NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — General Motors said Monday it will loan cars to any owner of its electric-powered Chevrolet Volt who is worried about the risk of a battery fire after a crash.

The automaker, which reasserted the overall safety of the car, had no estimates about how many loaners might be requested or how long the Volt owners will be able to use the loaner.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced Friday that it had launched a formal investigation into the risk of a fire in Volts after two Volt batteries caught on fire one to three weeks following crash tests, apparently due to damage to the battery.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Ford has begun to take orders for its first plug-in passenger car, the Focus Electric, in New York, New Jersey and California.

The car’s price will start at about $39,995, about the same as General Motors’ (GM, Fortune 500) Chevrolet Volt. But unlike the Volt, the Focus Electric is a purely electric car. While the Volt can only go about 35 miles on a fully charged battery, according to EPA estimates, it has a gasoline engine to provide power for driving longer distances.

Because purely electric cars’ driving range can vary depending on weather conditions and driving style, drivers may worry about getting stuck without a charge, something that has been called “range anxiety.”

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — General Motors, maker of the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid, will sell a small totally electric car beginning in 2013, the automaker announced Wednesday.

The Chevy Spark EV will be sold in limited markets in the U.S. and other countries, GM said.

Smaller than a typical subcompact, the Spark is a so-called minicar. It’s a couple of inches shorter than a Mini Cooper.

A gasoline-powered version of the Spark is expected to go on sale here early next year.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The wind power industry unveiled a new standard Wednesday that will qualify products to get its WindMade consumer logo.

Products made with electricity that’s at least 25% derived from wind power will meet the new standard and be awarded the WindMade logo.
 The logo — three concentric blue crescents — will be affixed to the
products, much like recycled products get the three green arrows or
organic products get the U.S.D.A. stamp.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Ford will soon produce a competitor to General Motors’ Chevrolet Volt.

The new van-like compact car, due out next year, will be available in the U.S. in two hybrid versions. One of those, the C-Max Energi, will be a plug-in hybrid with capabilities similar to those of GM’s (GM, Fortune 500) Volt but with a much longer total driving range. The other version, the C-Max Hybrid, will be a standard hybrid, similar to the Toyota (TOYOF) Prius or Ford’s (F, Fortune 500) Escape Hybrid.

With families across the country struggling to economize, the electricity bill looms as a great place to cut expenditures. While unplugging laptops and installing compact fluorescent bulbs can certainly help trim your power bill, those items only account for a fraction of the average household’s electricity expenditure. To really cut down, you’ll need to take on one of the biggest energy suckers in your home: the refrigerator.

(gigaom.com) — Here’s the bad news about electric vehicles: They’re going to be hell on the grid. The Utilities Telecom Council trade group reports that electric vehicles will require a 16-fold increase in power usage in the next decade, putting pressure on utilities to find out how to handle car charging as quickly as possible.

NEW YORK — General Electric Co. said Tuesday it will spend $3.2 billion for a controlling stake in French equipment developer Converteam as it continues to position itself as a major player in what’s expected to be a 20-year boom in oil and natural gas demand.

Converteam, which serves a variety of industries including oil and gas companies, is the latest of $11 billion in acquisitions by GE’s energy business. GE also has acquired Dresser Inc., Wellstream Holdings, Lineage Power Holdings and Well Support in the past six months.

FORTUNE — Don’t feel too sorry for automotive mogul Roger Penske, who this week threw in the towel on the exclusive U.S. distribution rights for the Smart line of small cars. Investors were cheering his decision Wednesday, along with the financial results of Penske Automotive Group (PAG, Fortune 500), bidding shares nearly to a three-year high.

The Smart ForTwo, a diminutive two-seater built by Daimler AG, simply never met sales expectations, reaching about 45,000 cars sold over a three-year period, but at a declining rate.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The Nissan Leaf electric car will get the equivalent of 99 miles per gallon according to its official EPA fuel economy label rating.

Since the Leaf uses electricity and not gasoline for fuel, the EPA had to create an “mpg-equivalent” rating. Ninety-nine miles a gallon would make the Leaf the most efficient mid-sized car on the market.

WASHINGTON — Honda Motor Co. is recalling the popular Accord and Civic passenger cars to address problems with an ignition switch that could allow the key to be removed without the transmission being shifted into park, its third recall over the problem since 2003.

Honda said the most recent recall involved 384,220 vehicles and includes 2003 model year Accord and Civics and 2003-2004 versions of the Honda Element. Honda told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that the defect with the automatic transmissions could lead to a vehicle rolling away and increase the risk of a crash.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — General Motors announced Friday that the automaker has raised its planned production of the Chevrolet Volt electric car to 45,000 in 2012.

Originally the automaker planned to produce 30,000 Volts in its second year of production.

The announcement coincided with a visit by President Barack Obama to the Detroit auto plant where early production of the car has already begun.