Green Car News

  • The 2010 Toyota Prius

    For some the year has probably flown by and for others it might seem like it won’t end. Either way when we look back at what was going in February 2010 there was a lot to comment on. We had Diesel designing a special edition Fiat 500 for the Geneva Auto Show, news that about $25K would buy you a Honda CR-Z in Japan and three small cars that made the Consumer Reports 2010 Top Picks. The top pick though has to do with a particular hybrid and the recall announced in February 2010. In the beginning of February we reported on the global recall announced by Toyota on the 2010 Toyota Prius...

  • 2011 Nissan Leaf prototype
    Counting Down To 2011: Top ASC Article for January 2010

    Being that it is almost New Year’s Eve, it seems appropriate to look back at the news, reviews and opinions that have shaped the automotive industry during 2010. Think of it as our ten-article count down to the New Year. So make sure you check out all ten installments where we here at...

  • ActaCell prismatic lithium-ion battery cell
    ActaCell Nabs $3 Million For Cheaper, Better Hybrid Batteries

    Recently, we wrote about the move in the private sector to use electric and hybrid delivery trucks. Companies like FedEx and Frito Lay are tapping into benefits of greener cars — even ahead of the broader consumer market because they’re a hedge against volatile diesel prices and can pay...

  • Crushed GM EV1s - Screenshot, Who Killed The Electric Car?
    Could Rising Commodity Prices Kill (Or Hurt) The Electric Car?

    At the time of this writing, oil has sprinted above $90 a barrel, silver has jumped 80-plus percent in the last year and China just announced an 11 percent decrease in exports of rare earth metals for 2011. Will these constraints on critical resources, and their inevitable steep rise in costs and...

  • Navistar eStar electric delivery truck in Washington, D.C.
    Will Trucks And Buses Beat Cars In The Electric Race?

    Right now, six companies are vying to win a contract that would provide 100 electric vehicles to the government’s General Administration services 214,000-strong fleet. One of them is Ford; the other, a relative newcomer called Smith Electric. But the government isn’t looking for...

  • 2012 Ford Focus Custom Graphics Program (Vehicle Tattoos)
    2012 Ford Focus To Become Part Of Company Custom Graphics Program

    The 2012 Ford Focus has a lot to offer consumers like the torque vectoring control we wrote about yesterday. However, Ford isn’t just offering functional features for the all-new Focus, they are also going to offer vehicle tattoos. For those who aren’t familiar, vehicle tattoos are the...

  • Racing Green Endurance en-route

    Back in 2009 we were approached by a press representative for Racing Green Endurance, a team of 20-something post-graduate engineers from Imperial College London. We didn't hear from them again until June this year, when we met up with them in London. Their goal? To drive the 16,000 miles from Alaska to Argentina in an electric car. We had to be honest: we doubted their ability to complete the trip. But as a new eight-part documentary due to air on BBC World News from January 1 2011 shows, the team’s adventure had a very happy ending. Long-distance trips by car are hardly new...

  • 2011 BMW 3-Series 4-door Sports Wagon 328i xDrive AWD Side Exterior View
    The 2011 BMW 3-Series Is Superb, But What About the Sports Wagon?

    Recently we talked about the 2011 Acura TSX Wagon and it got us thinking about the other wagons on the market. As mentioned in our previous article, the one that seems to dominate the near luxury segment is the Audi A4 Avant. That said, there is another German near luxury wagon that you should...

  • John Hofmeister, ex-president of Shell Oil, June 2010 (miscaptioned as 'Jeff')
    What Would You Do Differently If Gas Hit $5 A Gallon In 2012?

    This video clip, now six months old, has been making the rounds yesterday and today. Still, it's worth pondering. What would you do if gasoline rose to $5 a gallon in two years? How would your driving, and car buying, behavior change? Two days after the BP drilling rig blowout in the Gulf of...

  • First 2011 Nissan Leaf delivered to buyer, San Francisco, Dec 2010, photo by Eugene Lee
    Our Popular Stories of 2010: LEAF, Recharging, Myth Busting

    We’re just two days away from 2011, the year many industry experts are terming the year of the electric car, but 2010 hasn’t been a slow year for electric cars. We’ve seen new models launched, records broken and even the Pope show an interest in going electric. But over the course...

  • Energy classroom, courtesy of USACE Europe District
    Things We Read, And Like: 'Why We Need Energy Literacy'

    Many readers on this site are concerned with miles per gallon, or how much fuel their car uses. And while any site called Green Car Reports is bound to have an environmental tilt, most car buyers are far more concerned with saving money than saving the planet. Nonetheless, we're all about making...

  • 1999 GM (Specialty Vehicles) EV1
    GM EV1 Gets Another Shot At Smithsonian, 4 Years On

    If General Motors' EV1 had featured in the Disney Pixar animated film Cars, we can't imagine it would have been the happiest of characters. It might well have spent a little time complaining about its friends all being crushed back in 1999, and who could blame it? And four years ago it might have...

  • 2011 Mazda2 exterior and detail

    We love looking back to see what's been popular over the course of a full year. And 2010 was definitely chock-full of green car news. Our 10 most popular posts this year are a little less random than last year's most popular, which featured Muslims and ethanol, urine, hybrid Ferraris, and our ever-popular rant on why Miles-Per-Gallon is a really, really stupid way to measure fuel efficiency. That article on MPG, by the way, was the sole carryover from last year's list (# 7 in 2009, # 6 for 2010). This year, two separate articles on the 2011 Mazda2 hit the top 10 (who knew?) versus just one...

  • Nissan Leaf Carwings feature
    Forget Angry Birds - 2011 Nissan LEAF Launches New Addictive App

    Ten years ago the concept of social media was in its infancy. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s geeky founder, wasn’t even at university and the best chance you had of playing at being a farmer was to head down to your local city farm. So what happens when you combine the always-connected...

  • 2012 Ford Focus Five-Door
    Top Of Its Class: 2012 Ford Focus Offers Class-Leading Cornering Control

    Yesterday Ford announced another feature on the 2012 Ford Focus that is not only exclusive to the Focus in its class, but also positions Ford as a leader in safety. Borrowing from the Ford press release, Ford says the 2012 Focus ‘can carve through turns like a downhill skier” with the...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Volt home charging
    Five Tips to Save Money on Your Home Electric Car Charge Point

    Let’s face it: the end of the holiday season is financially tough. After spending what may seem like a small fortune on gifts for your family and friends the last thing you want to do is spend money on a costly electric charging point for your plug-in car. Of course, it is technically...

  • diesel and AdBlue fillers in Audi Q7 TDI
    Green Advice: You Filled A Diesel Car With Gasoline; Now What?

    Unless you're Argonne Laboratories, putting gasoline into a diesel fueled car is a bad problem. Maybe it was brain fade. Perhaps you rented or borrowed an unfamiliar car. Or you simply didn't realize that nice Volkswagen or Mercedes-Benz was a new, clean-diesel car. (It also happens to particularly...

  • Simplified diagram of the Cyclone steam engine
    Could Waste Oil Power Your Range-Extended Electric Car One Day?

    We're suckers for new kinds of combustion engines. Ever since we first saw and wrote about the Cyclone external-combustion engine, we've been intrigued by it. Now we have an automotive angle: Suppose you could power a Chevy Volt-like range-extended electric car on nothing more than used motor oil...

  • BMW prototype based on Vision EfficientDynamics concept

    BMW is pressing forward with its plans to build a production version of the striking plug-in hybrid concept car it called Vision Efficient Dynamics, unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September 2009. According to reports filtering out of Germany, the model that goes on sale in October 2013 may be called the i8 and cost roughly $200,000. BMW's "i" sub-brand, for which a logo was leaked a couple of weeks ago, stems from its uber-green "Project i" research program. The "i" name will also be applied to the radical "MegaCity" carbon-fiber all-electric car that's scheduled to launch in 2013...

  • First 2011 Nissan Leaf delivered to buyer, San Francisco, Dec 2010, photo by Eugene Lee
    CA Electric Car Rebate Will Run Out Mid 2011, Advocate Warns

    California has always been kind to drivers of alternative fuelled vehicles with special privileges in High-Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes, reduced parking and even additional purchase tax credits. However, the $5,000 Californian state rebate for those purchasing electric vehicles may soon run out...

  • BYD e6 electric crossover, Electric Avenue, 2010 Detroit Auto Show
    2011 Detroit Auto Show Preview: 2012 BYD e6 Electric Crossover, Plug-In Hybrid Sedans

    Now that the 2011 Nissan Leaf and 2011 Chevy Volt have reached showrooms--a handful of them, anyhow--a new crop of electric vehicles will launch into the market for 2011. One of those may be the e6 all-electric crossover built by Chinese manufacturer BYD. Famed financier Warren Buffet was so...

  • Traffic light
    Ford Will Be First Major Carmaker To Offer Start-Stop In U.S.

    Start-stop systems, which shut off car engines when the vehicle comes to a stop, have been offered in Europe for several years. But until now, no automaker other than Porsche has offered them on U.S.-market cars. That's about to change. Ford said yesterday it will offer the systems on some of its...

  • Eiffel Tower and green cars
    Paris To Test Banning Gas-Guzzlers (Yes, SUVs!) In City Core

    Why are many European carmakers now planning to build electric vehicles? Because many European cities are widely expected to ban high-emissions vehicles from their city cores over the next decade--perhaps even vehicles with any emissions at all. Now, Paris may be the first city to experiment with...

  • Tesla Motors, Palo Alto, California
    Tesla Motors Stock Drops 16 Percent, Analysts Pile On Worries

    As VentureBeat suggested on Thursday, the entry of new shares onto the market today has caused Tesla’s stock to drop. The stock is trading down 16 percent today now that the 180-day post-IPO lockup period has ended and insiders are free to sell their shares. The stock is trading at $25.30...

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