German Company Creates Rear-Wheel Drive, All-Electric Ford Fiesta

One direction cars of the future are going towards is modularity. Sure, everybody talks about platforms nowadays, but we still have a long way to go before the you'll be able to jump to the garage, and turn your pickup into a coupe, by lifting off the body and putting on a different one. The chassis could be adjustable in wheelbase and track, and therefore different handling characteristics could be obtained.

However, before we get there, we must first advance the technology for in-wheel electric motors. Without them, all of the above would be considerably more complicated. Thankfully, work is being done, and this rear-wheel drive Ford Fiesta, which was modified by Schaeffler, in Germany, is among the most advanced of its kind.

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Mitsubishi Brings G4 and CA-MiEV Small Sedan Concepts to Shanghai Auto Show

Mitsubishi is heading to the Auto China 2013 in Shanghai, which kicks off this Saturday, April 20 and runs through April 29, with the local premiers of the Concept G4 and CA-MiEV small sedans, while also showcasing its production range.

The Concept G4 made its world premiere last month at the Bangkok International Motor Show. It is a near-production study for a sedan version of Mitsubishi's no-frills supermini, the Mirage. In fact, if you take out the blue-tinted lights and grille, spoilers and alloy wheels, what you're left with is the actual production model that could follow as early as within the next year.

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Fiat Begins Selling 500e in California for $32,500, Lease for $199 Per Month

The electric car family has welcomed a new member, the Fiat 500e, official pricing information for which has just been released for the US state of California, where it will be exclusively sold and leased. First deliveries of the all-electric 500 will begin in the Golden State this summer, but it is now available for order. Read more »

First Epic EV TORQ Delivered to Former Tesla Executive

Epic EV's TORQ Roadster is currently one of only a handful of electric vehicles on sale which genuinely appeal to keen drivers. It's partly down to its racy looks, but the main point of attraction is the performance on offer – zero to sixty in under four seconds, and a massive torque figure of 600 lb-ft or 812 Nm, which should come in handy for both the drive to the track, as well as on it. Read more »

New Cadillac ELR Coupe Gets Paddle Shifters to Control Regenerative System [w/Video]

Cadillac today announced that the 2014 ELR battery-powered coupe will feature paddle shifters, but not the kind you get on a conventional car. Cadillac says the ELR’s paddle shifters have a different function than what we’re accustomed to and more specifically, they “enable the driver to temporarily regenerate energy and store it as electricity in the battery pack for later use.”

This new system is called "Regen on Demand" and will be an exclusive feature of the ELR, the brand’s first electric vehicle with extended range capability thanks to the petrol-powered 1.4-liter gasoline engine that acts as a generator.

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Harris Helps Us Understand Negative Torque with Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG E-Cell Test

As is most often the case when a manufacturer announces a revolutionary new car, it is viewed with doubt, disbelief and trepidation. Trigger-happy motoring hacks around the world await for the first signs of trouble so that they can fire off a series of articles and follow-ups aimed at dissecting the problem over and over again.

However, there's nothing bad to write about the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG E-Cell thus far, so we can stand back and take it all in with our minds unbound by negative projections.

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Tesla Tries to Entice Texas Officials With New Plant Where it Could Make Electric Pickup

The CEO and co-founder of Tesla Motors, Elon Musk, recently went to Texas to try to talk to local officials into letting the company sell its cars directly to consumers and not through a dealer network. Currently, Tesla has two "stores" located in high-end districts of Austin and Dallas, with a third one to be made in Houston.

However, they can't currently offer pricing information or test drivers to potential customers, and won't be able to do so until Musk convinces the Texas Automobile Dealers Association to let them sell the cars by themselves, and not through an outsourced dealer.

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Spied: New BMW i3 Drops More Camo, See it Side to Side With the Concept

The clock is ticking for the presentation of the first production model of BMW's newly formed "i" sub-brand, the i3 supermini that will be followed by the more expensive and upscale i8 sports coupe. Sales of the i3 hatchback are scheduled to start in the first quarter next year with BMW to offer the car with standard plug-in electric or optional range extender-assisted, electric-drive powertrains.

In these fresh spy shots that landed in our email box today, the i3 has shed sections of the swirly disguise from glasshouse and the front and rear aprons. To understand what has changed from the original concept displayed at the 2011 Frankfurt Auto Show, we placed the images of the prototype next to the study.

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Norwegians Embrace Nissan Leaf EV, the Country's 13th Best Selling Car in 2012

Norway really seems to have taken a liking to the all-electric Nissan Leaf, and reports now show that since the car went on sale in the country, in October of 2011, more than 3,300 have been sold. In 2012, it alone accounted for 1.7 percent of the entire Norwegian car sales figure for the year, with 2,298 units shifted.

Going even further, it was Nissan's second-best selling model, after the Qashqai crossover, which beat it by a difference of 599 vehicles, and 13th bestselling car overall in the market.

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Spy Shots: Audi Continues Testing Canned R8 e-tron

Up until last year, Audi was talking about the market launch of its battery-powered R8 e-tron, and even set a new record for production electric cars at the Nürburgring lapping the winding 13-mile German racetrack in 8 minutes and 9 seconds with a pre-production model (if that makes sense…). Then, all of a sudden, Audi said the launch of the all-electric R8 e-tron has been "delayed indefinitely". Read more »

Spied: BMW X1 Prototype with Electric Motor Trots Out for Testing

When the BMW Group took the decision to electrify and hybridize its automobile lineup a few years back, it wasn't playing around.

Today, the Bavarian carmaker offers two pure electric models (albeit only as a lease in limited numbers as trial cars), the 1-Series-based ActiveE and the MINI E, and several hybrids, such as the ActiveHybrid 3, 5 and 7. Later this year, it will enhance its range with the i3 all-electric hatchback and from 2014, with the i8 hybrid sports car.

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All-Electric Westfield iRacer Silently Takes to the Track [w/Video]

Electric Vehicle technology is still quite expensive nowadays, and that's mostly down to the crazy-high cost of good batteries. It seems that before wider acceptance is to occur, it is down to small limited-production manufacturers to make the really interesting electric cars, leaving mainstream names to tackle the problems of cost, packaging, safety and financial feasibility.

Small manufacturers have a very wide assortment of off-the shelf parts which are of high quality and offer great performance for the buck – take the iRacer, which is made by Westfield in the UK, for example.

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It's a sEGGway! Hyundai Displays E4U Concept at Seoul Motor Show

It seems that Asian manufacturers area just so much better than the rest of the world at coming up with very weird transportation ideas. The Japanese always seem to be the ones wowing motor show crowds with their contraptions, however the Koreans aren't far behind on the innovation front, or so it would seem. Take this concept from Hyundai, called E4U, which was introduced at the 2013 Seoul Motor Show. Read more »

The Plot Thickens for Fisker – Gets Hit with Federal Lawsuit

After losing its driving force, Henrik Fisker, and 75 percent of its employees, Fisker Automotive takes another blow. The fired workers are accusing the automaker of not having notified them in advance, and are calling the company's action illegal, bringing about a federal lawsuit. Their motivation for pursuing the legal way also probably stems from the fact that aside from being paid for their unused days off, there wasn't a severance package in sight. Read more »

Cash-Strapped Fisker Pulls the Plug on Most of its Workers and All Press Staff

According to reports citing inside sources from Fisker Automotive, the Anaheim, California-based carmaker has just laid off 160 of its employees, and has only kept a core group of 40 people to keep things running.

Matters have been going from bad to worse for the automaker over the course of the last twelve months, with its cars catching fire, drowning in New Jersey, having no battery packs and losing the creative driving force, co-founder Henrik Fisker, in addition to all of their well-documented money troubles.

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Tesla Asked Customers to Pay for Cars Early to Help Report Its First-Ever Quarterly Profit

Tesla Motors recently announced that it recorded its first-ever quarterly profit, a very important step for the company that took government loans to develop an relatively affordable electric saloon. Whether the Model S is a truly affordable EV is another question, especially now that Tesla has pulled the plug on the 40 kWh-battery variant of the Model S – which was also the cheapest.

Coming back to the profit reported by Tesla for the first quarter of this year, it seems that the company pulled a few strings to make it happen. According to a report from Bloomberg, Tesla urged customers who had reserved cars, but had not yet made their payments, to do so.

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Detroit Electric Reveals Lotus-Based SP:01 – First Model since 1939, Priced from $135,000

After having announced their return, Detroit Electric has finally revealed its first car, and it's a sporty Lotus Exige-based EV with impressive performance figures and a manual gearbox – the SP:01. You could also say that it marks the return of the Tesla Roadster…

They say it is the fastest all-electric production car on the market, reaching 62 mph (100 km/h) in 3.7 seconds, before topping out at 155 mph (248 km/h) - we think Croatia's Rimac might have something to say about that, though. The acceleration is the same as that of the Tesla Roadster, but the SP:01 does have a higher top speed.

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Watch Croatia's Rimac Concept_One EV Silently Smoke a Ferrari 458 Spider

The makers of the very exclusive and even more expensive Rimac Concept_One are currently doing a tour in the Middle East to show off their all-electric supercar to potential buyers, and while they are at it, they filmed a short in duration, but quite interesting in content, video of the battery-powered model.

What they did is place the Conept_One next to a Ferrari 458 Spider on a side street adjacent to a parking lot and let the two supercars do a quick drag race.

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Motor Trend Pits Past Against Future with Classic Citroën DS vs New Tesla Model S

The Citroën DS is without a doubt one of the most recognizable cars ever made. Its distinctive shape, penned by Flaminio Bertoni, and the array of advanced technologies, made it the most iconic car in the brand's history.

The DS was way ahead of its time, with its self-leveling hydro-pneumatic suspension that offered a “magic carpet” ride was the highlight among the many innovations it brought to world of automobiles.

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Renault's New Zoe Electric Hatch Video Reviewed

The two main downsides of buying and owning an electric vehicle are still the high acquisition cost and limited range, and while the Renault Zoe is not a perfect car, it at least crosses one of those negatives off the list. We are talking about the price, which, at least in the UK, is very reasonable, and after factoring in the hefty government rebate, the all-electric Zoe is yours from £13,650 (€16,040). Read more »