Green Car News

In a long term study, the Hymotion Plug-in Prius conversion returned worse than expected gas mileage. The study was conducted by the Idaho National Laboratory, and 115 Hymotion converted Priuses were evaluated.  They were divided into two separate groups and monitored over the course of a long...

The New York Department of Sanitation has taken delivery of two prototype diesel electric hybrid trucks from two of the biggest names in the industry. Mack and Kenworth each delivered a diesel hybrid truck to the New York service for extended evaluation in real world conditions. Mack delivered the...

BMW is currently leasing 450 electric MINIs outfitted with a 205 HP AC propulsion drivetrain and 35 kwh lithium-ion battery.  This author is one of the "pioneers" involved in the field test.  BMWs plan is to take back the cars at the end of the one-year lease and dismantle them to learn how they...

He who makes a bold statement must be willing to admit when he is wrong.  Texas Governor Rick Perry recently stated that Texans need their pickups truck because you simply can't fit a bale of hay into a Prius.  Or can you?  As Perry said, "It don't work." Well John Kelso of the Austin American...

Hydro-Quebec, the leading electricity provider of the Canadian Province, signed on to field test a Ford Escape plug-in hybrid. Ford's program provides several different companies with a PHEV Escape for a three year test program.  The goal of the program is to provide real world feedback to Ford...

No sooner did the 'Cash for Clunkers' legislation pass the Senate and get signed by President Obama than carmakers started marketing around it. The program won't officially launch until next month, but Smart is already pointing out that its 2009 Smart ForTwo is eligible for the highest voucher...

On Tuesday, we covered the news that Ford, Nissan, and Tesla had been granted a total of $8 billion in low-interest loans by the US Department of Energy to retool for advanced automotive technologies. With a few days under our belt, we've considered the story and have a few questions for you to...

According to the newsletter AutoBeat Asia, China will also be home to a production facility for the Chevy Volt's to be sold in the Chinese market.  The newsletter goes on to state that all Volts built in China will be sold within the country with no plans for exports of Chinese made Volts...

We've devoted more space on AllAboutPrius.com to the 2010 Lexus HS250h hybrid than to most other cars. That's because it can be considered a half-brother to the 2010 Toyota Prius: A fancier, pricier, more powerful sedan sibling to the practical, plain-Jane Prius. Lexus still hasn't released pricing...

Setting aside our questions about whether the 2010 Lexus HS250h can create a new "luxury hybrid" niche, we spent much of Wednesday driving two of them through the rolling suburban hills of Westchester County, New York. Overall, we think the HS is a bit of a puzzlement, neither fish nor fowl. We're...

Japan's Best Car magazine recently released a new artist rendition of the upcoming Honda CR-Z hybrid.  The vehicle's depiction differs only slightly from the prototype version but some new info on the vehicle has been reported. The magazine implies that Honda will go with a modified version of the...

A few day ago, we released news about DOE funds going to Nissan, Tesla, and Ford.  Well when you get money, you have to come up with a way to spend and Nissan has done just that. Nissan intends to use portions of their $1.6 billion in funds to increase total EV capacity at their plant in Tennessee...

The Volt Moves Closer To Being A Production Reality

Not Quite Prime Time Ready, But Very Promising

Just two days ago, we noted that Nissan was granted $1.6 billion of Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing loans by the US Department of Energy. It plans to use the money to retool its Smyrna, Tennessee, assembly plant to build electric cars. Now we learn that the 2012 Nissan EV may be unveiled...

As if life couldn't get any more digital and fragmentary, you may have heard about Twitter: short messages you can broadcast to a list of friends, each one no more than 140 characters long. The service has been in the news lately as one tool used by Iranians protesting election irregularities, but...

One of the world's largest battery producers is about to get even bigger as they break ground on yet another lithium-ion battery plant. LG Chem, broke ground on June 10th for their new $802 million battery plant in Ochang Techno Park, South Korea.  The groundbreaking ceremony included...

Recent news reports speculated that Tata plans to produce a hybrid and a full electric version of the Nano and it looks like that will turn out to be true as the company has told management personnel of its decision to go ahead with both vehicles as planned. The statement came in the form of a...

The first pre-production Chevy Volt has now officially rolled of the line ahead of schedule and GM has released a video showcasing the vehicle in the hands of the Chevrolet Volt Vehicle Chief Engineer Andrew Farah.  View the video above.  Follow up with more of the story after watching the...

We've just returned from driving the 2010 Lexus HS250h through the manicured suburbs of New York's Westchester County. We'll post our full impressions tomorrow, following up the first drive of the Lexus HS by our colleague Bengt Halvorson. But at the end of the day, we're left just slightly...