Green Car News

  • 2011 Nissan Leaf

    Over the past couple of months AllSmallCars.com and our sister sites have published a lot about electric vehicles. In fact, AllCarsElectric.com is completely dedicated to electric car news, events and reviews. Earlier this week, I reported on the 2011 Nissan LEAF and the official EPA rating in terms of MPGe (Miles Per Gallon Equivalent). Our partner site, GreenCarReports.com and senior writer John Voelcker also reported on it, but with a slightly different spin—one that asks why the EPA felt the need to relate mpg to an electric vehicle when they could have kilowatt-hours per mile...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Volt Z-Spec
    2011 Chevrolet Volt Gets 93 MPGe EV Rating, 60 MPG Combined

    The shenanigans continue. Just this week the Nissan LEAF was rated at 99 mpg-equivalent by the EPA, raising the ire of our own John Voelcker--and justifiably so. Today, the Volt gets similar treatment and a similar rating, but only in EV mode. Add in the gas-only mode's 37 mpg rating and the...

  • George Blankenship
    From GAP To The Electric Car: Tesla’s George Blankenship

    How do you go from selling clothes to electric cars? George Blankenship, Tesla’s Vice President of Design and Store Development knows. A 20-year veteran of global clothing store GAP and the man responsible for Apple’s successful retail stores, Blankenship jokes that these previous jobs...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Volt 240V charging station
    Zero Emission Solar Charging At Chevrolet Volt Plant [Video]

    We've discussed before the issue of how clean electric cars really are when you take into consideration the source of the electricity you use to charge them - they're only as clean as the grid powering them. It's usually one of the first things EV dissenters bring up... "Yeah, but where does the...

  • Brian Carolin and John Voelcker with 2011 Nissan Leaf
    Did We Err On The Leaf, Or Is GM Volt Boosterism Bashing It?

    Last week at the 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show, we announced that the 2011 Nissan Leaf electric car was the winner of the GreenCarReports 2011 Best Car To Buy award. That same week, a flurry of other media outlets almost uniformly gave their "car of year" awards to the 2011 Chevrolet Volt...

  • 2011 Nissan Leaf window sticker showing 99-MPG "fuel economy" rating, approved by EPA
    Why The EPA Is Wrong about the 2011 Leaf Range And Nissan Is Right

    Earlier this week Nissan announced that it had finally received its EPA official ratings for the 2011 Nissan Leaf. Earlier this week our John Voelcker had a lot to say on its 99MPGe figure, indicating the equivalent miles-per-gallon fuel consumption of a car which runs on electricity. Yes, we know...

  • Toyota logo

    Toyota is the latest automaker to announce it’s headed down the downsized engine path as it strives for improved fuel economy, following the likes of Ford, Mercedes-Benz and Hyundai, all of which have announced similar plans in the recent past. Toyota has long been the champion of hybrid technology but even it has been lured by the relatively low cost and effectiveness of downsized engines featuring direct injection and turbocharging technologies. The information was revealed by the automaker’s R&D chief and one of the key men behind the Prius, Takeshi Uchiyamada, who spoke...

  • 2012 Mitsubishi "i" electric car, powered by MiEV, launch event at 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show
    2012 Mitsubishi Electric Mini Car Confirmed To Come To U.S.

    Mitsubishi has been working on electric vehicle (EV) technology for quite a while and for there efforts are credited with the first electric car sold to be sold in volume globally. That achievement was set over 12 months ago, but Mitsubishi hasn’t stopped working. For those unfamiliar, we are...

  • 2011 BMW M3 performance package
    2011 Small Cars That Nab the Car and Driver 10Best Awards

    It is that time again for Car and Driver’s 10Best car awards. I know, I know why are we reporting on the competition. Well, as happens with great awards, they stick in the industry and become coveted by the participators in the industry. The 10Best is definitely one of those awards for the...

  • 2011 Nissan Leaf
    LEAF Task Force: Nissan's Electric Car Soldiers Of Fortune

    In 2011 a crack task force was sent to the United States by a Japanese manufacturer for a car that's making headlines. These men were promptly trained to be experts in their field. Today, wanted by thousands of owners, they survive as a rapid response unit. If you have a problem, if no one else can...

  • 2011 Coda Sedan electric car, at 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show
    2010 Los Angeles Auto Show Photos: Coda Sedan Electric Car

    Startup electric-car company Coda Automotive didn't hold a press conference at the 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show last week, but they did exhibit their car for the first time. Under the theme "Zen meets Tech," their booth featured a bright yellow 2011 Coda Sedan in the center, next to a full-size model...

  • 2010 Honda Fit EV Concept
    Geeks Get Fitted For Electric Cars Via Google GFleet

    Let’s face it: Google loves its green cars. Its also home to some of the best tech-savvy engineers in the world. Engineers who love their tech and love to innovate. So what better way to put a new electric car through its paces than make it part of Google’s GFleet - a pool of cars the...

  • 2011 Wheego Whip LiFe at 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show

    The 2011 Wheego Whip LiFe is a small, two-seat electric car from a startup company you've never heard of with an unusual name. It doesn't have the fit, finish, or driving quality of a 2011 Nissan Leaf or the Japanese-market Mitsubishi "i" we tested two years ago. And it's only got two seats, which condemns it to a tiny sliver of the U.S. new-car market. In other words, it faces some pretty long odds in getting a foothold in the brutally competitive U.S. new-car market. Especially with a list price of $32,995, which makes it $215 more expensive than the five-seat, five-door Leaf. Beating...

  • Steven "Mac" Heller, interim CEO of Coda Automotive
    Five Questions: Mac Heller, Coda Automotive Interim CEO

    It can't have been a particular easy 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show for Coda Autmotive's newly minted interim CEO, Steven "Mac" Heller. Just one day before Coda hosted a reception at its new "Zen meets Tech" display booth at the greenest of all U.S. auto shows, the startup electric car company...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Volt
    Making Silent Electric Cars Noisier: 3 Carmakers, 3 Sounds

    It looks like carmakers are going to make their quiet, electrically powered cars a lot noisier. And that's going to happen regardless of whether there's any actual data to support the notion that electric cars are so silent they pose a hazard to blind pedestrians. As of now, three different...

  • Stuck in traffic, by Flickr user SMercury98
    Why Texas May Be A Better Electric-Car State Than California

    When power plant heavyweight NRG Energy announced yesterday that it would invest $10 million in the rollout of the nation’s first privately-finance electric vehicle charging network it also revealed that the city it would debut in would be … Houston, Texas. Um, what? Houston (pictured)...

  • 2005 Honda Accord Hybrid
    NHTSA Investigating Honda Accord Hybrid For Unintended Acceleration

    Normally it’s Toyota that’s in the headlines whenever ‘unintended acceleration’ is concerned, however, this time ‘round it’s close rival Honda that’s in the spotlight. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has announced that it is...

  • 2011 Coda Sedan, final production version
    Why Startup Coda Thinks It Can Compete Against Big Auto

    I just spoke to electric car startup Coda’s interim CEO Steven “Mac” Heller, who is stepping in since former chief executive Kevin Czinger stepped down. Heller talked to us from Los Angeles Auto Show, where Coda is showing off its all-electric sedan — and where automotive...

  • 2011 Nissan Leaf

    No that isn’t a typo; the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rated the Nissan LEAF with a 99-combined mpg. If you are looking for how that breaks out into city and highway, the EPA has stamped the LEAF with a 92 city/106 highway mpg rating. If you are going to ask us how they calculated this, we are going to have to refer you to an electrical engineer because the calculation, as Motor Trend puts it, “is a trickier business” than a gasoline or diesel powered vehicle. What we can tell you is that the EPA also rated the 2011 Nissan LEAF with an estimated range of 73 miles...

  • 2011 Nissan Leaf
    EPA Rates 2011 Nissan Leaf at 99 MPGE, 73 Mile Range

    Just how fuel efficient is an electric car? That’s been the question facing the EPA for months as it has battled the ratings system to give consumers a realistic and useful way of comparing electric cars against gasoline counterparts. Now we know. The EPA has decreed that the 2011 Nissan Leaf...

  • 2011 Nissan Leaf
    Idiocy: EPA Rates 2011 Nissan Leaf 'Gas Mileage' At 99 MPG

    So it's come down to this, has it? The U.S. car-buying public is apparently so stupid that the Environmental Protection Agency has to rate the efficiency of an all-electric car that burns no gasoline in ... miles per gallon. [facepalm] That's the only possible reaction to the news this afternoon...

  • 2012 Mitsubishi "i" electric car, powered by MiEV, launch event at 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show
    2012 Mitsubishi 'i', Urban Electric Car: Blessing Or Curse?

    After several years of taunting and many months of speculation, the 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show is finally the venue chosen for Mitsubishi to show off their U.S.-specification 'i' electric car to an expecting public. We've featured the Japanese-spec 'i' several times, as the company has shipped...

  • 2011 Coda Sedan, final production version
    Everybody Hertz Sometimes: CODA Lifts Mood With Rental Contract

    You have to feel a little sorry for CODA automotive. A few months ago the Santa Monica firm was striding towards a December launch of its 2011 Sedan. Then as a prequel to announcing its first all-electric car would be delayed by nearly 9 months its Senior VP of Sales and Marketing left, closely...

  • 2012 Mitsubishi "i" electric car, powered by MiEV, launch event at 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show
    2010 LA Auto Show: 2012 Mitsubishi 'i' Electric Minicar

    It was the first electric car sold in volume anywhere in the world, starting more than a year ago, and now the 2012 Mitsubishi "i" is officially coming to the U.S. market. The U.S. version was unveiled on Thursday at the 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show, though Mitsubishi provided few new details on how...

News First Drives Electric Cars Hybrids Guides Green Life