Hybrid

Anyone looking for a chilling plug-in vehicle warning tale should check out this detailed Reuters article, which digs into the financial history of Fisker Automotive and reveals that the company lost around $35,000 per vehicle. That number comes from "internal financial statements and interviews ...

Ford is taking the time to trumpet technology that's let drivers go further by stopping gradually. Specifically, the Blue Oval says the various versions of its regenerative braking systems have generated enough energy to offset the use of 100 million gallons of fuel, Wards Auto writes. Ford's ...

Getting Some Answers About This Often Confusing EV Program The E-Tron name has been applied to at least a dozen concepts, test vehicles and rumors over the past four years. If we take a quick look back in history, we realize that the first time Audi mentioned the name E-Tron to the public ...

Looks like Britain is not an outlier. Last month, we learned that around 6,000 people in the UK had let BMW know they were interested in the upcoming i3 electric vehicle (also available as a plug-in hybrid). Not a small number, and the overall picture looks good for BMW's first real plug-in ...

The never-ending attempted flight of the Aptera three-wheel design continues. After years of struggles and a bankruptcy in 2011, the Aptera assets were revived last year by a Chinese company, Zap Jonway. Zaptera USA, which now owns the Aptera Motors assets, has announced that Aptera will be split ...

Let's face it, Toyota does not believe in electric cars. Not the battery-powered plug-in kind anyway. Plug-in hybrids? Sure. Fuel cells? As soon as feasible. But a simple EV? No, that just isn't Toyota's thing – a few side projects notwithstanding. "If the electricity is not sourced ...

The Volkswagen XL1 is a next-generation vehicle focused on one thing: hitting the one-liter per 100 kilometer fuel efficiency bogey (hence its name). That ultra-low level of energy usage translates to 235 miles per gallon, but since VW says the two-seater burns even less than a liter per 100 km, ...

In a sort of "man bites dog" development for the green-car set, Ford plug-in hybrid drivers are hooking themselves up to charging stations at a greater frequency than drivers of the automaker's pure battery-electric Focus, Green Car Reports says, citing a presentation Ford's Mike Tinskey made in ...

Despite his long history with traditional internal combustion engines and climate change skepticism, Bob Lutz remains a strong voice for the plug-in future of the automobile. If anything, his recent statement are getting stronger. To wit, in an recent interview with CNBC, the Chevy Volt's ...

California really is the Golden State for the Blue Oval. For proof, look to the words of one J Mays, Ford's vice president of global design, who told Inhabitat that hybrid sales are far better than the company expected out west. "Our hybrids are flying off the shelves in California," he said, ...

Were American's going through hybrid withdrawal? That's a question worth asking after US advanced-powertrain sales jumped in May following a few months of relatively tepid demand. Plug-in vehicle sales rose even faster, at a 69 percent clip, to 5,694 vehicles (not including the Tesla Model S, ...

A return to the 'plus' column? That's what happened last month to Toyota with its Prius line of hybrids, as the Japanese automaker boosted year-over year sales of the model. Toyota sold 23,522 Prius vehicles, up 9.5 percent from a year earlier. Sales of the standard hatchback Prius jumped 17 ...

The Toyota Prius is no stranger to recalls. Earlier this year, over half a million of the popular hybrids were called back for steering shaft issues (after another steering issue back in 2011). And the Prius V was the subject of a service campaign for exhaust issues a year ago. Today, Toyota ...

We know, you've heard this before. Since shifting production of the all-electric Leaf, Nissan has seen a pretty substantial increases in sales. For May 2013, sales were up a whopping 319.2 percent compared to last year to 2,138 units. This means (just like last time) that last month was the ...

Peugeot looks like it's ratcheting the good-old British-French rivalry up a notch by bringing its Onyx diesel-hybrid concept car at England's Goodwood Festival of Speed this July, according to Hybrid Cars. The French automaker will use the festival to road-test the futuristic-looking vehicle, ...

Sure, it's a PR play to raise awareness for the Toyota Prius Plug-in, but Toyota's first-ever Prius MPG Challenge is for a good cause. Fifteen of them, for starters. The Japanese automaker officially began the contest Wednesday in West Caldwell, New Jersey. The idea is to let representatives ...

Now if only someone could turn social-media mentions into cold, hard cash. That's what the folks at Toyota may be saying after a report revealed that the Prius gets the most media dollar value – by far – out of any hybrid or plug-in vehicle from social media networks, according to ...

When we drove the Volkswagen XL1, the incredibly efficient plug-in diesel hybrid pod that gets something like 261 miles per gallon, we learned that Volkswagen is only going to make 250 of them. We later heard it was unlikely to come to the US, which isn't all that surprising. What VW hasn't been ...

Decked out in enough stickers to make a NASCAR driver jealous, the cars in the EcoCar 2 competition finished year two of their three-year journey last week, with Penn State declared the winner. Fifteen universities are taking part in EcoCar 2, which involves taking a 2013 Chevy Malibu and making ...

Hey, for some, $4,800 is the price of their next car. For the Ultimate Driving Machine, it's the price difference between a diesel and a hybrid. BMW has released pricing specs for its 2014 model-year 5 Series sedans, and it turns out that the German automaker appears to view diesel as a superior ...