Hybrids

Serious off-road vehicles from the likes of Jeep and Land Rover aren’t the first vehicles that spring to mind when one thinks of cutting edge powertrain technology but if recent concepts are anything to go by the future of off-roading will be full of advanced electric-hybrids. At last...

Tata rocked the automotive world when it fulfilled its promise of delivering a car that costs just $2,500 with the unveiling of the Nano minicar last month, but Indian carmakers are confident the bar can be set even lower. Tara International, an arm of the Bengal Enamel, claims it will deliver a...

Although Honda was first to the mass-market with its Insight hybrid in the U.S., the tiny form-factor made it less than practical for most buyers. Consequently, Toyota's Prius ran off with the hybrid crown when it came along with seating for five. The Honda Civic hybrid has been making some...

Tesla delivered its first roadster only this month but already the electric car company is looking to raise $250 million in capital to help fund the development of even more models including an all-new sedan. Tesla wants to build a sporty electric sedan to rival midrange luxury models like the BMW...

Honda is investigating ways of recapturing heat energy lost through a car’s exhaust to help generate electricity and power an electric motor for a new generation of ultra-efficient hybrid cars. Conventional internal combustion engines waste a lot of energy in creating heat, but by applying a...

Everybody knows that hybrid cars are better for the environment than convention petrol and diesel models, in stop-start traffic at least, but with a new wave of plug-in hybrids set to hit the market in a couple of years GM is out and about promoting the benefits of its new technology. Speaking at...

GM is determined to keep its promise of delivering the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid car by the end of the decade but unfortunately it will likely have to cut a few corners to get there. Already we’ve seen officials raise the car’s expected price tag, from an initial $30,000 to about...

To most, hybrid vehicles like the Prius are a step in the right direction towards a future of ‘greener’ motoring but a new study has found that such cars are actually holding back other alternative powertrain technologies like hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and all-electric cars. French...

Producing hybrid vehicles is expensive for carmakers but customers aren’t willing to pay huge premiums to cover the extra cost of the technology especially when they can get a comparable petrol or diesel vehicle for thousands less. The Toyota Prius is the current top selling hybrid but its...

The full repercussions of the new CAFE standards have yet to be realized, but already plans are being shaken up and reworked. For GM, the first real casualty is the RWD V8 revival that we've been so anxiously anticipating. Don't worry, the Camaro is still coming - and may even get a hybrid variant...

BMW has always backed hydrogen as the power source of the future but that doesn’t mean it’s completely ruled out alternatives such as electric vehicles and petrol-electric hybrids. In fact, BMW plans to keep its options open. Not only has it already unveiled the Hydrogen7 limo and X6...

Tesla’s long and arduous journey of getting its all-electric Roadster to production only came to an end last week with the announcement that previous engineering problems would be solved and that the first car was ready for delivery. It appears now that initial announcement could have been a...

General Motors is establishing a new global engineering team dedicated to the development of its next generation of electrically-driven vehicles. The global organization will have teams working around the clock in locations such as North America, Germany and China, and whose main focus will be to...

Carmakers are always looking at new ways to get their products into the hearts and minds of the new car buying public, and Wal-Mart seems intent on selling everything under the sun, so it doesn’t come as a complete surprise to hear that the retail giant is considering selling a hybrid car...

The Tesla Roadster is shaping up to be one of the most exciting vehicles of the year but first the car has to be completed and delivered to showrooms. It appears that day is almost upon us as the electric car company has announced that all regulatory approvals to import the first production models...

Just five years ago GM was selling a little over 100,000 vehicles per year in China, and only two years ago the figure was 500,000. Today, GM’s sales tally in the rapidly expanding market is in excess of one million vehicles and a significant number of these are Buicks. The brand is so...

Shai Agassi's Project Better Place has received quite a lot of press lately for its seemingly futuristic plans to bring electric vehicles and recharging stations out of the movies and into the streets. The future is now, however, as the Renault-Nissan Alliance and Project Better Place have...

Toyota has already proven the capability of its hybrid racing technology, winning the Tokachi 24-Hour Race last year in Japan with its Supra HV-R hybrid race car, so now the carmaker wants to take it up a notch by entering a new green machine in the international Le Mans 24 hour event. According to...

Hybrids have always been a mixed blessing for carmakers. On one hand they show that a carmaker is genuinely interested in improving the environment, but on the other hand hybrids are very expensive to build, their improvements in fuel economy aren’t enough to justify their extra cost, and...

Last week’s Autosport International Show in the UK saw the launch of a new competition to design a car for the world’s first one-make electric vehicle race series. The competition is being run by motorsports company Westfield Sportscars in collaboration with Birmingham City...