Electric Cars

Over the past year, a team of specialists from Semcon, Volvo Cars, Vattenfall, ETC and Energimyndigheten (The Swedish Energy Agency) has been developing a set of plug-in hybrid demo vehicles at Volvo's Concept plant. The three vehicles will be complete this fall, and the team will use these...

Prior to the unveiling of the Nissan LEAF, we brought you countless stories about promises and memorandums of understanding that Nissan had signed with numerous utility companies and municipalities spanning the globe.  These agreements were met to ensure that there would be adequate charging...

Toyota has earned an image as one of the "greenest" car companies in the world.  Some may even consider them tops in the category.  But they are quickly falling behind as many other major automakers and small start up companies either have EVs on the roads or will have EVs on the roads well...

Electric vehicles may be a common sight on the autobahns in the next decade. German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is intent on putting more EVs on the roads and her Cabinet is finishing a plan to do just that. The program would offer financial incentives beginning in 2012 to aid in the production and...

At an auto conference this week in Traverse City, MI, Nissan's Vice President of Product Planning for North America Larry Domnique spoke about the expected price of the upcoming, fully electric Nissan LEAF.  Dominique's words came in response to an earlier announcement from GM that the Volt...

What if there was a way your plug-in electric vehicle could talk to your power grid, so you could decide when to charge, how long it would take, and what it would cost?   That's the question Ford Motor Company asked, then they set out to develop a system that would do just that. Today, they...

Toyota may be slow to actually adopt lithium-ion batteries into its cars, but it appears the company may be ahead of the pack when it come to basic scientific development. A report out of the Nikkei in Japan states that Toyota achieved the ability to fabricate single crystals of cobalt-oxide for...

America's most noteworthy EV maker, Tesla Motors, announced plans to open a new manufacturing facility at the Stanford Research Park in Palo Alto, California today. The company will renovate an existing 369,000-square-foot facility to produce electric powertrain components for their own brand...

It seems as though the days of exclusively driving gasoline powered vehicles may indeed be limited and eventually buyers will walk onto dealership lot in search of a new EV or plug-in hybrid.  Now there is growing concern about what will be on the window sticker of these advanced vehicles in place...

Panasonic, the leading supplier of the Toyota Prius battery, is continually increasing production to meet the demands of the new Prius.  The battery division, called Panasonic EV Energy Co. Ltd, hopes to increase output to nearly 1 million units with the addition of another plant in northern...

The infamous Trabi may live on as an EV

GM's CEO Fritz Henderson welcomes organized labor to the Volt battery pack plant in Browntown Township, despite the costs that are typically associated with employing UAW workers. GM strives to build the Volt and price it as inexpensive as possible, but Henderson believes that goal can be achieved...

Better Place CEO Shai Agassi is looking towards Australia to become a leader in electric vehicle technology.  According to Agassi, Australia could become the modern day equivalent to oil rich Middle Eastern countries if they follow his plans and quickly switch to EV production and lithium-ion...

Luxury PHEV prototype Runs At Laguna Seca

According to Fritz Henderson, CEO of GM, the company has not ruled out selling certain components and technologies from the upcoming Chevy Volt to other automakers. As he stated, there is a chance that GM could sell the lithium-ion battery packs as well as additional technologies to be used in the...

The 2010 Honda Insight and 2010 Toyota Prius were two of three of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety's newest 2009 Top Safety Pickaward winners. According to the Institute's website, in order to qualify for Top Safety Pick, a vehicle must earn the highest rating of "good" in the...

General Motors has reached the pre-production phase of the Chevy Volt development program. At this point they have built 30 vehicles out of a total of 88 that will completed over the next several weeks. Although not entirely ready for production, these cars are for all intents and purposes about...

The recent funding awarded by the federal government to battery manufacturing and advanced technology vehicles that we reported on a few weeks back (read more about it here) was warmly welcomed by the top companies that were selected to receive the funding.  However, not all applicants for the...

For decades, various automakers have had visions of a turbine powered car.  The turbine, widely used in the aircrafts we see everyday are extremely powerful, very efficient, and reliable.  They seem ideally suited for use in cars.  Perhaps their associated costs have kept them from being...

Yaris-Like Hybrid Will Get Better Mileage Than Prius