plug-in cars
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Buyers of hybrids have long known that they can be surprisingly reliable, as well as costing little to run on a daily basis. The 2012 Annual Auto Reliability Survey from Consumer Reports has confirmed this once again. As reported via The New York Times, the Consumer Reports survey predicts the reliability of 2013 model-year cars based on reports of the reliability of 1.2 million vehicles up to 10 years old. With a bloodline as strong as the Toyota Prius, it's no surprise that the 2013 Prius, the Toyota Prius V and the Toyota Prius Plug-In are all rated above average in predicted reliability...
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$199-A-Month Lease On 2012 Ford Focus Electric Matches Nissan
Ford is enticing new customers to its Focus Electric with headline lease offers of $199 a month.
George Parrott -
Chevrolet Spark EV Electric Car For Korea As Well As U.S.
While it was announced a year ago, the Chevrolet Spark EV electric car still hasn't formally been shown by General Motors. That may change at a "GM Electrification" event to be held in the San Francisco Bay Area next month. The only nugget of news we've heard lately is that the Spark EV will be...
John Voelcker -
See Nissan's Wireless Charging With Automatic Parking Location (Video)
Right now, all plug-in electric cars are recharged using a cable that connects the car through a charging device to electric current of various types. But if Nissan has its way, that will change in a couple of years. The company has said it expects to offer a wireless charging system as an...
John Voelcker -
Finally! A Nissan Leaf Global Ad That Everyone Understands
In a few months’ time, the Nissan Leaf electric car will have been on sale in the U.S. for two years. While a steady--if slow--stream of Leafs have left dealers all over the U.S. since, Nissan, like some of its rivals, has struggled to find the right way of advertising its first plug-in car...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Electric-Car Owners: Gas Car In Your Space? Use This Notice!
It's called in shorthand "being ICEd," meaning that an Internal-Combustion Engined car has parked in a space reserved for plug-in electric cars. What to do about it is the subject of much discussion among electric-car owners. Now charging network Blink is offering at least a partial solution. The...
John Voelcker -
U.S. production of the 2013 Nissan Leaf moved one step closer to reality earlier this week, when Nissan started eMotor production trials at its factility in Decherd, Tennessee. Located about 70 miles from Smyrna, where Nissan will start official U.S. production of the 2013 Leaf electric car, the motor production line--and its staff--are going through final production test runs before the plant commences official motor manufacturing later this year. Currently made in Japan, the Leaf’s electric motor contains around one mile of copper wiring, and takes Nissan longer to assemble than a...
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Auto Dealers' Fight Against Tesla Stores: Elon Musk Weighs In
Tesla Motors is facing a formidable opponent it may not have sufficiently appreciated: the auto dealers of America, and their state associations. Tesla, you may remember, is selling its electric cars online, not through franchised, independently owned dealers, and delivering them directly to buyers...
John Voelcker -
Hertz Asks New Yorkers Where They Should Rent Electric Cars
New Yorkers are reputedly never shy to offer opinions, whether or not they've been asked for. Now Hertz is partnering with a NYC government outreach program to ask residents where they'd like to see electric cars located for short-term rentals through its Hertz On Demand EV program. The Mission...
John Voelcker -
Want To Get A 2012 Toyota RAV4 EV? Here's How
It might be a compliance car, built by Toyota for the sole purpose of meeting California’s regulations for zero-emission vehicles, but the 2012 Toyota RAV4 EV is one of the most highly-anticipated plug-in cars of 2012. The anticipation is with good reason. Combining the practicality of a...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Audi R8 e-Tron All-Electric Supercar On Hold: Report
One of the earlier all-electric concept cars from a major maker was the Audi R8 e-tron, first unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September 2009. Audi has consistently said it will build up to 1,000 of the battery-electric supercar and sell them--for a high price--to buyers who want a...
John Voelcker -
Onstar Will Let Chevy Volt Owners Share Their Data Again, Soon
Owners of the Chevy Volt range-extended electric car are often pretty technically advanced. Many are conversant not only with auto technology but also with apps and software analysis tools. Two weeks ago, the online Volt community erupted when OnStar abruptly shut stopped giving data access to...
John Voelcker -
The nights are getting longer, children are starting to get ready for Halloween, and in certain states, you’ll have already had the first fall frost. If you’re approaching your first winter of plug-in car ownership, however, you might be in for a shock as the mercury starts to drop. Like you, your plug-in car won’t want to travel as far per charge when it’s cold. It isn’t a case of premature battery degradation, either. Lithium-ion battery packs, like humans, have a pretty narrow band of tolerance to temperature. Like their drivers, plug-in car battery packs...
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2013 Ford C-Max Energi, Fusion Energi Join California HOV Lane
Californians wanting to gain single-occupancy access to the state’s high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes now have twice as many eligible cars to choose from when buying their next vehicle. Yesterday, Ford announced that its 2013 C-Max Energi plug-in hybrid has met the standards set out by the...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
2012 Tesla Model S: Most Important New Car Since Ford Model T?
There's no denying that the Ford Model T is one of the most important cars of all time. It jump-started the auto industry as we now know it. But Tesla is looking to change the automotive industry, and the new 2012 Model S just might be the most important new car since the Model T. Let's start with...
Joel Feder -
When Will Electric-Car Charging Stations Exceed Gas Stations?
The topic of public charging stations for electric cars isn't necessarily well understood. The release of Electric Vehicle Charging Equipment, a report by Pike Research on deployment of charging infrastructure, led us to wonder: When will the number of public charging stations for electric cars in...
John Voelcker -
2013 Chevy Volt Software Update Required To Avert Delayed-Charging Glitch
Yesterday, General Motors announced it will be running a ‘customer satisfaction program’ for some 4,000 2013 Chevrolet Volts to fix a software glitch that could cause the car’s electric motor to power down while driving. In other words, GM is asking all 2013 Chevy Volt owners to...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Romney Slams Tesla, Fisker Again In Final Presidential Debate
The CEOs of Tesla and Fisker may have thought they were home free--but it was not to be. Both startup electric-car companies were named at the very end of last night's third and final presidential debate. Republican candidate Mitt Romney didn't repeat his charge that Tesla Motors [NSDQ:TSLA] and...
John Voelcker -
Back in March 2011, we took delivery of a U.K. spec Nissan Leaf as our principal family car. Since then, we’ve kept you up-to-date with the car’s long-term progress, including reports after driving 5,000 miles in it, after covering the 11,000 mile mark, and after one year of ownership. Last week, the odometer ticked over to 25,000 miles, marking the need for another long-term report. Reliability Just as our previous two reports, our long-term Leaf has been extremely reliable, with no major issues, recalls, or breakdowns since our 15,000 mile report. In fact, since our first-year...
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2012 Tesla Model S Signature Series: Is It Worth The Premium?
The first 1,000 or so 2012 Tesla Model S electric sport sedans to be delivered to U.S. customers will be fully-loaded, limited-edition "Signature" cars. But as delivery dates slip due to early production snags, some owners of Signature cars--called "Sigs" within the Tesla clan--grumble that they're...
David Noland -
Nissan Leaf-To-Home Power Station: Will It Make It To U.S.?
Eighteen months after the earthquake and tsunami that devastated parts of Japan, electric cars are viewed there in a whole new light—as portable sources of emergency energy. Now Nissan has taken that usage to a new level, with the Leaf-To-Home energy station that it announced in May and put...
John Voelcker -
Sierra Club Weighs In On Plug-In Cars, With Humor
Here at Green Car Reports, we aim to give you a comprehensive run-down of what each car is like to drive, how far it can realistically travel per charge, and the ins and outs of purchasing it. But what does each plug-in car say about you as a person? The Sierra Club, most famous for its grassroots...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Having Your Gas Car Serviced? Here, Borrow A Nissan Leaf
These days, most mainstream dealers and garages give you a courtesy , or loaner car while your own vehicle is being worked on. If you’re lucky, you’ll be given a reasonably new demo car, or perhaps even a car comparable with your own. More often than not, you'll end up with the garage's...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Forget Range Anxiety, Chevy Volt Owners Have Gas Anxiety
When General Motors launched the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid back in 2010, it chose to emphasize how it differed from electric cars by highlighting how its gasoline engine meant folks didn’t suffer from range anxiety. Now, almost two years after the Volt launched, charging data by a...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield