Bengt Halvorson, Senior Editor
Articles
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Prius Countdown, Audi Electric SUV, Leaf Battery Upgrades: The Week In Reverse (Video) Bengt HalvorsonWhat does Toyota plan for the fourth-generation Prius? Is Audi serious about an electric SUV? Why was Tesla scolding those who used its Superchargers? And should you get a used Chevy Volt?
This is...
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2016 Toyota Prius Spy ShotsAnd here it is: the 2016 Toyota Prius. Ahead of a preview September 8 in Las Vegas, and an official debut at Frankfurt, spy photographers already found the 2016 Prius, uncloaked, in Malibu, California. ALSO SEE: Coming This Fall: The Return Of Cheap $2 Gas The Prius was widely expected to adopt...
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CR Tests Tesla Model S P85D, Skeptical Of P90D Ludicrous Mode ClaimsThe Tesla Model S P85D electric car is breathtakingly quick, and quietly forceful in a way that makes it simultaneously a tailpipe-free counterpoint and a serious rival to some of the world’s top performance cars. You won’t need to search hard to find video footage of this...
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Poll: Consumer Interest In Electric Vehicles Stagnating?Today you’re far more likely to see an all-electric vehicle like the Nissan Leaf or Tesla Model S on your way to work or to the store, versus just a couple of years ago. That much is almost certainly true. But that doesn’t mean that EVs are past a market tipping point just yet. Hybrids...
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BMW i3: How Far Can You Go Without Touching The Brake Pedal?The regenerative braking system in the BMW i3 electric car is quite extreme. If you plan ahead and allow enough stopping distance, by lifting off the accelerator, this little electric car will come to a complete stop, without ever requiring a touch of the brake pedal. That behavior recently led...
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Little i-MiEV Electric Car: How Does It Compare To VW e-Golf?The 2016 Mitsubishi i-MiEV is an outlier—in design, in layout, and in the way it drives. Yet our long-term 2015 Volkswagen e-Golf is nearly the polar opposite—a full battery-electric model wearing the look, feel, and functionality of one of the world’s best-selling cars of all...
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The fourth-generation Toyota Prius is fast approaching.
Toyota Motor Corporation has confirmed to Bloomberg that the fully redesigned 2016 Toyota Prius will be shown in Las Vegas on September 8,...
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Car2Go Cutting Out Portland's Lower-Income, Racially Diverse Areas?The Daimler-owned car-sharing operation Car2Go recently announced that it was massively reducing its coverage area around Portland, Oregon. According to the company, it’s simply a smart business move, one that will keep cars in areas where they’ll be more likely to be used frequently...
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2016 Mitsubishi i-MiEV: Drive Report Of 62-Mile Electric Minicar
It’s been nearly four years since the tiny Mitsubishi i-MiEV hit the market. And considering the rapid evolution and transformation of the electric-car market that’s occurred over the past several times the earth has gone around the sun, that’s really light years. So when we...
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Portland's Electric Avenue Relocates, Adds DC Fast ChargersIt’s already been four years since Portland really charged ahead in its commitment to electric cars with Electric Avenue, a project that designated a city block of parking spots plug-in-only, peppered the block with a variety of charger hardware, and let EV owners have at it. That original...
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2016 Mercedes-Benz GLE550e Plug-In Hybrid: Quick DriveUntil quite recently, luxury SUVs and plugging in didn’t really go together. Yet with the introduction of the 2015 Porsche Cayenne S E-Hybrid, the upcoming 2016 BMW X5 xDrive40e, and soon the 2016 Mercedes-Benz GLE550e Plug-In Hybrid, this corner of the market has entirely changed. All three...
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2017 Mitsubishi Outlander Plug-In Hybrid: Spring 2016 On-Sale Date, More Details RevealedMitsubishi has confirmed that the long-anticipated Outlander Plug-In Hybrid utility vehicle will arrive for the 2017 model year, in Spring 2016. It’s hardly been a smooth trip to market for the Outlander Plug-In Hybrid (PHEV). The model was originally previewed by a concept at the 2009 Los...
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Up until now, our experience with the Volkswagen e-Golf—the all-electric version of the VW Golf—has been a series of cursory encounters.
In a short first drive last spring, followed by ...
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Ultracapacitor Resistance Breaking Down Among Automakers?Ultracapacitors have been the next big thing in energy storage for well over a decade. And while automakers have been hung up on their far greater price (per energy stored), and prices haven’t decreased all that significantly, there are some indications that automakers are softening in their...
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California Helps Low-Income Drivers Switch To Electric Cars
California is introducing a new ‘Plus-Up’ pilot project that should make plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles a lot more affordable. Considering recent news that prices on used electric cars are on a downward spiral, and with families potentially eligible to receive as much as $12,000...
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Used Electric Cars: About To Get Big, What You Need To KnowThink electric-car ownership is priced out of your league? It’s simply not. Even if leasing isn’t for you, or you don’t have the stellar credit required to get some of those deals, prices are plummeting on used electric vehicles—and that makes it a buyers’ market...
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2016 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid And Plug-In Hybrid First DriveWhat if you could fully restore your charge in a plug-in hybrid, on the fly, just by driving? It’s a feature that’s unparalleled in mass-market plug-in hybrids—that in the 2016 Hyundai Sonata Plug-In Hybrid you can enter not the charge-sustaining mode that some models have, but a...
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May Deals, VW Plug-In Sports Car, Tesla Update: The Week In Reverse (Video)We round up green-car deals for the month, Volkswagen teases what it could do with a high-performance plug-in, and Tesla hints about its future. It’s the week in Reverse for Friday, May 15, 2015, right here at Green Car Reports. This week, we brought you drive reports for both the 2015 Ford...
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Could the Volkswagen GTI and the all-wheel-drive Golf R high-performance compact-car models be headed toward a plug-in hybrid future?
One new concept, the Golf GTE Sport, proposes that—while...
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Charging An Electric Car: Why It Takes More Energy Than Your Battery HoldsPumping more gasoline into your car than the tank can supposedly hold would be quite disconcerting. Yet with electric cars, the idea of supplying more energy than your battery’s capacity is an entirely normal scenario—one that you should get used to. Last year, one of the leading...
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Third Row Seats, Good Gas Mileage: What Are Your Options?If you need to fit more than five into your vehicle—even just sometimes—and the thought of getting less than 25 miles per gallon in daily driving repulses you, the pickings for U.S. vehicle shoppers are still surprisingly slim. Why are there no hybrid minivans at all, no three-row...
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Electric-Car Incentive Considered In Oregon: $3,000 "Cash On The Hood"Oregon has quite the reputation for being electric-vehicle friendly. That reputation holds true if you already own an EV—the state’s a wonderland in terms of charging infrastructure—but for those who want to replace the fossil-fuel burner, the state hasn’t helped make the...
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Yes, Roof Boxes And Ski Racks Really Do Cut MPG—More Than You Might ThinkIf you follow our coverage on fuel efficiency, you know that real-world mileage numbers don't always measure up to the official EPA ratings. But if you think failing to meet those EPA numbers by five or ten percent is already a letdown, be very careful about your cargo-carrying expectations in your...
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Lexus Bypassing Plug-In Hybrids, Looking At Fuel Cells, Maybe EVsHybrid models are a very significant part of the lineup for both the luxury brand Lexus and its mainstream counterpart (and parent company) Toyota. Hybrids accounted for about 16 percent of the brands’ U.S. sales, while they encompass nearly 70 percent of the U.S. hybrid market and about 85...
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