Hybrids

For all the grief Toyota Prius hybrid drivers get, you'd think they were some deranged combination of green storm troopers and mentally defective traffic impediments. But every now and then, a Prius driver does do something jaw-droppingly idiotic. Take, for instance, the unidentified (and possibly...

Kia has been on a roll lately. The younger, lower-priced sibling of Korean car colossus Hyundai has received rave reviews for the styling, features, and general competence of its its new 2011 Optima midsize sedan. Now Kia has iced the cake by adding a hybrid-electric model of the Optima to the...

The 2011 Chevrolet Volt has gotten all the attention lately, including a narrow second-place finish in our GreenCarReports 2011 Best Car To Buy award, but General Motors also has a significant hybrid-electric vehicle program. While its full-size Two-Mode Hybrid trucks have had mixed success, the...

It's the nominee we know the least about, and in some ways the one we're most curious about. The 2011 Lexus CT 200h is a non-traditional car for Lexus, which has never before offered a compact hatchback. And after the underwhelming HS 250h sedan, it's one we didn't have high hopes for. That was...

As we first reported more than a year ago, a beefier version of GM’s mild hybrid system, the kind that was on the previous Chevrolet Malibu Hybrid, is coming next year. Set to debut on the 2012 Buick LaCrosse, GM’s new “eAssist” mild hybrid system is said to improve fuel...

As we noted yesterday, we'll be giving one brand-new 2011 model the GreenCarReports 2011 Best Car To Buy Award in conjunction with the Los Angeles Auto Show next week. We'll summarize each of our five nominees, one per day, between now and then. We going down the roster by previewing each nominee...

We talk quite a lot about how global regulations aimed at improving fuel efficiency and reducing carbon emissions will lead to much smaller, more powerful engines. Latest case in point? Would you believe a four-cylinder Mercedes-Benz S-Class? Just to be clear, this is the big Benz. The one beloved...

Audi has aggressively pushed its clean diesel models in the U.S., including the Audi Q7 TDI luxury sport-utility vehicle. But even the company that wins Le Mans Series races with its turbodiesel race cars is hedging its bets with hybrids. Today Audi released the first video of its upcoming 2012...

One of the joys of the huge, splashy, raucous SEMA show in Las Vegas is seeing what manufacturers toss up in the air to show off. Kia brought several customized cars, one of which falls into the green category: a propane-fueled mild hybrid version of its new, and well-received, Forte compact sedan...

If you're reading this site, there's a good chance that you're interested in driving green: saving fuel, perhaps reducing the overall impact of your transportation choices on the planet. Or maybe not. Maybe, like the vast majority of U.S. buyers, you're interested in better fuel economy not for...

This week’s 2010 Specialty Equipment Market Association show in Las Vegas won’t be home to just ridiculously modified muscle cars and pickup trucks, this year’s event will have a few green vehicles out in force. Take the new Urbee Hybrid, a car its makers describe as the...

Russia. Onion domes, remnants of Communism, enormous natural-gas reserves, and a fierce love of Vodka. These elements have now somehow combined to convince Mikhail Prokhorov--reportedly Russia's wealthiest man, new owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team, newly-minted publisher of the New...

Five finalists were announced today for the 2011 Green Car of the Year Award, which will be presented next month at the 2010 Los Angeles Aut o Show. The five contenders span two plug-in cars, two hybrid-electric vehicles, and one high-efficiency subcompact gasoline car: 2011 Chevrolet Volt 2011...

Electric cars may run clean. But how green is the battery? Hi, this is Steven Cherry for IEEE Spectrum's "This Week in Technology." With governments around the world investing heavily in electric and hybrid cars, the demand for the batteries that power these vehicles is on the rise. The United...

Like us, you may eagerly have been awaiting the arrival of the 2011 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid. You may even be planning to buy one. One of the reasons may be the tax credit for purchase of a hybrid vehicle that you can claim when you file your taxes. The 2011 Sonata Hybrid will qualify you for a credit...

Audi is hopping onto the electrified vehicle bandwagon with plans for a new range of hybrids, plug-in hybrids and all-electric luxury vehicles and sports cars in the coming years. Following the lead of parent company Volkswagen, Audi is striving to become the leader for alternative-powered vehicles...

It's all about the Volt today, for better and for worse. On the "worse" side is the tempest in a teapot that erupted today, ably dismantled by more thoughtful commentators, over whether General Motors had "lied" about the drivetrain of the 2011 Chevrolet Volt. In brief, GM revealed today that the...

We missed a milestone a couple of weeks ago: Toyota built and sold its two-millionth Prius hybrid earlier this month. The first-generation Prius, the world's first production hybrid-electric vehicle, was launched in Japan late in 1997. It stayed a low-volume car for several years, and wasn't...

The all-new 2011 Lexus CT 200h is scheduled to hit showrooms early next year complete with a 134 horsepower hybrid drivetrain and a very reasonable--for a luxury car--EPA combined fuel economy rating of 42 mpg. However, this is just the initial setup that Lexus engineers have planned for the CT...

Electric car start-up Tesla successfully launched a stock IPO earlier this year and in the process managed to earn the company a handy $226 million; crucial funding that will go on to help spawn several new models for the company. Now, closest rival Fisker is thinking of doing the same, revealing...