I’m probably going to seem a little Nissan-centric this month, what with their imminent big announcement August 2nd. But also because I, along with a few other Plug In America members, spent the better part of the past three days meeting with about ten of Nissan’s advanced planning team. They invited us to come to [...]
We’ll finally get to see the new Nissan August 2nd. (That’s Tokyo time, it’ll still be the 1st here.) I assume they’ll have the name finalized by then, too.
I’m kind of excited to see this car, having tested the drivetrain in the Nissan Cube. The drivability was similar to my RAV, but quicker. Since the [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
When Google asked for submissions of a 90 second video on the benefits of plug in cars to show at a 2008 Washington DC Brookings-Google Electric Car conference, Alexandra Paul and Stefano Paris decided to rise to the challenge! With Stefano’s friend Gary Winterboer, they shot this video at a local gas station using Alexandra’s RAV4-EV [...]
BMW’s just held an event for the lessees of their MINI E at the Science Center, next to the University of Southern California, a really stellar venue when you consider the product they were showing.
I arrived at the same time as Stefano Paris, Plug In America’s documentarian, and as we walked from the parking lot, [...]
[slidepress gallery='paulscott-minie']
AC Propulsion, the San Dimas, CA, company that birthed the modern-day EV with its AC-150 drive train, was tapped by BMW last year to provide drivetrains for an initial run of 500 Minis. Dubbed the “MINI E,” these fully-electric cars are just weeks from being deployed on the streets of Southern Californai, New York, [...]
Say hello again to one of our guest bloggers, Andrew Grin.
I just got my electric car back from the shop (for some minor work) and I decided to shoot some video because of the beautiful spring weather.
Fully Electric Hyundai Tucson from Island Grin on Vimeo.
I got invited to go to Dodger Stadium this afternoon to test drive the Nissan EV. This wasn’t the final car, but the finished drivetrain in a Nissan Cube. I was assured it would be very close to the actual feel of the car though, and given the similarity of the Cube in weight to [...]
If you’ve been following the BMW MINI E program unveiled officially on November 19th, 2008 at the Los Angeles Auto Show you’ll know the process for being selected as a potential MINI E driver is a multistep one. The window to apply for a lease of a MINI E was from November 19th to December [...]
March 11, 2009 – 11:23 am
Josh Hafenbrack posts this informative entry covering the status of Hasner’s Florida State electric car tax break on the SunSentinel.com.
Florida State Representative (and House Majority Leader) Adam Hasner (R) has just introduced the bill HB 879 – Financial Incentives for Electric Vehicles.
From Josh’s article:
As the House Energy and Utilities Committee gave its stamp of approval [...]
More electric trucks! I love that this market is blooming.
Fleet vehicles are perfect for EVs, since the routes are very predictable and tend to be within 100 miles per day. It’s easy to spec out a battery pack with enough kWh for a given size of truck to hit 60-80-100 miles, whatever the given fleet [...]
Last Thursday, I flipped on the KTLA 5 news around 10:30pm, while grabbing a late dinner, and caught a Fisker Automotive Karma ad…on TV! I was caught completely and pleasantly by surprise seeing this great ad, as I don’t think we’ve yet seen any other EV/PHEV specific ads from any of the smaller start-ups.
Justifying the [...]
February 26, 2009 – 4:09 pm
Nissan is a first tier OEM building a pure EV in the U.S. – for sale to regular folks.
They’re going to hit the market next fall, but will target Tennessee (where they will be made) and Oregon and Sonoma County, initially. (Carlos Ghosn must like the wine up that way or something.)
Regardless, once the $7,500 [...]
February 9, 2009 – 12:30 am
Last week Norway’s ElectricAid.org uploaded a very entertaining and artistic video test drive review of the Think City electric car. Watch the video in High Definition by clicking here. If you enjoy Top Gear you’ll love the humor and creative editing in this video short.
ElectricAid.org video Test Drive of the Think City Electric Car.
[Source: ElectricAid.org, [...]
February 4, 2009 – 12:41 pm
Remember the Balqon container truck I wrote about a while back, the Port of Long Beach truck that can haul 60,000 lbs and that’s starting to replace diesel spewing internal combustion trucks? Well add another link in the chain to clean our ports with a PHEV tug.
Built by a company called Foss, this tug is [...]
January 30, 2009 – 10:38 am
This is a well written story in the Pasadena Star News about how the utilities are gearing up for the coming plug-in vehicles. While many people are wringing their hands over how the grid, old and cranky as it is, will be able to handle the millions of EVs that will be on our roads [...]
January 3, 2009 – 2:21 pm
Well, it had to happen. Lotus is making an EV. Actually, it’s a plug-in hybrid much like the Chevy Volt.
After both Tesla and Chrysler chose the Elise and Europa, respectively, for their slot car-fast EVs, it only makes sense that the car company named after a flower would make its own “flower power” speedster.
GM is [...]
December 24, 2008 – 4:33 pm
“Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc. said today that it will show a small electric concept vehicle at the Detroit auto show next month.” – Toyota Division Communications
Considering the implication of those two short lines, they were barely whispered to the press.
Toyota is going to show a Battery EV at the North American International Auto [...]
December 23, 2008 – 7:28 pm
I wrote a few months ago about the Japanese and European carmakers teaming up with Asian and Euro battery manufacturers with $200-$400 million deals to build large production facilities that will soon be cranking out high volumes of LiIon batteries for plug-in cars. Since achieving cost parity with internal combustion requires batteries to cost less [...]
December 8, 2008 – 5:11 pm
The talented Kristen Reeves produced this wonderful video segment on AC Propulsion and their world class electric vehicle drive technology. For the past 3 years AC Propulsion has been converting gasoline Scion xBs to 100% electric drive with their phenomenal AC150gen2 electric drive system. In her video, Kristen interviews AC Propulsion President & CEO Tom [...]
December 3, 2008 – 10:58 pm
My wife, Zan, and I were recently on the Big Island, Hawaii, and while there we toured the state’s only geothermal plant. It’s located close to the town of Hilo on the island’s east side and on the flank of Kilauea, the world’s most active volcano.
This is the entire control room of the 30 megawatt facility. [...]
December 1, 2008 – 1:29 pm
This week we welcome Andrew Grin, a 16 year old sophomore from Kansas City who spent the day with us filming during the LA Auto Show. Andrew owns a converted pure EV Hyundai.
My first sighting of smog-filled Los Angeles brought a sad thought to my mind. A few weeks back, I read a study [...]
November 26, 2008 – 11:55 pm
Sacramento’s News 10 reports on the electric cars of Vacaville, CA. In 2003 Vacaville, also known as Voltageville, was miles ahead of other cities with over 100 electric cars on the road in both GM EV1s and Toyota RAV4-EVs. The California Air Resources Board’s 1990 Zero Emissions Vehicle mandate would have required 10% of all [...]
November 25, 2008 – 1:32 am
Electric car and renewable energy enthusiast Gerry Gaydos shares his thoughts during a recent trip to California in the nicely narrated video short below. Gerry’s pursuit of renewable energy and electric drive began in the summer of 1997 when he spent time with some engineering students preparing a solar electric race car for the World [...]
November 23, 2008 – 9:35 pm
Check out this CNN segment from Nov 20th 2008. What next for GM, the Volt, and the director of ‘Who Killed the Electric Car’ …
November 20, 2008 – 9:50 pm
Oregon Public Broadcasting recently aired a segment on John “Plasma Boy” Wayland’s White Zombie – an electric conversion of a 1972 Datsun 1200. Watch the embedded video below to see how quick this DC electric home conversion runs against the gasoline muscle car competition. Enthusiasts like John are showing the performance potential of electric vehicles and proving [...]
November 20, 2008 – 8:53 pm
This summer Swiss visionary Louis Palmer and his friendly team made several stops in Southern California on their global whirlwind tour with their spectacular Solartaxi Electric Vehicle. One of the stops was at AeroVironment in Simi Valley.
The Solartaxi is a realization of one of Louis’ childhood dreams : to drive a zero emissions solar powered electric car [...]
November 18, 2008 – 11:53 am
Friday November 14th, 2008 – GM Training Center – Burbank, CA
The Honorable Nate Holden, former California State Senator and L.A. City Council Member, held a press conference demanding General Motors apologize to the American people for destroying the automaker’s EV1 plug-in electric vehicle. Mr. Holden demanded the EV1’s immediate re-introduction before, or in exchange [...]
November 3, 2008 – 8:34 am
A couple weeks ago, I read about the Rocky Mountain Institute’s gathering of EV interests in Portland for “Smart Garage.” The list of invitees was pretty impressive with representation from, “auto manufacturers like Nissan and GM, utilities such as PG&E and Duke Energy, IBM, P&G, Wal-Mart and Google, among many others”.
When Amory Lovins gets involved, [...]
October 27, 2008 – 5:56 pm
The web was buzzing last week with stories about BMW’s MINI E. To recap, BMW will be leasing 500 MINI Es from dealers in New York, New Jersey and Southern California starting some time early in 2009. To be considered for one of these cars, you have to go to http://www.minispace.com/en_us/projects/electric-mini-e/ and sign up, but [...]
October 26, 2008 – 4:08 am
One of our favorite guests from our shoot in Iceland, Bill Dube and his KillaCycle Team, made headlines this past week in Colorado with a new EV world speed record.
On Thursday October 23rd, 2008, Team KillaCycle set their latest drag racing world record at Bandimere Raceway. Rider Scotty Pollacheck piloted the wickedly fast all electric [...]
October 25, 2008 – 10:07 am
The automotive and green electric vehicle blogosphere has been abuzz with talk of the BMW MINI E ever since July 9th, 2008, when AutoblogGreen published the rumor that 500 of the intriguing new electric cars would be released later this year in California. Chris Paine’s docudrama “Who Killed the Electric Car” has raised awareness that [...]
October 23, 2008 – 7:07 pm
Lots going on with batteries now, as John O’Dell’s piece below illustrates.
GM has been saying for a while now that they had picked their supplier for the LiIon battery in the Volt, but they weren’t prepared to announce who it was. MIT spinoff A123 was a personal favorite, also Germany’s Continental was in the running, [...]
