One of several new electric cars and concepts at last week's Paris Motor Show was the electric version of the second-generation Smart minicar. As Smart pointed out, it's the only maker that offers the option of gasoline or electric powertrains in every model it makes. Those are the ForTwo two-seat coupe, the ForTwo cabriolet with its roll-back... Smart Electric Drive has a little Renault-Nissan underneath
One of several new electric cars and concepts at last week's Paris Motor Show was the electric version of the second-generation Smart minicar. As Smart pointed out, it's the only maker that offers the option of gasoline or electric powertrains in every model it makes. Those are the ForTwo two-seat coupe, the ForTwo cabriolet with its roll-back... 
Sales of plug-in electric cars in September chugged along steadily, with steady sales from both the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid and stronger totals for the Nissan Leaf battery-electric car. Chevrolet logged 2.031 deliveries of its Volt hatchback, likely now almost all the new second-generation model, raising the year-to-date total to 16,326. That's... 
The 2017 Toyota Prius Prime is a considerably better car than a few electric-car fans had feared. In fact, with an EPA-rated range of 25 miles (more than projected) and energy efficiency so high—at 124 MPGe—that it matches the BMW i3 with all its whizzy advanced technology, it’s a very viable plug-in hybrid choice. And it all has... 
Which makers unveiled new electric-car concepts or production vehicles at this week's Paris Motor Show? And what exactly did Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk have to crack down on? This is our look back at the Week In Reverse—right here at Green Car Reports—for the week ending on Friday, September 30, 2016. Friday, we looked at the question... 
The largest number of one single battery-electric car sold in the U.S. in a single year is 30,000, the total logged in 2014 by the Nissan Leaf. (Of course, we don't know Tesla's sales because the company doesn't break out its quarterly global delivery totals by country.) But those were back in the day when affordable electric cars (with prices... 
While Nissan sells many different types of vehicles in the U.S., there's one that's globally very popular that has never shown up in the States. That would be the Nissan Micra, a smaller car than the Versa sedan and Versa Note hatchback, the largish subcompacts that are its smallest U.S. offerings. The Micra is, however, sold in Canada—and... 
The Renault Zoe electric car is by far the best-selling plug-in vehicle in Europe. Now in its fifth year, the Zoe received a significant battery capacity upgrade at today’s Paris Motor Show. The Zoe will now have a 41-kilowatt-hour battery pack, up from 22 kwh in earlier versions, giving it a range of 300 to 400 kilometters (185 to 250... 
This morning, Volkswagen held one of the first press conferences at the Paris Motor Show, unveiling the first of several electric cars from different makers. Its Volkswagen I.D. Concept is a preview of a high-volume battery-electric hatchback that will hit the market in 2020, priced "par with comparably powerful and well-equipped Golf models," the... 
The Nissan Versa Note has never been a particularly big seller in North America. Its sedan counterpart is one of the largest and most capacious vehicles in the subcompact segment, but the Note has always been more of a car for European and Asian markets. There, it does fairly well, in part due to a higher-quality interior than the one fitted to... ![2015 Nissan Leaf fast-charging at Royal Farms, North East, Maryland [photo John Briggs]](http://images.hgmsites.net/tmb/2015-nissan-leaf-fast-charging-at-royal-farms-north-east-maryland-photo-john-briggs_100558583_t.gif)
It's one of the questions for future electric-car charging infrastructure: what about putting them at gas stations? On the one hand, drivers are used to going to gas stations, which are often conveniently located on both local and long-distance routes. On the other hand, gas-station stops generally take 10 to 15 minutes at most, while even fast... 
The 2011 Nissan Leaf was the first mass-priced modern electric car when it launched in December 2010. Nissan has since sold close to a quarter of a million Leafs, and together with its alliance partner Renault it has now sold more than 350,000 all-electric vehicles. But the Leaf is still with us, albeit with a slightly longer range, whereas the... 
It's now a year and eight days since the EPA broke the news that Volkswagen had admitted to including "defeat device" software in almost half a million so-called "clean diesel" vehicles sold in the U.S. from 2009 through 2015. That software detected when the cars were undergoing laboratory tests, and kept their emissions within legal limits during... 
Sometimes journalists miss the forest for the trees, and we'll plead guilty on this one. When we wrote last week that the Toyota Mirai hydrogen fuel-cell sedan was little-changed for the 2017 model year, with only one new color added, we missed one important element. That was, as several readers informed us, that while the retail price remained... 
Which additional language now proves to cause confusion between the Chevy Volt and the Chevy Bolt EV? And why does VW come out looking like a (relative) hero on diesel engines in Europe? This is our look back at the Week In Reverse—right here at Green Car Reports—for the week ending on Friday, September 23, 2016. Friday, we noted that... 
Today, Tesla fights back, a manual gearbox reappears, a new electric land-speed record emerges from the desert, and an unexpected diesel engine arrives in a key compact crossover. All this and more on Green Car Reports. Electric cars today are just 1 percent of the vehicle market, but perhaps one day they'll sell in equal numbers to gasoline cars... ![Tesla Store Los Angeles [photo: Misha Bruk / MBH Architects]](http://images.hgmsites.net/tmb/tesla-store-los-angeles-photo-misha-bruk-mbh-architects_100449435_t.gif)
Earlier this month, an application for a dealer license submitted by Tesla Motors was denied by the state of Michigan. It was the final decision in a process that kicked off in October 2014. That was when a last-minute wording change in state franchise law foreclosed the electric-car maker's ability to sell cars directly to buyers, its business... 
The 2018 Chevrolet Equinox crossover utility vehicle, unveiled last night in Chicago, will have three engine options, all turbocharged. And bucking recent "death of diesel" predictions, one of those three will be a 1.6-liter diesel that gets a 40-mpg highway rating. The 2018 Equinox will be the first compact utility vehicle in the U.S. with a... 
Cars that plug in to recharge, whether all-electric or plug-in hybrid, are a very small proportion of total U.S. vehicle sales today. And the same applies to their global sales, which are less than 1 percent of a total worldwide volume now headed toward 90 million vehicles a year. So today, the idea that electric-car sales might one day equal... 
Today, we listen to you on the Model 3, the Mirai makes a case for consistency, and a Chrysler that can crash (very well, might we add). All this and more on Green Car Reports. The timing of the first Tesla Model 3 delivery remains a subject of hot contention in the auto industry. We asked our Twitter followers what they thought. More than two...