Transportation Alternatives

What better place to hold a summit than at an actual summit? Perhaps none. But that's not exactly why the Mt. Washington Auto Road Alt Energy Summit piques (ahem) our interest. The event, to be held this September 14th and 15th atop the famed New Hampshire mountain, is not only set to feature ...

This isn't the first time the name F1 has been twisted with Twizy, but it's the first time that we know of that an F1 driver has gone to check out the all-electric Twizy Way carsharing effort. Charles Pic, who races with the Caterham F1 Team partnered by Renault, went to the "Twizy Way ...

Green car enthusiasts may have assumed that French electric car-sharing service Autolib would show up stateside in a city like San Francisco, Austin or Portland, but notoriously green Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard had other ideas. Led by Ballard, the racing city reached an agreement for ...

Here's a bit of corporate synergy we didn't see coming. Carsharing service Zipcar is partnering with Showtime to present special outdoor screenings of the show Dexter and the new series Ray Donovan. What's interesting is that if you attend the screening, you'll get $50 in free driving credit, ...

The automotive industry is getting more evidence that it's time to expand product offerings or switch over to another business. A new study by the US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) says the "driving boom" is over. While Baby Boomers loved their cars, their kids - aka Gen Y or Millennials - ...

Hybrid electric vehicles are gaining appeal for fleets of all types as more models make it to showrooms bearing a variety of price tags. Even commercial fleets are finding more available products, from pickups and vans to medium-duty trucks. Now, there's a new option. XL Hybrids, Inc., and the ...

Tuk-tuks are the three-wheeled passenger vehicles commonly used in Asia, and they're often noisy and most-certainly-not-emissions-free. To counter the current state, Japanese start-up company Terra Motors has launched an electric tuk-tuk and thinks its electric tricycle will be a cost competitive ...

There's more scientific research on the hazardous impacts of air pollution. Researchers at the Universirty of California, Los Angeles School of Public Health have found that living near traffic pollution during pregnancy and the first year of life might increase the likelihood of developing ...

Electric vehicle carsharing is getting major buy-in from Zipcar, Car2go, and others. What about EV owners? Automotive supplier Continental thinks there's a technology that could revolutionize spontaneous rental of shared cars – a smartphone app! For short-term EV drivers who want to live ...

Tesla may be claiming a real-world cost of $500 a month to lease/own a Model S, but if you live in downtown Las Vegas, you can get 100 Model S vehicles, all the bus rides you want and access to 100 bikeshare bikes – as well as a collection of 100 neighborhood electric vehicles – for ...

If you've ever wanted to joke about something that would make Henry Ford roll over in his grave, this could be the time. The automaker's founder's great-grandson appears to be staking some of his financial future on train tickets. In this case, Bill Ford, Jr. and his venture-capital firm ...

Passenger might one day go the way of landline telephones. Everyone was dependent upon them until, somehow, mobile phones became ubiquitous and landlines began fading away. Maurie Cohen, associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and Environment Science at the New Jersey Institute of ...

Bollore, the company that supplies electric cars to the Paris carsharing service Autolib, will begin selling the vehicles for a rock-bottom 12,000 euros (US$15,550). That sounds good, but remember that that's without a battery, which buyers would have to rent with a monthly service plan. It ...

Isn't bicycling supposed to reduce carbon emissions and free up traffic jam congestion? Well, it's actually making matters worse, argues a state representative from Washington. "You would be giving off more CO2 if you are riding a bike than driving in a car," claims Ed Orcutt (R – Kalama, ...

With more than a half-million words in the English language and 10 digits to choose from, Ford had ample opportunity to not name its new European carsharing service pretty much the same as a competing service operated by Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler. Alas, opportunity squandered. Sometime before ...

It's not exactly a surprise, but that hipster on the barstool over there will be more miffed if you take his iPhone or laptop than his car. That is, if he owns a car at all. That's the gist of a survey released by carsharing leader Zipcar, which says young people between 18- and 34-years-old are ...

Portland, OR, is a smart place to go if you're in the car sharing or electric vehicle business. It's a town where it's cool to recycle, to embrace your eclectic or idiosyncratic side and to check out carsharing and electric vehicles. Zipcar and Honda are betting on Portland, and will be ...

There are quite a few taxi operators testing out electric cars by adding Nissan Leaf EVs to their fleets – whether that be New York (pictured), Hong Kong or Mexico City. It's a channel for the global automaker to sell more of the cars and give more people their own experience of being ...

Carsharing venture DriveNow GmbH, owned by BMW and European rental company Sixt AG, is expected to be profitable this year, the first time that will happen since starting up two years ago. BMW hopes to overtake German rival Daimler (with Car2go) in this growing space as urban consumers become ...

Here's an unsurprising fact: Big Oil is making huge profits. Here's one that might catch your eye: car owners are spending nearly as much gassing up as they paid to buy their car. Crunching a few numbers, the Union of Concerned Scientists spells out in a new report how consumers could be saving ...