Green Car News
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Yesterday was a bumpy ride for the stockholders of electric-car maker Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA]. Following the company's Wednesday release of its 2012 financial results, including an after-hours conference call, the stock plummeted yesterday. Before the earnings call, it had closed Wednesday at $38.54. Yesterday, it opened sharply lower at $36.49 and closed at $35.16, almost $5 off its recent high. At one point during the day, it had fallen to below the $35 level, which was enough to trip a so-called digital "circuit breaker" meant to slow the short sales of falling stocks. Analysts suggested...
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Ford Focus Electric Won't Sell Well, Says Ford
Some makers are investing in battery electric cars and doing their darnedest to make them market successes--think Nissan or Tesla, for example. Ford does not appear to be one of those companies. Since the second month that its plug-in hybrid C-Max Energi went on the market, its monthly sales have...
John Voelcker -
BMW To Use Geniuses Like Apple--To Sell i3 Electric Cars
If you've ever bought a car, you might have experienced the frustration that comes with a sales person who doesn't really know about the car they're selling. That's not an experience you'll have had in an Apple retail store though, where the Genius Bar program provides product experts to hand out...
Antony Ingram -
GM Electric Cars Carry Stars To Pre-Oscars Green Carpet Event
Stars and green cars are nothing new--several have admitted to owning Toyota Prius in the past, while others have been spotted in Tesla Roadsters or Fisker Karmas. At Global Green USA's 10th Pre-Oscar party on Wednesday, a host more stars were caught alongside two electric vehicles--the 2013...
Antony Ingram -
Ford EcoBoost: Turbo Gasoline Engines The Near Green Future?
The main benefits of Ford's Ecoboost line of engines may be fuel efficiency and performance, but their popularity is resulting in another positive outcome. Ford has sold more than 530,000 Ecoboost vehicles since the line's introduction three and a half years ago, and the automaker is ready to...
Antony Ingram -
Audi A3 e-tron Plug-In Hybrid To Appear At Geneva Show
The Geneva Motor Show always provides us with some spectacular green vehicles, but this year looks like being the best yet. Audi has now revealed its most production-ready electric vehicle yet, in the form of the Audi A3 e-tron. We've driven a prototype of the all-electric e-tron before, but the...
Antony Ingram -
Volkswagen has toyed with the idea of cigar-shaped ultra-eco cars for some time now, but a production car is finally on the way. The Volkswagen XL1 is a plug-in diesel hybrid with a body seemingly beamed in from a future time. It's the physical representation of the benefits of reducing weight and improving aerodynamics. The small body may only take two people, but it's allowed for an incredibly streamlined body with a drag coefficient of only 0.189. Low weight--only 1,752 lbs--means only a small engine and electric motor is needed to deliver respectable performance. Much of the car is...
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Tesla Motors To Be Profitable Selling Electric Cars By April, It Says
Tesla Motors announced its fourth-quarter and full-year results late yesterday, and offered some good news to the company's shareholders. That would be the projection that Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] will operate at a profit in the current quarter, which ends March 31. "We expect to be slightly...
John Voelcker -
2013 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid Updates Include More Electric Range
Hyundai has announced full details for its updated 2013 Sonata Hybrid. With pricing starting from $25,650, $200 lower than the outgoing 2012 Sonata Hybrid, the new model also gets up to 6 percent better gas mileage and a increased driving in electric-only mode. All Sonata Hybrids use a 2.4-liter...
Antony Ingram -
2014 Volkswagen Golf GTD Diesel Hot Hatch Returns 50+ MPG
Following yesterday’s leak of the new e-Golf electric variant of Volkswagen’s latest MkVII Golf, comes the first photos and specs for the latest Golf GTD diesel-powered hot hatch. Volkswagen has been offering high-performance Golf diesels since 1982, but so far none have ever been...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
2013 Nissan Leaf: 75-Mile Range 'Anticipated' In New Test By EPA
It's the last piece of information on the new and updated 2013 Nissan Leaf electric car that everyone's been waiting for: its range. The projected number, Nissan says, is 75 miles--but that shouldn't be compared to the 73-mile range of the 2011 and 2012 Leaf models. That's because the EPA changed...
John Voelcker -
2013 Toyota Camry Hybrid Gains Interior, Tech Upgrades
The Toyota Camry and Toyota Camry Hybrid have been granted a host of interior and technology upgrades for the 2013 model year. Launched in its current format in the 2012 model year, Camry LE models gain a new soft-touch material on the front door panels, replacing a harder plastic. Interior arm...
Antony Ingram -
Last week, three members of High Gear Media's editorial staff sat down to discuss Mercedes-Benz, AMG, and their future technologies. The participants were editorial director Marty Padgett, social media manager Joel Feder, and senior editor Nelson Ireson--and they appeared in a Google+ 'Hangout on Air' video chat that you can watch, above. The discussion began with a recap of the team's recent driving impressions of the 2014 Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG and 2013 SLS AMG GT. Quickly enough, the focus shifted to forced induction and the company's use of technology. Even luxury brands and their...
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Europeans Get Interested In Hybrids Just As U.S. Looks To Diesels
Traditionally, the U.S. has been a market where gasoline vehicles have dominated, while hybrids have seen increasing success and diesels have really only sold in relatively small numbers. In contrast, low diesel fuel prices in Europe have seen its popularity increase over the past few decades...
Antony Ingram -
Volkswagen e-Golf Details, Images Leaked Ahead of Geneva Show
German automaker Volkswagen has been teasing electric versions of its Golf for a while now (several decades, in fact) but images of a production model have now been leaked. Czech website AutoForum.cz shows images of the latest e-Golf, based on the brand new Mk7-generation car. The car will be...
Antony Ingram -
Latest McLaren P1 Supercar Adds Hybrid Technology To V-8 Engine
Not all cars are born equal. Some, if they're lucky, will be born as McLarens--supercars infused with technology from the race track, with one of the most famous names in motor sport. There are--believe it or not--parallels between the disparate worlds of green vehicles and hypercars, and not just...
Antony Ingram -
Electric Car Sales? Doing Better Than The Prius Was, Thank You
Hybrids still sell in fairly small proportions compared to regular internal combustion vehicles. Their introduction can be judged a fair success though. The Toyota Prius is California's top selling car, and Toyota has sold over 4 million hybrids since the first Prius rolled off the line little more...
Antony Ingram -
Plug-in Electric Car Sales in Canada For January 2013
Earlier this month, we covered January's plug-in electric car sales in the U.S., noting that sales fell by about half from the last few months of the prior year. As a percentage, plug-in cars were 0.3 percent of the American market in January 2013--down from 0.5 percent in December, but still twice...
Matthew Klippenstein -
New battery technology is five years away, and always will be. Well, that's the impression you might get whenever new technology is announced. Some of it is very, very clever indeed, but much of it is only theoretical, and the rest has rarely been tested on suitably large scales. Silicon nanoparticle battery tech currently under development at the University of Southern California (USC) really could be only a few years away, should everything go to plan. Most recent battery technology developments have focused on improving the materials used in the anode and cathode. The easier you can get...
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Comparing Subcompact Cars: Is Newer Better And More Fuel-Efficient?
The choice of subcompact cars on the market has never been better. Not just better in terms of numbers either, but in quality, reliability, safety, equipment and every other factor the average buyer looks for in a car. Gas mileage isn't bad either, even if it doesn't match some of the paper-thin...
Antony Ingram -
Green Tech: Tires Made From Dandelions Replace Rubber
It isn't just fossil fuels that are a finite resource--rubber is another substance in high demand, and short supply. The latest estimates suggest that global demand for rubber is expected to outstrip supply by 20 percent, by 2020. That will inevitably lead to raised prices--bad news, considering...
Antony Ingram -
Is Tomorrow The Most Important Day Ever For Tesla Motors?
It's never dull over at Tesla Motors, but tomorrow is a particularly important day. It may, in fact, be the most important day in the electric-car maker's history. That's because after the stock market closes, Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] will give the first hints about whether it could genuinely...
John Voelcker -
Bruce Weiner Microcar Exhibits Make Nearly $8M At Auction
How much would you pay for a car that could fit in the bed of most pickup trucks? If that car is a 1958 FMR Tg500 Tiger, like a Messerschmitt with four wheels, the answer is $280,000. Well, you might not pay that personally, but somebody did, as hundreds of microcars were auctioned at the Bruce...
Antony Ingram -
Chinese Automakers Bidding For Fisker Automotive: Report
Chinese companies Geely and Dongfeng are said to be among bidders from "different continents" looking for a controlling stake in troubled automaker Fisker Automotive. Fisker, which has suffered setback after setback over the last few years of its Karma range-extended sedan being on sale, is...
Antony Ingram