John Voelcker, Contributing Editor
Articles
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While Chinese car company BYD exhibited its E6 all-electric crossover at the Detroit Auto Show last January, they've otherwise been fairly quite of late.
Now comes word that the company has chosen...
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California Bill Seeks To Legalize Sharing Your Car For CashEver loan your car to a friend for a day in exchange for a few bucks? Soon, that may not void your insurance and make you a criminal. At least in California. State Assemblymember Dave Jones (D-Sacramento) has introduced a bill (AB 1871) that would amend the state's insurance laws by allowing...
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The Chevy Volt's Japanese Ancestor. From 1993. From Daihatsu!Everything old is new again. Or so goes the saying. While the 2011 Chevrolet Volt will be the first electric vehicle with a range-extending engine to be built in volume (the first pre-production Volt rolled off the line on March 31), it's hardly the first one ever. We'll ignore for a moment the...
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VIDEO: Driving Tips For Hybrid Cars (Toyota Prius Included)Do you know when to accelerate your Prius "as though there's an eggshell between your foot and the pedal," and when to move away briskly? If you do, you may already be an experienced Prius driver. If not, we have just the video for you. In less than four minutes, our editor goes through some of the...
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VIDEO: Five Things About Hybrid Cars That You Should Know
Do you know the difference between a mild hybrid like a 2010 Honda Insight, and a full hybrid like the 2010 Toyota Prius? Or what happens to all hybrid vehicles when the weather gets cold? If you do, you're probably well versed in green cars, and you may already be a hybrid vehicle owner. If not...
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GE, Nissan Join Forces To Ready the Grid For Electric CarsThis story, written by Camille Ricketts, was originally posted on VentureBeat's GreenBeat, an editorial partner of AllCarsElectric. Nissan continues to beat the electric car drum. Last week, it started taking reservations for its all-electric Leaf, and beat its own expectations with more than 6,600...
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We appreciate our readers, each and every one of you. And we want to make it as easy as possible for you to access AllCarElectric.com.
So when our reader Peter Mac, in Spain, wrote to us this morning...
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2010 Beijing Motor Show: SAIC Roewe E1 Electric Mini-CarSadly, we weren't able to cover the Beijing Motor Show, which opened last week. It's too bad, too, because China is on track to become the world's largest single car market, its fuel efficiency regulations are far tougher than those of the U.S., and its industrial policy for the auto sector focuses...
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Volkswagen: Natural Gas Is Just As Good For Racing As DieselA couple of months ago, we told you about Volkswagen's 2010 Jetta TDI Cup Street Edition, a specially trimmed version of its clean-diesel Jetta sedan that commemorates the TDI Cup racing series, now in its third season. But VW has other green racing activities elsewhere too. Our sister site Motor...
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Better Place Launches Battery-Swap Test In Four Tokyo TaxisThis past Monday, the electric-vehicle infrastructure provider Better Place held a press conference in Tokyo at the site of its first completed battery-swap station to be put into regular usage, in the Ropongi Hills area. Together with Nihon Kotsu, Tokyo's largest taxi company, the company will...
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Fisker Funds Keep Coming: Delaware Adds To DoE's $529 MillionLast fall, Fisker Automotive was awarded $529 million in low-interest loans by the Department of Energy, and the company has continued to rake in cash since then. In January, for instance, Fisker raised an additional $115 million in private capital. Last week, the DoE and Fisker announced that the...
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Ford Hybrids: Tough Enough To Be Police Cars in New York CityAs New York City works aggressively to reduce its carbon footprint and cut exhaust emissions, it has encouraged large fleets to switch to hybrids. From utility ConEd to the fleets of yellow cabs, more and more hybrids are showing up on city streets. The latest large fleet to go greener is the New...
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Going green on the road may involve smaller engines, electric cars, and clean diesels, but it also requires making all engines far more fuel efficient.
To that end, General Motors will announce this...
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Five More Myths About Electric Cars, Courtesy of ThinkYesterday, we published a piece called Five Myths About Electric Cars, Courtesy of Think, whose CEO Richard Canny sent them to us. Today we have five more, to finish off his list of 10 myths. Below is the second half of Canny's list (which is why it begins with # 6), along with our assessment of...
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Opel Ampera, GM's Other Extended-Range EV, In Pre-ProductionWe write a lot about the 2011 Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric vehicle here. It's a radical new car, GM's first electric car since the late EV1, and it'll be in dealerships in just six months. But GM has another electric car coming next year as well. It's the 2012 Opel Ampera. Ummmm, what's...
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Toyota Prius Owners Are Sensible and Level-Headed, In Other WordsAh, yes, it must be about time for another outburst of Prius stereotyping. Three, two, one ... there! Did you hear it? Over there, in the slightly shrill tones of the ever-shrinking but still testy New York Observer (still printed on orange paper, so Nineties)? The paper attempted to survey New...
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Natural-Gas Honda Civic To Oklahoma As U.S. Lags in NGVsThe U.S. buys more hybrids than any place else in the world except Japan. We have a handful of clean diesels, with sales slowly increasing. But the "other alt-fuel" for automobiles--natural gas--is barely a blip on the U.S. market. Nonetheless, Honda is plugging away (ahem) with its 2010 Honda...
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Five Myths About Electric Cars, Courtesy of ThinkLast Thursday was the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, and the CEO of one electric-car maker took the occasion to speak out on some of the popular myths around the manufacturing and use of electric vehicles. Richard Canny, who runs the recently refinanced Think, published a list of "top 10 EV myths...
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We go to a lot of auto shows, but we didn't make it to the Beijing Motor Show, which opened a couple of days ago. Which is a shame, because not only is China on track to become the world's largest...
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Exclusive: VVC Reveals Its White Plastic V-Car, But No PhotosJust a month after being turned down for low-interest loans by the U.S. Department of Energy, the reclusive V-Vehicle Co. has shown a drivable prototype of its affordable, green V-Car to Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal and members of the press in Baton Rouge. While no photos were allowed, many more...
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2011 Chevrolet Volt MPV5 Concept To Be Unveiled in BeijingTomorrow at the Beijing Motor Show, General Motors will unveil its a concept car that likely shows what will be its second unique model of the Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric vehicle. It's called the Chevrolet Volt MPV5 concept; "MPV" stands for Multi-Purpose Vehicle, which is what Asian and...
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Earth Day Special: The 'Hybridest' Green Cities in the U.S.Today is Earth Day, and in honor of that event--it started 40 years ago as a nationwide teach-in on environmental issues--we bring you a list of the greenest cities in the United States. It's not actually our list; it comes from Cars.com, which based its ranking on the percentage of car shoppers...
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2011 Chevrolet Volt Electric Car To Reach Dealers In OctoberThe three-year drumbeat of anticipation for the 2011 Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric car has just gotten slightly louder. General Motors CEO Ed Whitacre announced yesterday that the car will arrive at selected Chevy dealers in October, a month earlier than expected. The first pre-production...
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Surprise! Yes, Fuel Efficiency (Still) Matters to Car BuyersWhat a shock! Who'd ever have thought it? Will wonders never cease? Yes, yet another survey shows that fuel efficiency matters to car and truck buyers. And that more than half say their next vehicle will get better gas mileage than their current ride. Fuel efficiency: It matters Capital One Auto...
John Voelcker