Green Car News

Fiat, like MINI, realizes that small isn’t for everyone, which is why the Italian automaker recently announced the four-door Fiat 500L for the U.S. market. It turns out that the 500L won’t be the only model built on a widened version of Fiat’s Punto platform, as Fiat is reportedly...

Major evolutionary change takes a long time. That's as true for electric cars as for opposable thumbs--though it will be measured in decades, not millennia. We frequently have to say that declaring plug-in cars a sales failure after 14 months (as certain commentators have done) is wildly premature...

If you're currently in the market for a Toyota hybrid, you might like to close the deal soon if you don't want to spend a few hundred dollars more. Toyota has announced it will raise the manufacturer's suggested retail price on selected Toyota and Scion models, effective with May 2012 production...

UPDATES, April 11, 2012: Since this article was published on March 30, we've received the following updates: This morning, Mission Valley Ford received a truckload of 10 Think City vehicles from the Indiana factory, though most are already spoken for; Sales and service are only available in the San...

In terms of renewable energy, you have to give credit to the first person who thought of using excrement as a source of fuel. At the risk of dragging things down to gutter-level, one place you'll find one heck of a lot of excrement is at a zoo. You don't need us to tell you that big animals produce...

Shopping for a used car can be one of life’s more frustrating experiences. If you know what you’re looking for in terms of year, make and model, the trouble is often in finding the specific car you’re seeking. If you're just shopping for a used small car, and you're flexible...

Well, the numbers are in. Despite the lingering effects of economic recession, the world's auto industry built more vehicles in 2011 than ever in history: 80 million, in fact. That's a new record, and the number is 3 percent higher than the 2010 total. The data comes from the International...

We breathed a sigh of relief when Coda announced it had started production of its electric Sedan earlier this month. Then, we positively jumped for joy when little over a week later, the first customers started taking delivery of their new 2012 Coda Sedans. It had certainly been a long time coming...

People have many reasons for choosing hybrid vehicles. For some, the chance of cutting down on fuel bills may be a priority. For others, knowing that they're doing less damage to the environment is very appealing. We've noticed that you, our readers, prioritize many different factors when choosing...

Steady-speed highway cruising doesn't actually take that much energy compared to accelerating up to, say, 70 mph in the first place. The really hard part is getting consistently high gas mileage in all driving conditions--which is why the 50-mpg Toyota Prius hybrid is still a remarkable vehicle...

We're coming down to the wire here, and our small but plucky group of supporters may be overwhelmed by the thundering hordes voting in favor of ... well, you know, those people. We're talking about voting for the TreeHugger Best of Green Reader's Choice Award--and once more we turn to you, our...

If you want to cover all of the potential new car sales bases, having a compact crossover vehicle is essential. Mazda sank serious development money into its CX-5, as did Ford with its new Escape. Radical changes were necessary for those makers to compete against the new Honda CR-V, and even MINI...

As carmakers work to satiate consumers' desire to downsize, it's becoming easier than ever to buy a quality car in the subcompact and compact classes. The 2012 Lexus CT 200h illustrates this perfectly. Lexus hit the big time with the LS400 luxury sedan over two decades ago now, but its biggest...

Well, that's not particularly good news: Azure Dynamics, the company that converted a handful of Ford Transit Connect small commercial vans to electric power, filed for bankruptcy on Monday. It laid off about 120 employees at a variety of locations in MIchigan, Massachusetts, Canada, and the United...

It's become a staple tactic of automotive PR operations: Trickle out one factoid at a time, well in advance of an actual vehicle, and get stories each time. So here's the news: The Ford Transit commercial van to be launched next year will have a diesel engine option. That was the sum total of the...

Could you pigeonhole the average hybrid car buyer? Well-educated, perhaps. Certainly green-minded. Someone who has settled down and started a family? How about young, free and single? That doesn't sound like your typical Prius buyer, that's for sure, but as we reported in January, as many as 60...

This much is clear: as long as there are cars, there will be people who want to race them. While the bulk of today’s racing takes place in fossil-fuel-powered automobiles, racing of the future will very likely be based around electric cars. Electric drag racing is already an established...

The 2012 New York Auto Show is fast approaching and alongside the high-profile supercars and luxury vehicles, we'll again see a number of new green cars making their world or American debuts. This year, that includes the U.S. launch of the production Mercedes-Benz A Class, and the world reveal of...

So you got yer gasoline cars, and yer electric cars. And yer extended-range electrics, and yer plug-in hybrids. Sure, old news, been there, done that. How about an electric car with a gasoline engine you can swap in and out as you need it? Think of it as a range-extended electric car (like the...

Lithium-ion battery cells are expensive, challenging, and time-consuming to develop. And they can be hard to get right, as the current woes of A123 Systems show. Even the large car companies that develop their own cells--Toyota is the largest among a small number--want to spread their costs. Today...