Toyota RAV4 News

It's often cited as an advantage of electric cars, but it's also one of the biggest potential danger zones: silence. It makes for peaceful - if somewhat eerie - cruising at speed, but it also poses a huge risk to pedestrians and other road users. So Brabus is doing something about it in the case of...

Looking ahead to year 2020, the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the company, Mitsubishi today announced its new ‘Group Environmental Vision 2020’ roadmap for its future environmental and sustainable motoring policies. The new environmental roadmap directs Mitsubishi’s...

It's a rare thing to remark on the government's hesitation to spend money these days, but that's precisely the case of the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Incentive Program. The government set aside $25 billion to fund the program last year, but to date...

Since the release of BMW’s official strategy back in September 2007, media sources around the world have speculated about the carmaker looking to either launch its own new brand or acquire one to help its expansion. Instead, BMW established a new environmental think-tank dubbed 'Project i'...

Nissan may be releasing a new all-electric vehicle next year, but the styling of the car has yet to be finalized, which makes speculation about its appearance rather difficult. To help us out, Nissan's chief designer Shiro Nakamura has come out and provided some clues about the new EV's styling...

Nearly three weeks into Chrysler's bankruptcy and the global strategic alliance between Fiat and Chrysler comes news today that C. Robert Kidder - not Sergio Marchionne - will play the role of CEO for Chrysler after the bankruptcy. The news, which comes directly from Chrysler, contradicts a...

Shai Agassi's ambitious Better Place project has been rolling out plans for test-market EVs around the world for over a year now, and today the project took a huge leap forward with the demonstration of its first automated battery swapping station. The proof-of-concept facility was demonstrated in...

The Internet is awash with electric vehicle demonstration vehicles, but few have as much oddball spark as the new Kangoo be bop ZE. Based around the standard be bop, but with zero emissions (hence the ZE) capabilities, the car is to be used as a test vehicle to show off what its EV platform can do...

Promises about electric vehicles are a dime a dozen, and so far no one - not even Tesla - has managed to deliver a real daily-driving production car in volume. That didn't stop Nissan's product planning director Mark Perry from confirming a 2010 U.S. launch for a five-seat electric car back in...

As the April 30 deadline for Chrysler to restructure its business looms closer, the Treasury department has begun to prepare a bankruptcy filing for the struggling carmaker. The news highlights the severity of Chrysler's situation should it fail to enact a deal with Italian auto giant Fiat, but the...

Negotiations between Chrysler and Fiat regarding an alliance have now turned to production capabilities, and an anonymous source has revealed that three Chrysler plants are under consideration for possible re-tooling, at which point they will build Fiat vehicles, as well as Chrysler-badged vehicles...

Nissan's electric vehicle (EV) involvement in Project Better Place programs in Denmark and Israel, plus test fleets in its home market of Japan will be joined by a new agreement with the state of Arizona. The deal will have cars hitting the streets of Phoenix late next year, and will see...

The British government is the latest body to offer subsidies for hybrid and electric cars as part of a greater effort to increase the vehicles’ popularity and help encourage motorists to purchase more environmentally-friendly vehicles. The subsidies will range from about $3,000 to $4,000 but...

One of the biggest criticisms of electric vehicles is the limited driving range they offer when compared with conventional diesel and petrol powered cars. However, the belief that driving an electric vehicle will leave you stranded after a couple dozen miles is starting to lose credibility, fast...

Picture it: 200mi on a single charge, 80mph top speed and a purchase price of just $30,000 - not a recipe for success for a standard combustion engine car, but a very reasonable proposition for a mass-market electric car. And that's exactly what EV Innovations is proposing with its Wave electric...

At the end of March the President's task force on the industry put a 30-day window on Chrysler and Fiat reaching an alliance agreement. Just hours later Chrysler announced the two companies had signed off on the deal. That turned out to be premature, but the deal is still being developed, with new...

The industry is in pain, but it's still planning for the future. Today that's clear nowhere more so than at Mitsubishi, which has just announced it will be upping its production target of the iMiEV to 20,000 units annually by 2012 up 200% on previous goals of 10,000 per year. Output targets for...

It's not often that major automakers push production dates ahead in time rather than back, especially with the current economic conditions, but Nissan might be doing just that with its electric vehicle program. While earlier Nissan was claiming that its first mass-produced electric vehicle would...

As the traditional car industry struggles against a lack of consumer credit, economic instability and its own growing pains, several of the major players are forging ahead with next-generation vehicle programs, including all-electric zero emissions vehicles (ZEVs). Nissan has been at the forefront...

Following the announcement of the proposed alliance between Fiat and Chrysler in January, the question on everybody’s lips was which European top-sellers were finally going to come to North America. Stylish compact cars like the Fiat 500 and Bravo were suddenly a very real possibility for...