crossovers
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The new 2012 Toyota RAV4 EV is quick, relatively fun to drive, and the only all-electric crossover utility vehicle on the market today. It has a good, intuitive touchscreen display and instrument cluster that shows both the maximum possible range and a constantly updated range based on both the climate-control settings and its most recent usage and driving style. Now we can show you on video what it's like from behind the wheel. Just view the video above--it's a bit more than 3 minutes--to see what it's like inside the new electric RAV4. For more details, you can read our complete RAV4 EV...
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2012 Toyota RAV4 EV: First Drive Of Tesla-Powered Crossover
If the ideal electric car has a real-world range of 100 miles or more and the practical utility that American families buy crossovers for, the future may be arriving this year. The 2012 Toyota RAV4 EV has every bit of space that the gasoline versions do. Its Tesla-engineered battery pack and...
John Voelcker -
Best Used Green Cars To Buy: 2005-2012 Ford Escape Hybrid
The Ford Escape Hybrid occupies a special place in green-car history. It was the first hybrid built in the U.S., the first one from a U.S. carmaker, and the first hybrid crossover utility. That makes it one of our five best used green cars. A pet project of then-CEO Bill Ford, the Escape Hybrid was...
John Voelcker -
Exclusive: Spy Shots Of Next-Generation Jeep Liberty Mule (Updated)
Always carry a camera; you never know what you'll see parked on the street. That's how our contributor, Thomas Bey, shot these exclusive spy shots of an engineering prototype for what may be a future hybrid Jeep or Dodge model to be based on the same running gear as the 2013 Dodge Dart compact...
John Voelcker -
Green Sound Insulation Inside Doors Quiets 2013 Ford Escape
Ask about green cars and most buyers think only of gas mileage. But there are other ways to make vehicles greener, including the use of renewable materials to replace petroleum-derived synthetic components. For its all-new 2013 Escape crossover, Ford has created door bolsters from a plant called...
John Voelcker -
2013 Buick Encore: Video Walkaround At Detroit Auto Show
Until now, you'd have been hard-pressed to find the words "Buick" and "compact five-door crossover" in the same sentence. But as of this month's Detroit Auto Show, the 2013 Buick Encore--available at dealers roughly a year from now--takes GM's entry luxury brand into new territory. It's a five-door...
John Voelcker -
The Jeep Grand Cherokee is one of the brightest stars among the cars that propelled Chrysler--now controlled by Fiat--to a 26-percent sales increase in 2011, raising its share of the U.S. market 1.3 points to 10.7 percent. Yesterday, the company said it would start building a diesel version of the Grand Cherokee next year, its first diesel passenger vehicle in several years. That confirms a statement by Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne from last April that the popular Jeep crossover would get a diesel option, which he reiterated in October. The new clean-diesel sport-utility vehicle was buried...
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Third-Row, 7-Seat Family Vehicles With Highest Gas Mileage
We get asked a lot about hybrids with seven seats. The answer is simple: There's only one, the 2012 Toyota Highlander Hybrid. But the question is really more about fuel efficiency: What family vehicles with a third row of seats that can carry seven people get the best gas mileage? It's a major...
John Voelcker -
Reader Q: All-Wheel Drive Hybrid Or Diesel Cars (Not Trucks)?
We get some of our most interesting topics from reader questions. Past questions include how emergency responders should react to hybrid and electric cars, and whether towing a Prius behind a motorhome is a good idea. Today, we have a query about green cars (not trucks) that offer all-wheel drive...
John Voelcker -
Why Ford Would Be Crazy To Kill The Escape Hybrid: Real AWD
Ford has made lots of changes to its model lineup of late, some of them remarkably quickly. Now comes word that the new Ford Escape compact crossover for 2013 may not include the Escape Hybrid model it has sold since 2004. We think that would be a terrible shame, because it takes off the market a...
John Voelcker -
Kia Reveals Naimo Electric Crossover Concept, Announces Real-World Tests
Kia has taken the wraps off its third electrified concept car in the space of a year (the previous being the Pop and Ray), strongly suggesting that we’re at the start of what could eventuate into an electric car revolution within the South Korean automaker. The latest concept is the 2011 Kia...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
Buick Envision Plug-In Hybrid SUV Concept: Auto Shanghai Preview
It's unfortunate that the media days for the Auto Shanghai 2011 Show and the New York Auto Show overlap a couple of weeks hence, because it looks like Shanghai might get the lion's share of the cool introductions. Take, for instance, the single teaser sketch released today of the new Buick Envision...
John Voelcker -
We got our first hints that Tesla was planning several new models after the Model S electric sedan following the release of some official slides in the company’s IPO presentation last June. Soon after Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed that one of these new models, an electric SUV dubbed the Model X, would be arriving in 2014. We now have new details on the Model X, namely, that the vehicle is being designed as a sporty crossover about the same size as a compact SUV. Thanks to efficient packaging of its electric drivetrain and batteries, however, the smallish soft-roader is expected to have...
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BREAKING: The RAV4 EV Is Returning, Tesla, Toyota Confirms
Remember yesterday's article where we spoke about rumbles from the rumor mill at Toyota and Tesla? Industry insiders had told two auto sites that the two companies were working together on a supercar and a re-development of the classic RAV4 EV. We said yesterday that the possibility of the RAV4...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Electric-Car Drive Report: 2002 Toyota RAV4 EV Crossover
One of the best parts of the electric-vehicle world is the camaraderie. Someone knows someone who passes us along to a friend who knows a guy ... you know the story. Which is how we ended up in San Francisco on a sunny Friday, driving a well-used--but still reliable--example of one of the...
John Voelcker -
Roundup: Hybrid SUVs and Crossovers from Ford, Toyota, Chevy
Our reader Celeste wrote to ask us about available hybrid SUVs and crossovers, and we thought our answer might be useful for the site. At the moment, there are three main hybrid SUVs sold in the U.S. Each of them also has variations sold under other brands. All are likely to be durable, as their...
John Voelcker -
All-Wheel Drive And Crossovers In The Pipeline For Tesla
Tesla has hinted on several occasions in the past that it wants to expand its range of vehicles beyond the current Roadster and upcoming Model S sedan in the very near future. The CEO of the electric car start-up, Elon Musk, has now reaffirmed his company’s plans to do just that, by revealing...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
Buffet's Baby BYD Auto Is a Big Electric-Car Copycat
Sometimes Twitter is pretty wonderful. Amidst all the fluff and links and LOLs, some real gems can land. We honestly don't recall who first alerted us to an article about Chinese electric-car maker BYD from Caixin Online, but we thank you. It's an excellent article, and highly worth reading top to...
John Voelcker -
Continuing the trend of raising gas mileage by using smaller, more powerful engines, Ford is set to launch its first four-cylinder EcoBoost engine in the 2011 Ford Edge, which will be unveiled at the 2010 Chicago Auto Show next week. We've written before about Ford's EcoBoost system, which uses direct injection and turbocharging to produce horsepower and torque that's equivalent to a much larger engine. First four for Edge The 2011 Edge will have the 2.0-liter EcoBoost four that Ford announced last fall. It develops 230 horsepower, comparable to the 240 hp of a 3.0-liter V-6--but fuel economy...
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Small Vehicles Will Be Largest Part Of U.S. Market By 2013, Ford Says
Today we were in Michigan to learn quite a lot about the 2011 Ford Fiesta--absolutely none of which we're allowed to share with you today. (Soon, soon!) Yesterday, though, Ford's George Pipas presented data to journalists in New York that shows what Ford thinks about the future of small vehicles...
John Voelcker -
Drive Report: 26 MPG in 2010 Chevrolet Equinox Four-Cylinder
During a trip to Detroit last week, we had a chance to spend a couple of days with the all-new 2010 Chevrolet Equinox five-pasenger crossover sport-utility vehicle. We'd wanted to try this vehicle for some time, as most reviews deemed it vastly superior to the previous model. Certainly it's got...
John Voelcker -
2010 Fusion Hybrid Takes Credit For 73-Percent Ford Hybrid Sales Rise
With record unemployment numbers and an active global recession, it's not news that vehicle sales have been lousy, falling by more than one-third from the record levels of a few years ago. But at least one maker's green cars are doing better than ever: Ford's U.S. sales of its hybrid-electric...
John Voelcker -
World's First Plug-In Hybrid Sales? So Far, Not So Good
Late last year, a small Chinese company achieved a milestone: It offered the world's first mass-produced plug-in hybrid vehicle for sale. BYD Automotive, of Shenzhen, started selling its 2009 BYD F3DM (for "dual mode") compact sedan in December. So how's it been doing? Not too well. BYD said it...
John Voelcker -
Talk Back: What Do YOU Want Us To Drive For You?
On Thursday, GreenCarReports will have its pick from more than 60 brand-new cars, and we want to know what you want to see
John Voelcker