Hybrids

When we first drove the 2010 Lexus HS250h, we were puzzled by it. Neither fish nor fowl, it seemed an uneasy marriage of Lexus lines and luxury with a Toyota Prius-like dedicated hybrid shape and powertrain. We've just spent a four-day weekend with a glossy black 2010 HS250h, the Premium model with...

The Nikkei Business Daily has reported that Toyota plans to produce between 20,000 and 30,000 plug-in hybrids in 2012. The Japanese automaker has already committed to leasing 500 plug-ins for government and corporate use by the end of this year. The plan is hardly a surprise. While traditional...

Ric Richards is the independent owner of a McDonald's restaurant in Cary, North Carolina. He's about to be the first McDonald's owner to offer a dedicated parking space to charge plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles. In that way, he's an environmental pioneer. In addition to the ChargePoint...

One of the knocks on hybrid vehicles comes from the vision-impaired community. Many hybrids disengage their internal combustion engines at slow speeds. When a driver slows to a stop or accelerates from a controlled intersection, the vehicle often uses only battery power. If you can't see it, and...

In the world of electric performance cars, there are two names to know: Fisker and Tesla. The man behind the upcoming $87,900 Fisker Karma plug-in hybrid sports sedan wants you to know the difference. Seasoned auto designer and CEO of Fisker Coachbuild, Henrik Fisker has an enviable résumé for...

Let us pay tribute to the car that defined not only defined 'hybrid' but paved Toyota's path toward world domination

June is about to exit, so once again it's time for the five most popular posts for the month on AllAboutPrius.com. # 1: 30 Days of the 2010 Toyota Prius: Your Reference Guide. Hanging onto its perennial top ranking, this one remains by far our most popular content page. We meant it to offer an easy...

According to a report in Bloomberg today, Toyota may give General Motors a version of their iconic Prius hybrid. This news broke even as General Motors announced that their joint venture with the Japanese automaker at the Fremont, California based NUMMI (New United Motor Manufacturing Incorporated)...

On Tuesday, we covered the news that Ford, Nissan, and Tesla had been granted a total of $8 billion in low-interest loans by the US Department of Energy to retool for advanced automotive technologies. With a few days under our belt, we've considered the story and have a few questions for you to...

We've devoted more space on AllAboutPrius.com to the 2010 Lexus HS250h hybrid than to most other cars. That's because it can be considered a half-brother to the 2010 Toyota Prius: A fancier, pricier, more powerful sedan sibling to the practical, plain-Jane Prius. Lexus still hasn't released pricing...

As if life couldn't get any more digital and fragmentary, you may have heard about Twitter: short messages you can broadcast to a list of friends, each one no more than 140 characters long. The service has been in the news lately as one tool used by Iranians protesting election irregularities, but...

We've just returned from driving the 2010 Lexus HS250h through the manicured suburbs of New York's Westchester County. We'll post our full impressions tomorrow, following up the first drive of the Lexus HS by our colleague Bengt Halvorson. But at the end of the day, we're left just slightly...

Sometimes all we can say is that it's a privilege to write for AllAboutPrius.com. It's just never, ever dull around here. Today, for your delight, we bring you the world's highest-mileage hearse, which also happens to have the lowest carbon footprint of any casket-transport device short of the...

US Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced the first three loans to be granted under the government's Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program. The lucky winners, totaling $8 billion worth of low-interest loans from the US Department of Energy: Ford, Nissan, and Tesla. FORD Amount...

In a live webchat on Friday, our illustrious Editor-In-Chief, Lyle Dennis, posed a question to GM North America President, Troy Clarke, regarding collaboration with Toyota, given the American automaker's failed economic state.Dennis: What are some possible options under consideration for GM’s...

Imagine a special sticker that let you use those high-occupancy vehicle lanes, zipping past stop-and-go rush hour traffic, blissfully alone in your car. If you live in California and were one of 85,000 lucky hybrid owners, you know exactly what I'm talking about. In 2005, California decided to open...

Until this spring, the Toyota Camry Hybrid was the only mass-market, four-door full hybrid sedan sold in the US. Then Ford introduced the 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid, and reporters have been comparing the two ever since. Perhaps to keep up with a newer, younger, hotter rival, the 2010 Toyota Camry...

With rumors swirling about various Jaguar hybrids in the works, we contacted Media Communications Officer, Mia Bae, to help us make sense of it all. The information gleaned from several emails doesn't confirm or deny previous reports that an extended range hybrid Jaguar XE Roadster is being...

Hell is freezing over pretty frequently these days, it seems. Porsche, once the pinnacle of piston-engined power, will launch its first hybrid late next year. The 2011 Porsche Cayenne Hybrid sport-utility will get gas mileage of at least 26 miles per gallon (less than 9 litres per 100 km)...

Hybrids aren't known for blistering performance, but that didn't stop one UK automotive publication from putting two of the most popular fuel misers on the drag strip. In a recent comparison of the Toyota Prius and the Honda Insight, iMotor performed the standing quarter mile in both cars. Needless...