plug-in cars
-
One of the challenges facing electric car owners wanting to venture further than the range their electric cars can provide on a single charge is where to find either an outlet or a purpose-built electric vehicle charging station to replenish their car’s battery pack. Until recently there was no centralized place where electric car owners could search for a place to recharge their car - but Google recently changed that with the announcement in March that it was working with the U.S. Department of Energy to map all of the nation’s electric vehicle charging stations in one easy...
-
BMW Exec Trashes Electric Cars, Tax Credits at Launch of ActiveE
In the rulebook of product promotion, remembering to not say horrible things about your product has to be number one. It’s a shame BMW North America President and CEO Jim O’Donnell seems to have forgotten that fact while taking part in a public event. Speaking on Monday at an event in...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Earth Day: Coulomb Offers Free Electric Car Charging Passes
If you’re an electric car owner living within the many hundreds of publicly available electric vehicle charging stations installed by Coulomb Technologies then you may be interested in what the infrastructure company has planned to celebrate Earth Day 2011. As part of the celebrations...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Want A 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid? Register Online Now
It's been a long time coming, but by June of next year, the 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid will go on sale in the U.S. If you're eager to be one of the very first on your block to own the world's most popular hybrid vehicle--but you insist on being able to plug it into grid power--now is your...
John Voelcker -
How Much Gasoline Can You Save With A Hybrid Or Plug-In Car?
As of the middle of April, gasoline is approaching $4.00 per gallon across the United States and oil is surging past $110 per barrel. More and more energy observers are talking about "$5 per gallon fuel" here in the U.S. So how do you minimize your gasoline costs and maximize your mileage? What...
George Parrott -
Nissan’s New Electric Car Ad Zeroes In On Weird Coincidences (Video)
What links a 1985 novel about a drug-addicted rich boy with the 2011 Nissan Leaf? Nothing, or something? It turns out to be both. You see, the 1985 novel Less Than Zero, later dramatized in 1987 as a film featuring a fresh-faced 22 year-old Robert Downey Jr., has a remarkably similar title to...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
The choices among electric cars just keep getting better, as BMW has now announced the lease details for the first stage of its evolution into BMW-branded electric cars. The ActiveE, an all-electric version of the 1-series, will be available for lease requests later this summer. It will be offered in four California markets--Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, and Sacramento--along with the greater New York metro area and Boston. Actual deliveries will start in September or October this year. And previous lessees of the Mini E may get priority on the waiting list for this new type of BMW...
-
BMW ActiveE Electric Car Priced At $499 Per Month, $2,250 Down
Electric cars, at the moment, cost more to buy than gasoline cars of similar size and with similar features, powertrain excepted. Leases on electric cars from mass-market brands like Nissan and Chevrolet are often a little more competitive. The 2011 Nissan Leaf is $349 a month, the 2011 Chevy Volt...
John Voelcker -
Electric-Car Charging Stations Pop Up All Over, Hotels Included
While AllCarsElectric posts are regularly written from at least three countries, occasionally we get to cover electric-car events in our own back yard--specifically, Palo Alto, California. On Friday, we attended a ceremony to inaugurate the first electric-car charger installed at any hotel in very...
John Voelcker -
2011 New York Auto Show Preview: Nissan Leaf Nismo RC Concept
It might be just three days away from its official unveiling at the 2011 New York Auto Show, but Nissan just can’t help sharing its latest electric vehicle a little early. Called the Nissan Leaf Nismo RC - that’s Racing Competition - the all-electric race-prepared car looks a little...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Electric-Car Fire: Flaming Garage Shows Media Ignorance
A garage caught fire, destroying the two cars inside. That's what we know. One of the cars inside was a brand-new 2011 Chevrolet Volt, and the other was a home-converted electric car. But because of that, what we've gotten from various media is inaccurate at best, and potentially quite misleading...
John Voelcker -
Coda Automotive Needs Funding to Finish Delayed Electric Sedan
What does $50 million buy you? We can think of plenty of good things we could do, but according to Californian electric car firm Coda Automotive, $50 million is how much it needs to bring its four door all-electric sedan to market. According to The New York Times, Christopher Rose, the...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
NRG Energy has opened its first eVgo direct-current electric vehicle charging station in Dallas, Texas, as part of a privately funded 70-station network in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, the company announced. The chargers are designed to be “fast-chargers,” which use a 480-volt direct electrical current to charge an electric vehicle enough to drive 30 miles in less than 10 minutes. NRG Energy also plans to open stations that feature a 240-volt Level 2 charger that gives an electric vehicle enough charge to go 25 miles in an hour. Electric vehicles have been criticized for their lack...
-
Myth Busting Electric Car Myths: Yes, You Can Use a Car Wash
We’ve talked before about how all major electric cars on the market today have to undergo just as rigorous a water testing as their gasoline counterparts. But just like the many people who ask us on a weekly basis what happens when electric cars meet water perhaps there’s a voice...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Would Your Granny Buy A 2012 Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid? (Video)
It's all about video these days. We do video here at GreenCarReports (discussing whether a 2011 Chevy Volt will save you money, for instance) and so do many other automotive sites. But we have to admit, we never thought about bringing grandmothers into the picture. Which is exactly what Kyle...
John Voelcker -
Plug-In Hybrid MPGs: Is Parallel or Range-Extended Better?
These are exciting times to be a car shopper, as the choices in every possible category just keep getting better and more fuel-efficient. The options for ecologically sensitive hybrid buyers have taken a major step forward with the introduction of the 2011 Chevrolet Volt and the imminent arrival of...
George Parrott -
BREAKING: 2011 Nissan Leaf Start Failure - What You Need to Know
A few days ago, we started hearing mumblings on the electric car grapevine which suggested that all was not well again with the 2011 Leaf, Nissan’s first ever all-electric production hatchback. It all began at the end of last month, when a 2011 Nissan Leaf owner reported that his car stopped...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
2011 Nissan Leaf One Week In: Five Things We Like
As you may have seen earlier this week, I’ve been a proud owner of a 2011 Nissan Leaf since late last month. Today marks ten days since we took delivery. We’ve already shared the five things that we hate about the 2011 Leaf, so now it’s time to share the things we really like...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
President Obama’s goal of 1 million hybrid and electric vehicles on the roads of the U.S. by 2015 may sound like a tall order given the slow sales rollout of plug-in cars for the first few months of 2012, but as we’ve discovered before, it isn’t impossible. Now Nissan, makers of the 2011 Nissan Leaf have joined the debate. Its opinion? Obama’s 1 million goal is achievable - but only if federal and state governments get involved. Andy Palmer, senior vice president at Nissan, told attendees at a conference in New York on Wednesday that the number of alternative fueled...
-
2012 Toyota RAV4 EV Prototype: First Drive
Just a year ago, seeing the 'RAV4, Powered by Tesla' startup greeting would have been almost unthinkable. Yet last May, Toyota and Tesla inked a deal that took the industry by surprise—and left a lot of observers scratching their heads. And nearly eleven months since that deal—and nine...
Bengt Halvorson -
The 2011 Chevrolet Volt: More Electric Than Car?
Despite what GM wanted you to think when it first launched its brand new 2011 Chevrolet Volt, its four-seat extended range electric car or plug-in hybrid does consume gasoline. But it turns out that despite the protestations of dyed-in-the-wool electric vehicle advocates, the 2011 Chevrolet Volt...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
LG Finishes Electric Car Battery Factory, Leads Battery War
South Korean electronics giant LG has just finished what it claims is the world’s largest lithium-ion battery plant for electric vehicle traction batteries. Capable of producing enough lithium ion batteries to put 100,000 electric cars on the road LG’s chemical devision LG Chem is keen...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Electric-Car Range Extender Engines: OK Now, Can Do Better
Electric cars like the 2011 Chevrolet Volt and 2011 Fisker Karma get around the problem of range anxiety the old-fashioned way: They use gasoline engines. They do it because the battery systems of pure electric vehicles are large, heavy, and expensive, but the range they produce is still...
George Parrott -
Is Obama's Goal of 1 Million Plug-In Cars By 2015 Feasible?
Since 2008, Barack Obama has consistently promoted the goal of having 1 million advanced technology vehicles on U.S. roads by 2015. The number refers to plug-in vehicles that use grid power, stored in lithium-ion battery packs, to operate their electric traction motors. Regular hybrids like the...
John Voelcker