Green Car News

  • First 2013 Tesla Model S delivered in Europe (Photo: @TeslaMotors on Twitter)

    It's been out in the U.S. for over a year now, but today marked the first delivery for a Telsa Model S on European soil. The first 2013 Tesla Model S delivered in Europe rolled out of a Tesla Store in Norwegian capital Oslo, according to the Tesla Motors twitter feed. Norway is Europe's most electric car-friendly country, with strong sales for models like the Nissan Leaf and a proliferation of public charging points around the country's cities. In addition, electric cars in Norway are exempt from the country's hefty sales taxes, road tax fees, license fees and even parking fees--so buying and...

  • 2013 Smart Electric Drive Coupe, Ann Arbor, Michigan, Aug 2013
    2013 Smart Electric Drive Coupe Lease Price Lowered To $139

    The prices just keep falling on plug-in electric cars. The latest to announce a new, lower lease price is Smart, which cut the monthly cost of a three-year lease on its 2013 ForTwo Electric Drive Coupe from $199 to just $139. That's not the lowest single electric-car lease we're aware of in the...

  • 2014 MINI Cooper’s reveal will coincide with 107th anniversary of Alec Issigonis’ birth
    2014 MINI Cooper To Be Unveiled November 18

    You might not be familiar with Sir Alec Issigonis, but his name has made as much impact on the motoring landscape, particularly in Britain, as anyone else in the history of the automobile. Issigonis was the man behind the Austin Seven and Morris Mini-Minor--the famous Mini. He died in 1988, but...

  • 2013 Honda Fit EV drive event, Pasadena, CA, June 2012
    Why 'Compliance Cars' Turned Out To Be Good For Electric-Car Buyers

    Electric-car advocates spend a lot of time grumbling about compliance cars. But it turns out that even in low volumes, limited mostly to sales in one state, they've unexpectedly produced a benefit for all electric-car buyers: lower prices. Recent price reductions to "move the metal," as Detroit...

  • Toyota Yaris Hybrid-R concept, 2013 Frankfurt Auto Show
    Toyota Hybrid R Concept Due At 2013 Frankfurt Auto Show

    As teaser images go, it doesn't leave us much to go on. But Toyota's Hybrid R logo, in familiar Hybrid Synergy Drive blue and with the smallest hint of a checkered flag graphic, suggests the company's next concept will be rather more racy than normal. Toyota will show the Hybrid R Concept at the...

  • 2015 BMW i8
    BMW i8 Plug-In Hybrid Sports Car: More Details Emerge

    BMW has only just officially revealed its electric i3 city car, but already the German automaker seems ready to tease us with its i8 plug-in hybrid sports car. The company has released further details on the i8's plug-in drivetrain, with detailed images showing some of the i8's more intimate...

  • 2015 Volkswagen Golf, at 2013 New York Auto Show

    Volkswagen Group of America has confirmed that its latest generation of 2.0-liter clean diesel engines will debut in the U.S. in the second half of 2014. The engine, a version of which is already on sale in several European VW group models, will see service in the 2015 model-year Golf, Beetle, Passat and Jetta. Designated EA288, the 2.0-liter, four-cylinder turbocharged diesel unit is a direct replacement for the 2.0 TDI currently found in several VW group vehicles. With common rail technology and direct injection, total output is boosted to 150 horsepower--10 hp more than before--and torque...

  • Hyperdrive's retrofit range-extending engine for electric cars
    Would You Retrofit A Range Extender To Your Electric Car?

    Companies that convert regular gasoline cars to electric, or add a plug-in option to regular hybrids, are nothing new. The same can't be said for companies taking electric cars and turning them into range-extended electric vehicles with small gasoline engines--but that's exactly what Hyperdrive...

  • 2015 Audi A3 1.6 TDI ultra Hatchback
    Audi A3 TDI Ultra Is Audi's Most Fuel-Efficient Car Ever...But Not For U.S.

    The 'Ultra' tag will be familiar to fans of endurance motor racing, seen since 2010 on Audi's Le Mans-winning race cars. It hasn't yet featured on an Audi production car though, up until now--and as you'd expect, it's Audi's most fuel-efficient production car ever. The Audi A3 1.6 TDI Ultra uses a...

  • 2013 Tesla Model S
    Plug-in Electric Car Sales In Canada, July 2013: Tesla On Top?

    July marked the 237th anniversary of the American Republic, and the 146th birthday of Canadian Confederation. While it could also have marked another month for the Chevy Volt as the best-selling Canadian plug-in electric vehicle, when the vehicle registration data comes out, we may see the Tesla...

  • Hyundai Tucson Fuel-Cell vehicle enters production
    Hyundai To Develop Renewable Hydrogen Station In California

    Hyundai has announced plans to transform an existing hydrogen refueling station in California into a cutting edge renewable fueling station. The station will be built on the site of an existing hydrogen station at Hyundai America Technical Center Inc. in Chino, California. The original station was...

  • 2013 Tesla Model S
    2013 Tesla Model S: New Options, Packages, And Prices

    It's still fairly early days for the Tesla Model S, and while the car is finding fans across the globe, it's still seeing various updates and option packages that early buyers didn't have access to. Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] has recently announced a new line of option packages and pricing for...

  • 2014 Chevrolet Volt

    The 2014 Chevrolet Volt electric car will carry a base price of $34,995, a cut of $5,000 from the 2013 model. That price includes an $810 destination fee, but not any optional equipment. Chevrolet has "made great strides in reducing costs as we gain experience with electric vehicles and their components,” said Don Johnson, Chevy's vice president for U.S. sales and service. “The 2014 Volt will offer the same impressive list of features, but for $5,000 less" than its predecessor. And the lower price "broaden[s] its exposure to price-sensitive prospective buyers," Chevy notes. Lower...

  • Front page of The Electric Generation website
    Hey, Electric-Car Fans: Are You 'The Electric Generation'?

    Marketing plug-in electric cars isn't all that easy. There are many different reasons people buy electric cars, and for the mass market, the high prices against gasoline cars of the same size can lead to sticker shock. So among the many efforts to put a little muscle behind explaining why plug-in...

  • Ferrari 458 on fire in Brazil
    Cars Bursting Into Flames All Over China--And They're Not Electric

    Discovering fire is undoubtedly a high point in mankind's history, but it's easy to overlook its benefits when it's consuming something you own. We'll forgive you if your thoughts turned towards electric cars at this stage. After all, the last few years have seen a few high-profile electric car...

  • 2013 Honda Insight
    Real-World Gas Mileage Varies By Brand; Honda Does Well, Ford Not So Much

    Just how close do cars get to their official EPA gas mileage figures? We expect it's a question many of our readers are familiar with--either in keeping an eye on their own car's gas mileage, or from friends asking about their next car. It's become all the more important in recent months, with...

  • 2013 Chevrolet Volt
    Chevy Volt Plug-In Electric Cars Now Have Battery Cells Made In U.S.

    Over the next few months, the Chevrolet Volt will get just that little bit more American--as its battery cells are now produced in the U.S. Korean battery maker LG Chem opened a plant in Holland, Michigan two years ago, and production of lithium-ion cells for Chevy's range-extended plug-in Volt is...

  • Solar Field, Mojave Desert [Credit: ©2012 Jamey Stillings, courtesy of the Forward Thinking Museum]
    Solar Power Initiative By DoE Could Make Grid Electricity Cleaner, Cheaper

    Some of our electric car-owning readers already reap the benefits of solar energy with roof-mounted panels, but on a grid level solar still has a long way to go. The U.S. Department of Energy wants to change that, revealing targets that would mean one third of the Western U.S. energy demands could...

  • 2013 Ford C-Max Energi plug-in hybrid, Marin County, CA, Nov 2012

    Ford plug-in hybrid drivers are really making the most of the electric range of their vehicles--with nearly 60 percent of trips done entirely gas-free. That's according to Ford itself, using aggregated data from the MyFord Mobile app. The most interesting thing is that as many Ford plug-in owners are driving gas-free as their Chevy Volt counterparts, despite the shorter electric range. One year ago, we reported how 63 percent of Volt miles are electric--suggesting drivers really were making the most of their Volts and plugging in wherever they could. At the same time, the remaining 37 percent...

  • 'Revenge of the Electric Car' premiere: Elon Musk arrives in a Tesla Roadster
    Tesla's Musk Promises Deep Dive Into Electric-Car Emissions

    The environmental impact of plug-in electric cars is a hot topic right now, and a fiercely debated one at that. A couple of weeks ago, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk pledged to dive into it himself. Musk tweeted, "Am seeing many poorly argued attacks on 'true' CO2 impact of electric cars. Will rewrite...

  • 2014 BMW i3
    BMW i3 Electric Car Coming, But BMW Believes In Fuel Cells Too

    All eyes have been on BMW over the past few weeks as it launched the 2014 i3 electric car, two years after the concept first debuted at the 2011 Frankfurt Auto Show. So where does BMW go from here? A wider range of electric cars, perhaps? Well, yes--with the BMW i8 sports car and mooted i5 on the...

  • 2013 Nissan Leaf, Nashville area test drive, April 2013
    Plug-In Electric Car Sales For July: Leaf Up, Volt Down (FINAL UPDATE)

    Sales of plug-in electric cars continued at a relatively steady pace in July, keeping the sector on track for something near 100,000 sales by the end of the year. While last month's half-year total wasn't quite enough to double the 2012 total of 53,000 electric cars, sales are now running at an...

  • Fuel gauge
    Facing Fuel-Economy Fracas, Ford Focuses On Gas Mileage Myths (Video)

    Many buyers of new Ford cars--both its 2013 C-Max and Fusion hybrids, and those fitted with its EcoBoost line of downsized, turbocharged engines--report real-world gas mileage much lower than the cars' EPA ratings. Ford is trying to counter almost a year's worth of media attention to these concerns...

  • Via Motors' X-Truck
    Via Motors Latest To Try Electric Vehicle-To-Home Backup Power Tech

    Japanese companies have explored the concept of electric vehicles powering houses for some time, but with events like last year's Hurricane Sandy fresh in peoples' minds, some U.S. organizations are investigating it too. One of these is the Department of Defense. Another is Via Motors, the Bob...

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