Green Car News

Now that the world knows the price of the 2011 Chevrolet Volt and of the 2011 Nissan Leaf...let the PR games begin. To the educated consumer, the difference between a Volt and a Leaf may be slight. Though the Volt uses a range-extending gasoline engine, it's an electric car--since its wheels are...

If you're one of the more than 16,000 customers who put a deposit down on the 2011 Nissan Leaf, you're in luck--you're among the first in line as Nissan begins checking out home installation issues before opening the actual order process to pre-registered shoppers. And you're no newbie. In fact...

  The 2011 Chevrolet Volt has been in gestation so long, we've wondered if it ever would become a reality. Now the reality is here. GM announced the price for the 2011 Volt at Plug-In 2010, a conference being held this week in San Jose. The Volt's MSRP will be $41,000, which includes a $720...

Cutting-edge technology never comes cheaply. Automakers routinely subsidize it in new cars in new markets to gain a foothold, or even a competitive advantage--and still can lose money on innovation.Does Nissan plan to lose money with its upcoming electric car, the 2011 Leaf? "We don't," says Nissan...

When we wrote about the debate over whether silent electric vehicles should have noise legislated into them, we obviously hit a nerve. Now EV enthusiast Mark Larsen has added further data to his original analysis of 1994-2008 traffic death figures from the Fatality Reporting System maintained by...

Volt and Leaf Not For You, Then You Might Wait For the i-MiEV

With the 2011 Nissan Leaf and 2011 Chevrolet Volt arriving this fall—if you're so lucky to be one of the top names on the list—the electric vehicle buzz is about migrate from social media platforms and signup lists to real dealership showrooms.

  When the 2011 Nissan Leaf goes on sale later this year, each copy of the first mass-market electric car on earth will come with a navigation system. Nifty spiff--and an integral part of the Leaf experience. High Gear Media took a quick drive in a 2011 Leaf prototype today in San Jose, while...

The 2011 Nissan Leaf is in the final stages of development before it rolls into showrooms late this year. Today, High Gear Media took the Leaf for a first drive around San Jose, California, before the Plug-In 2010 Conference and before a very big announcement from Nissan on future Leaf sales. We're...

Will Price Make the Anticipation Greater?

 What is an acceptable warranty for an electric car? Three years? Four years? Ten Years? And should customers be able to choose what that warranty level is? That is the question Nissan was asking last week when it sent out a questionnaire to the 16,100 people who have paid out $99 to reserve a...

A few years back Chrysler showed off all manner of hybrid, range-extended and all-electric concepts in the hope that these vehicles would eventually see production, thus catapulting the automaker to the forefront of the electrification revolution. Unfortunately, a global economic downturn and...

Electricity and high-performance cars may or may not mix, depending on your frame of reference, but whether you're a Tesla fan or a Formula 1 devotee, it's easy to agree that a hybrid or all-electric Porsche would be a welcome creation for sports car and EV fans alike. Though we’ve seen several...

According to Ford, the main reason that car buyers don't choose traditional sport utility vehicles is gas mileage. So for the new 2011 Ford Explorer, Ford is pulling out all the stops to improve fuel efficiency anywhere it can. Its signature engine is the 237-horsepower, direct-injected and...

Three weeks ago, Chevrolet unveiled two new launch markets for its 2011 Volt electric car and described some of the things dealers would need to do in order to be granted the privilege of selling GM's most advanced and most eagerly awaited car in decades. Now it appears that pretty much every Chevy...

While his subjects love him--he is, after all, their future King--HRH Prince Charles is known to be grimly insistent on promoting certain of his pet causes. One is "traditional" British architecture. Recently, another has become the greening of transportation. To that end, the Prince will bring a...

Among the many substances emitted by autos back in the "good old days" were the refrigerant gases that would leak from older auto air conditioners. Freon, also known as R-12, was replaced starting in the early 1990s with R-134a, which did less damage to the ozone layer. Now concern has expanded to...

It's a wonderful TV news flash: Blind people in peril from killer electric cars! News at 11. The fear is that electric vehicles are so silent that blind people can't hear them coming, so new draft safety regulations may now require electric vehicles to emit sounds. There's just one problem...

Hot hatches. The Europeans love them, we--as a whole--apparently hate them, and consequently miss out on some amazing cars that our cousins across the Atlantic have been enjoying for years. But that’s all about to change thanks to stylish newcomers like the 2011 Ford Fiesta and upcoming 2012...

Need A New Car, GM Beefs Up There Ability To Finance