Electric Cars

What turns an electric car into a great electric car? Ask most people, and they will list features like a powerful electric motor, good range and comfortable seats. But these things are set at the factory, long before you even step inside your car. What about things you can do improve how your car...

The new 2012 Toyota RAV4 EV is quick, relatively fun to drive, and the only all-electric crossover utility vehicle on the market today. It has a good, intuitive touchscreen display and instrument cluster that shows both the maximum possible range and a constantly updated range based on both the...

The 2012 Olympic Games might be based in London this year, but the official car sponsor is distinctly German, with BMW supplying all the official games vehicles. Still, Brits can take some solace that a selection of MINIs make up part of the fleet, adding a traditional touch to the games. Forty of...

Last week, an article on this site asked, "How Far Can The 2012 Chevrolet Volt Travel on Electricity Alone?" As a Volt owner, I felt duty-bound to answer that question, and to take up the challenge of beating the 60-mile figure claimed by the driver of an Opel Ampera, the European version of the...

If the ideal electric car has a real-world range of 100 miles or more and the practical utility that American families buy crossovers for, the future may be arriving this year. The 2012 Toyota RAV4 EV has every bit of space that the gasoline versions do. Its Tesla-engineered battery pack and...

As we pointed out yesterday, sales of purely electric cars in the U.S. aren’t as high as many in the industry hoped they would be. In an attempt to get more customers, Nissan has lowered the lease prices of its 2012 Nissan Leaf SV and 2012 Nissan Leaf SL, while automakers in Europe have...

If you drive an electric car, hybrid, diesel or other green vehicle day-to-day, you might like to know that you can rent similar when you go abroad, or even when you fly across country to visit relatives. Luckily, many rental and car-sharing firms offer green vehicles on their fleets, and some even...

In the world of electric cars, there are a great number of engineers who like to tweak, modify, and improve the various electric cars on the market today. So far we’ve seen everything from advanced remote monitoring devices to jet-powered range extenders, but now one prolific Californian...

After a rough period last year, the Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric car has settled down and is now the best-selling plug-in car in the U.S. General Motors is continuing a program, launched a year ago, that makes Volts available for loan both to interested buyers and members of the...

Wherever you charge your electric car, it's nice to have access to the latest equipment and a good network of charging sites. That's the aim of ECOtality, as it offers Blink chargers at an increasingly wide range of sites, with Philadelphia, Chicago and Atlanta the latest cities joining the list...

If you drive an electric car on a daily basis, the chances are your car has more than enough range to tackle the daily commute on a single charge, so charging at work isn't a concern. Unless that is, you’re one of the few to drive well beyond the range of a round trip, and already have a...

Tesla Motors’ decision to purchase the former NUMMI automotive manufacturing facility in Fremont, California might have been one of its shrewdest business decisions to date. Not only did Tesla Motors [NASAQ:TSLA] obtain a pre-built facility --complete with the essential machinery it needed to...

You want to drive an all-electric car, but you've got range anxiety: the fear that you'll run out of charge in the middle of no where, miles away from the nearest charging station. Now there's a solution that lets you drive an all-electric car and know you'll not get stranded without hope. Enter...

Sometimes you see remarkable cars in corporate parking lots. This photo, for instance, sent to us by a reader who prefers to remain anonymous, shows five Nissan compact crossovers lined up in the parking lot at the U.S. headquarters of electric-car service provider Better Place. With both left-hand...

The Tesla Roadster is no longer on sale, and with attention on the recently-launched Model S, the upcoming Model X crossover and a rumored BMW 3-Series-sized Tesla sedan, it may be some time before the company produces another sports car. That means you're limited to used vehicles, and what better...

There are currently 10,000 or so publicly-available electric car charging stations in the U.S., in addition to countless private charging stations in homes and businesses across the nation. The current number of charging stations in the U.S. today makes electric cars trump all other...

BMW has big plans for its i brand of plug-in electric cars, giving the lineup its own visual design language and its first foray into online sales. But beyond the i3 subcompact electric city car and the i8 plug-in hybrid sports coupe, there will be other BMW i models--some of which, apparently...

If you're selling a futuristic vehicle, why not sell it using futuristic means? That's the strategy BMW is looking to take with its i3 and i8 plug-in cars, when both go on sale in Europe in a few years time. The German automaker may well have just opened a specialised showroom for the cars in...

General Electric scientists have developed a prototype electric motor designed to improve the performance and efficiency of hybrid and electric vehicles. The Interior Permanent Magnet traction motor improves on existing designs in several key areas, and would result in hybrids and electric vehicles...

When General Motors began producing the Chevrolet Volt in 2010, many staunch electric car fans dismissed it, saying its on-board gasoline engine meant it was only a hybrid, not a true electric car. With sixty-three percent of all Chevrolet Volt trips to date being made in electric-only mode, most...