Green Car News

  • Think City electric vehicle

    With the media kerfuffle surrounding the 2011 Chevrolet Volt and anticipation mounting for 2011 Nissan Leaf customers, it's easy to forget that there are other electric cars out there. Even successful ones, it seems. Swedish electric city car maker THINK are more than 20 years old and have just built their 2,500th THINK City EV, making it the world's most prolific city electric vehicle. Of course, 2,500 units is small beans in the automotive industry - Ford sold over 11,000 F-Series trucks per week in the U.S. in September 2010 alone, and Toyota's Prius gasoline-electric hybrid was managing...

  • GM Logo
    2011 Volt "GM Lied" Debate: They Hate GM, They Really Hate GM

    This will be our last word on the whole "GM Lied!" and "Is the Volt a hybrid?" controversy, which blew up yesterday at the first day of the 2011 Chevrolet Volt press launch. Late last night, GM issued a press release (largely reprised on its Voltage site) entitled "Clearing up confusion about the...

  • 2009 Audi Q5 Premium
    Audi Q5 Hybrid Not Coming To 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show

    Audi is hopping onto the electrified vehicle bandwagon with plans for a new range of hybrids, plug-in hybrids and all-electric luxury vehicles and sports cars in the coming years. Following the lead of parent company Volkswagen, Audi is striving to become the leader for alternative-powered vehicles...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Volt with hood open, showing range extender engine and Voltec drive
    Five Reasons Why Voltgate Won’t Hurt Sales Of The 2011 Chevy Volt

    When the proverbial waste-product hit the fan yesterday with the revelation that GM could possibly have “lied to us” about just how its 2011 Chevy Volt operated we sat back and waited for the dust to settle. After all, the tabloid reporting of some sites didn’t tell us anything we...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Volt
    Video: Charging The 2011 Chevrolet Volt

    For some reason, while none of us think twice about plugging in our mobile phones to recharge overnight, the prospect of plugging in a car makes some people very nervous. On yesterday's test drive of a 2011 Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car, we visited the Detroit-Hamtramck factory where...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Volt with hood open, showing range extender engine and Voltec drive
    Video: So Is the 2011 Chevrolet Volt An Electric Car? A Hybrid?

    It's all about the Volt today, for better and for worse. On the "worse" side is the tempest in a teapot that erupted today, ably dismantled by more thoughtful commentators, over whether General Motors had "lied" about the drivetrain of the 2011 Chevrolet Volt. In brief, GM revealed today that the...

  • Prius MPV teaser

    A billboard plastered with puzzle pieces that form a side-view of a current Toyota Prius, backed by a sliver of a slightly larger, taller, and more hatchback-like vehicle. This is the first glimpse of the next member of the Prius family, and it's coming soon When, exactly, we can't be sure. But we do have a good idea of what to expect of the next Prius sibling. Aside from the obvious and visible additions to size and height, the new Prius model will have about 50 percent more interior volume and could seat up to seven passengers despite being comparable in size to microvans, or MPVs like the...

  • Range Anxiety
    Four Ways To Combate Long-Distance Electric Car Range Anxiety

    Range Anxiety, or the fear that an electric car will run out of charge before it reaches its destination, has to be the ultimate boogeyman of the electric car world. It stems from the fact that most electric cars on the market today have a range per-charge much smaller than the 200-500 miles...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Volt
    2011 Chevrolet Volt: First Impressions, Tech And Questions

    If you follow AllCarsElectric with any regularity, you might just be familiar with a certain new Chevrolet known as the Volt. We've probably mentioned it at some point... Well, the 2011 Chevrolet Volt is now here and our partner site GreenCarReports has been putting the car through its paces at the...

  • Aptera 2e production intent vehicle
    Aptera 2e Prototype: First Drive

    As electric cars make their way to market, one funky little vehicle has captured plenty of attention for its unusual looks. That would be the Aptera 2e. The car is more than just an exercise in styling: Aptera plans to bring the car to market in late 2011. To that end, the company has been bringing...

  • 2011 Coda Sedan, final production version
    Enterprise To Add 100 2011 Coda Sedans To Its Electric Car Fleet

    Electric cars and the rental market seem made for one another. While you’re not easily going to be able to make huge long-distance family trips in an electric rental car, all electric rental cars are ideal for visitors to larger cities throughout the U.S., be they on holiday or stop-over...

  • 2006 Mercedes-Benz B-Class
    BMW And Mercedes-Benz Compact Cars Will Come To U.S.

    Mercedes-Benz and BMW are both working on a new generation of front-wheel drive compact cars complete with four-cylinder and alternative powertrains, advanced composite construction and soaring fuel economy numbers. However, more often than not, we customers in the U.S. can only dream of such...

  • Voltec electric drive unit on 2011 Chevrolet Volt

    Put them side by side, and they could be vehicles from two different planets. The new 2011 Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car is GM's green halo car, its foray into the future of electric drive vehicles, and the focus of a huge marketing and publicity effort. The 2011 Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid is a big, old-fashioned, body-on-frame full-size sport utility vehicle that happens to have a Two-Mode Hybrid transmission behind its V-8 engine. Two-Mode DNA Nonetheless, it turns out the Volt has more than a little Two-Mode Hybrid in its DNA. Chevy will release more details this morning, but we...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Volt
    2011 Chevrolet Volt: Electric Drive Impressions

    In one light, it was nothing more than a drive in a new car on a sunny autumn afternoon. But in another, it meant taking the wheel of the most radical new car since the 1997 Toyota Prius—perhaps more significant yet—and driving it on public roads for the first time. After almost four...

  • Hertz electric-car rental press event, New York City, September 2010
    2011 Nissan Leaf: Free Rental To Allay Range Anxiety?

    Electric cars are becoming more commonplace on motorways around the world, especially in Europe where there are many urban cities that don’t require people to drive long distances. However, Nissan is starting to understand that the consumers may have “range-anxiety” do to the...

  • NYT tests Google's autonomous Toyota Prius
    Cars That Drive Themselves: Google Brings It Closer To Reality

    For those that live near San Francisco you might have seen a couple of 2010 Toyota Prius vehicles and possibly an Audi TT with an interesting roof top camera attachment. Those familiar with the Google Maps Street View program probably are saying, ‘Silly, that is just a Street View car taking...

  • 2010 Toyota Prius
    Toyota Sells Its Two-Millionth Prius Hybrid ... And Counting

    We missed a milestone a couple of weeks ago: Toyota built and sold its two-millionth Prius hybrid earlier this month. The first-generation Prius, the world's first production hybrid-electric vehicle, was launched in Japan late in 1997. It stayed a low-volume car for several years, and wasn't...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Volt
    What Do YOU Want To Know About the 2011 Chevrolet Volt Electric Car?

    After just shy of four years, two distinct body styles, much disbelief, and more press releases than we can count, the 2011 Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric car is here. We'll be driving the 2011 Volt this week, and we have a lot of questions about what the car is like. But we expect you do...

  • Fiesta iPad App

    You really do have to chuckle at the amount of communication one can have in this era. The irony is that it might all be with the aid of a computer of some shape or form. Ford has really tapped into this concept of social media, as we mentioned in our earlier article today about their Scribd.com rebate announcement. However, not all of the social media is just about selling the cars. Okay, okay, I knew I wouldn’t get away with that. Yes, all the social media in some form is trying to create a sense of community and need for those with or looking to own a car in any segment that Ford...

  • 2012 Ford Focus Five-Door
    Looking For a Deal On a Car? Ford Helps With Scribd Tech Rebate

    If you are in the market for a small car, but still want some of the comforts and whiz-bang features of a more expensive luxury car, then Ford may have just what you are looking for. Ford has published through Twitter via Scribd.com a Focus Technology Rebate program. All you have to do is print it...

  • BMW Megacity Vehicle official teaser
    From The Fastest To The Greenest: BMW F1 Expertise For EVs

    "Racing improves the breed". So said the late Soichiro Honda, believing that the lessons learned on the racing cars and motorcycles could be used to improve the marque's road vehicles. The evidence is plain to see. Technologies such as anti-lock brakes, traction control, unibody chassis...

  • Elon Musk
    Curiouser and Curiouser: Tesla's 'Gay' Electric Car Connection

    Oh, what a tangled web we weave in the insular little world of electric car advocates. Take the news earlier today that Universal Pictures has agreed to a request from the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation that it pull a trailer for a new Vince Vaughan movie in which the B-list star...

  • 2011 Scion xB
    2010 Toytoa Scion xB: The Ultimate Cab For Urban Cities?

    Recently, I had the pleasure of visiting downtown Chicago, specifically the Magnificent Mile (Michigan Avenue for those not familiar with the windy city). Everyone has his or her preferred method of travel in Chicago, some rent cars, some take cabs and others brave the bus and train system. Now I...

  • Cast of Universal Studios release "The Dilemma," starring Vince Vaughan (center)
    Hey Ron Howard: So Electric Cars Aren't That 'Gay' After All?

    The news came via a Facebook status from another automotive journalist: "Interesting. Phrase 'Electric cars are gay' pulled from Ron Howard movie." To which we could only respond, huh? [UPDATE: Turns out that there's even a Tesla angle too.] Turns out the upcoming movie The Dilemma, starring Vince...

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