Green Car News

 A U.S. National Research Council report released on Monday concludes that in North America at least, "For electric vehicles to become a major green alternative, the power fuel mix has to move away from coal, or cleaner coal technologies have to be developed...". According to Jared Cohan, chair of...

Per the press release on Th!nk's website dated August 27, 2009, seen here, production of the Th!nk City EV will resume, but will be built by Valmet Automotive.  Both Ener1, American supplier of Th!nk's battery pack, and Valmet Automotive, intended assembler of Fisker Automotive's Karma, have...

In the summer of 2008, amid staggering gas prices, Central Michigan University (CMU) invested $23,000 into an electric vehicle. Just over a year later, the school is requesting a refund, citing the vehicle's poor performance in cold weather. The EV in question is believed to be a Miles ZX40ST Work...

A Small Special Edition for a Small Car

When you think of a brand-new, gleaming, 2010 model car rolling out of your driveway, what materials come to mind? Steel, chrome, soft-touch interior plastics, maybe even supple leather upholstery? Well, how about some old carpets, ground-up milk cartons, and shredded, faded, raggedy blue jeans?...

Compact Power, the company responsible for supplying battery cells for the upcoming Chevy Volt EREV, announced that it hopes to supply its own fully assembled battery packs in the near future. According to Compact Power CEO Prabhakar Patil, the company has its eyes on a goal of supplying fully...

Unless you live under a box you're aware that Toyota is currently riding high in the green-tech Olympics on the strength of the all-conquering Prius.    In the U.S. alone the Prius sold almost 160,000 units last year.  Overall Toyota sold 240,000 hybrids in the U.S., while Ford and Honda are...

Here in the United States where a typical commute exceeds 15 miles, range anxiety is at the forefront of the electric vehicle discussion. The residents of the island of Terschelling, in the northern Netherlands, needn't worry about such things. Their 12 miles of paved roads represent less than a...

Updating a story we have been covering for awhile regarding three wheel vehicles and their classification as either cars or motorcycles, Congress has now voted and passed a bill that will classify 3 wheel vehicles such as the Aptera 2e as cars.  You can read previous articles by clicking here...

The first time I started an electric car, I wondered the same thing everyone else wonders their first time: Is it on? Did it start or stall out? It’s so quiet! Near-silent electric vehicles have been decried by advocates of pedestrian safety, and although there’s no data to suggest electric...

Gasoline may be averaging around $2.50 a gallon right now, but gas mileage remains an important factor in choosing a new car. Now the EPA has released 2010 fuel efficiency figures for all new cars and trucks sold in the U.S. Hybrids from Ford, Honda, Lexus, Mazda, Mercury, Nissan, and Toyota...

We don't hear so much about ethanol these days, now that gasoline is back down to $2.50 a gallon. But we still get e-mails, so here's a post to answer the question: What's going on with flex-fuel cars? Short answer: Manufacturers are slowly increasing the number of vehicles they build that can...

By voting 80 to 17 to approve a compromise bill allocating $33.5 billion to fund energy and water projects, the U.S. Senate yesterday also redefined what qualifies as an "automobile". Once President Barack Obama signs the measure, a vehicle with only three wheels can--for the purpose of allocating...

Starting at 3:30 pm Eastern time, two big names in the plug-in vehicle field will be participating in a live web chat fielding questions from everyone. To take part in the web chat, click here. Felix Kramer, founder of California Cars Institute and Tony Posawatz, line director for the Chevy Volt...

Well, now it's official. The 2010 Toyota Prius offers the best gas mileage of any new car sold in the U.S. for the upcoming 2010 model year, with a blended EPA rating of 50 miles per gallon. The 2010 Prius had actually been rated at 50 mpg back in March, but the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency...

The production version of the Pininfarina designed Bluecar EV was displayed at the Geneva Auto Show this year.  CEO Silvio Pietro Angori confirmed that production is on schedule and this vehicle is set for its debut in 2011.  According to Angori, the company has tallied 6,000 pre-orders.  As...

The e2 Seems To Be Aimed Squarely At Tesla

The greatest impediment to the general adoption of EV technology has always been physics; an EV battery exhausts it's stored energy far more quickly (thanks to lower energy density) than the fuel-tank of a conventional car, and unlike the ICE vehicle, can't be topped off with a fresh supply in...

You know that old saying about the pioneers being the ones with the arrows in their backs? Tell that to California drivers, who pay the highest prices for gasoline in the nation outside of Hawaii (which has to ship all its gasoline to the islands in tankers). The problem has grown particularly bad...

While we think that the clean diesel 2010 Volkswagen Golf TDI will do well in the States, VW has just rolled out an uber-economical BlueMotion model for European markets that gets 62 miles per gallon of diesel fuel. BlueMotion is VW's designation for the most fuel efficient model in each of its...