The e-mail pitch from BMW said, "Electronauts Wanted". The goal was to get several hundred drivers to lease a new electric car, the BMW ActiveE, for two years to give BMW more real-world data on how people use these cars in the real world. A total of 700 ActiveEs are on their way to America. The lease offer--with unre...Read more

After 13,000 miles behind the wheel of an all-electric Nissan Leaf, I have a few observations to pass along to those of you still tethered to your least favorite gas station. Here's the main one: Driving electric is the future, and the future is now. There has been lots of ink spilled these past months on the perils o...Read more

The all-electric Nissan Leaf is a gas to drive. The car is peppy, quiet, and holds the road nicely. But its practical range is approximately 75 miles on an 80-percent battery charge. To combat “range anxiety” (the fear of running out of juice), Nissan offers a function in their navigation system that (1) n...Read more

EDITOR'S NOTE: We received the article below on July 6th from Nissan Leaf owner Bill Schwartz, and asked Nissan Americas for a comment before we published it. Brendan Jones, director of Leaf marketing and sales strategy, said that the comments by the Surf City Nissan employee "were not authorized statements," and that ...Read more

There's a new study out that says it will take $7 dollar gas to make it economical for buyers of hybrids to break even in lieu of purchasing a gas equivalent. It's a specious study because it lumps in all hybrids into one big pool as if they are equal.  All hybrids are not equal. If you go out and buy the high en...Read more

Field of Dreams, the 1989 hit movie starring Kevin Costner, asked its protagonist to show faith in the American spirit and build a baseball diamond in the middle of an Iowa corn field on the promise that loyal fans and devotees of the game would show up when the umpire screamed, “Play ball!”   ...Read more

The 2011 Nissan Leaf and 2011 Chevy Volt will be arriving within weeks and the race for plug-in supremacy will be on.  The five-passenger electric-only Leaf, with approximately a 100-mile-per-charge range, and the plug-in Volt, with a limited electric-only range before relying on a conventional gasoline engine, ...Read more

I went to the L.A. Auto Show with my friend Ira a few weeks ago. We were going to take the subway to the convention center but got lazy and drove. It only took an hour and a half to travel twenty-four miles. We spent the time talking about our favorite cars from days gone by. Hard to beat the Corvette of the sixties. ...Read more

Are you ready to go 100 percent electric?  If so, the 2011 Nissan Leaf is right around the corner.  Within the next few months, Leafs will start arriving at showrooms from New York to California, and the first buyers who signed up on the Internet will be driving them home.  Last month, I drove the Leaf ...Read more