Green

The 2011 Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric car will offer a capability that General Motors hasn't previously discussed: a "Mountain Mode" that the driver can select if he knows that he will be climbing a long hill. GM's executive director of powertrain engineering Larry Nitz revealed the new...

It's pretty rare when a group of drivers begs a government agency to regulate them. But when it could avert what they think would be even worse regulations from another agency, anything's fair in love and war. The drivers in this case are the nation's long-haul truckers or, more precisely, the...

Toyota Motor Sales announced yesterday that its U.S. sales of new cars were up 24.4 percent over the previous April, during the worst of the economic meltdown. Despite recent months--during which a lawsuits have rained down on Toyota for unintended acceleration and brake related safety concerns...

Optimism is a useful thing for a startup company, maybe even a requirement. But the April newsletter from Aptera Motors, which is struggling to launch its ultra-aerodynamic three-wheeled electric vehicle in the face of delays and funding constraints, smooths over some crucial handling issues with...

It's almost an article of faith in the auto industry that electric cars will require huge subsidies in their initial years. Certainly Toyota is widely assumed to have put tens of billions of dollars into its hybrid-electric vehicle program before it started to cover its costs. Never shy of taking a...

Ever loan your car to a friend for a day in exchange for a few bucks? Soon, that may not void your insurance and make you a criminal. At least in California. State Assemblymember Dave Jones (D-Sacramento) has introduced a bill (AB 1871) that would amend the state's insurance laws by allowing...

Rumors are flying that Nissan is preparing a subcompact electric vehicle to compete directly with cars like the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, and it may even be made in China. The rumors are unconfirmed: word of mouth from inside a partner company of Nissan. But given the number of pre-launch reservations for...

Do you know when to accelerate your Prius "as though there's an eggshell between your foot and the pedal," and when to move away briskly? If you do, you may already be an experienced Prius driver. If not, we have just the video for you. In less than four minutes, our editor goes through some of the...

Do you know the difference between a mild hybrid like a 2010 Honda Insight, and a full hybrid like the 2010 Toyota Prius? Or what happens to all hybrid vehicles when the weather gets cold? If you do, you're probably well versed in green cars, and you may already be a hybrid vehicle owner. If not...

This story, written by Camille Ricketts, was originally posted on VentureBeat's GreenBeat, an editorial partner of AllCarsElectric. Nissan continues to beat the electric car drum. Last week, it started taking reservations for its all-electric Leaf, and beat its own expectations with more than 6,600...

Sadly, we weren't able to cover the Beijing Motor Show, which opened last week. It's too bad, too, because China is on track to become the world's largest single car market, its fuel efficiency regulations are far tougher than those of the U.S., and its industrial policy for the auto sector focuses...

A couple of months ago, we told you about Volkswagen's 2010 Jetta TDI Cup Street Edition, a specially trimmed version of its clean-diesel Jetta sedan that commemorates the TDI Cup racing series, now in its third season. But VW has other green racing activities elsewhere too.  Our sister site Motor...

This past Monday, the electric-vehicle infrastructure provider Better Place held a press conference in Tokyo at the site of its first completed battery-swap station to be put into regular usage, in the Ropongi Hills area. Together with Nihon Kotsu, Tokyo's largest taxi company, the company will...

Last fall, Fisker Automotive was awarded $529 million in low-interest loans by the Department of Energy, and the company has continued to rake in cash since then. In January, for instance, Fisker raised an additional $115 million in private capital. Last week, the DoE and Fisker announced that the...

As New York City works aggressively to reduce its carbon footprint and cut exhaust emissions, it has encouraged large fleets to switch to hybrids. From utility ConEd to the fleets of yellow cabs, more and more hybrids are showing up on city streets. The latest large fleet to go greener is the New...

Yesterday, we published a piece called Five Myths About Electric Cars, Courtesy of Think, whose CEO Richard Canny sent them to us. Today we have five more, to finish off his list of 10 myths. Below is the second half of Canny's list (which is why it begins with # 6), along with our assessment of...

We write a lot about the 2011 Chevrolet Volt extended-range electric vehicle here. It's a radical new car, GM's first electric car since the late EV1, and it'll be in dealerships in just six months. But GM has another electric car coming next year as well. It's the 2012 Opel Ampera. Ummmm, what's...

Ah, yes, it must be about time for another outburst of Prius stereotyping. Three, two, one ... there! Did you hear it? Over there, in the slightly shrill tones of the ever-shrinking but still testy New York Observer (still printed on orange paper, so Nineties)? The paper attempted to survey New...

The U.S. buys more hybrids than any place else in the world except Japan. We have a handful of clean diesels, with sales slowly increasing. But the "other alt-fuel" for automobiles--natural gas--is barely a blip on the U.S. market. Nonetheless, Honda is plugging away (ahem) with its 2010 Honda...

Last Thursday was the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, and the CEO of one electric-car maker took the occasion to speak out on some of the popular myths around the manufacturing and use of electric vehicles. Richard Canny, who runs the recently refinanced Think, published a list of "top 10 EV myths...