Green

  • 2011 Chevrolet Volt

    Doug Parks, vehicle line executive for the 2011 Chevrolet Volt, GM's range-extended electric vehicle, confirmed Tuesday that the company loses money on every Volt it sells. This should hardly be a surprise. It's called R&D, folks Every major automaker spends billions of dollars a year on research and development costs. And they know that when they launch certain new technologies, they will lose money for some years before costs fall and volumes rise to let economies of scale make a particular new feature or technology profitable. Toyota's investments in its hybrid program, which has given...

  • Green Car Reports on Facebook
    Follow Green Car Reports On Our Facebook Page Too!

    EDITOR'S NOTE: We originally published this article on September 20, but we wanted to alert readers once more that you can now follow us on Facebook. We're eager to reach out and connect with you wherever you're spending your time online, and the discussion on our Facebook page has gotten pretty...

  • Rinspeed BamBoo Concept
    2011 Geneva Motor Show Preview: Rinspeed BamBoo Concept

    Best known for its construction of oddball but impressive concepts like the James Bond-esque underwater sQuba and eXasis glass car, Swiss tuning and engineering firm Rinspeed is now delving into a new world of minimalistic auto design where efficiency and renewability is the name of the game. Set...

  • 2012 Infiniti M Hybrid, at the 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show
    2010 Los Angeles Auto Show: 2012 Infiniti M Hybrid Details

    First previewed at last year's Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, we've been hearing about the 2012 Infiniti M Hybrid for more than a year. Now, finally, Infiniti has officially unveiled the M35h, its very first hybrid-electric vehicle, at the 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show. First of many? It's the...

  • Honda plug-in hybrid chassis
    Try Again: Honda's Big-Car Hybrid System Has Plug-In Ability

    It wasn't even at the 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show, where Honda only showed a video of the new plug-in hybrid platform it only discussed But details of the new powertrain point the way toward a range of future hybrid Honda models. It uses two separate motor-generators, as does Toyota's Hybrid Synergy...

  • Volvo C30 DRIVe Electric car, 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show
    2010 LA Auto Show: Volvo C30 DRIVe Electric First Drive Report

    One of the great things about auto shows is the chance for journalists to drive prototype cars, especially at the Los Angeles Auto Show, known for its green-car test drives. We got a chance to spend 20 minutes behind the wheel of the Volvo C30 DRIVe Electric car, with Volvo's Lennart Stegland in...

  • Dealer Chooser - 2011 Nissan Leaf

    You may not know it, but our Marty Padgett isn’t the only member of the High Gear Media editorial team to order a 2011 Nissan Leaf. Over 5,000 miles away on the west coast of England, I’ve also been waiting patiently in the queue for an email from Nissan letting me know when my Leaf would be delivered. Today the wait was over. Nissan mailed to ask me to choose my local dealer in order to start the finalization process. Apparently then the local dealer will contact me in the next few days to talk financing, charging and delivery dates. I’m one step closer to driving my 2011...

  • ECOtality Blink DC fast charger plugged in
    Cracker Barrel Installing EV Charge Points At Tennessee Stores

    Cracker Barrel, not exactly the bastion of green technology, has launched a pilot program that will see a number of EV charge points installed at 24 of the restaurant chain’s outlets across the state of Tennessee. The company that prides itself on old-style country stores is taking a very...

  • Mercedes-Benz B-Class F-Cell
    Want To Lease a Fuel-Cell Vehicle? That'll Be $850 A Month, Please

    Finishing our last few stories from the 2010 Los Angeles Auto Show, we realized we forgot one piece of consumer news: Mercedes-Benz started taking orders for its 2011 B-Class F-Cell hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle last month, and now it has announced the price. So what does it cost to lease a compact...

  • Scorpion hydrogen car
    Hydrogen Refueling Ramps Up In Norway

    A new hydrogen refueling station supplied by the Danish company H2 Logic will be installed just outside Oslo, Norway in summer 2011 as part of Norway’s “hydrogen highway“. Together with another planned Oslo hydrogen station in 2011, this means Norway will have one of the...

  • Volt Online Auction
    Chevrolet Auctions “Job2” Production Volt For Charity Online

    The long wait is over. At least, it soon will be. At an event at General Motors’ Detroit Hamtramck facility which was streamed live on the Internet, everyone from government officials and GM board members down to the factory workers responsible for manufacturing the extended range electric...

  • 2000 Toyota Prius
    Hybrids Don't Cost More To Repair or Run, But Payback Debatable

    It's a concern that comes up over and over: If I buy a hybrid car, won't I have to spend thousands of dollars to replace the battery pack in a few years? The answer is, No. Not only are automakers required to warranty the high-voltage battery packs in hybrid-electric vehicles for 8 years/100,000...

  • 2009 Toyota Prius

    Toyota plans to service approximately 650,000 of the more than 2 million Prius hybrids it has built to date, to correct a potential flaw in a cooling pump that could cause overheating. About 390,000 of the affected models are in the U.S. While the company hasn't yet released details on what it calls a "service action," the number of vehicles suggests that the repair applies to the second-generation Prius. Those cars were built from models years 2004 through 2009. Toyota says it's not being compelled to recall the vehicles, but will do so under a new initiative to be more proactive in keeping...

  • Honda Brio prototype, introduced at the 2010 Thailand Motor Expo
    Honda Unveils Brio, Its Smallest Car, For Asian Markets Only

    The smallest Honda sold in the U.S. market is the 2011 Fit subcompact, its well-reviewed and enormously versatile five-door hatchback. But other markets demand different types of cars, and today at the Thailand Motor Expo, the company unveiled the Honda Brio prototype, a lightly disguised version...

  • Audi solar powered EV charging station
    Audi Using Solar Panels To Power Future e-tron Cars

    Audi is demonstrating the use of solar energy for future mobility by converting the roof of one of its factories in Ingolstadt, Germany to solar panels. Here, Audi e-tron models will in future have their batteries charged with current obtained directly from the photovoltaic equipment installed on...

  • Volt Fuel Economy Sticker
    Why the 2011 Chevrolet Volt EPA Rating Sends Mixed Messages

    If like us, you were waiting with baited breath for the official EPA rating for the 2011 Chevrolet Volt you’ll have heard that the day before Thanksgiving Chevrolet announced the official figures were back for its first plug-in range-extended electric car. But unlike the 2011 Nissan...

  • Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid prototype, tested in November 2010
    2010 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid Prototype: Drive Report

    The main thing to understand about the Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid is that it's not an "electric car" as many people use the term. Yes, it plugs in to any electric socket to recharge the 5.2-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack. And, yes, its Hybrid Synergy Drive system uses electric torque...

  • U.S.-spec Mitsubishi i-MiEV
    Move Over THINK: Mitsubishi i Highest Selling Electric Car (For Now)

    A few months ago we reported that the diminutive Think City had snatched the top spot as the world’s best-selling city EV with over 2,500 vehicles now on the road. But that claim is now dwarfed by Mitsubishi, which last week celebrated the 5,000th i-Miev electric car to roll off its Japanese...

  • Hyundai Blue-Will plug-in hybrid concept, Seoul Motor Show, April 2009

    For many years, Honda was routinely awarded the title of greenest carmaker in the U.S. market. But its most recent green cars have stumbled, and a dark-horse competitor is rising fast toward taking the coveted title, conferred every few years by the Union of Concerned Scientists. It's not Nissan, which launched the 2011 Leaf battery electric car that won our GreenCarReports 2011 Best Car To Buy award. It's not GM, with its much-lauded 2011 Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car. It's not even Toyota, which sells the uber-hybrid Prius and has built roughly two-thirds of all the...

  • 2011 Nissan Leaf
    2011 Nissan Leaf Voted Car Of The Year In Europe

    Our sister site GreenCarReports voted it the Best Car to Buy for environmental conscious customers and it looks like the judges in the European Car of the Year panel agree, awarding the 2011 Nissan Leaf this year’s winner in the prestigious awards. The all-electric hatch beat out the likes of...

  • Tesla Roadster - Gran Turismo 5
    Gran Turismo Game Goes Green: Virtual Electric Cars

    Depending on your demographic, the new PlayStation 3 Gran Turismo 5 (GT5) video game is either your single most essential purchase this year, or a completely baffling piece of technology that you'll probably never buy. Ironically, the same could be said for the current wave of electric cars we've...

  • toyota plug in hybrid uk test motorauthority 002
    Your iPhone Can Charge Wirelessly—How About Your Electric Car?

    Psh. Plugs. They’re, like, so 2008. There’s been a surge of attention over the last year towards products that that can charge your smartphone wirelessly, like the devices PowerMat makes. Just set it down on the charging mat and let your phone juice up. But according to a new report...

  • 2011 Chevrolet Volt Z-Spec
    2011 Chevrolet Volt Gets 93 MPGe EV Rating, 60 MPG Combined

    The shenanigans continue. Just this week the Nissan LEAF was rated at 99 mpg-equivalent by the EPA, raising the ire of our own John Voelcker--and justifiably so. Today, the Volt gets similar treatment and a similar rating, but only in EV mode. Add in the gas-only mode's 37 mpg rating and the...

  • George Blankenship
    From GAP To The Electric Car: Tesla’s George Blankenship

    How do you go from selling clothes to electric cars? George Blankenship, Tesla’s Vice President of Design and Store Development knows. A 20-year veteran of global clothing store GAP and the man responsible for Apple’s successful retail stores, Blankenship jokes that these previous jobs...

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