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Mitsubishi to Bring Two New Electric Concepts to Tokyo Show

October 1, 2009 in EVs, Future Cars, emissions by kristen | No comments

When the 2009 Tokyo Motor Show opens later this month, Mitsubishi will have 16 vehicles on display, including to new electric vehicle concepts. Of the remaining 14 Mitsubishis at the show, 10 are current production models that qualify for eco-tax deductions in Japan. That leaves four gas-guzzling, carbon-spewing vehicles.

But, to go back to the future, let’s take a look at the Mitsubishi PX-MiEV and i-MiEV Cargo:

Mitsubishi PX-MiEV

Plug-in hybrid system
115 mpg
Super All-Wheel Control and Electric-Powered Active Yaw Control for better performance
Two motors, one at each axle
Smart-grid ready

Mitsubishi i-MiEV Cargo

Adds rear space to the current i-MiEV microcar
Cube-shaped luggage space with a flat floor for maximum usable space
Overall height rises to just over 6 feet

Images courtesy of Mitsubishi Motors.

Spain Might Convert Phone Booths to Charging Stations

September 17, 2009 in EVs by kristen | No comments

In their efforts to install 500+ electric car charging stations throughout Madrid, Barcelona, and Seville, the Spanish government is looking into converting 30 public phone booths to recharge EVs. The booths are close the curb, making it a short stretch for a charging cord, and they’re already wired for electricity to power the phones.

It may cramp Superman’s quick-changing style, but the phone booths in Madrid weren’t fully enclosed anyway, making them even easier to adapt for charging. Nothing’s official yet, but it would be a sweet spot monetarily and ecologically if Madrid can repurpose its existing infrastructure for new technologies.

Think Out of Bankruptcy, Ready to Deliver Electric Cars

August 31, 2009 in Biz News, EVs by kristen | No comments

Like a lot of automakers in the past year, Think had to file for bankruptcy protection in its native Norway. But now the little company has emerged from the bankruptcy tar pit ready to build electric cars for the masses. Production is set to resume “as soon as possible,” according to the company’s CEO, and customers can expect to take deliveries in early 2010.

The Th!nk City (as the company prefers to spell its name) will be the first small electric vehicle to earn safety approval across Europe. Rumor has it that the car will reach American shores next year, too. Here’s what you can expect:

Range of over 100 miles
Top speed of about 60 mph
Dual airbags
Inertia OFF switch to cut power in case of an accident
Sodium or lithium batteries

Tesla to Add Sedan, SUV, to Its Lineup

August 19, 2009 in Biz News, EVs, Future Cars by kristen | No comments

Tesla S

I wish I were a bookie, or knew how to put odds on events. Starting a betting pool on Tesla chairman Elon Musk’s plans for the company’s future would be fun. The company is seemingly doing pretty well, despite internal disputes, lawsuits, changes at the top, and who knows what all. Musk keeps on keeping on, though. Tesla’s got a deal with Daimler to help build electric smart cars, and Musk recently announced the addition of an SUV to Tesla’s future lineup and reiterated the company’s plans for an affordable sedan.

During an interview with PBS’s Charlie Rose last week, Musk said the sedan will sell for around $50,000, or half the current price of the Roadster, and be produced in much larger numbers. Like, 20,000 a year, compared to 1,000 for the Roadster this year. An electric SUV and a new, smaller, more affordable car will follow sometime in the future. But you can look for the Tesla S sedan in two years … or can you? Place your bets!

Image of the Tesla S courtesy of Tesla Motors.

230-MPH Electric Supercar Spawns … a Bus?

August 17, 2009 in EVs, Future Cars, New Tech by kristen | No comments

Researchers at Keio University in Japan have built an eight-wheeled electric vehicle that can go 230 mph. It looks weird, kind of like the crazed cat-bus in “My Neighbor Totoro,” for all you anime fans, but it can do 0-60 mph in 4.1 seconds — as fast as a new Lotus Exige sports car. The Ellica, as the car is called, has an 80-hp electric motor in each wheel rather than one central motor.

What will Keio University do with all this electric power? Turn it into a public transportation project, of course. According to Popular Science, the school has signed a deal with Isuzu Motors and the local government to build a bus using the Ellica’s technology to shuttle passengers up to almost 100 miles per charge. The bus will likely be produced in 2011.

Barefoot Motors Builds Electric ATV

July 10, 2009 in Consumer News, EVs, Uncategorized by kristen | No comments

Barefoot Motors of Ashland, Oregon, has officially opened its doors and started selling its battery-powered, zero-emissions ATV, which Barefoot calls an “EUV”: Earth Utility Vehicle.

The company expects the EUV to do well with customers like farmers and winery owners who have have to tend acres of plants, though the EUV will probably go over well with recreational users who would prefer a lighter carbon footprint, too. It can even be used to round up livestock, though I doubt it will be the death knell of the traditional horseback cowboy.

Here are the specs for the first EUV from Barefoot, the Model One:

40-hp electric motor and lithium batteries
30 mph top speed
7-hour charge time
Up to a 40-mile range, and as long as 8 hours of operation
Four-wheel and two-wheel drive available
Starts at $11,900

Think EV Coming to US

March 26, 2009 in Biz News, EVs, small cars by kristen | No comments

Norwegian EV manufacturer Think has plans to build a factory here in the States that can employ 300 people and roll about 16,000 lithium-ion-powered cars a year off the line, to start. The company hopes to ramp up employment to nearly 1000, including engineers, and make 60,000 cars a year eventually.

Think said in a press release that it is talking to reps from eight states, including hard-hit Michigan, about where to build the plant. It’s also applied for loans from the Department of Energy’s Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Program, but like any government process, it’s a slow one.

Green Car Advisor gave an update on the shaky process, due to Think’s filing for reorganization in Norway in late 2008. A spokesperson told Senior Editor John O’Dell that the company will press ahead with plans to build the cars in the U.S. whether or not its DoE loan goes through, and that it could be building demonstration and fleet cars here in limited numbers next year.

Swedish McDonald’s to Charge EVs

February 18, 2009 in Consumer News, EVs by kristen | 2 comments

Swedes will soon be able to offset their guilt at supporting big agribusiness and cultural hegemony by charging their electric vehicles while they eat at McDonald’s.

The company is buying bright-yellow curbside charging stations with the red-and-gold arches logo for customers to use, though the system will be run by the national grid. Each charger supplies 230 volts, which is enough power to charge up one of the EVs currently on the market in under an hour.

The first McPowerstation, as I’m sure they are not called, will be installed in the next few months. No word on how much — or if — customers will pay for the electrons fueling their cars.

L.A. Electric Motors: Too Good to Be True?

November 5, 2008 in Consumer News, EVs by kristen | No comments

Like a lot of people interested in green cars, I recently saw a press release from a company called L.A. Electric Motors. They announced that they had a “total electric SUV.” The 5-seat Testament has, according to the release, lithium-ion batteries, and can go 70 mph with a range of 350 miles per charge. The company claims to have a web showroom with physical locations on the way, but the link to the site didn’t work.

With claims like that, I was a bit suspicious. Now that green cars and alternative fuels are in the public eye, we have to watch out for outrageous claims from companies that seem unlikely to deliver. I mean, the Tesla Roadster gets 244 miles per charge from its Li-ion batteries, more than almost any EV out there right now, and look how long its taken to get those cars on the road–with a placeholder transmission, no less.

My radar really went up when I noticed that the company wanted to save consumers from “ever flocculating gas prices.” Further investigation turned up a web site URL that didn’t go anywhere and an email address that bounced back when I asked for more information.

So keep your skeptic hats on, readers. Many fantastic-sounding breakthroughs are real (remember when veggie diesel was funny? Now it’s a booming business), but if it sounds downright miraculous, do a little research before you repeat it as gospel. And if you see anything that makes you cock an eyebrow and say, “Really?” pass it on to me in the comments. I’d be happy to look into it and share what I find.

Bailout Bill Tax Credits: Who Qualifies?

October 8, 2008 in Biz News, Consumer News, EVs, PHEVs by kristen | No comments

After I posted a synopsis of the alternative fuel tax credits here on GoodGreenCars Monday, astute reader Emily wondered if electric-only vehicles could get the credit, or if this particular sweetener only applied to PHEVs like the Volt.

Here’s the straight dope from the bill, as translated into English from Congress-ese by yours truly.

A New, Qualified, Plug-In Electric Drive Motor Vehicle, according to the recently passed bailout bill, means a vehicle that:

Has a battery with at least a 4 kwh capacity (your tax credit will go up with the size of your battery)
Uses an off-board source of energy to recharge the battery (an outlet or generator would do)
Is certified under the Clean Air Act and meets California’s low emissions vehicle standard
Will be put on the road for the first time by the taxpayer
Was bought for use by the taxpayer, not for resale
Was made by a manufacturer — home conversions do not get this credit

So your 6-year-old daughter’s battery-powered Barbie car doesn’t get the credit, nor does my friend Tim’s Porsche 914 conversion. You have to buy the car brand-new and use it yourself, no dealers or used cars allowed. And any plug-in vehicle should meet the emissions standards with flying colors.

If you have further questions, read the text of the bill here (look for Section 205 on page 186 of the PDF).

Air-Powered Electric Vehicles on the Way?

August 5, 2008 in EVs, New Tech by kristen | No comments

Toyota’s researchers in Japan are working on using zinc air batteries for powering EVs. That’s right — batteries that create electricity out of thin air.

When oxygen from the air around us is introduced into a battery cell, it reacts with a zinc electrode to create electricity. The materials to build these batteries are cheap, and they have high energy density. So why aren’t these things powering your Mini already? Because not even a Mini is small enough to be powered by zinc air batteries. Right now, the most common use for zinc air is in hearing aids.

Despite the small size, Toyota hopes that the move from lead-acid and even lithium-ion batteries to zinc-air will blow open the doors of the EV market, providing the range and speed consumers want from a daily driver. There is a lot of possibility here — it wasn’t that long ago that li-ion batteries were only found in cell phones and laptops, not 100+ mph supercars like the Tesla Roadster.

Portland Plugs Into Curbside Chargers

July 31, 2008 in EVs, Future Cars, PHEVs by kristen | 1 comment

Us Portlanders who follow these things knew this was coming, but it’s still exciting when it actually happens. Portland General Electric officially unveiled its first shiny, new curbside charging station, one of several to be installed over the next couple of months in Portland and Salem.

PGE partnered with local company Shorepower Technologies to build the charging stations, which for now offer free fill-ups to EVs and plug-in hybrids, like the Toyota Prius that happened to be in town this week for a green conference at the art museum.

The chargers have a 220-volt plug tucked inside a nozzle like you’d find at a gasoline filling station, earning the designers points for cleverness. Though there are fewer than 300 electric vehicles registered in Oregon, there are nearly 30,000 regular Priuses. PGE and its partners take Portland’s Prius love to mean that we’re likely to see a surge in EVs and PHEVs in the next decade, and they want to be ready with the infrastructure when it happens.

We were, after all, ranked third in a national listing of “greenest” drivers, after Seattle and Burlington, Vermont. Not to rub it in or anything.

First Tesla Crash

July 30, 2008 in EVs by kristen | No comments

It had to happen sometime, but did anyone think it would be so soon? Jet Black Tesla #6 was involved in a fender-bender in San Francisco, with its nose under a Mercedes-Benz and it’s rear snuggled up to a Toyota Camry. The company thinks the car is repairable, according to Darryl Siry, Tesla’s marketing VP.

Read all about it, and see the pics taken at the scene 10 minutes after the accident, on Wired’s blog.

Smart Goes Electric, Nano Goes Diesel

July 29, 2008 in EVs, Future Cars, MPG, diesel, small cars by kristen | No comments

Now that Mini is going electric, everybody wants a piece of the action. Smart has a test EV running around in Europe right now, and while Tata has long had plans to introduce an electric car, they’re going ahead with a diesel this year.

The electric Smart ForTwo, known as the Smart ed, has a 41-hp electric motor and sodium-nickel-chloride batteries. It gets about 70 miles per charge, and has a maximum speed of 70 mph, which makes it a reasonable commuter EV, even if your commute involves highways. Price and market haven’t been announced, but they do expect it to go on sale in 2010. Cross your fingers that it comes your way — and you can afford it.

While we may have to wait a while for the EV version of the Tata Nano, the diesel version will hit the Indian market in October. The hatchback will go a rocking 50 mph from its little 33-hp, 2-cylinder diesel engine, but it gets 52 mpg city, 61 highway. The added efficiency will drive up the regular Nano’s price of $2,500 to about $4,200.

Tesla’s 244-MPG CAFE Rating

July 23, 2008 in Uncategorized by kristen | 1 comment

The government released its latest fuel economy numbers, and one company was clearly at the head of the class. Telsa Motors, builders of the all-electric Roadster, rated a corporation-wide fuel economy of 244 mpg. The federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standard is currently 27.5, so Tesla left that figure in the dust.

2008 models across the board, though, only rated 26.8. In 2007, the overall rating was 26.6, so that’s not a big improvement.

Analysts say the feds need to figure out a more fair way of comparing alternative-fuel vehicles to their conventional, gasoline-powered counterparts. The numbers are pretty revealing as they are, though. Handicapping EVs and other vehicles running on more efficient fuels to make the combustion engine look better seems misleading.

Tesla isn’t worried, obviously. They plan on selling their surplus CAFE credits as soon as they’re allowed to trade them with lower-scoring auto manufactuers.

In other Tesla news, the production line is cranking out Roadsters, after a fashion. There are 27 being assembled as of July 12, with a goal of 100 a month being produced by December of this year. The company has also opened its second store, this one in the San Francisco Bay area, with another four to come in the near future.

Image courtesy of Tesla (and the car is a different color! Not red!).