Economy

  • Volkswagen e-Golf electric car leaked images

    The Volkswagen Golf GTE will join the GTI and GTD in the pantheon of sporty Golfs.

  • 2013 Hyundai Elantra Coupe
    Top Five Small Coupes With The Best Gas Mileage

    It used to be so simple to tell which cars were coupes and which weren't. And not just because the word "Coupe" was emblazoned on your vinyl roof pillars in metallic script. Generally, if it was a little sleeker than the average car, had only two doors and a proper trunk, you had yourself a coupe...

  • 2014 Subaru XV Crosstrek Hybrid
    2014 Subaru XV Crosstrek Hybrid: New York Auto Show Preview

    Next week at the New York Auto Show, the 2014 Subaru XV Crosstrek Hybrid will be unveiled. It's the first-ever production hybrid vehicle from the small Japanese maker of sturdy all-wheel drive cars and crossovers. Subaru announced the debut of the 2014 XV Crosstrek Hybrid in a press release this...

  • 2013 Volkswagen Jetta Hybrid
    2013 Volkswagen Jetta Hybrid: Quick Gas-Mileage Test

    The 2013 Volkswagen Jetta Hybrid is VW's second hybrid model, and the first hybrid sedan we've had in the U.S. market from the German automaker. It's also interesting because the Jetta is available with a fuel-efficient TDI turbodiesel engine--and VW discovered that hybrid and diesel buyers are...

  • 2013 Nissan Sentra, short test drive, Los Angeles, Feb 2013
    2013 Nissan Sentra Quick Highway Fuel-Economy Test Drive

    We hadn't driven a 2013 Nissan Sentra, the all-new compact sedan, until last week. And our drive was hardly representative, since we spent the bulk of it in the peculiar world of freeway traffic in Los Angeles. That means traffic moving at average speeds of anywhere from 60 to 85 mph, with...

  • 2014 Chevrolet Cruze Clean Turbo Diesel, 2013 Chicago Auto Show [photo: Steve Fecht for Chevrolet]
    2014 Chevrolet Cruze Diesel: More Details From Chicago Show

    Three years after the Chevrolet Cruze compact sedan was launched as a 2011 model, it gains a new model with a diesel engine for 2014--although there appears to be some confusion over just what that variant is called. The turbodiesel sedan was launched at the Chicago Auto Show last Thursday. Absent...

  • 2014 Chevrolet Cruze Clean Turbo Diesel

    It's been a long time coming, but the wraps are now off Chevy's first diesel-powered passenger car since 1986. The 2014 Chevrolet Clean Turbo Diesel model is being unveiled today at the Chicago Auto Show, and will go on sale the summer in the U.S. and Canada. The 2.0-liter direct-injected and turbocharged diesel engine is rated at 148 horsepower and puts out 248 lb-ft of torque at 2000 rpm. It's paired with GM's six-speed automatic transmission. The company quotes 0-to-60-mph acceleration of 8.6 seconds, which is says is quicker than the automatic version of the Volkswagen Jetta TDI--the...

  • Lincoln MKC Concept, 2013 Detroit Auto Show
    Lincoln MKC Concept Crossover: Detroit Auto Show Live Photos

    Luxury brands have been expanding into smaller vehicles for a while now, and the Lincoln MKC Concept unveiled at the Detroit Auto Show continues that trend. The smallest member so far of Ford's struggling lxuury brand has been the MKZ mid-size sedan, but the compact crossover concept shows the...

  • 2011 Toyota Matrix
    2013 Toyota Matrix Compact Hatchback To Be Last Of The Line?

    The 2013 Toyota Matrix five-door compact hatchback has always been the Toyota that gets ignored. Now comes word that it may, in fact, leave the market altogether when the current Corolla on which it's based is redesigned for 2014. From assumptions that it had gone out of production in 2009--it...

  • 2013 Subaru XV Crosstrek, upstate New York, Dec 2012
    2013 Subaru XV Crosstrek: First Drive

    Every auto journalist has biases; ours is a predisposition to Subarus, of which we've owned four. So we were eager to test the 2013 Subaru XV Crosstrek, a new model this year. It's essentially the Impreza compact five-door hatchback, with larger wheels and tires, higher ground clearance (8.7...

  • 2013 Toyota RAV4
    New Toyota RAV4 Hybrid Is Likely On The Way, And Soon Too

    Today, if you want a crossover utility vehicle that gets good fuel economy, you can have a hybrid or a diesel--but only in a mid-size vehicle. There are no hybrid compact crossovers sold today, but Toyota may be about to change that. A hybrid version of the new 2013 Toyota RAV4 crossover "would not...

  • 2013 Honda Civic sedan range live photos, 2012 L.A. Auto Show
    2013 Honda Civic: Updates And Live Photos From LA Auto Show

    It's quite unusual for an auto company to make significant changes to a car--especially a successful one--just a year after it launched. But the 2013 Honda Civic introduced this morning at the Los Angeles Auto Show has updated styling, significant changes to the interior, and new standard features...

  • 2014 Kia Forte sedan, launched at the 2012 Los Angeles Auto Show

    Today at the Los Angeles Auto Show, Kia took the wraps off its new compact car, the 2014 Kia Forte. As our live images from the show floor demonstrate, the 2014 Forte is a sleeker, more aerodynamic four-door sedan than the car it replaces--now much closer in shape to its Hyundai Elantra sibling. With longer, lower, wider dimensions, the third-generation Forte is larger inside and will offer more features and higher performance than the current car, which was launched in 2009. The Korean maker is offering a pair of engine options: a 148-horsepower 1.8-liter four for efficiency, and a 173-hp...

  • 2013 Ford C-Max Energi plug-in hybrid, Marin County, CA, Nov 2012
    2013 Ford C-Max Energi Plug-In Hybrid: First Drive

    The 2013 Ford C-Max Energi is the first plug-in hybrid from Ford to hit the road, and the company sold 144 of them in October even before letting journalists drive the car. It’s the pricier and more capable of the two C-Max models, and Ford compares it directly to the Toyota Prius Plug-In...

  • 2013 Volkswagen Jetta Hybrid, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Oct 2012
    2013 Volkswagen Jetta Hybrid: First Drive

    The 2013 Volkswagen Jetta Hybrid gives VW something it hasn’t had before: a way to appeal to hybrid buyers who won’t consider its TDI diesels—no matter how fuel-efficient they may be. The result is a relatively sporty, conventional looking compact sedan that’s fun to drive...

  • 2013 Volkswagen Jetta Hybrid
    2013 Volkswagen Jetta Hybrid: What Do You Want To Know?

    The 2013 Volkswagen Jetta Hybrid sedan was never going to match the 50-mpg combined fuel economy rating of this year's mileage champ, the Toyota Prius. When the new Jetta Hybrid was unveiled at January's Detroit Auto Show, VW executives predicted a combined rating around 45 mpg. According to...

  • 2013 Ford C-Max Hybrid, Catskill Mountains, NY, Oct 2012
    2013 Ford C-Max Hybrid: Quick Gas-Mileage Test

    Gas mileage in hybrid vehicles can be a tricky thing. Depending on how they're designed--and at what speeds their electric motors kick in--their efficiency can vary considerably. When we tested the 2013 Ford C-Max Hybrid six weeks ago in Los Angeles, the real-world indicated gas mileage was 37 mpg...

  • 2011 Infiniti Etherea Concept
    Infiniti’s New Compact Won’t Be Outsourced To Magna Styr

    Luxury automaker Infiniti desperately needs a compact offering to counter cars like the Mercedes-Benz A Class, the Audi A3 and the BMW 1-Series. Its 2011 concept, the Etherea, even showed the direction Infiniti was going with its take on compact luxury. Last May, Nissan announced that it was...

  • 2014 Volkswagen Golf (European spec)

    The new, seventh-generation Volkswagen Golf was unveiled early last month in Berlin, but more models were added to the lineup at last week's Paris Auto Show. And while complete details weren't forthcoming, VW Group executives offered some hints on what we'll see when the 2014 VW Golf debuts in the U.S. around November 2013. In Paris, the company revealed the new Volkswagen GTI hot hatchback, which will come to the U.S., along with the VW Golf BlueMotion, the uber-economical model with a small 1.6-liter turbodiesel that we won't see. The Golf is by far Volkswagen's most important model...

  • 2012 Coda Sedan
    2012 Coda Sedan: First Drive

    It's been a long time coming, but the 2012 Coda Sedan is now on sale at a handful of dealers in California. Six months after the very first Coda compact electric cars were delivered to buyers, the company is gearing up a major publicity push to sell the electric sedan--which we've now driven. Our...

  • 2013 Ford C-Max Hybrid, Los Angeles, August 2012
    2013 Ford C-Max Hybrid: First Drive

    The verdict is in: At last, the fabled Toyota Prius hybrid has a viable competitor. If you're in the market for a five-door hybrid hatchback with very high fuel economy--an EPA rating of 47 mpg combined--you should drive a C-Max Hybrid before you trot down to your local Toyota dealer and sign the...

  • Chevrolet Cruze 2.0 VCDi turbodiesel (Europe)
    2014 Chevrolet Cruze Diesel Preview

    Diesel passenger cars have long been the domain of German carmakers, but that will change early next year with the launch of the 2014 Chevrolet Cruze diesel four-door compact sedan. The eagerly awaited model, the first GM (NYSE:GM) passenger-car diesel since the early 1980s, was confirmed more than...

  • 2013 Acura ILX Hybrid, New York City, July 2012
    2013 Acura ILX Hybrid: Weekend Test Of Acura's First Hybrid

    Honda has been building hybrid cars since 1999, but it's taken until now for the company to offer a hybrid model in the company's upmarket Acura brand. We spent three days with, and covered 300 miles in, a new 2013 Acura ILX Hybrid four-door sedan. And we have to say, while we like the ILX as a...

  • 2013 Audi Q5
    2013 Audi Q5 Hybrid To Be Pricey 'Performance Hybrid'?

    The 2013 Audi Q5 Hybrid crossover has had a long gestation, but reports say it will finally reach the U.S. market this fall. On sale in Europe for a year now, the hybrid Q5 was originally launched at the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show. Technical details had emerged even before that. Now a report in...

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