plug-in cars

Electric-car charging stations may be coming to the U.S. Senate garage, under a bill passed yesterday on a bipartisan basis. But fear not, zealous guardians of the sacred taxpayer dollar--no public funds will be used for the installation. Yesterday, S.739 was passed by the Senate. The bill had been...

If you’re in the market for an electric car, the chances are you’ve resigned yourself to the fact that you’re going to need to spend upwards of $30,000 in order to get a modern, convenient electric car. If that’s too much, you can always go second hand with any number of...

By carefully controlling the launch of the 2012 Ford Focus Electric, Ford is trying to appease buyers who want an electric car, while satisfying accountants who are hesitant to invest heavily in the launch.

Car buyers are notoriously fond of focusing only on the purchase price of new vehicles, without much thinking about the total cost of ownership. For electric cars that may cost twice or more what a similar-size gasoline vehicle does, that's a problem. Still, two separate pieces of evidence begin to...

Nissan announced yesterday that it would start building its e-NV 200 electric van in Spain next year The small van will be Nissan's second electric vehicle globally. It follows the Leaf compact electric hatchback, which went on sale in December 2010 as a 2011 model. First shown at this year's...

Always read the fine print. That's a lesson every car buyer should take to heart. Especially since Nissan, Chevrolet, Tesla, and Mitsubishi all now engage in a pricing practice of which they should be ashamed. It's so-called "net pricing" of their electric cars, in which the price appearing in...

Ever since Daimler invested $50 million for 9 percent of Tesla back in May 2009, the two companies have had a close working relationship on electric car technology. Since that investment, Tesla has provided Smart and Mercedes-Benz with drivetrains for various electric cars, including...

All over the U.S., police forces rely on hundreds of highly-trained motorcycle riders enforcing law and order on specially-built motorcycles like the 2012 Harley Davidson 2012 Electra Guide or 2012 BMW Boxer. Now Californian electric motorcycle manufacturer Zero motorcycles is offering police...

Since about 1930, U.S. vehicles have largely been fueled on gasoline. Diesel passenger vehicles arrived in the 1960s, and there are now about 120,000 locations in the U.S. that offer one or both fuels. Since then, several alternative fuels have been proposed but largely failed to get a...

It’s official: in one month, Tesla will deliver its first 2012 Model S electric sedan to customers in the U.S., webcasting the whole ceremony live on the Internet. A few weeks ahead of schedule, Tesla’s engineering team have been working hard to ensure that production is up to speed at...

Here are two subjects we never thought would go together: zombies, and plug-in cars. But the winning entry in the 2012 MOFILM Barcelona Chevrolet Volt Video Contest by director Josh Soskin does just that, and now it's being aired by Chevrolet Europe to help drum up interest for its plug-in hybrid...

Are you mulling the purchase of an electric car? Or maybe wondering about wiring in your garage, and whether it would handle a plug-in car charging station? Do we have a webinar for you! This Thursday, May 24, electric-car advocates Plug-In America are holding a free webinar titled, "Everything You...

They’re large, hardly pretty, and serve just one function, but Nissan Australia has managed to turn the humble gas pump into art in order to promote its all-electric 2012 Leaf. Unlike its U.S. ad from last year, which asked us to imagine a world where everything was powered by gasoline...

For the past five years or more, the iconic Tesla Roadster has been the poster child for electric cars. Produced between 2008 and 2011, the two-seat Tesla Roadster combines the desirability of a luxury sports car with race-car performance, while its massive 53 kilowatt-hour battery pack gives...

You’ve taken the plunge and shelled out anything from $33,000 upwards for an all-electric 2012 Nissan Leaf. Quiet, efficient and full of gadgets, you’ve discovered that it has quickly relegated your gas car to the garage, carrying out the weekend chores, work commutes and maybe even...

Los Angeles is well known for being at the forefront of electric car adoption, spurred on in part by large numbers of Hollywood A-list electric car drivers, enthusiastic advocacy groups and chronic air quality. But Los Angeles isn’t just the place where you’re more likely to see an...

It’s no secret that Los Angeles has some of the worst air pollution of any city in the U.S., especially around its ports, where long lines of trucks wait idling to fill up with cargo from docking ships. But a new project from German electronics company Siemens could see that change forever...

It had to happen some time, just not perhaps as quickly as this. Since Nissan’s all-electric Leaf hatchback launched in late 2010, many have been watching with interest to see how long it would be before the car’s 24 kilowatt-hour battery pack showed the gradual reduction in range and...

Last week, we shared with you our first-hand experience of driving an electric car through a Better Place battery swap station in Israel. Publicly, especially outside of Israel, Better Place’s concept of switching out depleted electric car battery packs for fully charged ones at its...

Garages in single-family homes are relatively easy to wire for electric-car charging; shared garages in multifamily residences often aren't. Therein lies much frustration, not only for plug-in car drivers but also their landlords. The latest episode hit the airwaves last Wednesday, when KGO-TV in...