Electric Cars

Potential Rolls-Royce customers know what they like, and know what they don't. Let's face it, they wouldn't be in the market for a Rolls-Royce if they'd not made plenty of "I like it" and "I don't like it" decisions in their lives. So when customers tell Rolls-Royce that the charging time and the...

You may recognize the Jaguar C-X75 supercar from the 2010 Paris Auto Show, where it wowed the critics and public alike. You may also remember that the car was destined to be a plug-in, range-extended vehicle, the electric motors supplemented not by a regular gasoline engine, but by a series of...

So you're in the market for a new car. Fantastic. You've done the research--looking at list prices, EPA fuel ratings, and all manner of other factors--and you know you want something fuel-efficient and easy on the environment. But what will that car really cost over, say, five years of ownership?...

Several years ago, the U.S. auto industry worried that Chinese carmakers would use inexpensive cars to gain a foothold here, just as Japanese and Korean makers had done. That hasn't happened, for many reasons--one being that making cars good enough to sell here is remarkably hard. More recently...

Volkswagen has confirmed that an all-electric version of its Golf compact hatchback will go on sale in the U.S. late next year as a 2014 model. The president of Volkswagen of America, Jonathan Browning, gave the news to industry trade journal Automotive News (subscription required) during last...

You may have noticed we feature the late Mazda RX-8 rather less often than the Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car. Considering the final iteration of the four-seat, four-door sports car delivered just 23 mpg highway from its 1.3-liter Renesis rotary engine, it really wasn’t a green...

If you stop and think about it, electric drivetrains are actually very well suited to the rarified world of supercars. Some of the EV's normal negative points - expense, lack of range - are less of a problem in low-volume, low-usage supercars. Throw a high-performance electric motor in the mix, and...

While the company didn't make its self-imposed deadline for first customer deliveries in February, Coda Automotive has a different reason to celebrate today. At 10:25 am Pacific time, the first production 2012 Coda Sedan electric car is set to drive off the assembly line at its plant in Benicia...

At last week’s 2012 Geneva Motor Show, Renault unveiled the production version of its 2013 Zoe Electric hatchback. The fourth all-electric car from the French automaker, the subcompact Zoe is quickly causing a stir in Europe thanks to its impressive specifications and low price. Renault has...

Certain parts of the media would have you believe that slow electric car sales indicate that no-one wants to drive electric cars. Not so, says all-electric car sharing service Car2Go, which has announced over 6,000 user registrations in its first 100 days. Founded last year by Daimler North America...

It's the first battery-electric car from a global automaker, a compact hatchback eagerly awaited for years and touted by some as a revolutionary vehicle that will change the way we drive forever. It's not the Nissan Leaf. It is, instead, the 2012 Ford Focus Electric, which earned a higher...

We've had a ride in a prototype 2012 Tesla Model S electric luxury sport sedan, and it was impressive. The car was smooth, quiet, and relatively fast at speeds up to 95 mph on the test track surrounding Tesla's assembly plant in Fremont, Cailfornia. Intrepid test driver (and Lotus racer) Joe Nuxoll...

First off, just to be clear, the photo above is NOT a dead Fisker. It shows the 2012 Fisker Karma we road-tested three weeks ago parked at a Tesla Motors dealer in Los Angeles. But while our Fisker was running fine that day, Consumer Reports was not so lucky this week. The magazine bought a Fisker...

It’s no secret that electric cars prefer temperate weather in which to operate. That’s why many electric automakers add features to their cars to ensure that battery packs are kept at optimum temperature, regardless of how warm it is outside. But how do electric automakers test their...

If the Chevy Volt is a sales failure, you'd never know it from the guy who runs General Motors. At a meeting of Volt owners in San Francisco yesterday, GM's CEO Dan Akerson said unequivocally that the company was standing behind its halo plug-in electric car. "We are not backing away from this...

Unless you’re the kind of person who likes spelunking, the chances are you don’t spend much time in caves. For PBS, the underground caves of Cumberland Caverns, Tennessee form the perfect acoustic music venue for the latest season of its Bluegrass Underground show. But how do you get...

There are many types of plug-in cars; some makers go for battery electrics, others for plug-in hybrids or range-extended electric vehicles. At the Geneva Motor Show yesterday, Hyundai unveiled a concept coupe showing how it might package an electric car offering a 75-mile range with a...

French carmaker Renault chose the Geneva Motor Show to launch the ZOE, the final model in its four-car Z.E. electric vehicle range. Joining the Fluence sedan, Kangoo van and Twizy city car, the ZOE is a B-segment electric car, similar in size to a Ford Fiesta. Unlike the Fluence and Kangoo which...

Images of Infiniti’s much anticipated Emerg-E range-extended electric sports concept car might have leaked onto the Internet long before its 2012 Geneva Motor Show unveiling -- but now we know the sexy sports car isn’t all looks. Officially unveiled this morning, we’ve learned...

Honda's EV-STER electric sports car concept is no stranger to the auto show stands, having debuted at the 2011 Tokyo Auto Show. The car has now made its European debut at Geneva, accessible to all rather than placed high on a turntable - so we've got some more live shots for you. Though the EV-STER...