John Voelcker, Contributing Editor
Articles
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Just two days ago, we noted that Nissan was granted $1.6 billion of Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing loans by the US Department of Energy. It plans to use the money to retool its Smyrna,...
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Our Latest Feature: Live Tweets About Green CarsHere at GreenCarReports.com, we spend a lot of time reading and writing about green cars of all stripes: fuel-efficient hatchbacks, hybrids, diesels, small cars, you name it. But we also spend time immersed in the fast-changing world of digital media. And lately, we've spent a lot of time looking...
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Our Latest Feature: Live Tweets About Toyota PriusAs if life couldn't get any more digital and fragmentary, you may have heard about Twitter: short messages you can broadcast to a list of friends, each one no more than 140 characters long. The service has been in the news lately as one tool used by Iranians protesting election irregularities, but...
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2010 Lexus HS250h: Right For Our Times Or Not?We've just returned from driving the 2010 Lexus HS250h through the manicured suburbs of New York's Westchester County. We'll post our full impressions tomorrow, following up the first drive of the Lexus HS by our colleague Bengt Halvorson. But at the end of the day, we're left just slightly...
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A Toyota Prius To Die For: The High-Mileage Hybrid HearseSometimes all we can say is that it's a privilege to write for AllAboutPrius.com. It's just never, ever dull around here. Today, for your delight, we bring you the world's highest-mileage hearse, which also happens to have the lowest carbon footprint of any casket-transport device short of the...
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Advanced Auto-Tech Loans Go To Tesla, Ford, and NissanUS Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced the first three loans to be granted under the government's Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program. The lucky winners, totaling $8 billion worth of low-interest loans from the US Department of Energy: Ford, Nissan, and Tesla. FORD Amount...
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Last week, we wrote that the smash success of the Mitsubishi i-MiEV is leading the company to plan five additional electric cars.
We've now driven electric-car prototypes from a number of...
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Diesel's Not A Dirty Word, Say New Audi TDI AdsEuropean automakers may be taking tentative steps into hybrids, but much of their green-car strategy still depends on clean diesels, adapted from engines that power half the new cars in Europe. Six weeks ago, Volkswagen launched its "TDI Truth and Dares" publicity effort to convince the US public...
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FIRST RIDE: 2011 Coda Sedan Electric CarIt's not every day that the CEO of a car company takes you for a ride. Especially if it's through the move-it-or-lose-it traffic of midtown Manhattan. In the rain. But Kevin Czinger seemed to enjoy it. We covered the 2011 Coda Sedan all-electric car when it launched three weeks ago. Now we've had a...
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2010 Pontiac Vibe: Get The Greenest Pontiac Before It's GoneThings change fast these days in the wacky world of automaking. Just last week, we pointed you toward the 2010 Pontiac Vibe, saying the last Pontiac was the best green car it had offered. Well, if you want one, you'd better act fast. General Motors announced yesterday that the last Vibe would be...
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BREAKING: Cash for Clunkers Passed By SenateAll that's left now is for President Barack Obama to sign the bill. Late last night, the US Senate voted 91 to 5 to pass a $106 billion supplemental spending bill for US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan that includes $1 billion in "Cash for Clunkers" funding. Earlier, the Senate had barely defeated...
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California HOV-Lane Stickers For Hybrids: Worth $1,200 To $1,500Imagine a special sticker that let you use those high-occupancy vehicle lanes, zipping past stop-and-go rush hour traffic, blissfully alone in your car. If you live in California and were one of 85,000 lucky hybrid owners, you know exactly what I'm talking about. In 2005, California decided to open...
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Until this spring, the Toyota Camry Hybrid was the only mass-market, four-door full hybrid sedan sold in the US. Then Ford introduced the 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid, and reporters have been comparing...
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NY Times Blogger Likes New 2010 Toyota Prius (With Video!)Continuing our sporadic series on other writers' reviews of the 2010 Toyota Prius, today we move to the hallowed grey pages of The New York Times. Yesterday, reporter and blogger Micheline Maynard wrote a detailed post on her impressions of the new 2010 Prius compared to her current 2009 model...
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2011 Porsche Cayenne Hybrid At Dealers Late Next YearHell is freezing over pretty frequently these days, it seems. Porsche, once the pinnacle of piston-engined power, will launch its first hybrid late next year. The 2011 Porsche Cayenne Hybrid sport-utility will get gas mileage of at least 26 miles per gallon (less than 9 litres per 100 km)...
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Surprise: Troglodyte Auto Writer Hates, Loathes, Despises 2010 Toyota Prius!Once in a while, we cover other auto critics' reviews of the 2010 Toyota Prius. It's a major launch for the world's most popular hybrid, and it's being keenly watched by media the world over. So we like to see what they have to say. Most reviewers are fair, explaining what they liked and what they...
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Mitsubishi's Smash Success Spawns 5 More Electric VehiclesIn less than six weeks, fleet buyers in Japan will start receiving deliveries of the production version of the Mitsubishi i-MiEV electric car. Individual buyers will be able to place orders at the same time, for delivery starting next April. The i-MiEV has turned into a smash success for struggling...
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2010 Toyota Prius vs. 2010 Honda Insight: Running The NumbersIf you've been comparing the new 2010 Toyota Prius to the smaller, less expensive 2010 Honda Insight, Toyota would like to have a little chat with you. They think that you think you'll save money buying the cheaper Insight. So, licking the corporate pencil and pulling out the compact calculator...
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As Mark Twain is supposed to have said, "Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated." (Although, sadly, he actually didn't say it.)
In this case, the "my" is the General Motors mild-hybrid...
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Racing Goes Green As Diesels Romp At Le MansWe were once told by an auto writer that "real car people" didn't want green cars. They wanted noise, and roaring engines, and squealing tires. Well, the triumph of diesel-powered race cars at the famed 24 Heures du Mans shows you can have both. The French carmaker Peugeot placed first and second...
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Mazda To Get (More) Hybrid, Electric Technology From Ford?Mazda is known for its "Zoom-Zoom" tagline, meaning sporty cars that set the bar for enjoyable handling at real-world prices. But the company has repeatedly expressed its lack of interest in electric cars, and its one hybrid is so half-hearted few know it exists. Now, Mazda may have reversed...
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2010 Lexus HS250h Goal: One-Seventh The Sales of 2010 Toyota PriusNow that the 2010 Toyota Prius is available at most Toyota dealers, at least for test drives, we're waiting for its half-brother--the 2010 Lexus HS250h--to appear at Lexus stores around Labor Day. We've wondered for awhile what kind of sales Lexus expected, and now Automotive News reports that the...
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Gas Mileage Tips Courtesy Of, Ummmm, ExxonMobilPress releases are part of every journalist's life. Most of them get scanned or ditched. Once in a while, we put them aside for future reference. Really awful ones get forwarded around with snarky comments. But occasionally there's good info in them. Here, for instance, are five very basic...
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UPDATE: Senate, House Agree On Cash-For-Clunkers TermsLate Tuesday night, we reported that the House had passed a bill by Rep. Betty Sutton (D-OH) to institute a "Cash for Clunkers" tax credit scheme. Now the Detroit News and other sources report that, just two days later, it appears the Senate and House have agreed to include $1 billion to fund the...
John Voelcker