Green Car News

We liked the 2012 Mitsubishi i electric minicar we drove last week rather more than we expected. Its main handicap, even in city usage, is its low electric range. We didn't test the car to its limits, and indeed the range indicator may be slightly pessimistic (much safer than being optimistic...

The battle over the levels of ethanol in fuel may not have stopped just yet, but a decision by the U.S. Appeals Court will certainly weaken the challenge. Several groups, including grocery, auto and petroleum industry bodies filed suit against the Environmental Protection Agency in November 2010...

If you drive a 2011-12 Nissan Leaf, you’ll know that keeping your car warm in winter can drop its range by as many as 30 miles, due to the inefficiency of the its coolant-to-air heater. Starting with the 2013 Leaf, Nissan has already promised a much more efficient heater that will better the...

Ten years ago, hatchbacks were viewed by most Americans as ‘econoboxes’ designed to offer cheap, cheerful motoring. As a consequence, Toyota catered to that need with its no-frills Matrix compact hatch, while the rest of the world was given the Toyota Auris, a more sophisticated compact...

Perenially struggling electric automaker Think is once again seeing out another unsuccessful chapter in its life as the final few cars are completed at its Indiana plant. Originally formed in Norway in 1991, Think has been around longer than several other dedicated electric car companies--but it's...

After being flayed for not achieving its 2011 sales goal for the Chevy Volt, you might think General Motors would shy away from further volume predictions for its innovative range-extended electric car. Not so. CEO Dan Akerson said in late June that the company thought it would sell 35,000 to...

In hybrid and electric cars, regenerative braking systems are used to convert kinetic energy into electrical energy under braking, slowing the car down and improving gas mileage or all-electric range. But Nissan’s latest iteration of the Japanese-market Serena minivan uses regenerative...

Well, that was quick. On Saturday, just eight days after a fire badly damaged a 2012 Fisker Karma, the company has completed its forensic investigation, announced the cause, and started a recall for the part in question. Fisker concluded that the fire was caused by an internal fault in a sealed...

In coming years, every car company will make every vehicle it builds greener--meaning more fuel-efficient--courtesy of increasingly stringent gas mileage and carbon emissions rules around the world. That applies not only to smaller, simpler cars, but also large, heavy, fast, luxurious, and...

Infiniti's Emerg-E range-extended supercar has been seen at so many events now it's hard to believe that it's only now making its first appearance in North America. On display at the 62nd annual Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, a celebration of all things automotive, Infiniti will be hoping the...

Let's face it: political discourse in the U.S. isn't very pretty. It's generally a matter of two large parties -- each backed by an army of fundraisers, copywriters, and statisticians -- shouting at each other in front of sympathetic audiences. Over the past couple of decades, the situation seems...

For a week each year, speed freaks from across the globe descend on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, for a chance at walking away with a land speed record. All sorts of vehicles show up, but predictably, being green isn't always on the minds of the competitors. Still, there are other ways of...

Fiat is introducing a new variant of the 500 retro minicar to sit between the base 1.4-liter model and the high-performance Abarth. The 2013 Fiat 500 Turbo sits between the two other 500s, offering 135 horsepower and 150 lb ft. of torque from its turbocharged 1.4-liter MulitAir gasoline engine. In...

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors, has quite a lot on his mind these days. Among his tasks: making sure production of the 2012 Tesla Model S electric sport sedan ramps up quickly enough, while maintaining superb quality, to let Tesla build 5,000 units before the end of the year. But Musk still...

We're seeing an increasing number of gearheads getting into electric cars, and it's not really surprising. With impressive performance, plenty of torque and by simply allowing us to drive more without incurring the expense of fossil fuels, there's a lot for even traditional car fans to like. That...

Talk to any independent auto-repair mechanic, and you'll learn that the single most important item that keeps a shop in business is brakes. But hybrids and electric cars use their friction brakes far less aggressively than regular cars. That's because when the driver presses the pedal, some or all...

Several years ago, you could get a Federal tax credit for buying a hybrid-electric vehicle. That program has ended. Several manufacturers--Toyota, Honda, and Ford among them--reached their cap of 60,000 hybrids sold, and now hybrids represent 2 to 3 percent of the U.S. market without Federal...

Those of us who follow the world of electric cars are all too aware how difficult it is to start up an electric car company. Even the larger companies like Tesla Motors, Coda Automotive and Fisker Automotive aren't out of the woods just yet, though some are in a better position than others. One...

We’ve said it many times before, building an auto company from scratch is extremely hard, and expensive. That’s probably why only two major plug-in car startups have made it to the point of building and selling cars globally: Tesla and Fisker. In order to continue, both firms are...

Have you ever wondered whether you're paying over the odds for a car, compared to your neighbors in other states? We all know that prices differ abroad, but there can sometimes be hundreds of dollars between a car in one state, and the price people pay in another. We decided to investigate the...