Green

Whilst the U.S. and Europe get the 2011 Chevrolet Volt and 2012 Opel and Vauxhall Ampera, it seems all the full battery-electric vehicles are going to the Far East, and they're keeping fairly quiet about it. A few months back we revealed GM's plans to test an electric version of the Chevrolet Cruze...

Never one to miss the opportunity for a pithy quote, petrolhead extraordinaire Jay Leno has come up trumps again whilst taking delivery of his new 2011 Chevrolet Volt. "Electricity is like sex. People lie about it," quipped Leno, referring to how owners are occasionally inclined to add a few more...

How much is your time worth? If you live in southern California and drive to work, the answer for some of you seems to be more than $17 an hour. That conclusion is drawn from data contained in an Infrastrurist interview with Jack Finn, the head of toll services for HTNB, an infrastructure firm that...

The General Motors EV1 still exerts a strange fascination for electric-car fans and civilians alike. Its sleek, aerodynamic shape and pioneering all-electric drive (despite an initial range of only about 70 miles) make it an important vehicle in U.S. automotive history. Fascination has only grown...

As 2010 draws to a close, we now have shipments of the 2011 Nissan LEAF and the 2011 Chevy Volt to customers around the United States. With the advent of these vehicles, is there still a business case for Better Place? To refresh your memory, Better Place is the venture between Shai Agassi and...

The BMW "MegaCity" carbon-fiber all-electric car, scheduled for launch in 2013, may be the most radical BMW in decades. BMW had confirmed that this first production electric car to wear the BMW badge would be the first of a sub-brand within the make, much as its "M" series of performance editions...

Even if you may not have heard of the Peak Oil theory, everyone knows that we'll continue to use more and more gasoline in years to come. Right? Well, errrrr, no. Maybe not. At least, that's the conclusion of both industry analysts and the oil companies themselves. The peak year for U.S. gasoline...

What'll she do, mister? With electric cars, the response would more often than not usually be relating to the range. With Don Wales' Electric Bluebird, the answer might instead be 150 miles per hour. Maybe even 175 miles per hour. If the name Bluebird is familiar to you, then you'll probably...

Following years of claims they weren't interested in developing a battery-electric vehicle, Honda backtracked earlier this year and decided that they would produce one, with the 2012 Honda Fit EV concept finally revealed at the 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show last month. Now, Honda has announced that...

With the handful of new production intent concept cars Lotus showed off at the recent 2010 Paris Auto Show, it’s evident the automaker, typically focused with lightweight sports cars, is trying new things. What’s interesting to see is that Lotus is expanding towards both ends of the new...

In one particularly hilarious scene in the TV show Weeds, Mary-Louise Parker’s soccer mom/drug dealer character inspires a scary drug lord to buy several Toyota Priuses after he successfully carries out a drive-by shooting while riding in hers. The selling point? The quietness of the hybrid...

For the past few years, we’ve witnessed the success of low-volume, high-priced, highway-capable electric vehicles in the Tesla Roadster. We’ve also just recently seen the advent of medium-volume, medium -priced highway-capable electric cars like the 2011 Chevy Volt and 2011 Nissan LEAF...

With the focus naturally going towards some of the big electric car launches we've had this year or established players like Tesla Motors, it's all too easy to forget that there are a wealth of smaller companies out there producing their own, unique take on electric transport. One such company is...

It looks like the 2011 Lexus CT 200h isn’t the only new hybrid vehicle Lexus has in the pipeline. New filings with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office have revealed that a hybrid version of the Lexus ES sedan is likely to be in the works, though apart from its new name we don’t have...

It's been a while since we checked in on the car that will likely make or break Silicon Valley electric-car startup Tesla Motors: the Model S, a five-door midsize sports luxury sedan it hopes to launch somewhere toward the end of 2012. Tesla hasn't said much about the Model S lately, but a number...

As many industry analysts will tell you, the switch to plug-in cars by the general public requires an increased support network of public charging stations. But while we’ve seen charging stations popping up at shopping malls, electronics retailers and even banks the fast food industry...

The Voltec powetrain used in the 2011 Chevrolet Volt has never been meant for just the one vehicle. Restricting a new technology developed at great expense to a single niche vehicle makes poor economic sense. The prediction by Car and Driver of a Volt-based Chevrolet Amp, thought to be close in...

We love reader questions, and occasionally they prompt posts, like this one: I'm thinking of buying a motorhome. Can I tow my 2008 Toyota Prius behind it? Stumped us, so we turned to the good people at Toyota. They sent us excerpts from the Prius owner's manual, complete with many, many, many...

Are electric cars appliances? They plug in, use electricity and certainly have more computers in them than most consumers have in their entire home. But should they be sold in conventional car dealerships or somewhere else? Japanese retail chain Yamada Denki has tried to answer both questions, by...

Well, that was quick. Just one month after it unveiled the electric Fit EV prototype at the Los Angeles Auto Show, Honda is about to put the first of its electric subcompacts into daily use in southern California. Amusingly, it's in Torrance, where rival automaker and hybrid leader Toyota has its...