Green Car News

George Lippincott was the founder and president of Nic-L-Silver Battery Company, Santa Ana, California, which made a popular line of American car batteries in the 1950s. Inspired by fiberglass-bodied sports cars being developed in Southern California at the time, he considered building his own line...

Once a class full of lumbering--but extremely popular--dinosaurs, the large sedan is sometimes at risk of of going extinct among the SUVs, midsize hybrids and crossovers of this world. They still have a place in the market though. And like any other class, buyers now have not only more equipment...

After realising the potential of hybrids early on, Honda has been a little late to join the electric car party with its Fit EV. Better late than never, though--and now the carmaker has launched a 'readiness assessment' to determine the suitability of potential lessees. Just as with the MINI E, BMW...

Progress comes slowly to the world of commercial shipping, but it is coming. Three years ago, we noted that one giant cargo ship emits as much as 50 million cars. Now, shipping lines are starting to experiment with biofuels, which offer several advantages: They contain no sulfur or so-called...

Historically, automakers haven’t been fond of small electric cars capable of carrying one or two people. Lately, everyone from General Motors to Renault has shown interest in low-speed city runabouts, leading some to even bring doorless, electric runabouts to market. Unlike most automakers...

This is a tough time for lithium-ion cell maker A123 Systems, but the company did get one little piece of good news yesterday. The U.S. Department of Energy has agreed to lengthen the time period over which A123 can use funds from a $249.1 million grant it received from the DoE in August 2009 to...

Have you noticed today’s date? Unless you’re of Italian or Spanish descent (those nations consider Tuesday the 13th and Thursday the 17th bad luck), you might consider today to be an inherently unlucky. But before you cross yourself, reach for the four-leaf clover, or hide under the...

Earlier this week, Ford announced it had signed a deal with troubled Internet content provider Yahoo to stream 10 episodes of an Internet reality show centered on its 2012 Ford Focus Electric. Called Plugged In, the show will send teams of contestants to various U.S. cities in Ford's battery...

Some cars take time to squeeze their way into your affections. Others are pretty much perfect the first time around, with appeal that endures for many years. The original Toyota RAV4 EV is just such a car, for electric car fans. Toyota's useful small SUV with an electric drivetrain has been the...

Let’s face it: Europeans and Americans have very different tastes in cars. So much so, it is common for the same car to be subtly redesigned for each market. Now Colin Lawther, vice president of Nissan engineering in Europe, has announced that the European version of the 2013 Leaf will get a...

With no local fanfare or announcements, electric car network provider Better Place has started delivering cars to its first paying customers in Israel. One the first customers is David Rose, who reserved his car in October 2011. His home charging spot was installed a month after he submitted his...

UPDATE, Thu, April 12, 11:15 am: The Detroit News quotes an unnamed source this morning as saying that the battery pack being tested that caused yesterday's explosion at GM's Warren Technical Center contained lithium-ion cells from battery maker A123 Systems. The Chevrolet Spark EV is the only GM...

While it's not quite the 2009 Cash for Clunkers program, it's a nice gesture with a clear mission: get the most polluting cars off Colorado roads. If you're a Coloradan who owns a pre-1990 car, donate it to the Clear the Air Foundation and the ReForest Colorado program will plant a tree in an area...

You don't hear as much worrying these days about the threat of Chinese automakers entering the U.S. market with inexpensive cars. Nor do you hear concerns over Chinese electric-car makers swamping sales of the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt, which have racked up more than 23,300 sales between them...

In the automotive world, there’s a constant struggle going on between automakers keen to encourage customers to choose their green car over the competition. Just after a major auto show or car launch, automakers find it relatively easy to sell new car, especially if they have lots of new...

The laws of supply and demand are set to do their thing in the next few weeks. Fueled by rising gas prices, short supply and rising demand, the price of used fuel-efficient vehicles is set to rise. Jonathan Banks at NADA Used Car Guide has predicted that prices will approach record highs over the...

Never mind range anxiety - that's old news these days. Most electric car owners say it lasts about a week after buying the car, and then you learn what you can and can't do. Much more concerning is gas mileage anxiety, we think. What is gas mileage anxiety? Let us explain... Back in the day, you'd...

The New York Auto Show, which opened to the public on Saturday, has elicited some barely stifled yawns from the automotive press. The slightly tweaked top-selling Toyota Camry and the Nissan Altima, conservatively styled to defend its No. 2 position, just don’t get the pulse racing like the...

Car sharing services are often viewed as a green transportation alternative, the idea being that users may not need to own a car--or can dispense with a second vehicle--that they only use occasionally. Now Zipcar says it plans to add more 42-mpg Honda Insight subcompact hybrid hatchbacks, as well...

With stellar sales of the Chevrolet Volt last month, we haven't heard quite as much of the silly "electric cars are a sales failure" meme lately. After their first full year of sales, each of the two modern plug-in electric cars on sale during 2011 outsold the Toyota Prius hybrid in 2000, its first...