Electric
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We've loved the concept of the Audi A1 e-Tron concept since its launch at the 2010 Geneva Motor Show last March. It's a range-extended electric vehicle (like the 2011 Chevy Volt) that uses a tiny Wankel rotary engine to run a generator that produces electricity to power the car once its lithium-ion battery is depleted. But now reports out of Germany says that Volkswagen, Audi's parent company, is not so pleased. Volkswagen has its own schedule of electric cars on the way, including the 2013 Golf Blue E-motion, an electric conversion of its next-generation Golf compact hatchback. Not...
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Turning Japanese: U.S. Gov. Tests Electric Car Fast ChargersEver since the early 1980s, Japan has led the world of technology and digital entertainment. In 2010, thanks to cars like the 2011 Mitsubishi i and 2011 Nissan LEAF it also adopted electric cars as a viable private transport solution. But the ultra-fast charging technology which made both cars...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Who Killed the Electric Car? Subaru To Slay Plug-In Stella EVBack in July 2009, two Japanese automakers launched electric cars within weeks of each other. (And neither one was Nissan.) One was Mitsubishi, which put its i-MiEV five-door hatchback microcar on sale after several years of consumer tests. That car is now the best-selling electric car in the...
John Voelcker -
Ford Releases Focus Electric Teaser Ahead of CES LaunchDoes the future of electric cars lie in the gadget world? Ford thinks so. So much so, it will launch an electric car at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Friday. How did it announce this? By posting some teaser photos on social networking site Facebook, of course. From the photos...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
New Electric Car Race Series Lines Up On The Grid [Video]If you happen to indulge in the twin passions of both electric cars and motorsport, you'll no doubt have heard of series such as the TTX-GP for electric racing motorcycles that holds events all over the world. A similar series has been slow to emerge for electric cars but at the recent United...
Antony Ingram -
GM Leads Nissan In December Electric Car Sales As Supply Trickles InChevy’s electric hybrid vehicle, the Volt, beat out the cheaper Nissan Leaf in electric car sales in the last month of 2010 as each manufacturer struggled to keep up with demand for their newest rides, the Associated Press reported today. The Volt went into production in mid-November and hit...
VentureBeat's GreenBeat -
At the time of this writing, oil has sprinted above $90 a barrel, silver has jumped 80-plus percent in the last year and China just announced an 11 percent decrease in exports of rare earth metals for 2011. Will these constraints on critical resources, and their inevitable steep rise in costs and prices, kill the electric car? Like it or not, commodity prices of critical resources directly impact the cost of finished goods. While many within the environmental community cheer rising oil prices, this commodity is a fundamental cost component to most everything in the U.S. economy, especially...
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VIDEO: Racing Green: The Ultimate Electric Car Expedition, Airs January 1Back in 2009 we were approached by a press representative for Racing Green Endurance, a team of 20-something post-graduate engineers from Imperial College London. We didn't hear from them again until June this year, when we met up with them in London. Their goal? To drive the 16,000 miles from...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Our Popular Stories of 2010: LEAF, Recharging, Myth BustingWe’re just two days away from 2011, the year many industry experts are terming the year of the electric car, but 2010 hasn’t been a slow year for electric cars. We’ve seen new models launched, records broken and even the Pope show an interest in going electric. But over the course...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
GM EV1 Gets Another Shot At Smithsonian, 4 Years OnIf General Motors' EV1 had featured in the Disney Pixar animated film Cars, we can't imagine it would have been the happiest of characters. It might well have spent a little time complaining about its friends all being crushed back in 1999, and who could blame it? And four years ago it might have...
Antony Ingram -
Forget Angry Birds - 2011 Nissan LEAF Launches New Addictive AppTen years ago the concept of social media was in its infancy. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s geeky founder, wasn’t even at university and the best chance you had of playing at being a farmer was to head down to your local city farm. So what happens when you combine the always-connected...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Five Tips to Save Money on Your Home Electric Car Charge PointLet’s face it: the end of the holiday season is financially tough. After spending what may seem like a small fortune on gifts for your family and friends the last thing you want to do is spend money on a costly electric charging point for your plug-in car. Of course, it is technically...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
California has always been kind to drivers of alternative fuelled vehicles with special privileges in High-Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes, reduced parking and even additional purchase tax credits. However, the $5,000 Californian state rebate for those purchasing electric vehicles may soon run out, an electric vehicle advocate has warned. Jay Frieland, legislative director of Plug In America, made his comments while speaking to the Los Angeles Times. Plug In America is a non-profit organisation charged with encouraging the purchase and manufacture of plug-in vehicles and reducing the...
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2011 Detroit Auto Show Preview: 2012 BYD e6 Electric Crossover, Plug-In Hybrid SedansNow that the 2011 Nissan Leaf and 2011 Chevy Volt have reached showrooms--a handful of them, anyhow--a new crop of electric vehicles will launch into the market for 2011. One of those may be the e6 all-electric crossover built by Chinese manufacturer BYD. Famed financier Warren Buffet was so...
John Voelcker -
Tesla Motors Stock Drops 16 Percent, Analysts Pile On WorriesAs VentureBeat suggested on Thursday, the entry of new shares onto the market today has caused Tesla’s stock to drop. The stock is trading down 16 percent today now that the 180-day post-IPO lockup period has ended and insiders are free to sell their shares. The stock is trading at $25.30...
VentureBeat's GreenBeat -
Will Charging Infrastructure Be Speed Bump For Electric Cars?This year — and next — will be a busy one for arrival of electric cars. The Ford Focus Electric and Coda’s sedan are slated for launch by 2011. The Nissan Leaf is slowly making its way to buyers in the U.S. and Europe, the Wheego Whip and LiFe are on sale in New York, and the...
VentureBeat's GreenBeat -
The Twelve Days Of (Electric-Car) ChristmasDon't you just love a good song over the holidays? We've taken an established favorite and given it the plug-in car treatement. Gone are the birds, noisy drummers and milking maids. In their place we've put some of the most importante cars we've talked about this year, as well as some fun side...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Quentin Willson: “The 2010 Mitsubishi i Has Changed My Life”History has a way of repeating itself. Just as the many tearful original EV1 lease drivers bade farewell to the electric car in the mock funeral that started Chris Paine’s docufilm Who Killed The Electric Car, a select group of electric car lease drivers in the U.K. gave a suitably British...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Whilst the U.S. and Europe get the 2011 Chevrolet Volt and 2012 Opel and Vauxhall Ampera, it seems all the full battery-electric vehicles are going to the Far East, and they're keeping fairly quiet about it. A few months back we revealed GM's plans to test an electric version of the Chevrolet Cruze sedan in South Korea. The prototype uses a 31-kilowatt-hour battery pack and offers a range of up to 100 miles, competitive with the 2011 Nissan LEAF. Performance is competitive too, with an 8.2 second 0-60mph time, and a top speed of around 100mph. Now, Shanghai GM has revealed the Sail electric...
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Jay Leno Takes Delivery Of Volt, Offers Up A SoundbiteNever one to miss the opportunity for a pithy quote, petrolhead extraordinaire Jay Leno has come up trumps again whilst taking delivery of his new 2011 Chevrolet Volt. "Electricity is like sex. People lie about it," quipped Leno, referring to how owners are occasionally inclined to add a few more...
Antony Ingram -
OK, EV1 Fans, Here's Your Chance To Vote For The Electric Car!The General Motors EV1 still exerts a strange fascination for electric-car fans and civilians alike. Its sleek, aerodynamic shape and pioneering all-electric drive (despite an initial range of only about 70 miles) make it an important vehicle in U.S. automotive history. Fascination has only grown...
John Voelcker -
Is There a Business Case for Electric-Car Battery Lease or Swap?As 2010 draws to a close, we now have shipments of the 2011 Nissan LEAF and the 2011 Chevy Volt to customers around the United States. With the advent of these vehicles, is there still a business case for Better Place? To refresh your memory, Better Place is the venture between Shai Agassi and...
Jason Hendler -
Nissan: Most Drivers Will Top Leaf Electric Car's 73-Mile EPA RangeLast week at one of the first 2011 Nissan Leaf deliveries we spoke briefly with Mark Perry, Nissan's director of product planning and strategy, about the Leaf's driving range, and whether the recently released EPA driving range of 73 miles—the range that will be printed on every U.S. window...
Bengt Halvorson -
BMW Green Vehicles, Including Megacity Electric, Named 'i'The BMW "MegaCity" carbon-fiber all-electric car, scheduled for launch in 2013, may be the most radical BMW in decades. BMW had confirmed that this first production electric car to wear the BMW badge would be the first of a sub-brand within the make, much as its "M" series of performance editions...
John Voelcker