Electric Cars

  • BYD e6 at 2011 Geneva Motor Show, photo by Robert Llewellyn

    We’ve known about Chinese firm BYD for some time now. In fact, its all-electric e6 was unveiled before the word Leaf became the name of an electric car. But despite unveiling a car long before many of its rivals, BYD won’t be bringing the e6 to the U.S. until the middle of next year. If the firm’s past reputation is anything to go by, we’d suggest that date is highly likely to change. The information comes courtesy of freelance journalist Alysha Webb, who interviewed Stella Li, senior vice president of BYD Co. last week. In her article over at Plugincars.com, Webb...

  • All Cars Electric's New Home on the Internet
    Join All Cars Electric As We Move To Green Car Reports Next Week!

    If you’re a regular at All Cars Electric You’ll know that we have a sister site, Green Car Reports. Together, we’ve been covering the latest news in plug-in vehicles and other green cars for quite some time. In the past few years we’ve seen electric cars move from vaporware...

  • 2011 Nissan Leaf
    Nissan Gives First Charging Station To City Visited By Top Gear (BREAKING)

    If you’ve been following the story of what happened when popular British entertainment show Top Gear took a 2011 Nissan Leaf and 2011 Peugeot iOn (nee Mitsubishi i) for a drive to the rural eastern U.K. city of Lincoln, you’ll know that Nissan wasn’t exactly happy with the way its...

  • 2012 Ford Focus Electric on Late Show with David Letterman
    2012 Ford Focus Gives Letterman a Late Show Test-Drive

    You’re the CEO of a global automaker who has just been invited to appear as a guest on the internationally renowned Late Show With David Letterman to talk about your new electric car. But rather than just talk about it, why not bring the car along too? And then let the show’s host drive...

  • 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid
    2012 Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid: Five Things We Hate

    In the past year, we’ve put the 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid through an extensive set of test-drives, resulting in our first drive report, winter test-drive, financial analysis and even a family vacation. With so many miles behind the wheel, our editorial team has already shared our five...

  • 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Drive  -  March 2011
    2012 Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid: Five Things We Like

    We’ve now had four chances to put the 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid through its paces, covering everything from fast-moving freeways and inner city streets through to mountain passes and trips to the local Costco. In the end we concluded that for some drivers, Toyota’s 13...

  • 2011 Nissan Leaf - battery pack cutaway

    Nissan’s all-electric Leaf isn’t having a great time of it this week in the mainstream media. Firstly, Nissan had to defend itself against popular British motoring entertainment program Top Gear after it showed the electric hatchback in a less-than favorable light, quoting a battery expert who said the Leaf’s 24 kilowatt hour battery pack would need replacing after just three years. Now British newspaper The Telegraph has joined in the fight, claiming that a new battery pack for the Leaf would cost owners a few hundred dollars shy of $32,000. In an article published...

  • Electric Car Battery Swapping- Chinese Style
    Say Hello To Electric Car Battery Swaps, Chinese Style

    We all know that one of the biggest challenges facing electric cars is the fact that recharging a battery pack is orders of magnitude slower than filling a gasoline car’s fuel tank. As battery packs have become more advanced, we’ve seen an increased use of rapid charging technologies...

  • Tesla Model S Alpha build cars testing on track
    Tesla Releases Trio Test-Track Fun Model S Teaser Video

    If Tesla’s Model S all-electric seven-seat sedan were in high school, it would be the kind of girl every heterosexual boy would lust after and every teenage girl would want to be. At least, that’s certainly the line being taken by Tesla in its latest teasing track-test video, in which...

  • BBC Top Gear Team Use Handicapped Spaces
    Top Gear On Electric Cars: “We Are Allowed To Put Into A Film What We Want To”

    Uh-ho. Those crafty chaps known as the BBC Top Gear team may have thought they got away with their recent review of the 2011 Nissan Leaf and 2011 Peugeot iOn (a rebadged predecessor to the 2012 Mitsubishi i) - but they would be wrong. The fur started flying yesterday, when Nissan Senior Vice...

  • 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-in Hybrid: Everything to Everyone?

    The iconic Toyota Prius was the car which started the hybrid revolution. Offering fuel economy that very few other gasoline cars could hope to achieve, it has been loved by politicians, movie stars and wannabe greenies for over ten years. Although Toyota improved its hybrid drivetrain for the...

  • Nissan Carwings App for Android OS
    Nissan North America Releases Android App for Leaf Electric Car

    Ever since the launch of the 2011 Nissan Leaf, owners have been able to remotely access information about their car’s state of charge, estimated range and even pre-heat or cool the cabin using Nissan’s built-in telematics service - Carwings. But unless you happened to own an iPhone in...

  • Top Gear Stage Another Electric Car Stunt

    It's the episode electric car enthusiasts have been itching to see- and now the guys at BBC motoring show Top Gear have tested two electric cars to see whether they make any sense for the car buying public. Now we already know that Top Gear hasn't had the greatest history with electric cars. First, they tested the Tesla Roadster in December 2008 and their assessment resulted in Tesla filing a lawsuit back in March for the harm done to its reputation. Then, amateur videos started appearing in May showing Jeremy Clarkson and James May drawing a crowd in the UK city of Lincoln searching for a...

  • BMW i3 Concept
    BMW i3 Concept: Battery Electric Urban Minicar—Full Details

    The concept version of the 2014 BMW i3 unveiled today in Frankfurt shows just how radical a change BMW has made from its legacy of gasoline-powered, front-engine, rear-drive sporty vehicles. For one, it’s entirely powered by electricity. The flat lithium-ion battery pack is built into the...

  • BMW i8 Concept
    BMW i8 Concept: Plug-In Hybrid Sports Coupe—Full Details

    While its sports coupes are more of a known entity, the i8 Concept shown in Frankfurt today may be the most radical coupe BMW has ever built. Its “stream flow” lines, characteristic of the new BMW ‘I’ sub-brand, include an adaptation of the BMW twin-kidney grille and...

  • Volt_China
    Electric Cars Dirtier Than Gasoline Equivalents In China

    EV fans are probably sick of arguing the case for electric cars whenever someone brings up the old "well to wheels" scenario. "Well, where does the electricity come from?" they ask. Familiar with it? Most of us have pre-prepared figures as to why EVs are cleaner, even considering the fuel burned to...

  • BMW Megacity Vehicle official teaser
    Official BMW i Preview Coming Tomorrow

    BMW is holding a global press conference in Frankfurt, Germany tomorrow to promote its new i division aimed at sustainable motoring solutions for the future. Our own green car expert John Voelcker is on his way to Frankfurt as you read this and will be bringing us all the information direct from...

  • 2012 Tesla Model S body-in-white
    2012 Tesla Model S: 'Blank Slate' With 'Awesome Door Handles'

    Tesla Motors has a bit of a problem: It needs to keep itself in the public eye between its last electric Roadster and next summer, when its 2012 Model S electric sports sedan is scheduled to arrive. Toward that end, the company has been publishing regular updates on the new car on its blog. The...

  • Blink EV charging point at IKEA store

    Furniture and homewares giant IKEA has joined a grown list of retail firms announcing plans to install electric car charging points at their stores across the nation. Just this week we reported about Walgreens announcing plans for 800 charging points, and before that we saw Cracker Barrel and Best Buy do the same. Like the rest, IKEA is partnering with an independent charging point installer, in this case ECOtality Inc., which will install the Blink EV charging unit at the stores in 10 different cities across the U.S. The rollout program should be completed by the end of fall and will include...

  • 2012 Mitsubishi i electric car x-ray image
    2012 Mitsubishi i Electric Car: X-Ray Cutaway Shows Layout

    Here's a view of a car you've probably not seen before, though it may be familiar to you if you've ever been in the hospital. The image above shows the 2012 Mitsubishi i electric vehicle after an X-ray scan, allowing you to see many of the vehicle's key components. X-rays pass cleanly through...

  • Formulec EF01 electric race car
    Electric Race Cars To Get On-Track Inductive Charging

    Inductive charging through the road is an impossibly futuristic dream, one not likely to be achieved in the near- to medium-term for road cars despite tests by Volvo and BMW, among others. Snatching a charge as you wait at a stoplight or even drive, without wires, charging stations, or any other...

  • 2012 Ford Focus Electric launch, New York City, January 2011 - Bill Ford Jr.
    Ford Polls Facebook Fans For 2012 Focus Electric Noises (Video)

    Whether you think they're needed or not, all electric and hybrid cars are going to be required to fit noisemakers so that they can't be missed at speeds of 15 mph or below. To involve its fans, Ford posted four possible sounds for the noise that its upcoming 2012 Ford Focus Electric will emit as...

  • 2011 Nissan Leaf
    Nissan Leaf Scores 5-Star NHTSA Crash Safety Rating

    The Nissan Leaf is the first and only electric car to be crash tested by the NHTSA and it has passed with flying colors.

  • First 2011 Nissan Leaf delivered to buyer, San Francisco, Dec 2010, photo by Eugene Lee
    Breathe Easy, Californians: Electric-Car Rebates Survive, Cut To $2,500

    It came down to the wire, but in the end, California's program of purchase rebates for buyers of qualifying plug-in electric cars has survived the state's grim budget crisis. Last Thursday, we wrote about the decisions facing the California Air Resources Board: How much could it really afford to...

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