But woops, it turns out that plug-in car energy-saving argument is running out of juice.
FORBES: CBO Finds Electric Cars Not Smart: Toyota Pulls Plug On Its iQ
But as an apartment dweller with nowhere to plug in a car, the only greener Ford option that would work for me is the C-Max Hybrid.
Shai Agassi, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur who dreamed of a world without oil, is stepping down as chief executive of Better Place, the plug-in car company he founded in 2007.
FORBES: Better Place Finds A Better CEO; Founder Shai Agassi Steps Aside
Remember that when you plug in that electric car overnight, you are using COAL to power it!
FORBES: How Obama's Fuel Standards Are Shaping The Future of Transportation
And he was never told to plug the car in overnight in cold weather, despite repeated contact with Tesla.
FORBES: Fake Or Not, New York Times' Tesla Review Speaks Truth About Electric Cars
Its EVolve app is intended to help people wrap their heads and hearts around the experience of driving electric before getting behind the wheel of a real plug-in reliant car.
FORBES: Volkswagen, BMW Understand What It Takes To Stand Out
We can imagine the day when you'll be able to charge the battery on your plug-in hybrid car at night, because your smart meter reminded you that nighttime electricity is cheapest.
WHITEHOUSE: President Obama Explains the Smart Grid and Economic Recovery | The White House
This little plug-in electric car sure has come a long way, just as the company has since parent Mercedes-Benz took over management from Penske Automotive Group in spring 2011.
FORBES: Test Drive: Smart Fortwo Electric Drive Is Much Better Than The Gas Version
Another start-up, Fisker Automotive, will debut with the sexy Karma, a plug-in hybrid sports car, then launch a sedan of its own.
Austin, Texas, is leading a growing number of cities in calling for car companies to produce plug-in hybrid vehicles that can go hundreds of miles on a gallon of gas.
What the company has said is that a plug-in electric version of the car will go on sale in 2014.
FORBES: The Audi A3 Electric Goes Old School To Take On BMW, Tesla
The commercial success of plug-in hybrids and pure electric car companies such as Tesla will help to drive innovation and competition, accelerating solutions for the range and cost issues.
By comparison, many of the hybrid and plug-in models making the Greenest Car list this year are practical enough to be everyday drivers, including two family friendly station wagons, the Toyota Prius v and Ford C-Max Hybrid.
The growing smorgasbord in new car showrooms includes 43 hybrid-electric vehicles, four plug-in hybrids and 12 pure electric cars.
FORBES: Who Buys The Most Hybrid Cars? Northern Californians, Report Says
And that means Honda is bringing both an urban, battery-operated commuter car and a plug-in hybrid concept to Los Angeles.
The latest rendering of Porsche's plug-in hybrid 918 Spyder super sports car.
ENGADGET: Porsche opens 918 Spyder plug-in supercar pre-orders, $845,000 gets you a ticket to ride
Now that Tesla is striving to be a mass-market automaker, it cannot realistically expect all 20, 000 buyers a year (the Model S sales goal) to be electric-car acolytes who will plug in at every Walmart stop.
FORBES: Tesla's Gotcha Blog Catches New York Times Reporter Driving In Circles
"If the public infrastructure is out there, it makes people feel more comfortable, particularly the people who aren't very familiar with electric cars, " said Paul Scott, vice president of Plug In America, a coalition of electric car advocates and drivers.
In green car news, Ford's new 2013 C-MAX plug-in hybrid was rated the most fuel-efficient plug-in hybrid available in the US this week.
German carmaker BMW - SGL Automotive's only customer and owner of 49% of its shares - uses the material to produce body parts for the main cabins of its futuristic plug-in models i3 Megacity and i8 sports car, which will hit the road in 2013 and 2014.
Of course, there are some high-profile debuts, most notably the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid, perhaps the most-hyped car in history, and the Nissan Leaf all-electric, both due in November.
The plug-in hybrid is an interesting bridge to the electric car, so settle down all you Prius owners!
Now, you bring your car to a service station, plug it in to a computer and the diagnostics show up immediately.
It looks like an ordinary cassette adapter that you'd plug your iPod or mp3 player into and play music in your car, but it goes a couple of steps further.
ENGADGET: The Engadget Interview: Paul Griffin, CEO/founder of Griffin Technology
This is a significant step toward actual production of the company's next super sports car, a Porsche that marries unique plug-in hybrid technology and outstanding performance in a visually stunning and purely Porsche package.
ENGADGET: Porsche opens 918 Spyder plug-in supercar pre-orders, $845,000 gets you a ticket to ride
The new BMW i3, a tiny electric car, and the BMW i8, a plug-in hybrid, both due in 2013, are the first fruits of that effort.
GM's plug-in electric hybrid, the Volt, won the coveted North American Car of the Year award, while Ford won the award for best truck.
Sales-wise, Volt has continued tacking to and fro depending on how many of the car GM is manufacturing and, especially, how well the company is doing in meeting the strong demand for a California-ized, car-pool-lane-eligible version of the plug-in hybrid that was introduced last year.
FORBES: Memo To McCann, Mahoney: Come Up With Better Volt Ads
In the emerging internet of things, Watson suggests that buildings will contain enough intelligence that they can be diagnosed in a similar fashion to the diagnosis of your car, where they plug into a dataport rather than listen to the engine.
FORBES: On The Verge of Change: A View of Our Future Energy World
应用推荐