Monthly Archives: June 2009

Tesla, Ford and Nissan win big with DOE grants

June 23, 2009 – 12:13 pm

We’ve been waiting for several months to hear this good news. Three EV pioneers, Tesla, Nissan and Ford, are receiving loans from the Department of Energy’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program. Totaling $8 billion, the funds will be used to manufacture efficient vehicles and electric drive components.
In Tesla’s case, they’ll receive a total of [...]

By Paul Scott | Posted in EV Economics, Inside Track, Obama Energy | Tagged , , | Comments (8)

It’s Happening

June 17, 2009 – 2:41 pm

It’s happening.
New production electric cars are being delivered at a rate of 100 per month. Teslas mostly, but the first BMW MINI E was also delivered last week, and we’ll have about 500 more of them on the road within the month.
Back in 1999, when we were all a twitter about Y2K, there were about [...]

By Paul Scott | Posted in Inside Track, Production News | Comments (12)

Chu Declares Electric Transportation “Inevitable”

June 17, 2009 – 2:39 pm

I heard that Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, was giving the commencement address at CalTech recently, so I jumped in our solar-powered RAV and drove over to Pasadena to hear what he had to say.
Pasadena is a beautiful city, and the section of town where CalTech is located is old and very wealthy. Walking through the [...]

By Paul Scott | Posted in Inside Track, Production News | Comments (1)

And now…the Plug In Tanker

June 4, 2009 – 4:14 pm

It’s been a long time coming, but we have finally achieved the first “cold ironing” of a tanker in the Port of Long Beach. Cold Ironing is the term for plugging a ship’s electrical system into the on-shore grid to supply power so that the ship’s giant diesel engine can be turned off while it’s [...]

By Paul Scott | Posted in Inside Track, Plug In Sea Vessels, Production News | Tagged | Comments (3)