John Voelcker, Contributing Editor
Articles
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BMW's chief executive officer, Norbert Reithofer, has confirmed that the company's ActiveHybrid 5 sedan will go on sale as early as next year.
Reithofer told shareholders yesterday at BMW's annual...
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GM, Chrysler To Join Ford, Tesla in DoE Retooling Loan QueueOver the last year, the U.S. Department of Energy has granted almost $9 billion of low-interest loans to help automakers retool for more fuel-efficient cars. But until now, General Motors and Chrysler had been shut out while Ford, Nissan, and Tesla were awarded loans last June, joined by Fisker in...
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2010 Toyota Prius Is Japan's Best-Selling Car For Entire YearSales of the 2010 Toyota Prius are booming in the U.S., up more than 50 percent over last year during April alone. But they're way better yet in Japan, where the 2010 Prius has just completed a full year as the country's best-selling car. Toyota sold 26,482 Prius models in Japan during April...
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Snapped on the Street: Fiat 500 Electric Car Visits Palo AltoThe great thing about having your company headquartered in Palo Alto, California, is that you never quite know what you'll see on the street. There are lots of expensive cars like BMWs and Bentleys floating around. There are also a disproportionate number of Tesla Roadsters, since the company is...
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Hybrids Are For Soldiers Too, Not Just Elite Effete Eco-WimpsYeah, yeah, we know. The only people who buy hybrids are the ones who want to show off their green credentials. They're effete, elite coastal residents who probably drove Subarus before they got their hybrids. Uh huh. Tell it to the Marines. Or, more accurately, tell it to the Israel Defense...
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2011 Chevy Cruze Green Oil Filter: Everything Old Is New AgainSometimes a "new" green idea is actually just the way we used to do things, before disposability and convenience became primary consumer values. Consider the "cartridge filter" that GM touts on the Ecotec engines fitted to its new 2011 Chevrolet Cruze. Instead of a one-piece metal cannister that's...
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This story, written by Camille Ricketts, was originally posted on VentureBeat's GreenBeat, an editorial partner of AllCarsElectric.
Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk may have won an initial ruling in the...
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Why Can't 'Flex-Fuel' Clean Diesels Run Entirely On Biodiesel?Our article last week on Ford's doubling of its flex-fuel models included a mention that diesel models of the new 2011 Ford Super Duty pickup trucks will run on either pure diesel fuel or a mix of up to 20 percent biodiesel, known as B20. Reader Suzanne Johnson responded with the following...
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Why Can't Toyota's Plug-In Prius Recharge Its Larger Battery?Toyota has come under some fire from electric-vehicle enthusiasts for what some perceive as a grudging, halfhearted approach to building vehicles that plug in. Its first U.S.-market plug-in vehicle--not including a thousand or so RAV4 electric crossovers a decade ago--will be the 2012 Toyota Prius...
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3 Green-Car Trends: Smaller Cars, More Turbos, Luxury HybridsEveryone has opinions. But if you had to wrap up what's happening in green cars today by naming three trends, what would they be? The ever-eager publicists at auto-classified site AutoTrader.com sent us their list of three changes in the world of eco-friendly vehicles. We've reproduced them below...
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Fisker bumps up latest funding round to $175 MillionThis story, written by Camille Ricketts, was originally posted on VentureBeat's GreenBeat, an editorial partner of GreenCarReports. Having already banked $100 million Fisker Automotive has raised its sights on a new round of venture capital funding, now seeking $175 million, according to a filing...
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Prius Plug-In Hybrid: It Won't Compete With the Leaf or VoltWe've been thinking a lot about the prototype 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid since our test drive of a prototype last month. And about the rest of the plug-in cars that will come to market over the next two years. To our surprise, we decided we don't think buyers will directly compare the Prius...
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Toyota's first production vehicle powered by a hydrogen fuel cell will be a sedan model with the range of a gasoline model, said a company executive last week.
It will be priced at roughly $50,000,...
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Saturday Selection: Stuff Sort-of-Relevant To Green CarsWe read a lot of stuff here to cover the world of green cars. No surprise there. But there's a lot we see that doesn't lend itself to a full article, though we hate to let it pass by altogether. So this is a new type of piece, one that brings together stuff that's sort-of-relevant to green cars...
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2010 Lexus HS 250h Luxury Hybrid Not Selling As ExpectedLast summer, when we first drove the 2010 Lexus HS 250h luxury hybrid--and then did a full test drive--we were quite puzzled by it. Neither as fuel efficient as a hybrid nor as elegant and refined as other Lexus models, it seemed neither fish nor fowl. And in the end, while we appreciated its...
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Buying a Green Car: It's All About Being Seen Being GreenOn the surface, buying a "green car" often doesn't make sense. Or rather, it doesn't make dollars and cents: The extra cost of the necessary technology--whether it's a hybrid, a clean diesel, or a plug-in electric car--is often never recouped in fuel savings. So why do people do it? Turns out it's...
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OK, We Get It: Adam Carolla Likes, and Hates, Electric CarsAs if legitimate news outlets didn't have enough trouble covering electric vehicles sensibly, now we get the comedians weighing in. Late-night talk-show host and stereotypical grumpy guy Adam Carolla recently lit into electric cars, in an interview with Gizmodo's Jason Chen in which he was invited...
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More Ethanol in Gasoline Bad For Existing Cars, Say AutomakersAdding more ethanol to gasoline may help the U.S. meet a Congressional mandate to use more of the renewable fuel, but it could damage many of the cars now on the road, say automakers. Last year, U.S. vehicle manufacturers went public with their alarm that the EPA might increase the permissible...
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GM has been talking about the 2011 Chevrolet Volt for three and a half years now. After absorbing an enormous amount of Volt propaganda, we've learned that subtle shifts in message can be important.
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2011 Chevy Volt To Offer 'Mountain Mode' For Hill ClimbingThe 2011 Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric car will offer a capability that General Motors hasn't previously discussed: a "Mountain Mode" that the driver can select if he knows that he will be climbing a long hill. GM's executive director of powertrain engineering Larry Nitz revealed the new...
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Ford Doubles Down on Flex-Fuel Vehicles; Do Carbuyers Care?It must be something in the water. Yesterday, we learned that every 2011 Buick Regal will offer flex-fuel capability as standard. Now it's Ford's turn; the company announced today that it will have doubled the number of flex-fuel models it builds by the end of the year, fulfilling a 2006 pledge...
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Long-Haul Truckers Beg For Rescue From Nasty Gas-Saving EPAIt's pretty rare when a group of drivers begs a government agency to regulate them. But when it could avert what they think would be even worse regulations from another agency, anything's fair in love and war. The drivers in this case are the nation's long-haul truckers or, more precisely, the...
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Toyota Prius Pedal Repair: Letters Go Out, Here's How It WorksWe've written several times about the accelerator-pedal recall for 2004-2009 Toyota Prius models. While plans for the recall were announced last fall, now Toyota has sent out letters inviting Prius owners to bring their cars in to dealers for the update. The recall came after it was discovered that...
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Nissan Says: We'll Make Money On Selling Leaf Electric CarsIt's almost an article of faith in the auto industry that electric cars will require huge subsidies in their initial years. Certainly Toyota is widely assumed to have put tens of billions of dollars into its hybrid-electric vehicle program before it started to cover its costs. Never shy of taking a...
John Voelcker