Green Car News

It's not news that new, higher fuel-economy standards will raise the cost of future cars in real dollars. Now a new study, funded by the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA), suggests that those increases will prevent up to 7 million buyers from affording new cars in 2025. That's out of a...

Ask most non-electric car drivers why they haven’t even considered an electric car, and the reason they give will undoubtedly involve some form of range anxiety: the idea that an electric car will run out of juice before it reaches its destination. On the other hand, as those who own an...

"Ferrari hybrid" is right up there with "Porsche diesel" and "Bentley SUV" as far as oxymorons go. Even so, Porsche has been producing diesels for several years now, soon to hit the U.S, and Bentley showed an SUV concept at the 2012 Geneva Motor Show, so maybe it isn't that unusual after all...

In the world of software, open source is officially A Good Thing. It enables a far greater creative and technological base to tweak and change a piece of software than might be possible from within the company that created it. Many are keen on the concept of open source electric cars--that is...

The hills are alive with the sound of... well, very little, if this year's Pikes Peak hill climb will be anything to go by. Electric cars are no stranger to the hill, with Nissan entering a Leaf and Summit Motorsports setting a new electric car record in last year's event. Mitsubishi announced last...

If you ever studied business at school or college, one of the first things you probably learned is about profit and loss. In order to maximize your profits--and avoid making a loss--your aim is to maximize revenue while minimizing costs. Someone at Tesla Motors was paying attention in class, as its...

At the end of last week, Toyota quietly announced a service campaign to rectify a potential problem with the exhaust system on the 2012 Toyota Prius V. The voluntary service campaign will focus on weak actuators located within the exhaust heat recovery system on the 2012 Toyota Prius V which, under...

If you want a 2013 Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car, searching the web may not get you much. Chevy hasn't yet put details of next year's Volt model on its website, for instance. But it did release ordering details to its dealers, and the intrepid sleuths at GM Inside News uncovered them...

Sapphire Energy, a company that creates algae-based fuel, just announced a whopping $144 million in funding. In recent years several startups have emerged to create fuel out of plant material, all hoping to lure people away from gasoline made from crude oil. Solazyme, Algae.tec, and Sapphire Energy...

When Nissan first launched the 2011 Leaf, it introduced an online reservation system for would-be owners of the all-electric hatchback. Instead of relying on Nissan dealers to assess demand, Nissan opened up a dedicated reservation website, where those interested could pay $99 to be given a place...

How much would you pay for a tired 1997 Chevrolet S-10 pickup, especially one of unknown condition? A quick look at auction site eBay tells us that at best, even a tidy example of would be worth little more than $1000. What if that truck happened to be powered by the same drivetrain that was found...

George Lippincott was the founder and president of Nic-L-Silver Battery Company, Santa Ana, California, which made a popular line of American car batteries in the 1950s. Inspired by fiberglass-bodied sports cars being developed in Southern California at the time, he considered building his own line...

Once a class full of lumbering--but extremely popular--dinosaurs, the large sedan is sometimes at risk of of going extinct among the SUVs, midsize hybrids and crossovers of this world. They still have a place in the market though. And like any other class, buyers now have not only more equipment...

After realising the potential of hybrids early on, Honda has been a little late to join the electric car party with its Fit EV. Better late than never, though--and now the carmaker has launched a 'readiness assessment' to determine the suitability of potential lessees. Just as with the MINI E, BMW...

Progress comes slowly to the world of commercial shipping, but it is coming. Three years ago, we noted that one giant cargo ship emits as much as 50 million cars. Now, shipping lines are starting to experiment with biofuels, which offer several advantages: They contain no sulfur or so-called...

A bill signed in Colorado will now allow lessees to claim any tax credits for hybrid cars and electric vehicles, rather than the lessor. Previously, the state had allowed banks or finance companies to choose whether claim the credits themselves on lease vehicles, or to pass the credits on to the...

This is a tough time for lithium-ion cell maker A123 Systems, but the company did get one little piece of good news yesterday. The U.S. Department of Energy has agreed to lengthen the time period over which A123 can use funds from a $249.1 million grant it received from the DoE in August 2009 to...

Have you noticed today’s date? Unless you’re of Italian or Spanish descent (those nations consider Tuesday the 13th and Thursday the 17th bad luck), you might consider today to be an inherently unlucky. But before you cross yourself, reach for the four-leaf clover, or hide under the...

Earlier this week, Ford announced it had signed a deal with troubled Internet content provider Yahoo to stream 10 episodes of an Internet reality show centered on its 2012 Ford Focus Electric. Called Plugged In, the show will send teams of contestants to various U.S. cities in Ford's battery...

Some cars take time to squeeze their way into your affections. Others are pretty much perfect the first time around, with appeal that endures for many years. The original Toyota RAV4 EV is just such a car, for electric car fans. Toyota's useful small SUV with an electric drivetrain has been the...