Politics

Continuing his efforts to reduce U.S. dependence on imported oil, President Barack Obama yesterday proposed expanding tax credits now offered to buyers of plug-in cars to those who buy natural-gas vehicles as well. Given the ugly politics around electric cars and the presidential election season...

John McDole, the inventor behind the Volt gun rack, shares his thoughts on the Volt, its critics and the politics surrounding the car.

Real Americans only drive pickup trucks (imported oil be damned). It's obvious because slaps at green cars and fuel-economy rules have become a staple of political campaigning among certain candidates. Yesterday, Newt Gingrich mocked the current Administration's promotion of fuel-efficient cars in...

To say the Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car has become a political punching bag would be to understate the obvious. Now, GM is slowly, carefully trying to get the facts about the Volt out to the public at large, hoping to win hearts and minds in a larger battle involving electric cars...

Two days ago, President Barack Obama released his proposed U.S. government budget for the fiscal year starting in October. And in it, he followed through on a promise from his State of the Union address last month, by proposing to cut up to $4 billion in subsidies to the oil and gas industry. The...

For many years, Arizona was considered an electric-car friendly state, thanks to California-style tailpipe emissions and mandates which required automakers to sell a certain percentage of zero-emissions cars in order to sell in the state. But less than a month after the Arizona Governor’s...

To say there's lots of political posturing and wrangling around electric cars, plug-in vehicles, and the industry and infrastructure that supports them would be a gross understatement. We get more than our share of it here at Green Car Reports. And there are valid debates to be had over whether the...

You'd think that if President Obama, two government agencies, and 13 of the world's largest carmakers supported a set of new regulations to improve gas mileage, they might be popular with auto dealers too. Not so. At a Tuesday public hearing on the proposed joint NHTSA-EPA standards for fuel...

On January 1, 2012, California Assembly Bill 475 came into effect in California. Essentially, the new law makes it possible that your plug-in car could get towed if you haven’t locked your car to the charging station cord. Backed by general Motors, the bill’s advocates claimed it was...

California has always led the nation in mandating reduction of tailpipe emissions and development of low- and zero-emission vehicles. For several years now, states have had the option of adopting stricter California vehicle-emissions regulations or sticking with the national standards. Roughly a...

It's a truism of new-car sales: Gas prices go up, buyers focus more on gas mileage. Gas prices go down again, people forget all about fuel efficiency. Well, here's a gentle reminder about why you may want to focus on cars with high EPA ratings for gas mileage. As The New York Times reported, on...

When the U.S. Congress adjourned for the holidays on Friday, December 23, its departure sealed the fate of subsidized ethanol production. During its session, the Congress did not renew a tax break for U.S. production of corn-based ethanol that had become increasingly unpopular across a wide area of...

Few things seem to set off a certain part of the political spectrum like the Chevrolet Volt, the extended-range electric car from General Motors. It's been on sale exactly one year, so we think it's rather too early to deem the Volt a success or a failure, though that hasn't stopped its critics...

We've written before about the growing shortfall in gasoline tax revenues versus the highway and bridge repairs those taxes are supposed to fund. The Federal Highway Trust Fund now has an estimated backlog of $400 billion in repairs between now and 2015 just to bring the complete national highway...

Smart people who read true and false questions know to go for the non-obvious answer. So we'll make it easy: The U.S. is importing less and less gasoline and, as highlighted by the Wall Street Journal (via Pike Research), will shortly become a net exporter of gasoline and diesel fuel. Not since...

Cars with higher gas mileage pay less per mile in gasoline tax. And plug-in cars pay no gas tax at all. With far tougher fuel economy standards looming--34.1 mpg by 2016 and no less than 54.5 mpg by 2025, assuming final rules are issued by the NHTSA and EPA--the problem is only getting worse. $400...

If you're relying on state tax breaks to get you behind the wheel of a brand new hybrid, we have one piece of advice: Do it soon. Several states have already cut their rebate schemes and a bunch more are about to follow down the same path, which is soon to make hybrid vehicles a more expensive...

It was the proposal that brought every automaker selling in the North America market out in a cold sweat. Now, Reuters brings news that the NHTSA and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are delaying the 54.5 MPG, 2025 average fleet fuel economy figure proposal until November. The reason given...

Electric-car advocates spend a lot of time touting the advantages of driving on plug-in power rather than burning gasoline. Sometimes, it can be a lonely battle. But now the U.S. Department of Energy has weighed in on the side of electric cars, with a conclusion that may startle some: It's more...

It's pretty clear that the United States has absolutely no energy policy at the moment. Attempts at long-term planning to reduce energy use are largely stalled in the toxic atmosphere of no-holds-barred politics, with the exception of tougher gas-mileage rules for 2017-2025 vehicles that were...