Green Car News
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It's the news Jeep fans all across the country have be waiting years for. That one little tidbit execs at Jeep love to deny but no longer can--that the Jeep Grand Cherokee will be offered with an advanced VM Motori turbodiesel engine in the U.S. by 2013. The information was reportedly revealed straight from the mouth of Fiat-Chrysler boss Sergio Marchionne. The Jeep Grand Cherokee is no stranger to diesel power, though the last we saw it here in the U.S. was in 2008. Unlike the previous Daimler-sourced unit, the next diesel in the Jeep Grand Cherokee, as mentioned, will be built by...
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Is Your City Ready For Electric Vehicles?Ford has identified the 25 most electric vehicle (EV) ready cities in the U.S., based on the company’s latest research. The 25 cities are dotted all over the country from Hartford to Honolulu. A previous Pike research report highlighted 6 cities expected to be early EV adopters: New York, Los...
VentureBeat's GreenBeat -
Tesla V Top Gear: Top Gear’s Track Record With Electric CarsIt’s been two weeks since Californian electric automaker filed papers against the BBC’s Top Gear for libel in relation to a segment the popular entertainment show did on Tesla’s all-electric Roadster back in 2008. By now you’re probably familiar with the details of the case...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Europe's Ford Focus Econetic 67-MPG Diesel Better Than Hybrids?Oh, the pain. We hear about all those special European models with astoundingly high gas mileage ratings, and we wonder, why can't we have them here? The latest is the 2012 Ford Focus ECOnetic, which goes on sale in Europe later this year. During its debut yesterday at the Amsterdam Auto Show, Ford...
John Voelcker -
Chrysler To Join Honda In Selling Natural-Gas Cars...In 2017Ask anyone to name an alternate fuel, and natural gas is rarely the first one that comes to mind. Ethanol, perhaps, and increasingly electricity. But natural gas? Not so much. Yet in other parts of the world, as many as 2 percent of the vehicles on the road are fueled by natural gas, in countries...
John Voelcker -
Survey: Consumers Growing Greener -- And They'll Shell Out The Green To Prove ItWith gas prices barreling toward $4 per gallon, there's lots of talk on the evening news about consumers shopping for fuel-efficient cars. In fact, many theorists see $4 as the tipping point at which car buyers prioritize fuel economy above all other criteria. But a new survey indicates that people...
Richard Read -
Audi is currently working on a new generation of its A3, a preview of which we got at last month’s 2011 Geneva Motor Show in the form of the Audi A3 Sedan concept. Since then we’ve received these official sketches showing the design of the production version due early next year. While the sketches don’t vary too much from the design shown on the A3 Sedan concept, they do confirm that for the latest generation of the A3, both a sedan and conventional hatchback body will be offered. The big news, however, is that customers won’t just have two different bodystyles to pick...
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Miles-Per-Gallon Is Just Stupid. No, Really, It Is.Americans aren't stupid. We're just badly informed. And occasionally, stubborn. Why else would we ignorantly cling to using miles per gallon as the way to measure how efficiently a car uses fuel? But maybe you don't quite see the problem. OK, so here's a little test: Which saves more gasoline...
John Voelcker -
(Video)Range-Extended Electric Car Set to Tackle 2012 Dakar RallyGenerally accepted as one of the world’s toughest endurance races the 32-year-old Dakar rally is seen by many as the pinnacle of the automotive race calendar. The race, which has claimed the lives of more than 50 competitors and many local residents in its short history is traditionally...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
2011 Lexus CT 200h: Remixed Campaign Speaks to Younger SegmentWhen we previewed the 2011 Lexus CT 200h in the New Orleans French Quarter last year we were pretty impressed by the direction Lexus was going. The entire car was designed to go after a younger segment—a segment that was looking for luxury, but wasn’t quite ready for the matured image...
Jonathan McGrew -
2011 Scion tC Coupe Scores Five Stars In Overall Crash TestsWhen looking for a sports coupe how many people think about safety? Okay, so that is a rhetorical question, but the reality is that sports cars aren’t necessarily thought of as the pillar of automotive safety. Scion is looking to prove otherwise, like they proved to the automotive world on...
Jonathan McGrew -
Coda Automotive Needs Funding to Finish Delayed Electric SedanWhat does $50 million buy you? We can think of plenty of good things we could do, but according to Californian electric car firm Coda Automotive, $50 million is how much it needs to bring its four door all-electric sedan to market. According to The New York Times, Christopher Rose, the...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
We don’t hear “death of Detroit” stories as often now as we did a year ago. When GM and Chrysler plunged into bankruptcy and the entire U.S. industry laid off tens of thousands of workers in one year, the effects on an already battered Detroit region were dire. And they led to a rash of stories that Detroit was done with. Many predicted that the new, green auto industry of the future would be built around the electronics expertise of Silicon Valley. EV hub? A June 2010 piece in the San Jose Mercury News, "Silicon Valley becoming a hub of electric vehicles," argued that...
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First Private Electric Vehicle Charging Stations Open In TexasNRG Energy has opened its first eVgo direct-current electric vehicle charging station in Dallas, Texas, as part of a privately funded 70-station network in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, the company announced. The chargers are designed to be “fast-chargers,” which use a 480-volt direct...
VentureBeat's GreenBeat -
Myth Busting Electric Car Myths: Yes, You Can Use a Car WashWe’ve talked before about how all major electric cars on the market today have to undergo just as rigorous a water testing as their gasoline counterparts. But just like the many people who ask us on a weekly basis what happens when electric cars meet water perhaps there’s a voice...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Would Your Granny Buy A 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid? (Video)It's all about video these days. We do video here at GreenCarReports (discussing whether a 2011 Chevy Volt will save you money, for instance) and so do many other automotive sites. But we have to admit, we never thought about bringing grandmothers into the picture. Which is exactly what Kyle...
John Voelcker -
Ferrari Shows Biggest CO2 Cut Amongst Supercar Brands, But Is There More To The Numbers?Governments around the world are bowing to public pressure to reduce the levels of greenhouse gases their respective countries produce, and more often than not, the first sector they look at is the auto industry. Here in the U.S. the government has imposed a tough 34.1 mpg fleet-wide fuel economy...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
Daimler Adds Bosch To Electric Car Collaborative ProjectsYou’d be forgiven for thinking that German automaker Daimler was trying to build its own little electric car empire. Not only does it have active electric car projects running with Nissan-Renault, BYD and Tesla, but it has now announced intent to work on a project with the automotive arm of...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Sources close to Hyundai report that the Korean automaker is developing a turbocharged, high-performance version of their green-tinged Veloster coupe, to broaden their appeal to the enthusiast market while it also pitches a 40-mpg fuel-economy rating to buyers concerned with rising gas prices. Hyundai's been clear that the Veloster is aimed at young buyers, and intended to compete against cars like VW's Golf and Honda's CR-Z. The Veloster shown at this year's North American International Auto Show featured a 138-horsepower, 1.6-liter, gasoline direct injection engine that yielded an estimated...
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Consumer Reports: Usually Thoughtful, Not Always AccurateLast week, the Associated Press distributed a video report called "Are Electric Cars Worth the Price?" (It's embedded at the bottom of this article.) The video featured this author as an example of someone who owns both the 2011 Nissan Leaf and the 2011 Chevrolet Volt, and it included commentary...
George Parrott -
Plug-In Hybrid MPGs: Is Parallel or Range-Extended Better?These are exciting times to be a car shopper, as the choices in every possible category just keep getting better and more fuel-efficient. The options for ecologically sensitive hybrid buyers have taken a major step forward with the introduction of the 2011 Chevrolet Volt and the imminent arrival of...
George Parrott -
Forget Hydrogen: Here They Are, The Two Fuels of The FutureForget hydrogen. You can mostly ignore natural gas. Even diesel may not grow much. The two fuels that will largely power us for the next 20, maybe 30, years are already here. They are gasoline (with some ethanol in it), and electricity. That's it. That's all she wrote. First, gasoline Those...
John Voelcker -
Lexus LF-Gh Hybrid Concept (New GS) Unveiled For NY Auto ShowLast week they teased it; this week, they took the covers off it. In this case, "it" is the Lexus LF-Gh Hybrid Concept car that will be the centerpiece of the Lexus display at next week's New York Auto Show. The LF-Gh concept car is a styling exercise that "sets out to redefine the premium grand...
John Voelcker -
First Electric Renault Kangoo Van Z.E. Sold In U.K.Expected to be the first of many, French carmaker Renault has become the latest company to take an order for one of their upcoming electric vehicles, the Kangoo Van Z.E. The only commercial vehicle in Renault's upcoming range of electric vehicles that includes the Fluence sedan, the Zoe subcompact...
Antony Ingram