Green

• What is it?: The first-ever hybrid version of the big Mercedes-Benz sedan • The basics: All the S-Class virtues, much better gas mileage • On sale: This fall • Price: $87,950 This weekend, GreenCarReports.com will be one of...

Mazda will launch its global subcompact, the Mazda2 five-door hatchback, in the US market roughly a year from now. Its first appearance in North America will be at December's 2009 Los Angeles Auto Show. Price is likely to be around $16,000. It is based on the same platform as the eagerly awaited...

It's well known in the car industry that a diesel engine costs 10 to 20 percent more to build than a gasoline motor of equivalent output. That's because diesels have to be sturdier, and these days all US-bound diesels are fitted with turbochargers to boost their power. Now a European executive has...

French carmaker Renault, whose partner Nissan recently unveiled its 2012 Nissan Leaf compact electric hatchback, showed no fewer than four separate electric-car concepts at the 2009 Frankfurt Auto Show. All labeled ZE for "zero emissions", they are: Twizy ZE: A tandem two-seater with performance...

Covering all the green-car bases at the 2009 Frankfurt Auto Show, Volkswagen unveiled not only the E-Up electric city car concept but also the L1, a radical 170-mpg tandem two-seat diesel hybrid streamliner it says it will sell by 2013. The L1 name refers to the European concept of a "1-Liter" car...

With the Frankfurt Auto Show now underway, Volkswagen came out with both guns blazing to underscore its green-car credentials. The latest VW concept is the E-Up, a battery electric version of its Up mini-car, with 80 miles of range. It follows the L1, an ultra-high-mileage diesel two-seater that...

Which is faster, the 2010 Toyota Prius or its predecessor, the 2004-2009 Prius? On paper, the 2010 should win. Its engine is larger (1.8 liters vs 1.5 liters) and more powerful (134 total horsepower vs 104 hp). It's even got a lower coefficient of drag, the very respectable 0.25. This morning we...

It's time: the 2009 Frankfurt Auto Show is upon us, and High Gear Media is live at the biggest, hottest Messe in the world to bring you the latest on green cars, diesels, electric cars, hybrid electric vehicles, E-REVs, and NEVs right here at GreenCarReports.com. We've previewed the Frankfurt show...

Every other year, Mercedes-Benz unveils a "Vision" concept car at the Frankfurt Motor Show that points the way to cars it will launch in future years. This year's concept car looks just like a standard 2010 Mercedes-Benz S-Class. Instead, it's the mechanical parts that are remarkable: It's a...

Imagine how many vehicles drive through a fast food restaurant parking lot in New Jersey on Labor Day weekend. What if all of the extra kinetic energy wasted by those vehicles during deceleration could be turned into electricity? A Maryland based renewable energy company is hoping to answer that...

Hybrid vs diesel: It's a longstanding green-car conundrum. Which is better, a hybrid-electric vehicle that recaptures wasted energy in a battery and uses it to assist the gasoline engine, or an efficient modern clean diesel that goes further on a gallon of fuel? The answer depends in part on your...

Now, this is cool. You've likely seen the Mercedes-Benz diesels of the 1980s and 1990s chugging along somewhere or other. But how much better are today's clean diesels than the solid old oil-burners of 20 years ago that still power those sturdy survivors? Back to the future: 1992 to 2009...

While literally hundreds of Toyota Prius owners have laid down thousands of dollars (in some cases, tens of thousands) by now for plug-in conversions, Toyota has proceeded slowly. Now it is showing what it says is the final version of its prototype Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid at the Frankfurt Motor...

As of November, you'll have two choices if you want a compact five-door hatchback with a clean diesel engine. One is the brand-new 2010 Audi A3 TDI, which was just given a base price of $30,775 today by Audi. It'll start arriving in dealerships in November. Longstanding diesel champ: Golf TDI The...

Toyota will show the final version of its prototype Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid at the Frankfurt Motor Show two weeks hence, trying to keep up with the flurry of electric, hybrid, and diesel concepts to be shown there. With numerous concepts from German automakers, and GM pulling out all the...

Toyota is planning to unveil three new hybrid concepts at the upcoming Frankfurt Motor Show including an intriguing 5-door hatch for their upscale Lexus brand. The LF-Ch (pictured above) is aimed squarely at the premium compact segment whose other notable players include the BMW 1-series and the...

The Dodge Caliber hatchback has never been at the top of our compact-car list, in part because of its lousy gas mileage compared to the competition. Now, Chrysler has simplified its engine and drivetrain options to improve the gas mileage of the 2010 Dodge Caliber slightly, along with its platform...

In recent weeks, BMW has set the blogosphere alight with a trickle of information regarding a concept that would be on display for the upcoming Frankfurt auto show. If you guessed that the new vehicle would be a turbo-diesel plug-in hybrid sports car, you were right. The so-called Vision...

How would you like to save four days' worth of driving every year? According to a study by Navteq, which provides digital map, traffic, and location data, you can do that simply adding real-time traffic information to a navigation system that you use for every trip. Their findings show that adding...

Auto "influencers" are the people you ask whenever you have a car question. By virtue of editing AllAboutPrius.com and other High Gear Media sites, we're known as sort of a de facto influencer. And so we get some of the most random questions you can imagine. The latest was from the mother of a High...