be driven up the hill by Beccy Gordon, racing-driver...

We spend a fair amount of time here defending Toyota Prius drivers, who seem to have a bad reputation for slow and inept driving. We point out that gentle acceleration gets you there almost as quick and saves you money, despite the angry SUV driver 18 inches off the rear bumper. But then something...

Here are two subjects we never thought would go together: zombies, and plug-in cars. But the winning entry in the 2012 MOFILM Barcelona Chevrolet Volt Video Contest by director Josh Soskin does just that, and now it's being aired by Chevrolet Europe to help drum up interest for its plug-in hybrid...

You may have just read our take on the Volkswagen Up, an excellent minicar that unfortunately won't be coming to U.S. shores. What you may not have realized is that it has two siblings, sold under different branches of the Volkswagen-Audi (VAG) empire, SEAT and Skoda, known as the Mii and Citigo...