It has a peculiar name, rather unremarkable appearance and humble origins but it gives its manufacturer an invaluable edge against all the big names in the auto industry: real-world experience in marketing, production, operation and servicing of a plug-in hybrid vehicle. It may end up being difficult or even frustrating experience but it puts appropriately name Chinese company BYD (which stands for “Build Your Dream”) ahead in the race to build an affordable car that can make use of the energy from the power grid, some of which is already produced from sustainable sources. Read on for more details! Click here to continue reading »

July 10, 2008

Toyota said today that it will start assembling its Prius hybrid car in the US. The assembly will take place at their brand new plant (currently under construction) in Blue Springs, Mississippi, just northwest of Tupelo. The production will start in late 2010. It is our hope that the plant will produce the new generation plug-in Prius (prototype of which is pictured here). Click here for more Click here to continue reading »

More than a year after the dramatic unveiling of Chevy Volt last January here is what GM brings to Philadelphia Auto Show 2008 – a carcass. Sure, people were stopping to look at the slowly turning display with a somewhat puzzled look and then (usually in less that 10 seconds) moved right onto exploring other Chevy and neighboring Saturn vehicles, those that you cannot see through. Noone bothered to read the PowerPoint on the flat screens inside the carcass. Another missed PR opportunity… Click here to continue reading »

Well, this post is here just to register a trend. You would not call driving a 2-seater car with 4.8Liter V6 engine and yet unpublished MPG environmentally friendly driving. However, I see nothing wrong with every car manufacturer’s desire to pair an internal combustion engine with an electric motor for all kinds of different reasons. What are the reasons? Click here to continue reading »

Well, let’s see: a new color – Spectra Blue Mica, as pictured here. A new 5th generation DVD navigation – DVD update, not hardware from what I can tell.
2008 Prius has narrower wheels – 5.5 in vs. 6 in on a 2007 model. An attempt to make them even less rolling resistant? The specs show the same tires and so the profile is going to be a tad different.
Anything else? Click here to continue reading »

Those of you lucky ones on the West Coast: do not miss a great opportunity to catch up on the latest and greatest in the alternative cars and other non-traditional means of transportation. There is a show at The Barker Hanger in Santa Monica on October 19-20. Attendance is free! There promises to be a lot of fun down there with the historic EV1 display (I believe, the only one left!), special collection of super high mileage prototype cars, Honda Civic GX test drive and more.

GM’s Volt and Tesla’s Roadster are notably missing. Oh, well. See if you can catch a test-drive in a Zap instead. Don’t forget to take a picture of yourselves inside! Send me your pictures to infoAtfuelzilladotcom and I’ll make sure to post them here!

Read on for the list of exhibitors and the address … Click here to continue reading »

Honestly: I do not have a Chevy Volt-sinking agenda. I truly want an American manufacturer to succeed in building a car that is capable of keeping up with the rest of the traffic in all-electric mode albeit for the first 40 miles only. It does, however, look like GM is so much further away from the goal than anyone involved cares to admit to … Click here to continue reading »

This post is here just for fun. There is no high-tech stuff below. Not a single chunk!

In case you were not sure how spacious the trunk of a Toyota Prius is or how useful a Prius can be in gardening, here is the proof
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I came by this Saturn ad today and could not resist to click. The ad said: “Most affordable hybrids in America”. Wow, wouldn’t that be interesting to look at? I clicked off to the Saturn website expecting to see the specs of their hybrid vehicles. Nothing really jumped at me and so I looked around trying to find those hybrids. Found precisely two – VUE Green Line and Aura Green Line – that looked like they might be hybrid vehicles. Well, that’s fair – two is plural. Let’s take a look at this Aura ad I’ve found. Read on, it will be fun! Click here to continue reading »

I was working on a larger post about Prius plug-in conversion kits (come back soon for it) and this mini-rant I wrote up for the post did not quite fit here, so I made a separate post for it.
Here is what the peculiarities are: Click here to continue reading »