Green

To keep interest in its 40 mpg capable Fiesta bubbling along into the 2012 model year, Ford is introducing a trio of new customization packs for both the exterior and cabin of the already stylish minicar. The new packs should prove popular as around 40 percent of buyers of the 2011 model have opted...

A little under two weeks ago Japan was hit by one of the biggest earthquakes ever recorded. Measuring in at 9.0 on the richter scale and causing a devastating tsunami which killed tens of thousands and lay waste to hundreds of miles of coastline, Japan is still in an advance state of emergency. Yet...

You don't start the engine in a 2011 Chevrolet Volt. Instead, you "power up" the car by pressing a button with the universal computer power symbol on it. Once the Volt has gone through its bootup routine, complete with tones and chimes, the button glows blue and you're ready to roll on electric...

Most car buyers haven't even heard the term "range extender" yet. But over time, expect it to become more familiar, as electric cars like the 2011 Chevrolet Volt introduce the concept of a gasoline engine that turns a generator to produce electricity to power the vehicle. Tiny, powerful, efficient...

Oh, those wacky Germans and their car-sharing schemes. BMW said yesterday that it would launch a pilot car-sharing program, first in Munich and then in Berlin, starting next month. The cooperative venture with Sixt AG will be called DriveNow. BMW says DriveNow will be the "first-ever car-sharing...

We all know about the latest electric cars to come from the likes of Ford, General Motors and Nissan. But while they may be the latest they are certainly not the first. In the first of a series of fun trips back in time, we’re looking at the ancestors of electric cars we see coming to market...

Gas mileage is on absolutely everyone's mind these days. Strife in oil-producing nations, and the associated rising gasoline prices, have already led to a surge of interest in any vehicle's MPG ratings. Now production in Japan (source of most of the world's hybrids) is shut down, at least...

If you listen to the enthusiastic founder and CEO of Better Place Shai Agassi, the ability to swap depleted electric car battery packs for fully charged ones at a dedicated swap station is an essential and much-needed part of electric vehicle infrastructure. But while the ultra-fast way of getting...

Expect to see smaller engines for BMW’s future models, as high fuel prices and greater environmental concerns push automakers towards engines with lower displacements. We’ve already seen this trend with the recent announcement of BMW’s new TwinPower Turbo 2.0-liter four-cylinder...

Quick, name the electric cars currently on sale. Nissan Leaf, Chevy Volt, and ... ummmm ... oh, yeah, Smart Electric Drive. Now name the ones built in the States. Hmmmm. Volt, right? Think about it Yes, but you've missed out on one--in both categories. It's the Think City, which is now being...

For all the media furor over the 2011 Nissan Leaf and the 2011 Chevy Volt, you'd think that tens of thousands of them were flooding onto our streets each month. Not so. As of Feb 28, the total sold between both cars was just 1,102, made up of 928 Volts and 174 Leafs. Now, it may be that those...

We’ve known for some time that Porsche’s 918 Spyder plug-in hybrid concept from the 2010 Geneva Motor Show would eventually enter production but today, more than two years out from its debut, Porsche has announced that the order books have officially opened. We can confirm that the...

What comes first? The electric car or the charging point? Of course it depends on who you ask. Generally if you’re an existing electric car owner the answer is likely to be the former. If you’re a government official, prospective electric car owner or automaker the answer is likely to...

Americans rarely think much about zoning, but it governs almost every facet of how we live our lives. And unintended consequences of 50-year-old zoning codes may be about to turn some of our loveliest and quietest suburbs into the next slums. Why? Simply because they've been built too far away from...

We rarely think about what's in our gasoline when we fill the tank, but carmakers have to. Mercedes-Benz has just launched a new direct-injected 3.5-liter V-6 engine in its 2012 SLK model, with an innovative "lean burn" mode that will also be used on a smaller four-cylinder engine. The "Stratified"...

Chinese battery firm turned automaker hit the news a couple of times last week for all the wrong reasons. But less than a week after the firm was the center of a major auto scandal it has quietly started to prepare itself for a late 2011 U.S. Launch. So why is a company which previously been...

Renault’s paranoia over industrial espionage backfired earlier this week as it struggled with the reality that it had been duped into believing that three of its executives had been selling electric car secrets to the Chinese. But while Renault/Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn made a formal apology to...

While many Americans may still scoff at the idea of driving a reasonably sized car with an engine not much bigger than that found on a motorbike, sales numbers are showing that the tide is starting to turn and this archaic negative perception towards smaller engines may soon alleviate altogether...

Does your car have an app for that? If Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk has his way, it will. The electric-car maker’s CEO said at a conference today in San Francisco that the much-hyped Model S electric sedan will support third-party apps and text-to-voice capabilities. Musk made the announcement...

Just a few months in and we’re already hearing stories of electric car owners getting stranded as their new electric cars ‘suddenly’ run out of power. We’ve already examined the reasons behind why two 2011 Nissan Leaf drivers recently found themselves stranded without...