918 Spyder is Porsche’s First Ever Plug In Hybrid Electric Car
(via Inhabitat)
From the post:
Dubbed the 918 Spyder, this stealthy-looking ride is a parallel hybrid just like the Prius – well, except much, much sexier. It also supposedly gets 78 miles per gallon, has emissions of 70g CO2/km, can go 16 miles on electric charge alone, [...]
February 23, 2010 – 10:19 am
The Wall Street Journal assesses your EV readiness.
Are You Plugged In?
By Mara Lemos Stein.
February 19, 2010 – 10:02 am
Our Consulting Producer Chelsea Sexton has written a tribute to the three Tesla employees who lost their lives in Wednesday’s plane crash in Palo Alto:
We lost a few of our own yesterday; there’s just no other, more elegant way to say it. The electric vehicle community is a close knit one and too small to [...]
February 9, 2010 – 12:14 pm
As Tesla files for its IPO, the company reveals that it will stop production of the Roadster — and will focus on the Model S.
More details after the jump:
Tesla to stop selling electric sports car next year
From the article:
“A reading of the fine print by Wired’s Autopia blog uncovers some disturbing product-planning news. To wit, [...]
January 11, 2010 – 7:41 am
Bob Lutz announces the next GM Electric Car program, post Volt.
It’s the Cadillac Converj.
For more details, read the story:
Lutz: GM to make Cadillac Converj electric car
January 5, 2010 – 1:07 pm
Ford is starting EV trials in Germany.
For more details, follow the link …
Ford Plans to Start Electric-Car Tests in Germany Next Month
“Ford Motor Co. will start a two-year test program of electric Focus compact cars and Transit vans in Germany on Jan. 4 as the U.S. company prepares to introduce battery-powered models as early as [...]
December 30, 2009 – 7:59 am
The EV revolution continues in England’s second city, Birmingham.
Read more about it in:
Electric Car Trials Begin in Birmingham
In the Birmingham News.Net
“ELECTRIC car trials have begun in Birmingham with 25 motorists testing new ecologically-friendly vehicles…
The drivers will pay £350 a month to lease one of the Mitsubishi i-MiEV cars being tested and will report on their [...]
December 29, 2009 – 7:33 am
Listen to what happens when the Nissan Leaf roadshow reaches Seattle.
Read more about it in:
Nissan Plans Leaf with Complete Charging Infrastructure
by Denis Du Bois for Energy Priorities.
“In some cities, Leaf drivers won’t have to wait for the charging infrastructure to catch up. Mark Perry, Nissan North America’s Director of Product Planning, says Seattle is part [...]
December 28, 2009 – 2:14 pm
GM to invest $700m in Volt rechargeable electric car
By Richard Kessler for Recharge News
“GM is spending $336m to upgrade the Hamtramck plant; $202m for a new plant in Flint, north of Detroit, that will build 1.4 litre engine-generators; $43m for a plant in Brownstown Township outside Detroit that will manufacture battery packs; $37m for a [...]
December 8, 2009 – 3:57 pm
GM to invest $336 million in Volt plant
General Motors Co will invest $336 million in a Detroit-area plant to produce its heavily anticipated Chevrolet Volt electric car beginning next year, the No. 1 U.S. automaker said on Monday.
December 3, 2009 – 10:46 am
The government of Guangzhou Municipality in China and Dongfeng Motor Co., Nissan Motor Co.’s Chinese venture partner, have formed a partnership to promote electric car transport in the city of Guangzhou.
The Renault-Nissan Alliance, which will start marketing electric cars in the U.S. and Japan next year, has signed more than 30 agreements with cities, counties, [...]
November 25, 2009 – 9:44 am
Rumors are circling that Tesla is preparing an IPO, although no one at Tesla is yet talking.
More details at:
Electric-car maker Tesla preparing IPO
“Tesla would mark the first public offering from a U.S. automaker since Henry Ford’s Ford Motor debuted its shares in 1956. The IPO represents a landmark in the resurgence of electric-car technology that [...]
November 20, 2009 – 11:55 am
Big changes at Aptera … more details ( plus official press release ) after the jump:
Officially Official: Aptera production pushed back to 2010
By Domenick Yoney for Autobloggreen.
According to the company, fund raising efforts didn’t keep pace with vehicle development and so they’re taking measures to slow the burn, as it were. One of those unfortunate [...]
October 28, 2009 – 12:39 pm
Stan Ovshinsky — one of the stars of ‘Who Killed the Electric Car ?’ – is out of retirement and working with former business partner (and ex-GM head) Bob Stempel to develop solar panels. More details in the Detroit Free Press article:
Panels may brighten job market
by Carol Cain.
In another bit of coincidence, Stempel headed GM’s [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
[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, [...]
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 [...]
March 20, 2009 – 12:08 pm
The first batch of MINI Es has arrived in the US.
A sharp-eyed ‘Revenge’ fan sent us these exclusive pictures from a holding facility in Central California, where the cars are being prepped for delivery.
BMW have promised 500 cars for the US market – and judging by what we saw, most of them are already here [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
January 27, 2009 – 3:10 pm
This new company, Bright Automotive, is founded by ex-GM EV1 people, and the super efficient Rocky Mountain Institute to make plug-in hybrids in Indiana.
Like Paul MacCready’s original design for the Impact that established the world’s lowest drag coefficient of .195, Bright will be building cars that “do more with less”, a philosophy MacCready was [...]
January 19, 2009 – 1:01 pm
Dateline: Washington, DC
The buzz is everywhere and completely electric in Washington DC this week. And some of that energy is headed directly to plug-in cars. We’ve heard electric cars mentioned time and again in our two days here, and we haven’t even been to Live Earth’s Green Gala yet. It’s just remarkable to see what [...]
January 15, 2009 – 6:02 pm
When I was a kid in Arab, Alabama, in 1965, I discovered slot cars. They were a new phenomenon then and quickly got everyone’s attention.
They were fast as hell, sounded cool, and it only cost one penny per minute for track time.
I remember the really fast cars had “re-wound” motors, whatever that was. All I [...]
January 5, 2009 – 5:36 pm
Over the holidays, the “Revenge” team spent time filming with Greg “Gadget” Abbott as he moved into a cavernous new warehouse space in downtown LA.
Gadget runs an electric car conversion company called Left Coast Electric. He’s also the star of the TV shows “Smash Lab” and “Monster House”- where he’s shown millions of viewers [...]
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 [...]
