All the News, Reviews, Guides and Reports on Electric Cars

In the early 1970s, Mercedes experimented with battery swapping on electric vehicles, but abandoned the idea. Today, Thomas Weber, Mercedes chief of research and development, said that new plans for battery-swapping stations for electric cars may, in fact, be dangerous.

At last month's Chicago Auto Show, GM added another dimension to the Chevy Volt story: the push for suppliers to develop energy-saving components in every nook and cranny of the vehicle.

Magna Steyr, the European arm of auto supplier Magna International, unveiled its Mila EV (electric vehicle) concept car this week at the Geneva International Motor Show. The company is not planning to put the Mila EV directly on the market—instead, it hopes that global automakers will use the ground-up design as a head start for brand new electric cars.

A new study conducted by Carnegie Mellon University says that plug-in hybrids with 40 miles of all-electric range are less cost-effective than hybrids with smaller battery packs. This follows other recent reports of disappointing mileage from plug-in hybrid testing fleets.

While all eyes are on high-profile plug-in announcements from General Motors, Nissan, Toyota and others, Ford appears to be quietly inching into a leading position in the race to get electric vehicles on the market.

The economic stimulus package provides tax credits for 25-mph-max neighborhood electric vehicles, and plug-in hybrid cars that won’t be on the market for at least two years—but today’s hybrids get nothing. See our comprehensive analysis of new incentives for green cars.

Unless General Motors makes fundamental changes in its basic decision-making process, the company will be “back at the public trough again and again," according to Rob Kleinbaum, who has consulted and worked for GM for the last 24 years. According to Kleinbaum, GM has false hopes that the Chevrolet Volt will save the company. GM returns to Washington next week for more bailout money.

The trash bin of car history is filled with attempts to produce an emissions-free petroleum-liberated automobile. None of worked out so far, and many people are ready to give up. That’s a shame, because the silver bullet could be standing right before us: the plug-in biofuel hybrid.

Proving that the global economic crisis can’t thwart the American entrepreneurial spirit, the South Carolina-based maker of amphibious vehicles is building a three-wheeled plug-in diesel hybrid. According to inventor John Giljam, the vehicle will have an all-electric range of 50 miles before using any liquid fuel. Based on testing of a pure diesel version that achieves more than 65 mpg, Giljam said, “We would be getting 130 to 150 miles to the gallon with the plug-in hybrid model."