Bengt Halvorson, Senior Editor
Articles
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When the Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid goes on sale about this time next year, it will be the first mass-production vehicle from Toyota that plugs in. Yet, despite that, the Plug-In feels more like a...
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Volvo C30 Electric: For Lease, At More Than $2,000 Per Month?Would you pay more than two grand a month to drive an electric Volvo? Apparently, the automaker thinks that there are at least a few people or businesses that will. Volvo Cars Special Vehicles president Lennart Stegland said that Volvo plans to offer the C30 Electric for lease—at a price of...
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2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In: By The Numbers, Would It Work For You?Over six days of driving—limited to around-town trips—we put about 103 miles on a fleet-test Toyota Prius Plug-In, averaging 90.8 miles per gallon. In that time, we gave the Prius Plug-In five full charges and two partial ones, and according to the trip computer, we covered 77.7 miles...
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2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Impressions: Why It Needs An EV ButtonFor those who travel very short distances, the Toyota Prius Plug-In could almost be thought of as an electric car. With a battery pack that's about 5 kW-hr—many times that of the standard Prius—it can, within reason travel at highway speeds on electric power alone, or up to 14 miles or...
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2011 Mazda2: Lightweight Status, Small Engine Yield 41 MPGAt just over 2,300 pounds, the Mazda2 is a lightweight. It's about 200 pounds less than the Honda Fit, MINI Cooper, or Ford Fiesta, and a bit less than the Toyota Yaris even. And, Smart Fortwo aside, that makes it the lightest regular production vehicle for 2011. Lighter weight and smaller engine...
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With Green Cars, A License To Drive More?Sweden has, for several years, led the world in per-capita green-car ownership. And it's managed to strengthen economically without increasing industrial carbon emissions. But it's emitting more from its tailpipes. Swedes are driving more—enough to wipe away any the gains from greener...
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Increasingly, in production electric vehicles such as the 2012 Ford Focus Electric and 2011 Nissan Leaf, automakers are turning to recycled and repurposed materials.But the rest of a modern...
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2011 Detroit Auto Show Video: BYD On Renewable Energy GenerationWhere is Noah's Ark to save human beings? People pass their eyes drilling into the Earth up to the sky. Each loop of human civilization is closely linked to the exploitation of solar energy—even coal and petroleum. Since sunshine is vital to everything, why human beings don't obtain energy...
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2011 Detroit Auto Show: 2012 Audi A6 HybridAudi loves clean diesels, but the German automaker certainly hasn't stacked its entire deck with them. In addition to the upcoming 2012 Audi Q5 Hybrid and the brand's e-Tron electric sports cars in the pipeline, it's now taking hybrids and electric cars seriously, too. And one of Audi's best...
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2011 Detroit Auto Show: Akio Toyoda Checks In On Tesla Model SWhat do you do when the president of the world's number-one global auto producer stops by your stand? Give him the tour around the car that you're planning to assemble in his former factory, of course. By chance we were hanging around the Tesla stand at the 2011 Detroit auto show when Akio Toyoda...
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2012 Ford Focus Electric: Full Production Details Unveiled At CESAs yet another sign of the gap being bridged between consumer electronics and cars, Ford decided to unveil not only the interface inside its upcoming Ford Focus Electric at the sprawling Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, but the production version of the car itself. For those who have...
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MyFord Mobile App 'A Key Component' In Focus Electric OwnershipIn advance of the official introduction of the 2012 Ford Focus Electric, the automaker has unveiled a new MyFord Mobile app that, Ford says, will be "a key component" in vehicle ownership. The feature, exclusive to Focus Electric owners in North America, will allow owners of the new EV to monitor...
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General Motors announced today that it has licensed lithium-ion battery technology developed at Argonne National Laboratories, the research institution that's funded largely by the U.S. Department of...
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Nissan: Most Drivers Will Top Leaf Electric Car's 73-Mile EPA RangeLast week at one of the first 2011 Nissan Leaf deliveries we spoke briefly with Mark Perry, Nissan's director of product planning and strategy, about the Leaf's driving range, and whether the recently released EPA driving range of 73 miles—the range that will be printed on every U.S. window...
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What Do Nissan Dealers Pay To Prepare For Leaf Electric Cars?The 2011 Nissan Leaf, at first glance, looks a whole lot simpler to service than conventional gasoline cars; there's no flammable liquid in the tank, no motor oil, no complicated multi-speed transmission either. That said, some dealers are probably feeling a little daunted by the idea of taking a...
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Why Leaf, Not Volt? Here's What One Of The First Leaf Owners SaysThe 2011 Nissan Leaf electric car is now officially on sale. Over the past several days—beginning with the first delivery in San Francisco we covered this past weekend—Nissan has begun making actual deliveries of the Leaf. Not just to company fleets, public utilities, or those in...
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GM Looks Local For $40M Carbon-Reduction InitiativeGeneral Motors [NYSE: GM] stock might be up for initial public offering today under the same stock symbol as before, but the company is trying hard to show that it's not the same company in many respects. "We'll do that by demonstrating that GM is doing things differently," said CEO Dan Akerson...
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How Burning Rubber Could Help You Be GreenerTirediesel? Don't laugh out loud; it could be coming to a biodiesel pump near you someday. And it could at lat be something to do with used tires. Except for sandals, playground equipment, and the like, there aren't many products that use them. In the past tires were hauled miles away from cities...
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California, Massachusetts and Oregon have been named the top-rated states for energy efficiency, while New York, Vermont, Washington, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Minnesota, and Maine rounded out the...
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GM Moving To Own 'Range Anxiety' For Chevy Volt Campaign?Range anxiety—that's the worry that people feel as they approach an electric car's driving range—has long been a bit unbecoming to discuss among fierce electric-vehicle advocates; but looking out at the general market, it's one of the most significant barriers against widespread...
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Pee Power: Could Urine Help Charge EVs?Could a compound in urine be used to generate electricity, even for vehicles? It's a possibility. According to a report, two postdocs at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, are generating electricity with a new type of fuel-cell prototype—one that uses urea, or carbamide, a...
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2011 Honda CR-Z: Frugal And Fun, Or Compromised Consumption?With the new 2011 CR-Z, Honda has created a critical firestorm of sorts: Enthusiasts are saying it should be a sportier drive, while hybrid car fans are pronouncing its mileage figures unacceptably low. One outlet went so far as to declare the CR-Z “the worst of all worlds,” while...
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Bicycles, Not Sports Cars: The New, Greener Mid-Life Crisis?Could the high-end bicycle replace the sports-car as a symbol of the mid-life crisis?
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Honda Civic Hybrid: Software Upgrade Fixes Battery IssueHonda is asking Civic Hybrid owners to bring their cars back to the dealership for a software upgrade, as the hybrid system's original power management tactics might result in a battery life that's shorter than intended.
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