Green
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By now, anyone who's shopping for a 2010 Toyota Prius knows that Toyota's newest hybrid is a smash hit. Global demand is high, the company is making as many cars as it can get battery packs for, and the US Cash-for-Clunkers program has boosted sales of the new hybrid even above already-high demand for the redesigned 2010 model. But the company got caught off-guard in another way, too: The solar moonroof option has been far more popular than Toyota expected, and buyers have ordered it at rates much higher than the company had imagined. Jim Lentz, president of Toyota Motor Sales, told last...
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2010 Honda Insight Sales To Fall Short of Goal?
Before it launched in the US in March, the 2010 Honda Insight generated huge buzz. It was the "affordable hybrid," the "Prius killer," Honda's triumphant re-entry into the dedicated hybrid market it abandoned with the first generation Insight in 2006. So how's it going? Well, 2010 Insights are...
John Voelcker -
GM's 'Bare Necessities' Concept: How Little Car Do You Want?
Among the many vehicles shown, described, or teased at this morning's big General Motors press briefing was this unusual green concept from GM Labs, called 'Bare Necessities'. The two vehicles--a car and a truck--are meant to be maximally minimal. While the event itself focused on the next two...
John Voelcker -
GreenCarReports Welcomes Motor Authority To High Gear Family
It's not every day you get to welcome a new big sibling into the fold. But today, from here at our global command center, the staff of GreenCarReports extends its greasy hands to welcome our new comrades from MotorAuthority. As of today, MotorAuthority.com has become one of the growing family of...
John Voelcker -
Hybrid Sighting: 2011 Hyundai Sonata
When Hyundai releases their Sonata Hybrid in late 2010 they'll be entering a crowded field. The critically acclaimed Ford Fusion Hybrid, the Toyota Camry Hybrid, and the Nissan Altima Hybrid, already compete in this "green" midsize sedan segment. Hyundai hopes that the Sonata will distinguish...
Robert Scardino -
How Does The 2011 Chevy Volt Get 230 MPG? By Making Assumptions
UPDATE: GM confirms that the 2011 Chevrolet Volt will get 230 mpg city, and a composite fuel economy (city and highway) of more than 100 mpg according to draft regulations being developed at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). If the rumors are correct, this morning General Motors CEO Fritz...
John Voelcker -
We keep saying that one of the ways all cars will get greener and more efficient is for their engines to get smaller and work harder. One of the first production examples of this is Ford's EcoBoost V6 engine, which delivers the power of a V8 with better gas mileage. Now a couple of experimental new engines have appeared on the scene. Neither one will reach showrooms immediately, but they show that, at last, automotive engineers are working as hard on clever engine design as they have on making cars faster and heavier. Mahle: 193 horsepower from 1.2 liters First, the Mahle engine is a...
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Clunkers Success: 2010 Toyota Prius Almost Sold Out
Last Tuesday, we noted that sales of the 2010 Toyota Prius have soared due to the Cash-for-Clunkers program. In fact, it's the fourth most popular vehicle purchased to replace a clunker trade-in. The unexpected success of the Clunkers trade-in system, formally known as the Car Allowance Rebate...
John Voelcker -
Want To Build Your Own Plug-In Hybrid? New Book Tells You How
While many US car buyers are still getting used to the idea of hybrid electric vehicles like the 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid or the 2010 Toyota Prius, a new variation is barreling down the pike: the plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, or PHEV. A plug-in hybrid uses a larger battery pack to allow the car...
John Voelcker -
Top Clunker Buys Compared: Toyota Corolla vs Ford Focus vs Honda Civic
Thinking about trading in your clunker for a nice, new, fuel-efficient car? Take a breath; the first-week success of the Car Allowance Rebate Systems (CARS) program, better known as "Cash for Clunkers," looks to be continued at least through Labor Day. Last Friday, the US House of Representatives...
John Voelcker -
Hybrid Dusts Diesel On Trek To Michigan Auto-and-Golf Gathering
Every August, executives from the world's auto industry gather in Traverse City, Michigan, for what's known as the Management Briefing Seminars. It's a mix of presentations, news, schmoozing (and, traditionally, golf) that ended yesterday. This year, the audience was down by one-third over last...
John Voelcker -
UPDATE: Cash-For-Clunkers Adds $2 Billion, Lasts Through Labor Day
As expected, the US Senate voted yesterday to add $2 billion more to the Car Allowance Rebate Systems (CARS) program--better known as "Cash for Clunkers". President Barack Obama is expected to sign it today. The vote approved a bill identical to the one passed last Friday by the US House of...
John Voelcker -
Well, the other shoe finally dropped. General Motors said today that the plug-in version of its Two-Mode Hybrid system would be fitted to a Buick crossover to be introduced next year, with the plug-in arriving in 2011. That'll be at least a few months after the arrival of the 2011 Chevrolet Volt, which is still said to be on track to arrive in dealerships in November 2010. The unnamed Buick model will be the first plug-in hybrid sold by a major automaker (e.g. not Tesla or Fisker). Using Volt technology GM also said the vehicle will feature a lithium-ion battery pack using the same LG Chem...
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Why $2.4 Billion of Battery Grants? To Get US Competitive in Electric Cars
It's now clearer than ever: Electric cars are coming to showrooms near you. They will be fully competitive, their makers are deadly serious, and they will be "real cars" rather than the golf carts people seem to worry about. At GreenCarReports.com, we've experienced the 2011 Chevrolet Volt mule...
John Voelcker -
Clunker Dollars Data: Minnesota Wins, Mississippi Loses
This morning's Detroit News lists the amount of cash each state has gotten thus far under the Car Allowance Rebate Systems (CARS) program, better known as "Cash for Clunkers". The paper notes, "Michigan ranks No. 1 in the nation ... with $34.4 million requested from the federal government as of...
John Voelcker -
Girly Rhinestone Prius To Interest Young Women, Only In Japan
Sometimes you have to run something just 'cause it's goofy. And so it is with today's item, showing the Japanese-market "DecoPrius" concept whose goal is to lure young women's interest back to a product they view as increasingly anti-social: the automobile. In urbanized Japan, cars are far less...
John Voelcker -
Five Questions: GM's New R-and-D Leader, Alan Taub
Alan Taub, 54, is currently Executive Director in charge of Research & Development at General Motors. He joined GM R+D as executive director in 2001, and on October 1, he will replace Larry Burns as the company's Vice President of R+D. GreenCarReports.com interviewed Dr. Taub directly after his...
John Voelcker -
2010 Toyota Prius Sales Soar, Boosted By Clunkers Cash
Never let it be said US car buyers don't know a good deal when they see one. The Toyota Prius has become the fourth-most popular car purchased under the first 80,000 Cash-for-Clunkers vouchers processed by the US Department of Transportation. In fact, Toyota sold 19,173 Priuses during July, almost...
John Voelcker -
Who knew? Turns out Americans just needed a little nudge to visit their car dealers, but the promise of an extra $3,500 or more in incentives was enough to push car buyers over the hump and get them to trade in their clunkers. And how. As we reported Friday on our sister site TheCarConnection.com, the Car Allowance Rebate Systems (CARS) program, usually called "Cash for Clunkers," has been so successful that it may have run through its allocated $1 billion in funds in just one week. That led the US House of Representatives to vote to transfer $2 billion to the CARS program from an energy-loan...
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BMW To Launch Its First Two Hybrids Next Month
Like many European brands that rely on diesels, BMW has been late to the party in introducing electric-drive cars. That's a risky strategy for North America, where it has had to add incentives on diesels and try to tie them to the Cash-for-Clunkers program. Now it's making up for lost time, not...
John Voelcker -
Killing Your Clunker Correctly: How a Dealer 'Disables' It
The 135 pages of Cash-for-Clunkers regulations rules require the dealer who sells you your new, more fuel-efficient car to 'disable' the engine of your traded-in clunker. But how do those dealers actually destroy the engine? Three words: sodium silicate solution. It's a combination of water...
John Voelcker -
July's Most Popular Prius Posts: 2010 Reference Guide Rocks, Again
It's the very last day of July, so it's time again for us to recap the five most popular posts of the month on AllAboutPrius.com. Compared to June's most-popular list, we're back to the basics, with our posts on the the making of the "Harmony" commercial and the followup MPG advertisement falling...
John Voelcker -
July's Most Popular Green Car Posts: Prius Parking Perks...and Urine
Once more, it's the end of the month, when we celebrate by recapping our most popular posts. For July, we completely turned over our most popular posts from June ... and, our VW diesel fanboys have returned! This month, the most popular posts seem to have been the quirkiest. They're actually kinda...
John Voelcker -
Electric-Car Startup Coda Gets More Cash Plus Hank Paulson As Advisor
Now that Tesla isn't the only electric-car startup in town, the news keeps coming. Today's updates are from Coda Automotive, based in Santa Monica, California. We've written before about their 2011 Coda Sedan all-electric car, which will beat Tesla, Nissan, and others to market when it launches...
John Voelcker