With the introduction of a 50-mile-per-gallon Corolla Hybrid at the Los Angeles Auto Show, Toyota is keeping true to a mission it undertook a long time ago: democratizing hybrid technology, and making it mainstream. The carmaker has long aimed to deplo…
Author: Bengt Halvorson
Toyota Prius AWD-e earns 50 mpg with all-weather treads
If you want one of the highest-mileage non-plug-in vehicles on the market—like the Toyota Prius, Hyundai Ioniq, Kia Niro, or Honda Insight, there’s been one quite significant deal-breaker for many Snow Belt families: All-wheel drive simply …
2019 Mazda 3 sedan and hatch aim for an X factor–and that’s not electric
Mazda has revealed its 2019 Mazda 3 compact car, in new-generation form, at the 2018 LA Auto Show. It’s not surprising, given the brand’s go-it-alone strategy this decade, that the new ‘3’ appears to take a different path than k…
Rivian R1S electric SUV goes family style with 7 seats, 410-mile range
Two years from now, the electric-vehicle startup Rivian hopes to be making its R1T electric pickup truck at a former Mitsubishi (and Chrysler) plant in Normal, Illinois. If everything goes according to plan, shortly after that, in early 2021, it will s…
Rivian R1T all-electric pickup revealed: 400-mile range, 160-kw DC fast charging
With the Rivian R1T pickup revealed this morning, just ahead of the Los Angeles auto show, and the R1S SUV expected to be shown here this week, a Michigan-based electric-vehicle startup called Rivian might have something that’s been a long time c…
2018 LA auto show preview: 10 green-vehicle intros that matter
Most of the major auto shows, like the Los Angeles auto show, have always had two components: news-making and car-selling. And it’s the second part—the public days—that thrives today. People are attending traditional, consumer-focused…
Colorado sides with California standards, doesn’t yet mandate electric vehicles
Colorado last week formally joined the ranks of states that are in some way choosing to adopt California’s rules for emissions, rather than those of the federal government. With a unanimous vote by the state’s Air Quality Control Commission…
2019 Toyota RAV4 Hybrid: At 39 mpg, the highest-mileage SUV without a charge port
Yesterday, when we brought you our 2019 Toyota RAV4 Hybrid first drive review, we missed one very important point. At 39 mpg, the RAV4 Hybrid is now the highest-mileage sport-utility vehicle (as the EPA lists them) without a charge port. All the more i…
Commentary: Plug-in hybrids shouldn’t just be California compliance cars
With 17 miles of all-electric range, all-wheel drive, and a rugged-hatchback body style, the Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid could be the perfect entry point for a lot of buyers who’d like to get started driving on electric power. Electric-car advocates, who’v…
2019 Subaru Crosstrek Hybrid: First drive of 17-mile, 35-mpg plug-in crossover
To understand the complicated path for Subaru’s first plug-in hybrid, first we needed to hike a mile in the automaker’s shoes. Okay, more like 10 miles, actually—driving gingerly up a dusty, bouldered, steep trail, past signage cautio…