Hybrids
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If you're in the market for a new car and your top priority is fuel efficiency, what do you buy? With so much to choose from now including gasoline, diesel, natural gas and electric cars on the market as well as a range-extended electric vehicle and hybrids galore, the options are bewildering. If MPG is your ultimate priority, we've drawn up a list of the top ten cars on sale in the U.S. today, ranked by average MPG and MPG equivalent (MPGe). 2012 Mitsubishi i - 112 MPG Top of the list is Mitsubishi's powered jellybean, the "i" electric car. The looks might not be to all tastes but with an...
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Chrysler: “We’re Making Hybrids, But Only Because We Have To”
Sergio Marchionne, the head of the Chrysler Group and Fiat Motors, has never been a fan of hybrid electric or pure electric vehicles. But in a recent interview with autonews.com, the boss of both car firms said that the only way Chrysler will reach fuel economy goals set in place by the Obama...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Buick Verano Hybrid Coming--But Not Until 2015
Remember The Purloined Letter, the classic Edgar Allen Poe story where a letter is hidden by storing it in plain sight? General Motors may not have realized it, but the industry trade journal Automotive News seems to have published a previously unannounced piece of its future model plans--right out...
John Voelcker -
Will Military Necessity Push Hybrid Vehicle Development?
The challenges of delivering fuel to a battlefield make hybrids and extended range electric vehicles a natural choice for the Army, but current technology limits their practicality.
Kurt Ernst -
2012 Honda Insight: New Front Styling, Better Gas Mileage
Although the Honda Insight was eagerly awaited before it launched as a 2010 model, the little hybrid hatchback has never come remotely close to its sales goals. But the company isn't giving up, and the new 2012 Honda Insight features revised front styling, a nicer interior, and improved gas mileage...
John Voelcker -
Should Range-Extended Cars Have a "Battery Saver" Mode?
At the 2011 Geneva Motor Show back in March we learned an interesting bit of information about the 2011 Chevrolet Volt's European cousin, the Opel Ampera. Unlike the Volt, the Ampera is to be equipped with a "battery saving" mode, whereby the driver can hold back the electric mode for when they...
Antony Ingram -
In the automotive industry, leaks about an upcoming product normally fall into two categories: genuine mess-ups, or a purposeful, pr-driven leak designed to give a new car extra attention. But we the latest leak from Japan -- an entire Toyota Aqua Hybrid sales brochure -- falls squarely in the expletive-generating first category. Leaving schadenfreude aside, the scanned brochure details everything about the new sub-compact hybrid, from its dimensions and fuel economy to the options list. Not due to officially be unveiled until the Tokyo Motor Show in December, the smallest of Toyota’s...
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Consumer Reports Pans 2011 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid For Unrefined Drivetrain
The magazine Consumer Reports is deeply trusted by many car buyers for its analysis of auto reliability, so when it pans a car, automakers sit up and listen carefully to its criticisms. We suspect Hyundai Motors America is sitting bolt upright about now, because in its November issue, the...
John Voelcker -
2013 BMW ActiveHybrid 3: Is This The Greenest 3-Series Ever?
BMW today announced the sixth generation of its quintessential 3-Series, the compact sport sedan that is its highest volume seller and the face of BMW globally. Along with the return of four-cylinder engines in 3-Series cars for the U.S., this latest and greenest generation adds a new model: the...
John Voelcker -
Toyota Making Le Mans Return With Hybrid Prototype Racer
Racing is getting greener: F1 has plans for downsized engines, Porsche has the 911 GT3 RSR with kinetic energy recovery and Le Mans has rumbled to the sound of turbo diesel engines for several years now. Indeed, the diesel-engined Audis and Peugeots have been dominating the sport since 2006 with...
Antony Ingram -
Loss Of California HOV-Lane 'Prius Perk' Slows All Traffic, Study Says
Many California drivers silently cheered on July 1, when the yellow stickers on 85,000 hybrid cars expired--meaning their drivers were no longer allowed to travel solo in the carpool lane. According to a new study released Monday at the University of California-Berkeley, though the loss of the...
John Voelcker -
Next Nissan Altima Previewed By New High-Mileage Hybrid-CVT System
Although Nissan has taken its Altima Hybrid off the market for 2012, the model is likely to live on. The latest evidence: Nissan today unveiled in Japan a new generation of its Xtronic continuously-variable transmission (CVT) and a new hybrid system designed for front-wheel drive vehicles. So far...
John Voelcker -
The mild-hybrid system that General Motors calls eAssist (on the 2012 Buick Lacrosse and Regal models) will also appear on the 2013 Chevrolet Malibu Eco version. But now it appears that the system will spread further across GM's product lines, with a report on GMInsideNews that it will appear on both the Chevrolet Equinox and GMC Terrain crossover utility vehicles for the 2014 model year. With the 2013 Malibu launching solely in its highest-mileage Malibu Eco form at first, demand for the 2.4-liter EcoTech engine with the hybrid alternator-starter attached is expected to decline once an...
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2012 Ford Escape Hybrid: Sentenced To Death, So Buy One Now If You Want One
The Ford Escape Hybrid was not only the first U.S.-built hybrid electric vehicle, it was also the first hybrid sport-utility vehicle--or crossover, if you prefer. It's had a good run, starting in the fall of 2004 and continuing through the 2012 model year. As of the end of September, Ford has sold...
John Voelcker -
Which State Has The Greenest Cars? California, Of Course
It’s no secret that the state of California is home to some of the most congested roads in the country -- but it is also home to some of the greenest drivers according to a recent study by academics of the Transport Research Institute at the University of Michigan. Reported by The Los Angeles...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Facing Tough Competition, Toyota Doubles Down On Prius Hybrids
Fuel efficiency is on every automaker's mind, and will be through at least 2025. Toyota sells the most fuel-efficient gasoline vehicle on the U.S. market, the 2012 Prius hybrid. It's rated at 51 mpg city, 48 mpg highway, and a combined 50 mpg by the EPA. Tougher competitors But the competition is...
John Voelcker -
2012 BMW ActiveHybrid 5: Taking Hybrid Luxury To Next Level
Exit one BMW hybrid, enter another. Next March will see the U.S. launch of the 2012 BMW ActiveHybrid 5, the second hybrid sedan in the Germany luxury-car maker's lineup. And the ActiveHybrid 5 marks an important evolution: It's the first BMW that uses the single-motor hybrid system jointly...
John Voelcker -
2012 Buick Lacrosse eAssist: TV Ad Sells MPGs, Avoids H-Word (Video)
The 2012 Buick Lacrosse with eAssist is now beginning to roll into dealerships across the country, and we've been curious to see how GM would market the car. On our preview drive this spring of a prototype Lacrosse with eAssist, we noticed that the dreaded H-word (hybrid) had been virtually...
John Voelcker -
Beyond the obvious Toyota, if any other make were to build hybrid cars, you might expect it to be Subaru. The small Japanese company's cars are revered for durability and standard all-wheel drive, and their drivers are often assumed to be on the liberal side of center. Subaru owners tend to cluster in mountainous enclaves of progressive politics, and data show their owners skew more Democratic than almost any other brand. Now, at last, Subaru's hybrid plans are coming clear. First hybrid in 2013 The company will launch its first hybrid vehicle in Japan within two years. That car will be a...
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Upcoming Toyota Prius C '94-MPG' Compact Hybrid Now Has A Name: Aqua
The Prius family of hybrid cars from Toyota is going to get a little bigger as of January when the Japanese automaker will launch a new compact hybrid car for the Japanese market: the 2012 Toyota Aqua. According to Reuters News Service, the Nikkei business daily reports that the compact gasoline...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Subaru Motion-V Plan Calls For 30 Percent Gas Mileage Boost By 2015
Subaru has taken heed of customer complaints that its lineup wasn’t as efficient as those of its competitors, making its latest generation 2012 Impreza return an impressive 27/36 mpg city/highway gas mileage. Not only is the car still offered with the extra safety of all-wheel drive as...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
2012 Toyota Prius, Prius V, Prius Plug-in Hybrid: Now With Spaceship Sound
When the original Toyota Prius launched over ten years ago in the U.S. as a nerdy sedan, it wooed many buyers with its low-speed, near-silent operation. Now the days of the whispering Prius are over, thanks to U.S. legislation requiring every single electric vehicle and hybrid car to fit an active...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Why Toyota Will Sell 2012 Prius Plug-Ins: It's The Sticker, Stupid
Despite wrangling among electric-car fans over whether the 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid's 9 to 14 miles of electric range are sufficient, one factor will make the car a success, at least in California: the valued sticker that gives drivers solo access to the HOV lane.
John Voelcker -
VW Ditches Darth Vader, Goes All Yoda With 2013 Jetta Hybrid
If you remember Volkswagen’s Super Bowl advert from earlier this year involving a pint-sized Darth Vader, its 2011 Passat had a particular affinity with the dark side of the force. But as of 2013 the evil Pasatt will have a nemisis in the form of the 2013 VW Jetta Hybrid, complete with a...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield