youtube

Every driver of a plug-in hybrid electric car eventually wants to drive more on electricity and less on gasoline. So it's frustrating when the battery charge indicator shows a reasonable level of charge, you're only a few hundred feet from home, and yet the engine kicks on because of that one steep...

For many of us, lines at gas stations and homes without power are no more than news, but millions on the U.S. East Coast are still coping with the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Many areas are still without power, and gasoline is a worryingly rare commodity for a transport system utterly dependent...

What does a hybrid car need to be sexy? Speed? Good looks? Impressive gas mileage? Kepler Motors thinks its first supercar, the Motion Hybrid, has it all. Announced back in 2009, Kepler Motors has been quietly working on its super lightweight Motion hybrid for nearly three years. Now the company...

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...

Call it last week's most unexpected headline: the idea that a group of engineers in Britain had managed to create gasoline ("petrol") out of ... thin air? Indeed, it appears to be so--if you add energy (and sodium hydroxide). Here's how it works: The process starts by blowing atmospheric air into a...

Tata Motors chairman Ratan Tata recently assured the world that his colleagues are working on a version of the Tata Nano for the U.S. and Europe. It's due to arrive within three years. That raises a couple of important questions: (a) is such a thing even possible, and (b) if so, what would this...

In the developed world, we often think of ourselves as living in a classless society. But in fact, huge disparities still exist between the haves and the have-nots. Can car-sharing bridge the gap? Paris' city council seems to think so, and it's launched an electric car-sharing company to prove its...

Gasoline and diesel fuel today power almost every one of the 1 billion vehicles on the planet. But what would it be like to live in a town with no gas-powered cars at all? The little Swiss skiing village of Zermatt may be one of the few places in the world where it's possible to experience such a...

You've probably heard about what a model green city Portland, Oregon is, or how Portlanders shy away from car ownership—and, perhaps, how they can be a little uncomfortably earnest and politically correct. Is that how it really is? In short, yes. Now Portland, Oregon residents have another...

Sometimes you see remarkable cars in corporate parking lots. This photo, for instance, sent to us by a reader who prefers to remain anonymous, shows five Nissan compact crossovers lined up in the parking lot at the U.S. headquarters of electric-car service provider Better Place. With both left-hand...

Visit any major race track on any day of the week and there’s bound to be a cacophony of noise as professional race teams or enthusiastic amateurs drive lap after lap in praise to the gods of gasoline. But what would it be like if every car going around the track was powered by electricity?...

Last year we told you about a Missouri coachbuilder with the grand plan: turn a humble 2012 Nissan Leaf into a stretch limousine. Now, some ten months after we first brought you the story, we can bring you evidence that the Imperial Coach Builders of Springfield, MO made good its promise with what...

Just how do you advertise a plug-in car like the 2012 Chevrolet Volt? In the two years since advertising for General Motors’ first plug-in hybrid started, GM has tried a whole bunch of different tactics. Sadly, to date, very few have been successful, focusing on why you should want a Chevy...

At $19,705 and up, the 2012 Toyota Prius C subcompact is the company's least expensive hybrid. It's also tied with its larger Prius liftback sibling for best gas mileage on the market: 50 mpg combined. And those two qualities seem to be making it a sales hit for Toyota, meaning car buyers seem to...

Nissan announced yesterday that it would start building its e-NV 200 electric van in Spain next year The small van will be Nissan's second electric vehicle globally. It follows the Leaf compact electric hatchback, which went on sale in December 2010 as a 2011 model. First shown at this year's...

Why would you buy a plug-in electric car? To save money on gas? To save the planet? Maybe. But that's not how they should be marketed, said Hollywood producer Dean Devlin. "The Volt is an amazing, groundbreaking car," he said. "The Leaf is a gigantic breakthrough--but they're being sold as...

A week ago today, you may have seen a small caravan of green cars wending its way through the streets of Manhattan. Or you may not have noticed them at all amidst yellow cabs, delivery trucks, sport utilities with drivers texting or talking on their phones, and all the other hazards of driving in a...

Let’s face it. The U.S. auto industry hasn’t always been very good at advertising the benefits of the electric car. Among them of course, General Motor’s infamous 1996 ad for its EV-1, the cringe-worthy Chevy Volt Dance, the Nissan Leaf Bear Hug ad, and of course, Nissan’s...

So you got yer gasoline cars, and yer electric cars. And yer extended-range electrics, and yer plug-in hybrids. Sure, old news, been there, done that. How about an electric car with a gasoline engine you can swap in and out as you need it? Think of it as a range-extended electric car (like the...

It used to be that testing prototype and development cars was done in secret, under heavy camouflage, away from photographers. Now it's a public relations ploy, it seems, complete with QR codes on the sides of distinctively marked engineering vehicles and a promotional blog entry. So if you see...