Electric Cars

  Inside Line is reporting that several big-name Hollywood stars are expected to drive their Tesla Roadsters to this Sunday's Academy Awards. Among the names mentioned are George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Brad Pitt, who is up for best actor in a leading role in The Curious Case...

Second Chinese Automaker to Build Electric Car

The Wheego Whip is a low speed electric vehicle. There are no estimates of its 0-60 time, because its top speed is 35 miles per hour. Nevertheless, Ruff and Tuff Electric Vehicles (that name is not made up) believes the Wheego will be the next whip of choice for urban drivers. With a maximum range...

Today Gavin Newsom, the Mayor of San Francisco, announced that his is a city has installed three Smartlet™ networked electric vehicle charging stations outside City Hall. These stations are part of a two-year public demonstration project in San Francisco. Newsom said “Our goal is to transform...

  Honda Motors today announced that as of the end of this January they have sold 300,000 hybrid vehicles worldwide since the original Insight was first produced in 1999. They noted their hybrids are being sold in 40 countries around the world.Honda Hybrid Sales by Model/Region (as of the end of...

NYPD is about to roll out some Nissan Altima Hybrids for serious on-duty action. As part of a $1.1 million pilot program, the police will put 40 Altima Hybrids on the road within the next two weeks.  Eighteen of the hybrids will be marked patrol cars, twenty will be unmarked and the remaining two...

First Ten Days of Sales Double the Sales Goal for the Entire Month

Swiss carmaker Rinspeed has announced that it plans to unveil a new and unique all-electric car it is calling the iChange at the Geneva Auto Show in March. They state it is more than a "clever concept car" and rather symbolizes the dramatic change towards electrification the entire auto industry is...

Fuji Heavy Industries, the parent company of Subaru, set a goal to sell 100 Stella EVs. Today, they say that goal will be surpassed: Inquiries have already been received for “several hundred” Plug-In Stellas, according to an official at the maker of Subaru cars. Sales of the vehicle, an upgrade...

Yesterday, while discussing their 2008 financial numbers, Paris-based Valeo announced their partnership with Michelin to develop and produce pure electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. Michelin, from central France (Clermont-Ferrand), will provide their Active Wheel technology, which will make...

Those of us not lucky enough to be ZAP insiders haven't yet seen a running version of the Alias roadster, but if we register as dealers, we might: ZAP plans to preview the street-ready Alias during their sales and service training seminar that begins on February 20th. The Alias is set to go on sale...

Yet another automaker, Volkswagen, has jumped on the electric car bandwagon.  This time the Germany-based company has reported it will team up with Toshiba to manufacture an electric version of the subcompact Up! concept car.  A letter of intent was signed Thursday. Per Volkswagen the objective...

Utterly disappointing sales haven't dissuaded Chrysler from working on new hybrids. Yesterday at the Chicago Auto Show, the troubled American automaker announced that a hybrid Dodge Ram pickup is still planned. It's expected that the new pickup will use the same two-mode hybrid system previously...

 Yesterday we found out from Tesla CEO Elon Musk that the upcoming Model S electric sedan would be publicly unveiled on March 26th.  Today we have the first official teaser image of the car. The car is expected to be an all-electric 4-door 5-seater costing just under  $60,000. Looking good so...

Automaker will also be profitable mid-year

BMW has plans for a real-world field test of 450 MINI Coopers converted into electric cars. They began accepting applications from NY, NJ, and CA residents in December. A total of 1800 applications were received. BMW has stated the cars would be handed out throughout the first quarter to accepted...

The Tesla Roadster garners much of the electric supercar discussion and rightly so. It is a feat of modern engineering. If you've got $200,000 to spend you have some other choices though. One of those could come from across the pond. The Lightning GT is a 650 horsepower electric powerhouse that...

Amid their first loss in a decade, Nissan sees EV program as vital to recovery

Will be built on Transit Connect Platform and have 100 mile range

It's about time "supercharged" and "hybrid" are being used in the same sentence. Adding to an already full stable of gas and diesel engines, Volkswagen has announced that a supercharged hybrid Touareg is on the way. The new Touareg will employ a start-stop system to save gas when idle, regenerative...