Green Car News
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Building any car is tough. Building an electric car is tougher. Automakers must devote time, skill, technology and financial investment to designing, engineering, and cutting costs for what is still far from a mainstream drivetrain. Even Nissan, whose Leaf won GreenCarReports’ Best Car To Buy 2011, has pushed back delivery dates for the Leaf. But a small Californian firm yesterday pushed its own compact all-electric car launch back from next month to sometime in the third quarter of 2011. And we think that puts them in a tough and scary position. The announcment from Coda Automotive...
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Ford Takes The Lead With Most 40-MPG VehiclesThe Ford Motor Company has created a lot of great history in its 107 years in business and they have come a long way from the Model T. The innovation however hasn't changed over the company’s long history, a fact proved by the most recent press release to hit the automotive wire this morning...
Jonathan McGrew -
Chevrolet Sweeps Two Top Automotive AwardsFor those that are automotive enthusiasts it will be no surprise to you that both Motor Trend and Automobile have vehicle of the year awards. Motor Trend calls theirs the “Car of the Year” award and Automobile calls theirs the “Automobile of the Year.” This year both...
Jonathan McGrew -
Revenge Of The Electric Car Trailer Release To Facebook FansWho killed the electric car? Chances are that if you've watched the film that poses this question, you'll have some idea of how the electric car fizzled out and died before its 21st-Century re-birth. 2011 will bring a sequel to the original documentary titled "Revenge Of The Electric Car". As with...
Antony Ingram -
GM Mild Hybrids: If At First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try AgainThe 2011 Chevrolet Volt has gotten all the attention lately, including a narrow second-place finish in our GreenCarReports 2011 Best Car To Buy award, but General Motors also has a significant hybrid-electric vehicle program. While its full-size Two-Mode Hybrid trucks have had mixed success, the...
John Voelcker -
2011 Nissan Leaf: GreenCarReports Best Car To Buy 2011It’s been a long time coming. More than 80 years, in fact, since viable electric cars were offered to U.S. car buyers. Now, finally, at long last, it’s happened. The 2011 Nissan Leaf is the first practical, five-seat electric car—a full plug-in, running solely off grid...
John Voelcker -
Uh-oh, Nissan. There’s been word a-brewing on car forums for that the carmaker is experiencing delays in delivering the much-anticipated all-electric Leaf, which is slated to start arriving next month. But only five Leafs will arrive in the U.S. next month — one for each of the five states the Leaf is initially launching in, according to Ray Ishak, fleet sales manager at the Campbell Nelson Nissan dealership in Seattle. VentureBeat first reported in September that the initial rollout would be just 200 cars — a small delivery to begin with, especially considering that only...
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Nissan Leaf Winner of Green Car Reports’ Best Green Car To Buy In 2011One week after our sister site GreenCarReports announced the contenders for the 2011 Best Car To Buy Green award, the judges have crowned an all-electric car the winner. Beating the other nominees, including the 2011 Chevrolet Volt, 2011 Honda CR-Z, 2011 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid and 2011 Lexus CT200h...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
40 MPG Dodge Compact Coming In Early 2012Ford has the Fiesta, Chevrolet the new Cruze Eco and soon the next-generation Aveo but what car does Dodge have for customers looking for something affordable that also gets more than 40 mpg in fuel economy? Some would say that Chrysler will be offering the new Fiat 500 but this model is likely to...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
How Does A 533 HP 2011 Honda CR-Z Sound?Really, asking how a 533 HP 2011 Honda CR-Z sounds is a bit of a trick question because before you can answer you have to ask if it is going for economy or speed. Bisimoto’s 2011 Honda CR-Z rocked the SEMA show this year by proving that high horsepower and performance can still have a green...
Jonathan McGrew -
Electrification Coalition Shares Plans to Electrify U.S. FleetsA year ago, the Electrification Coalition, a group dedicated to reducing the dependence of the U.S. on oil, growing an electric vehicle infrastructure and uptake in the process released the Electrification Roadmap. Intended as a policy framework to assist the adoption of electric vehicles by...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
GreenCarReports Best Car To Buy 2011 Nominee: Nissan LeafThe 2011 Nissan Leaf looks like a conventional compact hatchback with unconventionally sinuous styling. It seats five, has all the usual safety features, and we particularly like the way the navigation system is integrated into the rest of the car’s information systems. But the significance...
John Voelcker -
Ford's first all-electric passenger vehicle, the 2012 Focus Electric, has just received its list of initial launch markets. Totaling 19 cities in all, the vehicle will roll out across the country with Nissan LEAF-like targets for range and performance. Ford says the Focus Electric will be shooting for "up to 100 miles of zero C02 emissions, gas free driving on a full charge" of its liquid-cooled lithium battery pack. That's about what we've come to expect of the only other mass-market pure EV announced to date, the Nissan LEAF. But unlike the LEAF, the Focus EV won't be on the market until...
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VW, Daimler: There’s a Future in Electric Cars, Not Quite YetCan there ever be such a thing as too much honesty when it comes to frank discussions about your company policy? Normally we’d say no, but when you start to sow the seeds of doubt about the thing you’re trying to sell we’d say otherwise. Especially in the case of Christian...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
GreenCarReports Best Car To Buy 2011 Nominee: Lexus CT 200hIt's the nominee we know the least about, and in some ways the one we're most curious about. The 2011 Lexus CT 200h is a non-traditional car for Lexus, which has never before offered a compact hatchback. And after the underwhelming HS 250h sedan, it's one we didn't have high hopes for. That was...
John Voelcker -
GM Resurrects Mild Hybrid System For 2012 Buick LaCrosseAs we first reported more than a year ago, a beefier version of GM’s mild hybrid system, the kind that was on the previous Chevrolet Malibu Hybrid, is coming next year. Set to debut on the 2012 Buick LaCrosse, GM’s new “eAssist” mild hybrid system is said to improve fuel...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
How Does Nissan Recharge Some Leafs? With A Diesel GeneratorWe love it when people send us photos. Especially photos of things that manufacturers aren't necessarily keeping front and center for the cameras. The photo here is a "range extender" that Nissan uses to keep its 2011 Leaf electric cars fully charged for media events. The picture was taken (by a...
John Voelcker -
Nissan Prepares To Support Customers With LEAF Troubleshooting Task ForceAs Nissan gets ready to launch it’s zero-emissions all-electric LEAF next month, the company isn’t taking any chances on the service they provide their early adopting customers. According to news our of Astugi, Japan, Nissan is setting up a rapid-reaction task force in the United States...
Jonathan McGrew -
Tirediesel? Don't laugh out loud; it could be coming to a biodiesel pump near you someday. And it could at lat be something to do with used tires. Except for sandals, playground equipment, and the like, there aren't many products that use them. In the past tires were hauled miles away from cities and burned, but it appears that practice is mostly history. Instead the tires are merely sitting—and taking a very long time to break down because compounds have been getting increasingly good in recent years. Now, a Basque researcher is using a process called pyrolisis—heating to a very...
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Opel Ampera News - Euro Volt Price Revealed, 42,900 EurosIf you're familiar with the 2011 Chevrolet Volt range-extended EV, then you're already familar with the Opel Ampera, since it's essentially the same car. The Ampera will be sold under General Motors' other brands, the Germany-based Opel and in the U.K. as the Vauxhall Ampera. It's not uncommon for...
Antony Ingram -
GreenCarReports Best Car To Buy 2011 Nominee: Hyundai Sonata HybridFor its first-ever hybrid-electric vehicle, Hyundai has blazed a new path. Not only does the 2011 Sonata Hybrid carry gas-mileage ratings better than its competition, but it neatly splits the difference between the indistinguishable-from-standard styling of the Toyota Camry and Ford Fusion hybrids...
John Voelcker -
2011 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid Battery Gets 10-Year/100K Mile WarrantyThe new 2011 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid already has a lot going for it--as evidenced by Marty Padgett's take on the car in our first drive report and John Voelcker's inclusion of the car in GreenCarReport's 2011 Best Car To Buy nominees. But the deal just got even sweeter: the battery pack in the Sonata...
Nelson Ireson -
2011 Nissan Leaf Orders Delayed For Both Dealers And BuyersBoth Nissan and Chevrolet have a lot riding on delivering their first electric cars before the end of December, meaning during calendar 2011. Now it looks like Nissan may squeak by with just a few early production cars delivered to a handful of dealerships, because the company has significantly...
John Voelcker -
Tesla Thanks Toyota CEO with a 2011 Roadster Sport 2.5Finding the perfect gift to say thank you is a difficult task. Finding the right thank you present is a fine line between a gift that will convey that special message and something you know is unique. So what do you give the CEO that has everything, especially if he runs the world’s largest...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield