Plug-In Hybrids

Comedian and television host Jay Leno comes away quite impressed with the 2012 Ford Focus Electric after taking one for a quick spin.

In the quest for efficient mobility, there are three major players currently battling for top spot. The 2012 Nissan Leaf, 2012 Chevrolet Volt and 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In all have one main aim--efficiency--but all go about reaching that aim in different ways, which also means that each has its own...

Oh dear. This could get ugly. The owner of a new 2012 Fisker Karma that burned to the ground in Sugar Land, Texas, is trading accusations with Fisker. The fire destroyed two other cars and damaged the garage it was stored in and other parts of the house. The owner reported a smell of burning rubber...

What makes a new car a success? Is it the awards it wins, initial sales figures, how many people order it, or the average amount of time it stays on a dealer lot before being sold? Together, all of the above help us work out which cars are popular and which ones aren’t, but according to...

If authorities in Fort Bend County, Texas are correct, there’s more bad news in store for extended-range electric automaker Fisker. Last week, a 2012 Fisker Karma owner in Fort Bend County parked his Karma in an attached garage, alongside a Mercedes SUV and an Acura NSX. Three minutes later...

Always carry a camera; you never know what you'll see parked on the street. That's how our contributor, Thomas Bey, shot these exclusive spy shots of an engineering prototype for what may be a future hybrid Jeep or Dodge model to be based on the same running gear as the 2013 Dodge Dart compact...

For the past few years, every time an automaker has launched a new plug-in hybrid or electric car, it’s been to a fanfare of sorts. But while Nissan, General Motors and Fisker have attracted the spotlight as more and more customers step up for their new cars, Press coverage of Toyota’s...

Imagine the scene: you’re an advertising executive for General Motors given the task of finding new and exciting ways to promote the Chevrolet Volt’s sponsorship of the annual Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. The chances are you’d think up something grand, like putting a...

It's always interesting when companies change things between press releases. In this case, the vehicle we described on Friday as the BYD Chin (based on BYD's own press release)--an updated version of the world's first plug-in hybrid, the BYD F3DM--now turns out to be called the BYD Qin. Which, as...

Remember the world's very first production plug-in hybrid? No, not the 2011 Chevy Volt. Not the 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid either. Way back in late 2008, it was the Chinese BYD F3DM, with a lithium-ion battery pack and a combined parallel and series hybrid powertrain inserted into the...

Bridging the gap between battery electric vehicles and gasoline-electric hybrids we find cars like the 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In and the 2012 Chevrolet Volt. Both are essentially hybrid vehicles, but use the technology in different ways to achieve different aims. Ultimately though, which vehicle...

There's likely a huge market demand for higher-mileage minivans and wagons, but so far, the 2012 Toyota Prius V is the sole entry that gets more than 40 mpg in EPA testing. So the news that Chrysler delivered four plug-in hybrid versions of its Town & Country minivan to the city of Auburn...

Last week, we confidently predicted that we’d be hearing more about BMW’s first all-electric and plug-in hybrid production cars -- the i3 electric minicar and i8 plug-in supercar -- as we neared the BMW-sponsored 2012 Olympics. For the past few weeks, most of the news we’ve heard...

The 2012 New York Auto Show is almost upon us, and last night an unexpected invitation landed in journalist inboxes around the world. The sender was shown as "Fisker Nina Reveal," and the graphic was the simple line drawing above. The message inside was simply that Fisker Automotive would provide...

The past decade or so has been a tough one for Porsche purists to take. From a range that comprised just the enduring 911 and the Boxster, we've since seen dubiously-styled off-roaders and sedans, diesel engines (in Europe) and hybrid versions. Not surprisingly, Porsche is also more profitable than...

Potential Rolls-Royce customers know what they like, and know what they don't. Let's face it, they wouldn't be in the market for a Rolls-Royce if they'd not made plenty of "I like it" and "I don't like it" decisions in their lives. So when customers tell Rolls-Royce that the charging time and the...

We all understand what miles-per-gallon means for a gasoline car. And we can readily grasp the range in miles of an electric car. But when a car has both a gasoline engine and an electric motor, things can get complicated. The standard 2012 Toyota Prius is rated at 50 miles per gallon, and at best...

So you're in the market for a new car. Fantastic. You've done the research--looking at list prices, EPA fuel ratings, and all manner of other factors--and you know you want something fuel-efficient and easy on the environment. But what will that car really cost over, say, five years of ownership?...

We like the extreme aerodynamic shape and exaggerated styling of the Toyota FT-Bh Concept unveiled at last week's Geneva Motor Show, though that's far from a common view. Now, it appears the subcompact FT-Bh will become a future Toyota model--one targeted for extremely high fuel economy. FT-Bh...

Thirty years ago, bedrooms all over the world were adorned with pictures of supercars like the Ferrari 288 GTO, Ferrari Testarossa, Porsche 959 and Lamborghini Countach. At that time, very few of us worried about gas mileage, fuel economy or oil prices. All we wanted was a fast, sexy sportscar...