The area will have electric cars from major manufacturers on display, plus information from the suppliers and universities developing the new technologies found in the cars. There will even be a track where attendees can take electric cars for a test drive. The indoor course “winds through natural surroundings,” says the NAIAS web site, which sounds suspiciously like the horrid little track in the basement that they had last year.

Your choices are:

• The uber-geeky “Veridian Joule”
• The tasty “enviroMINT”
• The painfully punny “EV-ergreen”

Did you submit a name that didn’t make it to the final round? Share your genius in the comments.

The company made a deal with electronics retailer Best Buy to sell the motorcycles on the West Coast, and it must be working out if they feel they can already drop the price by a third. When the bike made its debut over the summer, it retailed for $11,995. These days, that same electric motorcycle is $7,995. And that’s before any federal or state credits for zero-emissions vehicles.

At these prices, you can add the Enertia to your Solstice list.

Leave it to the Aussies. A Tesla owner and his friend drove 313 miles, from Australia’s Northern Territory to South Australia, on one fully-charged battery. The cap over the socket was sealed at the outset.

Owner Simon Hackett and his friend Emilis Prelgauskas took 12 hours to drive that far, averaging 34 mph. So no speed records were set, certainly, but they did set a world record as part of the Global Green Challenge.

Tesla’s published range for the battery is 200 miles under normal driving conditions, so the Australian roadster did better by half than expected. Granted, the guys were keeping the throttle as steady as possible to conserve energy, but it’s a reassuring result for consumers wary of battery range.

Chrysler’s ENVI division was responsible for creating electric vehicles like the sporty Dodge Circuit EV we saw at the Detroit Auto Show last year, along with electric minivans and Jeeps.

But fear not, domestic electric car fans. While the ENVI program is no longer a stand-alone entity, the work its done for the past few years will not be forgotten. The program will become part of the normal vehicle development process, with just as many — if not more — people working on the projects, according to the Detroit News.

Chrysler’s new electric vehicle plan, in conjunction with its new partner Fiat,  includes:

• 2010 Dodge Ram two-mode hybrid pickup
• 2011 Dodge Ram plug-in and minivan hybrid – test fleet only
• 2011 (or 2012) Fiat all-electric commercial van

Those still in the running include corporate teams, like Tesla and Zap, and schools like Western Washington University, Cornell, and a team from a West Philadelphia high school. For the conspiracy buffs, Illuminati Motor Works has made it past round two. International teams from Italy and Switzerland made the cut, too. And of course the space-age white Aptera 2e is hanging in there.

For a complete list of the teams so far, and a detailed description of the prize, visit the X Prize web site.

Nissan says its new Leaf electric vehicle, which will hit U.S. markets in late 2010, will make a “beautiful and futuristic” noise like the flying cars in the movie “Blade Runner.” Once the Nissan Leaf hits 12 mph, the sound will turn off, as the tires turning on the pavement will make enough sound to alert pedestrians and bikers alike, according to the L.A. Times “Up to Speed” blog.

Everybody’s buzzing about the 2009 Frankfurt Motor Show, but it’s not the flashy, expensive cars that are getting all the love — it’s the next wave of electric vehicles.

Only one electric vehicle on the show floor is ready for production, a Renault hatchback that won’t be sold in the States any time soon. But check out this list of things to come, all of which will make their debuts as concept cars this week:

• Audi R8 electric sports car
• BMW Vision EfficientDynamics plug-in hybrid sports car
• Mercedes SLS AMG electric sports car
• Peugeot RCZ electric coupe
• Peugeot 3008 electric minivan
• Renault electric small car
• Renault Megane electric car
• Renault Kangoo electric small car
• Volkswagen electric car

There will also be a 1-liter diesel-powered small car concept from Volkswagen, which while not electric, would get something like 230 mpg.

Whenever I think of Daewoo, I think of the “Mad TV” skit with Bobby Lee as Tank, the wannbe tuner boy with the yellow Daewoo. GM, Daewoo’s parent company, is hoping I’ll take another look at the company and its cars by introducing a new electric car, called the Matiz Creative, on September 1.

The Daewoo Matiz Creative is small — actually, it’s in the mini car segment, making it Smart-car-like in stature. It’s a “global car,” which means it will be sold even in the U.S., as soon as it meets crash test standards, which Daewoo expects to pass with flying colors. As befits a cute little car, it’s available in three trim levels called Pop, Jazz, and Groove, with Groove obviously being the most swank.

Here’s the basics:

• 1-liter 4-cylinder engine
• 4-speed automatic transmission (manual will be available in the future)
• Meets Korea’s Ultra-Low Emissions Vehicle standard
• Air bags and crumple zones integrated in the design
• 40 mpg or so
• Will likely start around $8,000

Vegetarians and vegans and PETA activists and other sensitive animal-loving souls beware: this post is about plucked, post-industrial chicken feathers. And it’s a bit gross. But it becomes cheap, domestic, high-energy-density biodiesel in the end, so, um, yay!

Researchers at the University of Nevada have found that the feathers of chickens contain fat, and as anyone who’s followed a Volvo converted to run on french-fry grease knows, fat can be turned into fuel. One ton of feathers makes about 18 gallons of biodiesel, which should cost about a buck a gallon to put into your VW TDI.

The system would use the byproducts of the chicken meat industry, so no chickens would be grown specifically for fuel. The processing plant would pluck and process the chickens for meat, just like they do now, and the feathery waste (plus some of the blood and guts) would be turned into biofuel, plus some animal feed, soap base, and fertilizer. There’s a lot of usable stuff in those feathers, it seems.

Chem majors and sticklers can read the whole article in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry.

Photo by Fred Dawson.