plug-in cars

If you’ve ever purchased a car, the chances are you’ll be familiar with the concept of trade-ins: giving the dealer your old car-- and the equity contained within it--as a down-payment on a newer model. Now electric automaker Tesla Motors is offering a similar trade-in deal for owners...

Small delivery vans are a new category in the United States, but Nissan has big plans for its small NV200 delivery van--and among them are an all-electric version. The prototype Nissan e-NV200 electric minivan was one of several vehicles available to drive on the test track at Nissan's GranDrive...

How many times have you gone car shopping to hear the salesman promise to give you free gas for a few weeks or months as a deal sweetener? In the days of $4-a-gallon gasoline, those kind of deals aren’t as common as they once were, but now Californian electric automaker Coda Automotive has...

Despite filing for bankruptcy protection yesterday, lithium-ion battery firm A123 Systems has said the factories where it makes electric car battery cells will be saved, thanks to a $125 million deal with automotive parts maker Johnson Controls. Already a huge Tier One global automotive parts...

Few states in the U.S. can match California’s generosity when it comes to clean vehicle rebate programs. In fact, back in September, the California Air Resources Board and the Environmental Protection Agency awarded the state’s 10,000th Clean Vehicle Rebate to a Nissan Leaf owner from...

After months of planning, the next-generation J1772 electric car charging standard has been approved by the Society of Automotive Engineers. As expected, it is based on the current J1772 Level 2 charging connector found on cars like the 2012 Nissan Leaf and 2013 Chevrolet Volt, but adds direct...

The 2013 Toyota Prius Liftback and 2013 Prius V wagon will cost buyers between $100 and $200 more than comparable 2012 models, Toyota announced yesterday. The pricing increase, which comes into effect immediately, means that those buying the 2013 Prius Liftback will find themselves paying $200 more...

Less than three weeks ago, Fisker Automotive announced it has successfully closed its latest round of funding, netting a total of $100 million more in funds to develop its next plug-in hybrid car, the mid-size Atlantic Sedan. Hopes of driving one any time soon were dashed yesterday, however, when...

For centuries, the role of Judge has carried with it a solemn duty to uphold justice, the law, and to ascertain which facts are true, and which are not. So when a journalist in Carmi, Illinois spotted a Second Circuit Judge charging his electric car at Wayne County Courthouse, they ran a story...

They pop up like weeds, these "Electric cars are failures" articles--and you just have to keep killing them. The latest is an opinion piece titled, "Why the Electric Car Failed," published last week in U.S. News & World Report. Author Michael Lynch identifies himself as a researcher for the...

Thanks to its ever-expanding range of hybrids, including the well-known Prius liftback, Toyota Toyota dealers have a wide range of green cars to sell. You may think that would make them more receptive to selling all-electric cars, but a recent survey from AutoRetailNet (via plugincars) suggests...

Ever since Nissan launched its Leaf electric car in late 2010, it has offered owners the ability to remotely start charging, using its Carwings telematics system and smartphone apps. The Nissan Leaf also has a feature letting owners pre-program a start time for charging and pre-heating, but only...

If you drive a regular gasoline car in California, you’ll know that the past week has been far from easy, with gas prices peaking at over $5 a gallon in places. But while many car drivers were suffering unbelievably high gas prices, plug-in and electric car dealers across the state have...

It had been almost two years since we'd driven a Chevrolet Volt range-extended electric car, and the new 2013 model has been slightly modified to boost its electric range. We took a new 2013 Chevy Volt on our usual weekend test route, which covered 360 miles that included about two-thirds freeway...

While gas prices in the state of California are finally dropping following last week’s Southern California peak of more than $5 per gallon, the financial and social implications of such high gas prices are still being felt by its residents. As The LA Times reported earlier this week...

For eco-minded commuters with electric cars, getting a place to charge their electric car while at work can effectively double their car’s daily range. Getting your employer to install a charging station can be far from easy, even if the company you work for is keen to support electric cars...

When it comes to service costs and fuel, everyone knows that electric cars are far cheaper to run than gasoline cars. Even with a plug-in car, however, you still have to pay your local utility company for the electricity used to charge it. Like gas prices, electricity prices are on a steady, upward...

With the first 2013 Nissan Leaf electric car expected to roll out of the Smyrna, Tennessee, plant in mid-December, many rumors have been flying about what changes the updated Leaf will have. Now we have the first spy shots showing some of the modifications Nissan has made to create a new, less...

Ask owners to give you a list of fears associated with their electric cars, and a few charging concerns are bound to be on the list. Usually, they include not finding somewhere to charge, or that a charging station isn’t accessible for some reason. Now a new one can be added to the list: not...

It's hard to miss a Mercedes-Benz compact hatchback when it's wrapped in a shiny blue-chrome finish. That was the attention-grabbing color the luxury German maker used at the recent Paris Auto Show to distinguish its two electric models, the 2014 SLS AMG Electric Drive all-electric supercar and the...