What’s it take to stop drivers from polluting the air with their smoky old cars? A little green, apparently. That was the simple thought behind a North Texas plan aimed at getting older cars off the road to help the Dallas/Fort Worth region improve its air quality and meet EPA mandates.

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By John DeFore
Nissan Motor Company took the occasion of its financial-results stock exchange reporting (nearly $7 billion in profits from $90+ billion revenues in fiscal 2007) Tuesday in Tokyo to make an announcement of interest to those of us who don’t own stock. In 2010, the company plans to release an all-electric car in […]

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By Bill Sullivan
Charles Harris is here, there and everywhere. While the rest of the Winston Solar Car Team dotes over “Sun Hunter”, the eighth such vehicle in the organization’s nearly 20-year history, the captain surveys the scene, making sure everyone is playing his or her proper role.
“Everyone here is motivated. You don’t have to […]

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Perhaps more than any other auto brand, General Motors’ Chevrolet division is applying various fuel-saving technologies across a wide range of vehicles, including full-size SUVs and pick-ups that are not usually thought of as environmentally friendly. The 2008 Tahoe Hybrid was even named Green Car of the Year by Green Car Journal. […]

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By Barbara Kessler
How did Ford do it? Despite a gloomy domestic economy and malingering slumping car and truck sales, the American automaker scooped up a handy first quarter 2008 net income of $100 million (a huge boost of $382 million over Q1 2007).

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By Bill Sullivan
I have just slipped behind the wheel of a 2008 Toyota Yaris…and I have never felt so big in my entire life.
Not just a little large, mind you; we’re talking Shaquille O’Neal kind of big here. Granted, I’m not a small guy — about 6-1, 240 – but, in this case, the […]

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By Barbara Kessler
If timing is everything, then premiering a film that champions biofuels at a time when the news media’s aflame with stories about the problems with biofuels must be a tad discouraging.
But Josh Tickell, creator of Fields of Fuel, does not seem discouraged. Determined, but not discouraged. Tickell, who has been been on […]

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By John DeFore
It sounded too good to be true: An all-electric car with a range of 350 miles on a single 10-minute charge; a car that moreover could shoot from zero to sixty in under five seconds. It even had a futuristic name, the ZAP-X (that’s for “zero air pollution”).
According to a story in […]

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By John DeFore
With World Water Day on Saturday, this is a good time to note a report that those optimistic about alternative auto tech might prefer to ignore. A report last month in Environmental Science & Technology Online suggests that electric vehicles, while a boon for the environment in some ways, “could strain water resources” […]

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By John DeFore
Automakers have known for a few years that electric or hybrid vehicles could be designed to appeal not only to tree huggers but to drivers having more in common with Talladega Nights hero Ricky Bobby — those who simply want to go fast.
One of the problems facing designers who tailor a hybrid for […]

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By Barbara Kessler

General Motors announced today that it will be using a new, improved advanced lithium-ion battery for its hybrid models starting in 2010 in North America – a move that could raise the fuel economy of those hybrid cars and trucks using the system by up to 20 percent, depending on the engine […]

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By Barbara Kessler

People might accuse Texas of being slow on global warming; it is the worst greenhouse gas emitter in the United States. But they can’t say that Lone Star residents don’t recognize pollution when it’s coming at them. A program in North Central Texas called Don’t Choke, Call Smoke that encourages drivers to […]

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