John Voelcker, Contributing Editor
Articles
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Supercars: sleek, blindingly fast, ultra-expensive objects of lust for 14-year-old boys and sober-suited executives alike.
For decades, supercars were powered solely by gasoline. But now there's a...
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U.S. Gas Price Now Above $4 A Gallon, On AverageWell, it's official. Despite news last week of a sudden drop in the wholesale price of oil, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. rose to precisely $4 a gallon, according to the respected Lundberg Report. That's 12 cents higher than just two weeks ago. Your price will likely be...
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Delta Motorsport E4 Electric Coupe: LIVE PHOTOS From U.K. LaunchIt's not every day that a brand-new electric sports coupe is launched, much less at a fabled race course. So we're delighted to bring you these live photos from Silverstone race track in the U.K., where the Delta Motorsport E4 Electric Coupe is about to take to the tarmac. The sleek electric...
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Advice: Downsizing From A Subaru Wagon, Seeking Better MPGsWe tend to get a lot of "What car should we buy?" questions at GreenCarReports, and we'll usually respond with a list of questions to narrow down the choices. Recently, though, our high-school friend Sarah Sette in Baltimore sent the following note: We are car shopping, seriously this time. The...
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Could Gas Prices Fall This Summer? Don't Count On ItEvery year, as the weather improves in the spring, gasoline prices start to creep higher. But this year, could it be that the pattern is broken? The recent run-up to record levels--California is now paying an average of $4.26 per gallon--might be halted, even reversed, if wholesale oil prices...
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2012 Honda Civic HF 41-MPG Model: Video Tour, NY Auto ShowOf the five separate 2012 Honda Civic models featured at last month's New York Auto Show, the Civic HF sedan is probably the most affordable tradeoff between gas mileage and purchase price. Its base price is $19,455. It's EPA-rated at 29 mpg city, 41 mpg highway, toward the top of the 2012 Civic...
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The largest single model launch at the New York Auto Show two weeks ago was the 2012 Honda Civic line, with five separate models, new styling, and better fuel economy.
The highest gas mileage in the...
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Does Osama Bin Laden Keep Pakistan From The Tatas It Wants?Despite a bumpy start, including some early examples of spontaneous combustion, the tiny Tata Nano is starting to fulfill the promise of bringing a four-wheeled automobile to India's masses at the world's lowest price. This hasn't gone unnoticed next door, in Pakistan. A Pakistani conglomerate...
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The Father Of 'Christine' Likes His Chevy Volt Electric CarWho knew? Stephen King, creator of perhaps the most malevolent car ever envisioned--Christine, the homicidal 1958 Plymouth Fury of both novel and movie fame--is an electric car fan. In particular, he loves the family's 2011 Chevrolet Volt, the range-extended electric vehicle that plugs in to...
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Struggling Saab Now Valued At Just One-Fifth Of Tesla MotorsSaab fans all over the world are looking anxiously at a company that says it's pulled itself back from the brink of death. Again. The latest rescuer is the little-known Chinese carmaker Hawtai Motor Group, which will invest 120 million euros ($177 million) in Spyker Cars NV, the Dutch company that...
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2012 Honda Civic: Video Rundown Of The Complete 5-Car LineupEven in the sixth year of its life, the old 2011 Honda Civic frequently topped the chart in retail sales--meaning individual buyers--in the compact car segment. Now, there's a new 2012 Honda Civic lineup, launched to the world at the New York Auto Show two weeks ago. The version with the highest...
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April Electric Car Sales: Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf SteadySales of plug-in electric cars continued at a steady pace in April, with 493 Chevrolet Volts and 573 Nissan Leafs sold during the month. That brings yearly totals of the cars to 1,703 and 1,025 respectively. There were also 326 Volts and 19 Leafs sold last December, the month in which each car...
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It's hard to start a car company.
Really, really, really, really, really hard.
Which is why little Wheego Electric Cars is having a tough time of it at the moment.
Last week, CEO Mike McQuary told...
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Chevy Volt Goes North For 2012, Priced At C$41,545 In CanadaWith Chevrolet on track to complete its rollout of the 2011 Volt range-extended electric car to all 50 states by the end of this year, the carmaker is turning its sites to other countries. And it's starting next door in one of the two closest foreign countries to the U.S., one right on our border...
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China In 2050: 350 Million Vehicles, Many Electric Cars...And Gasoline Exports?The big unknown in global efforts to reduce carbon emissions is China. It is industrializing at a rapid pace, and a burgeoning middle class has savings galore to spend on its first automobiles--including luxury European brands. By some estimates, the world's current 800 million vehicles will grow...
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Porsche Panamera Diesel: The High-MPG Porsche You Can't HaveIntroduced for 2010, the Porsche Panamera horrified purists but lured buyers all over the world. It was Porsche's first-ever four-door sedan, built in part for the burgeoning Chinese market, and its humpbacked styling is ... well, let's just say ... polarizing. Now Porsche has unveiled the most...
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2012 Nissan Versa On Video At New York Auto ShowWith gas prices approaching $4 a gallon and the effects of the recession still very much in evidence, a high-mileage, inexpensive compact car with better-than-average interior room sounds like an appealing offer. That's what emerged at the New York Auto Show 10 days ago, as Nissan officially...
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Will Igniting Fuel With Lasers Make Spark Plugs Obsolete?You may have other plans for Sunday than attending the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics in Baltimore. But if you were to sit in, you would hear a paper by a research team in Japan and Romania that offers a fascinating new avenue for increasing engine efficiency and reducing gas consumption...
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Last week's New York Auto Show had few out-and-out concept cars.
One was the Scion FR-S sports coupe, a striking deep red shape that wowed crowds throughout the time we were there. Despite its...
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BYD Presents Happy Results From Chinese Electric-Taxi TestAutomaker BYD is by far China's most aggressive when it comes to electric cars. It launched its F3DM sedan, the world's first production plug-in hybrid, back in December 2008--sales have been poor--and has been testing its all-electric e6 crossover with both taxi fleets in Shenzhen, China, and the...
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Tell Us: Is 40 MPG Highway Irrelevant, Or Crucial To Save Gas?If you've been paying any attention at all, you'll see new-car ads touting the magical "40 mpg highway" number in big print. You'll see a whole lot of car ads, in fact, for vehicles that include the 2011 Ford Fiesta SFE, 2011 Chevrolet Cruze Eco (with six-speed manual), 2011 Hyundai Elantra (all...
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2012 Hyundai Accent Subcompact: Video Tour From NY Auto ShowHyundai is on a roll, hammering its 40-mpg highway gas mileage advantage and launching new cars left and right. We covered the new 2012 Hyundai Accent a few days ago when it was launched at last week's New York Auto Show--focusing on its 1.6-liter direct-injected four-cylinder engine, which is...
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eBay Find: 1982 Lucas-Reliant Hybrid British Concept CarThe history of the auto industry is littered with the carcasses of the cars and companies that didn't make it. Modern hybrid-electric vehicles were first commercialized by Toyota, with its 1997 Prius (sold in the U.S. starting in 2000). But many concepts, development vehicles, one-offs, and other...
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2013 Chevrolet Malibu Eco: Video Tour At New York Auto ShowFirst came the news that the 2013 Chevrolet Malibu would have only four-cylinder engines, following the path set by the 2011 Hyundai Sonata and other midsize entries. Then came the official unveiling of the line at last week's New York Auto Show, complete with projected gas mileage numbers. The...
John Voelcker