Jon Vandervelde, Contributing Writer
Articles
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Citroen, whose parent corporation PSA teamed up with Mitsubishi earlier this year to produce a new electric vehicle based on the i-MiEV platform, unveiled the result this week: the C-Zero compact,...
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2010 Detroit Auto Show To Feature Huge New Electric Vehicle "Alley"
Organizers announced Thursday that the 2010 North American International Auto Show will include a new 37,000-square-foot exhibit devoted exclusively to electric vehicles. The exhibit, called Electric Avenue, will be on the main floor of Detroit's Cobo Center and will include twenty zero-emissions...
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Tesla's Musk Takes a Shot at Fisker
Speaking at the University of Delaware Thursday, Elon Musk took a public swipe at rival Fisker automotive, whose electric vehicles may become competitors to Tesla's . Fisker whose NINA vehicle is slated to go into production soon in a new Delaware facility, faced a 2008 lawsuit from Tesla ...
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Hybrid Off-Road Military Vehicle Debuts At SEMA
Wannabee U.S. Military contractor TAC-V amazed the SEMA show Wednesday by unveiling the world's only hybrid-electric, armor-ready, four occupant, triple-machine gun mounting, off-road, recon vehicle that’s capable of being transported inside the vertical-takeoff-and-landing V-22 Osprey...
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Mavizen TT02 Electric Superbike Revealed at SEMA: 130 mph, $41,000.00
Mavizen has unveiled their TTX02 electric race bike today at SEMA, and unlike the Suzuki based frame and running gear of the TT01 prototype, the TTX02 will have a KTM sourced RC8 chassis surrounding the Agni powerplants. The bike should see a top speed (in stock configuration) of 130 mph...
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Zero Launches Fleet Sales Program For Its Electric Motorcycle
Zero Motorcycles has announced its launch of a fleet-sales program aimed at government bodies, corporations, non-profits, and any other business owners who are looking to make multiple unit purchases. The program began November 2nd, with pricing based on volume and support requirements. Zero will...
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Researchers at Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) have succeeded in making the world’s first Ni-Li battery, a formulation that holds more than 3.5...
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Suzuki Hybrid Gets 100 MPG
Suzuki has launched a hybrid gasoline/electric vehicle for sale on the Japanese market that travels an impressive 100 miles per gallon of gas! The Suzuki Twin also features an automatic idling stop system shuts the engine down whenever the car stops at traffic lights or when stationary in heavy...
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Suzuki Banking On Becoming Fuel Cell Technology Leader
When speculating on Suzuki's future direction within today's chaotic, industry-wide scramble toward new energy technologies, it's interesting to note that although the company introduced a single new Plug In Hybrid concept car at the recent Tokyo Motor Show, it actually introduced three...
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Mavizen TTX02 Electric Superbike To Be Unveiled
When the historic first TTXGP electric motorcycle race took place this year at the storied Isle of Man TT road course, response was so overwhelming that the FIM (Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme) agreed to create an FIM World Championship Series for electric bikes in 2010 – the first...
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Smith Electric Vehicles Expands U.S. Line To Include Heavier Trucks
Smith Electric Vehicles U.S. announced today that it's Newton truck line, the first commercial all-electric truck to receive new vehicle emissions certification in California, will be expanded to include not only small delivery vans, but 14,000 and 16,000 lb. short-haul trucks. This is in...
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Japan's Tokai Challenger Wins The 2009 World Solar Challenge
Carrying the regulation-maximum 6 square meters of solar cells and reaching speeds of up to 94 mph, the Solar-powered Tokai Challenger built by a team from Tokai University, Japan, has fought it's way across 3000 kilometers of Australian desert ahead of the pack to take first place in the premier...
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British motor magazine Autocar reports that Toyota is working on a sporting coupe version of its Prius as a direct competitor to the sporty Honda CR-Z.
Although it was formerly thought that...
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REVA Partnering With U.S. Start-Up To Build EV Factory In Syracuse, N.Y.
The REVA Electric Car Company of Bangalore (India) announced Friday that in partnership with Newly formed U.S. EV company Bannon automotive, it/they will be investing 26.5 million dollars to rehabilitate and outfit an EV factory in Syracuse, N.Y.. The facility will be an assembly plant for...
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Tokai Challenger Leading World Solar Challenge At Halfway Point
With the leading vehicles just passing the halfway point in the 3000 km World Solar Challenge, the Tokai University(Japan) Challenger leads the pack followed closely by the University of Michigan(U.S.) Infinium and former world champion, the Delft Technical University(Netherlands) Nuna V. See the...
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Revolutionary Zinc-Air Battery Developed For EV Use
According to Advanced Power and Energy Sources Transportation (APET) in Hong Kong, the cordless, no-solar-panel EV is about to become a reality. Developments in Zinc-air battery technology have been made which promise to make the technology a serious contender in the EV world. Zinc-air...
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EV's And PHEV's Not As Green As One Might Think?
A U.S. National Research Council report released on Monday concludes that in North America at least, "For electric vehicles to become a major green alternative, the power fuel mix has to move away from coal, or cleaner coal technologies have to be developed...". According to Jared Cohan, chair of...
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Toyota's Passive-aggressive Approach To The Plug-In Hybrid
Unless you live under a box you're aware that Toyota is currently riding high in the green-tech Olympics on the strength of the all-conquering Prius. In the U.S. alone the Prius sold almost 160,000 units last year. Overall Toyota sold 240,000 hybrids in the U.S., while Ford and Honda are...
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After recently unveiling its e-1 electric sports car at the Frankfurt Motor Show, German company e-Wolf has now released details of its upcoming second foray into high performance electric vehicles....
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Instant Battery-Recharge Technology May Alter The EV Landscape
The greatest impediment to the general adoption of EV technology has always been physics; an EV battery exhausts it's stored energy far more quickly (thanks to lower energy density) than the fuel-tank of a conventional car, and unlike the ICE vehicle, can't be topped off with a fresh supply in...
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GM Hints That It May Sell Volts without motors for EV conversion
Responding to an audience question during a panel-discussion at the October AltCar expo In Santa Monica, Ca, GM Spokesman Dave Barthmuss suggested that GM may be willing to sell Volt "gliders" ( that is, vehicles without a powertrain) to enthusiasts who wish to turn the Volt into a full EV. He...
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Increasing Ford Hybrid Sales Buck Industry Trend
The latest figures from Autodata Inc. indicate that Ford Motor Company Hybrid vehicle sales have risen 73% this year in comparison with the same period in 2008. This contrasts with a slight decline in hybrid sales across the industry. Ford attributes much of this growth to the popularity of the...
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Behind the wheel of Volkswagen's Golf TwinDrive PHEV
The Volkswagen Golf TwinDrive Plug-in hybrid prototype, introduced in mid-2008, has recently been made available to selected automotive journalists for short test-drives. It features a unique power train architecture which incorporates elements of both series and parallel hybrid...
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Bolt-on Kinetic Energy Recovery System Increases Bus Mileage 30%
Torotrak, a British technology company known for its continuously variable transmissions, will deliver a paper at the SAE Commercial Vehicle Congress in Illinois next week revealing a flywheel-based Kinetic energy storage system for buses which is said to recover potential energy from a moving...
Jon Vandervelde