Featured (was)
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Increasingly, in production electric vehicles such as the 2012 Ford Focus Electric and 2011 Nissan Leaf, automakers are turning to recycled and repurposed materials. But the rest of a modern car—even an ol' fossil-fuel burner—is no longer just sheetmetal, alloy, and plastics; extruded, cast, welded, and injection-molded. When it comes to the delicate sensors and microprocessors used so frequently in new vehicles, certain rare minerals, like cassiterite and coltan, need to be procured. And in an era of global sourcing, it can be difficult for a company to determine exactly how a...
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2011 Detroit Auto Show: Sexy Electric Mercedes SLS AMG Due 2013If the shots we showed you last year of Mercedes-Benz’s electric offering on the now iconic SLS AMG super-car were enough to get your juices flowing, you’ll be pleased to know that Mercedes announced yesterday at the 2011 Detroit Auto Show that the all-electric SLS AMG E-Cell will be...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Fighting The Electric Car Pirates: Renault Gets ToughTake one look at the news coming out of Detroit this week and you’ll know that the electric car revolution seems well and truly under way. Nearly every major automaker is now extolling the virtues of electric car technology when a few years earlier, they were dismissing them as impractical...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Ed Begley, Jr. Launches Ford’s Electric Car War On Chevrolet, Nissan (VIDEO)Choosing a spokesperson for a new brand is pretty tough, especially if someone else has already had a go at selling what you’re trying to. NIssan chose world-champion cyclist Lance Armstrong to be their public face on early Nissan LEAF commercials. It appears Ford has chosen American actor...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
2011 Detroit Auto Show: Tesla Celebrates 1500 Roadsters SoldTesla celebrated the start of the 2011 Detroit Auto Show today by announcing that it had now sold over 1,500 of its iconic electric sports car, the Tesla Roadster. It was November 18, 2006 when we were first shown the sexy two-door car that very few believed could be as good as the then unknown...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
2011 Detroit Auto Show: 2012 Toyota Prius V, Wagon / MinivanAt 50 miles per gallon, the 2011 Toyota Prius five-door hatchback is the most fuel-efficient car sold in the U.S. But, says Toyota, its customers told the company they needed more room--for people, for stuff, for stretching out. So the quintessential Prius hybrid is becoming not just a vehicle but...
John Voelcker -
From the moment Ford CEO Alan Mulally drove onstage in a 2012 Ford Focus ST, the first of half a dozen new compact Ford models, it was all about small cars. There were small fast cars (that Focus ST) and small gasoline cars (the four-door Focus sedan and five-door Focus hatchback). There was the new C-Max seven-seat compact minivan. There were two new versions of the C-Max, the five-seat hatchback C-Max Hybrid and C-Max Energi plug-in hybrid, Ford's first, which will be offered for sale in North America in 2012 and in Europe the following year. There was the 2012 Ford Focus Electric that was...
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2011 Chevrolet Volt Electric: North American Car of the YearIt's been quite a year for the 2011 Chevy Volt, GM's range-extended electric car that went on sale last month. It garnered a slew of awards from various car magazines and other auto media, and now it's capped the year by winning the prestigious North American Car of the Year award. Voted on by...
John Voelcker -
2011 Detroit Auto Show: Ford C-Max Hybrid & Energi Plug-In ConceptsWhile Toyota dominates global hybrid production, Ford was the first company to launch a hybrid SUV: the Ford Escape Hybrid, in 2004. Now, Ford is pioneering another hybrid model: the small minivan, or as Europeans call it, the people carrier. Hybrid mini-minivan Between 10 and 10:30 am today at the...
John Voelcker -
2012 Ford Focus Electric NYC Debut: What You Need To KnowAs you may have seen by now, the 2012 Ford Focus Electric was officially launched today at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas by Ford CEO Alan Mulally. At the very same time, another notable executive--Bill Ford--unveiled it in New York City. He covered the same production details that were...
John Voelcker -
2012 Ford Focus Electric Unveiled by CEO at CESEarlier this week Ford hinted on the social media network site Facebook that it had plans to unveil an all-electric car at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. From the shots it released, we guessed the announcement would include an all-electric Focus. As suspected, Ford CEO Allan...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
BREAKING: Ford Takes On LEAF With All-New Focus Electric and Half the Charging TimeThe all-new 2012 Ford Focus Electric has already been buzzing with the release of pictures on one of the Ford Facebook pages earlier this week (see our report). That is just the prong of the proverbial extension cord. Ford official announced the all-new 2012 Ford Focus Electric today and some...
Jonathan McGrew -
The Holidays are over, the New Year celebrated, which means it’s the time of year when the auto-world descends on Detroit for the North American International Motor Show. Held over the coming two weeks, it will showcase the very latest in automotive design, innovation and technology. Last year, the ‘Electric Avenue’ hosted some of the competitors in the Automotive X-Prize, as well as the 2011 Mitsubishi i-Miev, 2011 Nissan LEAF and BYD e6. Many other automakers chose to display their plug-in vehicles outside of the cliched Electric Avenue. Among them, concepts from Audi...
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GM Enters Compact Luxury Segment With 2012 Buick VeranoWhile the styling of Buick’s new compact sedan has been known for some time now (a version of the car was unveiled last year in China as the Excelle GT), we finally get a look at the North American model, which will be making its official debut next week at the 2011 Detroit Auto Show. Set to...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
BMW Launches ActiveE Electric Car Forum, Mobile App, Extends MINI E LeasesBMW made a step towards its electric car future today by launching its ActiveE electric car forums. In its final Plugged-In newsletter to all its current MINI E Lease participants, BMW announced that the new website will form the backbone of BMW’s next electric car program. In addition, BMW...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
2011 Nissan LEAF: Deliveries Now More Than a TrickleLast month, Nissan became the first major automaker to deliver an all-electric car to a U.S. customer. In the month of December however, only 10 LEAFs were actually delivered to customers, whilst Chevrolet delivered somewhere between 250 and 350 2011 Volts to customers. Now it looks as if Nissan is...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
House Republicans Ask Automakers Which Regulations To KillThe U.S. Congress began its 111th session this week, and the new Republican majority in the House clearly wants to change the regulatory tenor of the U.S. government. Automakers and their trade groups were among more than 150 entities who have already received a letter from Representative Darrell...
John Voelcker -
Electric Cars Financially Viable by 2020, Study ReportsBuying an electric car today is hardly cheap. With lithium-ion battery prices at around $450 per kilowatt-hour of storage, the 24 kilowatt-hour battery pack found in the 2011 Nissan LEAF weighs in at a jaw-dropping $10,800, and that's before complex battery management electronics are added. That...
Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield -
Ever 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 popular in Japan has been largely missing in the U.S., where it could revolutionise electric vehicle adoption. Thanks to a pilot project funded to the tune of $230 million by the U.S. government that could all soon change. Ultra-Fast. Level 3 charging is capable of fast-charging the 2011 Nissan...
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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 -
Will Trucks And Buses Beat Cars In The Electric Race?Right now, six companies are vying to win a contract that would provide 100 electric vehicles to the government’s General Administration services 214,000-strong fleet. One of them is Ford; the other, a relative newcomer called Smith Electric. But the government isn’t looking for...
VentureBeat's GreenBeat -
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