2017 Mitsubishi Mirage G4: gas mileage review

2017 Mitsubishi Mirage G4 SE, Catskill Mountains, NY, Nov 2016The Mitsubishi Mirage is the underdog of small cars: slow, loud, and archaic, but scrappy. And it's been a much bigger sales success than Mitsubishi expected, given the small numbers of minicars and subcompacts sold in the U.S. these days. For 2017, Mitsubishi added a four-door sedan model dubbed G4 to the existing five-door hatchback, and gave...

2017 Kia Niro hybrid: first drive report

2017 Kia Niro, San Antonio, Texas, Dec 2016According to its maker, the 2017 Kia Niro is the first "crossover hybrid vehicle" sold in the U.S.—but what does that really mean? We drove150 miles in two different versions of the top-of-the-line Niro Touring model two weeks ago, and concluded that the Niro represents an interesting package with some pluses and minuses. Our drive at the...

Oregon’s largest utilities plan to boost electric-car adoption

Electric Avenue charging stations in Portland, Oregon [photo: Portland General Electric]It's clear that after several years of electric-car sales, electric utilities see a role to be played in providing the infrastructure to make them practical. Two weeks ago, California utility PG&E received approved to install 7,500 public charging stations for plug-in vehicles. Now, Oregon's two largest utility companies have filed plans to...

Deal of the year? Used Fiat 500e electric cars at $6,500?

2017 Fiat 500eIt's well known by now that the used-car prices of low-range electric cars are low. Any 2011 through 2016 electric car not made by Tesla is likely to be cheap on a used-car lot due to worries about battery degradation and its effect on range. Used Nissan Leafs, for instance, can often be found for around $9,000, even with only 30,000 or 40,000...

What will be your next green-car purchase? Poll results

2017 Chevrolet Bolt EVWell, that was decisive! Our readers are clearly, unquestionably, absolutely intending to switch from driving on fossil fuels to driving on grid electricity. That's the only conclusion we can draw from the results of our most recent Twitter poll, this one on what respondents planned to buy for their next green car. DON'T MISS: What effect will...

Musk ups Tesla Supercharger ante, teases 350-kw-plus charging

Tesla Supercharger site with photovoltaic solar panels, Rocklin, California, Feb 2015Tesla CEO Elon Musk teased a new generation of the company's unique DC fast-charging stations, suggesting that a future "version 3" Supercharger would deliver as much as 350 kilowatts of power. Unsurprisingly, he did it via Twitter, his preferred medium for communicating with the world. His previous barrage of tweets had announced that the company...