Hybrid cars

Time running out on some hybrid car deals. Special deals on the Honda Insight hybrid and the Toyota Prius hybrid. Great time to lease? Car shopping. It's never fun. Prices and deals often vary by region and dealership. ...  

New concerns are being raised about the reliability of the brakes on the Toyota Prius. There have been a number of complaints that the brakes seem to cut out at crucial moments. But so far, no formal investigation has been launched by the government. That has customers furious. Chat rooms such as Priuschat.com dedicated to Toyota's fuel-efficient hybrid are peppered with concerns raised by owners of the third-generation Prius, which was...  

Hybrid-car buyers have just a couple more days to take advantage of a state tax credit for their vehicles. Oregon’s tax credit for new gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles ends Thursday, Dec. 31. The tax covers hybrids like the Toyota Prius, Honda Civic and Ford Escape. However, the next ...  

Just in time for next month's Tokyo Auto Salon 2010, Japanese tuning house Tommy Kaira has finalized its aero and performance offerings for the latest generation Toyota Prius hybrid. We've been following the development of Tommy Kaira's sports package since September when the company released a set computer enhanced images, but now we've got the real deal.Exterior appointments come in the form of new alloy wheels in sizes 16- and 18-inches...  

It took Bob Becker by surprise. As he approached an intersection on New York City's West End Avenue, not far from his home, he began to brake his 2010 Toyota Prius. But then the hybrid hit a pothole a...  

Considering that we might be slowly transitioning into an age where all of our cars will be electric, or at least hybrids, then we should be prepared with charging stations. Toyota wants to try out these charging stations at Toyota City in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. These stations should be open sometime around April [...]  

When consumers think hybrid, they think the Toyota Prius. That's because the Prius, with the highest miles per gallon of any vehicle retailed in the United States, sold 127,907 cars through November -- more than all other hybrids combined.  

Paul Eisenstein's TheDetroitBureau.com claims dozens of new third-gen Toyota Prius owners have filed complaints with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, alleging brake failures. Could it be more "unintended floor mat fiery death acceleration?" Maybe not. [TheDetroitBureau.com]  

Doing the math on the newest generation of lithium ion batteries suggests the latest advances in battery technology will benefit hybrid cars more than all-electric ones, one expert predicts. Hybridcars has an excellent interview with John German, an expert on hybrid cars who worked for eleven years at Honda before becoming Senior Fellow at the International [...]  

Filed under: Hybrid, Toyota 2010 Toyota Prius - Click above for high-res image gallery 2009 has not been a good year for Toyota. After getting its first full year loss in seven decades, it faced its biggest safety recall ever over unintended acceleration caused by floor mats and or throttle control software. Now, as the year draws to a close, a new potential problem has sprung up, although it's not nearly on the same scale as the recall. The...  

Transitions to Alternative Transportation Technologies–Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles Source: National Research Council/National Academies Press The nation has compelling reasons to reduce its consumption of oil and emissions of carbon dioxide. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) promise to contribute to both goals by allowing some miles to be driven on electricity drawn from the grid, with an [...]  

Filed under: Hybrid, Ford 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid - Click above for high-res image gallery The stand-out vehicle for Ford recently has been the 2010 Fusion, and the hybrid version is helping Ford sell more hybrids than it ever has before. This year, through November, the Blue Oval has sold 31,000 hybrids, beating the previous high water mark set in 2007. This is great, but even in this down year, Ford sold over 1.4 million vehicles so far...  

Are hybrid cars still considered niche, or even — dare we say — "luxury" purchases? The failure of the lower-cost Honda Insight hybrid to dent the market for the Prius has some in the auto industry answering yes. Business Week reports that the Insight, which was introduced this year with a base MSRP of $19,800, over $2,000 less than the Prius, is still being outsold by...  

Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Hybrid, Toyota Toyota Prius PHEV - click above for high res image gallery In Japan today, Toyota officially launched its Prius Plug-in Hybrid (PHEV) lease program. Over the next six months, Toyota will be building and deploying 600 examples of the plug-in Prius for testing, primarily in Japan, the United States and Europe. The Japanese market will get 230 units, with 150 coming here and 200 going to Europe. The cars...  

Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Hybrid, Toyota, Legislation and Policy Toyota Prius PHEV - click above for high-res image gallery Ever since we started getting government estimates of fuel economy for new vehicles back in the 1970s, the first thing people noticed was that the numbers rarely reflected reality. The problem is that efficiency is highly dependent on the duty cycle and driver's behavior. However, in order to compare cars against each...