Green Car News
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If you’ve been following the story of what happened when popular British entertainment show Top Gear took a 2011 Nissan Leaf and 2011 Peugeot iOn (nee Mitsubishi i) for a drive to the rural eastern U.K. city of Lincoln, you’ll know that Nissan wasn’t exactly happy with the way its all-electric hatchback was portrayed. But while Top Gear may have struggled to find somewhere recharge their purposely drained electric cars in a city known for not having any electric car recharging stations, staging those infamous shots at the local university campus, Nissan has stepped in to...
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Next Fisker Model: Wagon-Crossover At Frankfurt This Fall? (Video)Fisker Automotive still hasn't seen fit to let more than a small handful of journalists drive its extended-range electric 2012 Fisker Karma luxury sports sedan, and not yet on public roads. But founder Henrik Fisker continues to wax eloquent about the company's future plans. At the launch of the...
John Voelcker -
2012 Ford Focus Gives Letterman a Late Show Test-DriveYou’re the CEO of a global automaker who has just been invited to appear as a guest on the internationally renowned Late Show With David Letterman to talk about your new electric car. But rather than just talk about it, why not bring the car along too? And then let the show’s host drive...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Chevy Confirms Smallest-Ever Spark Minicar For U.S. In 2012The 2012 Chevrolet Sonic subcompact just going into production this month is the smallest car sold by Chevrolet in the U.S., but the bowtie brand isn't finished downsizing yet. Today, General Motors confirmed that the Chevrolet Spark minicar will be sold in the U.S. GM's executive director of North...
John Voelcker -
2012 Buick Regal With eAssist Mild Hybrid Priced At $29,530Buick announced today that it would offer the eAssist mild-hybrid technology on its mid-size 2012 Regal sedan as a $2,000 option over the base 2.4-liter model. That brings the price of the 2012 Buick Regal with eAssist to $29,530, including a mandatory $860 destination charge. The EPA rates the...
John Voelcker -
2012 Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid: Five Things We HateIn the past year, we’ve put the 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid through an extensive set of test-drives, resulting in our first drive report, winter test-drive, financial analysis and even a family vacation. With so many miles behind the wheel, our editorial team has already shared our five...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
The 2012 Mazda3 will be the first of Mazda's U.S. models to benefit from the automaker's SkyActiv initiative, which aims to improve fuel efficiency, reduce emissions, and make Mazda products even more competitive.
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China Builds And Tests Its Own Robot CarThe select global fleet of self-driving cars has a new Chinese addition, and the developers claim the intellectual property behind it was created entirely at a Chinese university. After gaining early publicity five years ago, the robot-driven vehicle made the trip between the interior Chinese...
Talking Points Memo -
New Study Links Diesel Particulates And Heart DiseaseResearchers at the University of Edinburgh have found that nanoparticles present in unfiltered diesel exhaust can lead to blood clots, heart attacks and strokes.
Kurt Ernst -
2012 Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid: Five Things We LikeWe’ve now had four chances to put the 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid through its paces, covering everything from fast-moving freeways and inner city streets through to mountain passes and trips to the local Costco. In the end we concluded that for some drivers, Toyota’s 13...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Honda CR-Z Mugen RR Concept Shows Hybrids Can Be SportyA lighter carbon fiber infused body and a possible supercharged hybrid drivetrain would enable stunning performance from the Honda CR-Z Mugen RR concept.
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
Nissan: “Leaf’s Battery Pack Should Last As Long As The Car”Nissan’s all-electric Leaf isn’t having a great time of it this week in the mainstream media. Firstly, Nissan had to defend itself against popular British motoring entertainment program Top Gear after it showed the electric hatchback in a less-than favorable light, quoting a battery...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Diversity among electric cars is rapidly expanding, from the all-electric Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi 'i' to the upcoming Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid, which provides just 9 to 13 miles of electric range. Now, it turns out, the 2014 BMW i3--the all-electric urban four-door subcompact that BMW showed last week in concept form--will offer the option of a gasoline range extender. The i3 will run entirely on electricity from a 21- to 22-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack in the floor. The battery pack powers a 125-kilowatt (170-horsepower) motor driving the rear wheels. Photo Gallery: BMW i3...
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Say Hello To Electric Car Battery Swaps, Chinese StyleWe all know that one of the biggest challenges facing electric cars is the fact that recharging a battery pack is orders of magnitude slower than filling a gasoline car’s fuel tank. As battery packs have become more advanced, we’ve seen an increased use of rapid charging technologies...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
2014 BMW i3 Moves Us Closer To Autonomous Driving In CitiesDriving is often a pain, particularly in dense, congested urban cores. Start and stop, brake suddenly, stay carefully in your lane, drive defensively, then park in tight spaces. What if the car could do all that for you? Last week, BMW showed off its new BMW i3 Concept, which points the way toward...
John Voelcker -
Electric Car Sales: Leaf Trounces Volt, But Don't Take It SeriouslyIt was a slow month for electric-car sales, with just over 1,000 Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt vehicles together delivered during July. Nissan delivered 931 Leaf battery-electric cars, a decline from June's 1,708, and Chevrolet--which is suffering from a now-ended four-week summer shutdown for...
John Voelcker -
Tesla Releases Trio Test-Track Fun Model S Teaser VideoIf Tesla’s Model S all-electric seven-seat sedan were in high school, it would be the kind of girl every heterosexual boy would lust after and every teenage girl would want to be. At least, that’s certainly the line being taken by Tesla in its latest teasing track-test video, in which...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Top Gear On Electric Cars: “We Are Allowed To Put Into A Film What We Want To”Uh-ho. Those crafty chaps known as the BBC Top Gear team may have thought they got away with their recent review of the 2011 Nissan Leaf and 2011 Peugeot iOn (a rebadged predecessor to the 2012 Mitsubishi i) - but they would be wrong. The fur started flying yesterday, when Nissan Senior Vice...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Mazda has unveiled a brand new compact crossover that’s destined to go on sale early next year and could prove to be the most fuel efficient model in its class. We’re talking about the new 2012 Mazda CX-5, which will serve as the replacement for the current Mazda Tribute and make its official world debut next month at the 2011 Frankfurt Auto Show. The key to the future Mazda’s fuel efficiency prowess will be its SKYACTIV range of fuel saving technologies. SKYACTIV is a group of green technologies Mazda plans to launch and encompasses everything from downsized gasoline and...
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2012 Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid: Everything to Everyone?The iconic Toyota Prius was the car which started the hybrid revolution. Offering fuel economy that very few other gasoline cars could hope to achieve, it has been loved by politicians, movie stars and wannabe greenies for over ten years. Although Toyota improved its hybrid drivetrain for the...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
2012 Audi A6 To Offer High-MPG Hybrid, Clean-Diesel ModelsDespite lack of an official confirmation from Audi of America, we'd bet significant money on the arrival of the Audi A6 Hybrid in the U.S. market. Why? Because the U.S. has the highest hybrid penetration of any market in the world except Japan, and "hybrid" means "high gas mileage" to a large...
John Voelcker -
Nissan North America Releases Android App for Leaf Electric CarEver since the launch of the 2011 Nissan Leaf, owners have been able to remotely access information about their car’s state of charge, estimated range and even pre-heat or cool the cabin using Nissan’s built-in telematics service - Carwings. But unless you happened to own an iPhone in...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
2012 Ford Edge With 2.0-Liter Ecoboost Four Gets 30 MPG Highway RatingIt's taken a very long time to get here, but the 2012 Ford Edge fitted with the Ecoboost 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine may be worth the wait. The website FordInsideNews reports that the Ecoboosted Edge will receive EPA gas-mileage ratings of 21 mpg city and 30 mpg highway, for a combined rating...
John Voelcker -
Top Gear Tests Nissan Leaf, Peugeot iOn: A Fair Assessment?It's the episode electric car enthusiasts have been itching to see- and now the guys at BBC motoring show Top Gear have tested two electric cars to see whether they make any sense for the car buying public. Now we already know that Top Gear hasn't had the greatest history with electric cars. First...
Antony Ingram