John Voelcker, Contributing Editor
Articles
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The eagerly awaited 2011 Ford Fiesta subcompact has had more than its share of challenges, but Ford wants you to know it has resumed shipping the little sedan and hatchback models. New ones should be...
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Startup Transonic Injects Supercritical Fuel For 30% MPG RiseThe principles of the gasoline engine have chugged along for a century now without much change. The last big evolutions were variable valve timing and the switch to fuel injection from carburetors. Now a flurry of innovations to boost fuel efficiency is in the pipeline. One of them comes from a...
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More Smart ForTwo Trouble: Owners Least Likely To Buy AnotherAs regular readers know, we've never been big fans of the Smart ForTwo minicar. It's not that we dislike small two-seaters; in fact, we think they're cool (unlike most U.S. car buyers, we should add). No, our problems with the Smart stem from its unpleasant driving quality--the slamming shifts from...
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2011 Ford Fiesta Gets IIHS Top Safety Pick, First Subcompact To Do SoYou've probably heard it through the years: "I'd love to drive a small car but, you know, they're just not safe." Sometimes it's followed by: "That's why I got a [insert name of gigantic SUV], to protect my family." (Which isn't necessarily true.) But now you can conclusively rebut those tired old...
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Tata Nano, World's Cheapest Car, Aces Indian Endurance TestWe've always had a soft spot in our heart for the tiny Tata Nano, the world's least expensive car and India's equivalent of the Ford Model T that put the U.S. on wheels a century earlier. The Nano may or may not ever be sold in the United States, though Tata says a revised version will be offered...
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Tesla Scores More From Toyota's Big Fremont Factory SaleIt's been almost three weeks since we published a Tesla story. We trust that means that the Silicon Valley electric-vehicle startup is working away feverishly on the designs, engineering, production plans, and manufacturing site for its Model S four-door sports sedan, which it is still promising...
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In another step toward making silent electric cars less so, Toyota Prius hybrids sold in Japan are to be offered with an optional system that broadcasts a "humming" noise outside the car whenever it...
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Why Are Luxury and Sports Brands Going Green? To SurviveIt was so much easier just a few short years ago. Luxury cars wafted and sports machines roared, with nary a thought to gasoline consumed. Hybrids were for weenies, and everyone knew their place. But now? A hybrid Ferrari, a hybrid Porsche race car, an electric BMW ... what is the world coming to?...
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Ford Saves Scrap Steel, Stamps Explorer Parts From Pickup LeftoversA century ago, Henry Ford was known for insisting that parts be shipped to his factories in wooden crates whose slats were sized so they could be reused to build parts of the Model T body. Now a similar spirit of saving scrap is being used to stamp fender baffles for the new 2011 Ford Explorer out...
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GM China Confirms Development of All-Electric Sail ConceptGeneral Motors has been through the wringer over the last 18 months, nowhere more so than in North America, where it declared bankruptcy and was quickly restructured with $60 billion of Federal funds. But its overseas operations haven't had an easy time of it either, including its on-again...
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World's First Diesel Hybrid SUV: 2011 Peugeot 3008 HYbrid4Almost exactly a year ago, we wrote that Peugeot would display its 3008 HYbrid4 Concept at the 2009 Frankfurt Motor Show. Right on schedule, the French automaker is now showing the production version of the compact crossover ahead of its debut at next month's Paris Motor Show. Why would we cover a...
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Ouch! Honda Yanks Civic Hybrid AND Insight Off Sale In Canada[UPDATE: Honda Canada later clarified to Autoblog Green that it was not removing the cars from sale, but merely selling down available stocks, and that it would order more units from Japan when and if customer sales actually depleted its supplies of either model.] As early as last year's U.S. sales...
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While early adopters won't need many public charging points for their electric cars, conventional wisdom has it that the public at large probably will.
And according to a May report by Pike Research,...
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Toyota Backs Off On Aggressive 2011 Hybrid Production PlansThere's no question that Toyota dominates global production of hybrid-electric vehicles, but even the king of the hill has to take smaller steps sometimes. According to the Japanese business newspaper Nikkan Kogyo, Toyota [NYSE:TM] plans to build almost three-quarters of a million hybrid vehicles...
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Fuel Economy In the Sky: Whose Jets Get the Most Mileage?It's Friday, so we're straying slightly afield from covering cars. In this case, we're turning our green lens toward jetliners to look at fuel economy in the sky. Anyone who travels on a jet more than once has likely more than doubled their non-flying carbon footprint, and there are unlikely to be...
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California Steps Up Gross-Polluter Vehicle Retirement ProgramNot only do old cars pollute more than new ones, they pollute a lot more. According to a rule proposed by the California Bureau of Automotive Repair, fully “75 percent of vehicular pollution is caused by just 25 percent of the vehicle fleet" in the state. Those vehicles were built before 1995...
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Range Fuels Opens Plant to Commercialize MethanolRange Fuels, one of the more successful biofuel startups backed by Khosla Ventures, announced today that it has opened up its first commercial plant to make cellulosic methanol out of non-food feedstocks. Located in Georgia, the facility is expected to pump out 20 million gallons of ethanol and...
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AutoNation Promises 2011 Volt, Leaf To Sell For Sticker PriceJust as dealers have to discount unpopular cars, they often add "surcharges" to models where demand outstrips supply. It's auto dealership yin and yang, or something. Now mega-dealer chain AutoNation has drawn a line in the sand, flatly stating that its dealers will sell their limited allocation of...
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The dog days of summer may still be with us, but automakers across the globe are gearing up for the big Paris Motor Show, which kicks off just six weeks hence.
This morning, Kia released teaser...
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Corvette Could Go Hybrid, Says GM Head Engineer; World To End?Last week, Karl-Friedrich Stracke, GM's vice president of global vehicle engineering, set to rest rumors of a mid-engine next-generation Chevrolet Corvette. That got a lot of attention among Corvette fans. But a footnote to the story was that Stracke said not only that a hybrid Corvette was...
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Not-A-Big-Surprise Dept: Bright Confirms Switch to GM EnginesWhen GM Ventures announced it would invest an unspecified amount of money into startup hybrid truck-maker Bright Automotive, several of us noted that the prototype Bright Idea delivery van used an 2.0-liter engine and transmission from a Dodge Caliber. The announcement two weeks ago from General...
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A123 Spin-Off 24M Lands $16M To Explore Next Frontier Of BatteriesLast week, advanced battery company A123Systems announced that it was spinning off a new venture called 24M Technologies, which would focus on more unorthodox energy storage innovations, including grid-scale flow batteries. One of the reasons it decided to release the new entity into the wild was...
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So What Exactly DO You Have to Service On a 2011 Nissan Leaf?Despite initial purchase prices higher than those for gasoline cars of equivalent performance (before incentives, anyway), electric cars undisputably cost less to run. Not only does the grid electricity to drive a mile cost just half to one-fifth the cost of the gasoline to go the same distance...
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2012 Infiniti M35h, Its First Hybrid, Previews at Pebble BeachAlmost a year ago, Infiniti confirmed a hybrid version of its new M sedan, to be launched at the end of 2010. Now, the company has unveiled that car, in the tony surroundings of the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, the premier U.S. showcase for classic cars. Infiniti has adopted the Lexus...
John Voelcker