Clean Fleet Report has now reviewed the entire Prius family. The Prius c is a fun small car that has a much larger-car feel once inside. With the Prius V you get to add cargo-stowing functionality to the equation.
Overall, 2014 has been a good one for the automotive market and generally the alternatives – diesels, plug-in hybrids and pure electric cars – have been outpacing the market. The big question mark is the hybrid market.
Do you have a need to sit up to five adults and like the thought of getting 40+ miles per gallon while doing so? If so, the 2014.5 Toyota Camry Hybrid, whether it is the LE, SE or XLE versions, you will be doing so in comfort, with respectable performance and a high level of safety and reliability.
Designed in California and built in Kentucky, the 2014 Toyota Avalon Hybrid XLE Premium is a near-luxury car bumping real close to the luxury car category.
Today Ford announced what most of the motoring world already knew – the claimed fuel economy on several of its gasoline, hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars are pretty tough to reach in the real world. In a deal with the EPA, Ford said it would be recalibrating
The two-door hatchback Honda CR-Z is a whole lot of fun to drive, certainly not boring and doesn’t look like any other hybrid (or anything else) on the road.
Once a year automotive journalists from the San Francisco Bay Area gather to test drive some of the newest models on the market. This is my selection of the Top 10 I experienced at this year’s program.
While overall sales languished a mere 1.3 percent above the first quarter of 2013, high-mileage electric cars, plug-in hybrids, and clean diesels continued a torrid pace similar to what they were experiencing during most of last year. The only laggard in this group was gas-electric hybrids, which dropped almost 16 percent compared to last year, based heavily on declining sales of several Prius models.
In a somewhat surprising move, the entry-level Malibu LS now comes standard with a start-stop system, the first midsize sedan sold in the United States that is so equipped. Combined with refinements of its base 2.5-liter four-cylinder engine and a new six-speed automatic transmission, the LS has a significant fuel economy increase compared with the outgoing model (now 25 city; 36 highway).
The global drive to reduce greenhouse gases and increase vehicle fuel efficiency is pushing automakers to reduce the size of their engines – while trying to keep all of attributes consumers expect from their cars. Engineers from GM, Porsche and VW have pushed the limits of technology to produce engines that are more efficient, meet increasingly stringent pollution standard and yet make better horsepower and torque than previous generations.