Hybrid News

Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Green Culture, AutoblogGreen Exclusive, Green Daily

There’s an interesting line in a recent TIME magazine piece about a guy who’s enjoying his new Vectrix scooter. Here it is:

Once you start looking, you find plugs everywhere,” says [James] Morrison, who charges his two-wheeler at parking garages, outside Starbucks stores and even in gas-station parking lots.

Even though utilities are doing a lot of work on the smart grid, it’ll take years, and this presents quite a window for people with plug in vehicles. If you’ve got the money for an EV today, you can afford the juice to move it, but that line made me think of a few questions for our readers:

Will property owners need to start locking up their plugs to stop EV leeches? Do you think businesses might start advertising “free electricity while you shop” offers to EV drivers? Would you plug your EV into any outlet you could find, just to drive for free or would you talk to the shop owner about paying a few bucks to plug in for an hour or three?

[Source: TIME]

Once you can charge up your ride anywhere, what happens? originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Thu, 13 Nov 2008 19:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Original post by Sebastian Blanco

Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Porsche

The recently-revealed all electric Porsche 911 from longtime tuner RUF uses an electric motor from UQM Technologies. The motor offers up some 150 kW of power and seems to be an off-the-shelf motor that the company is capable of providing for automotive use. At first glance, the motor’s 204-horsepower seems a tad low, but then you notice that its 479 lb-ft of torque makes up for that small issue. Ninety-six separate lithium iron phosphate batteries from Axeon power the motor, allowing the eRUF Model A to accelerate to sixty miles per hour in less than 7 seconds and allow for a range of up to 200 miles. UQM also has smaller motor packages available for cars that aren’t expected to have such high performance or are significantly lighter that the 4,200 lb eRUF Concept Model A. See the full press release after the break.

Related:

• Ruf reveals electrically powered 911 instead of Cayman EV

[Source: UQM]

Continue reading Ruf’s electric Porshce powered by UQM motor

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Original post by Jeremy Korzeniewski

Filed under: Mazda, LA Auto Show

We’ve been seeing spy photos of the next generation Mazda3 for months and now we finally have official photos of the new compact sedan that will debut at the LA Auto Show next month. While I recently speculated that the new 3 might just be a refresh rather than a full redesign based on the resemblance of the greenhouse to the current model, it now appears from the pics in the gallery below that it is all-new. Externally, the 3 inherits all of the bold, swoopy styling of other recent Mazdas including the new 6 and the 2 that we don’t get. Mazda hasn’t revealed much technical detail yet other than the 2.0L and 2.5L four cylinder engines that will provide power. The new 3 will apparently conform to Mazda’s “Sustainable Zoom-Zoom,” philosophy which means it will almost certainly see some weight reduction compared to the current car, likely on the order of 100-200 lbs. The hatchback version will appear some time after the sedan debuts early next year.

[Source: Mazda]

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Original post by Sam Abuelsamid

Filed under: Biodiesel, Emerging Technologies, Ethanol, Hybrid, Toyota, AutoblogGreen Exclusive, Green Daily

As we gathered sleepily in the conference rooms early in the morning, host John Hanson said that Toyota’s hope with this one-day seminar was to present the complexity of the sustainability mobility situation and to highlight the challenges that the world is dealing with. The solution is not just the cleaner-than-they-used-to-be four-wheeled vehicles that Toyota is building, but also its partnerships and transportation alternatives, a reduction in how much energy and resource we use, better regulations, and so on and so on and so on. Seriously. By 3 p.m., our heads were swimming but still, Toyota succeeded in Hanson’s stated goal. The six or so hours of presentations and Q&A sessions provided a lot of answers and raised a few questions about just what we’re going to do in the coming decades. If nothing else, we learned that Toyota is thinking about the problem.

Follow us past the jump for the full story.

Continue reading Toyota Sustainable Mobility Seminar morning sessions: the bad news

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Original post by Sebastian Blanco

Filed under: Emerging Technologies, EV/Plug-in, Hybrid, USA

Senator Lamar Alexander has put his money where his energy policy mouth is and shelled out the $10,000 it costs to have a Prius converted by A123 Systems to a plug-in type hybrid. The senator says he gets 30 miles out of the lithium ion battery before the engine is called upon to do some work. Having only a 5 or 6 mile daily commute, Alexander has burned about half a tank a gas since sometime last July which is just a bit less than his former vehicle, a leased Nissan Maxima, would have burned. Of course, his motivation for the innovative installation was not to save money but to illustrate what is possible.

Having worked with the TVA for many years, Alexander is well aware that the rather large Tennessee Valley region has an unused nighttime electricity capacity that is equal to the output of six or seven nuclear plants. He hopes that a lot of that energy can go to power transportation vehicles in the future and help offset imported oil. Although he believes this goal will take 15 to 20 years to achieve, he calculates that if half of our current fleet of cars and trucks had similar capabilities as his shiny black Prius, we could cut our oil imports by 4 to 5 million barrels a day - just about half. This, of course, would be great but we hope it happens a lot sooner than 2028.

[Source: US News and World Report]

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Original post by Domenick Yoney

Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Hybrid, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep

Chrysler’s co-president continued to talk up his employer’s plans for electrically-driven vehicles this week at a media luncheon in California. Press told the gathering that he had driven three different producible prototypes of plug-in hybrid vehicles recently. The vehicles have been developed by the new ENVI unit that was established in late 2007 specifically to work on electric vehicles. According to Press, the vehicles can accelerate from 0-60 mph in four seconds and have a range of over 300 miles. Press hasn’t said when these vehicles would be built, but earlier this summer, company officials indicated a 3-5 year timeline to produce such vehicles. If so that would put the company at least 1-2 years behind the expected launch of the Chevrolet Volt and a potential plug-in version of the Toyota Prius. For production, it’s likely that the performance of the cars would be dialed back significantly in order to increase electric range although a higher-performance Dodge vehicle is not out of the question.

[Source: Los Angeles Times]
Photos Copyright (C)2008 Sam Abuelsamid / Weblogs, Inc.

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Original post by Sam Abuelsamid

Filed under: Etc., SMART, Green Daily

Ironically, New York City seems to be packed with cars and yet it’s probably one of the worst cities in America for them. One of the biggest hassles for people who actually choose to drive in Manhattan is finding a place to park your car when you get where you′re going. Given the typical congestion in Manhattan, the Smart ForTwo is probably one of the cars best suited for that city, and it just got a bit better. SmartUSA has cut a deal for owners of its cars that gives them half-price parking at six of the biggest parking garages in Manhattan. The deal includes garages operated by Meyers Parking at Madison Square Garden, Times Square, the Javits Convention Center and the Empire State Building. The discount runs through December 31 and the SmartUSA press release is after the jump. Thanks to Yash for the tip!

[Source: SmartUSA]

Continue reading Smart ForTwo gets half price parking in Manhattan until 2009

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Original post by Sam Abuelsamid

Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Manufacturing/Plants, Chevrolet, Legislation and Policy

As we stated a few months ago, automakers always get tax credits from cities in an effort to get them to build new plants or retool existing plants. As we know, the upcoming Chevy Volt is likely to be assembled in the Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant where the Buick Lucerne and Cadillac DTS are currently built. As you may expect, those two models might not last too much longer, so the Volt is very important to the Detroit factory. The engine for the Volt, though, is expected to be built in a new facility which will be located near the existing Flint Engine South and Flint Truck plants, also in Michigan. Fortunately for the city, some three-hundred jobs will be saved. That engine will be a 1.4-liter four cylinder and should also make an appearance under the hood of the next Chevy compact, the Cruze, in turbocharged form. The total sum which GM will invest is $359 million and the plant will cover some 530,000 square-feet.

[Source: The Detroit News]

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Original post by Jeremy Korzeniewski

Filed under: Manufacturing/Plants, MPG, Paris Motor Show

At a press conference in Lordstown, OH this afternoon, GM CEO Rick Wagoner officially announced that the Chevrolet Cruze would be built at the plant alongside the existing Cobalt. Wagoner alluded to this in June during the company’s annual meeting. GM will invest $350 million in the Lordstown plant to tool up for production of the new compact sedan that will also spawn numerous other small cars. An additional $150 million will also be spent launching the Cruze including a new line to build the 1.4L turbo four cylinder engine in Flint MI. Cruzes will also be built in Europe and Asia for sale in those regions. It’s expected that the Cruze with the new engine and 6-speed automatic transmission could achieve as much as 40 mpg on the highway.

[Source: General Motors]

Continue reading GM officially announces Chevy Cruze will be built in Ohio

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Original post by Sam Abuelsamid

Filed under: MPG, Chevrolet, Paris Motor Show

Click above for high-res gallery of the 2011 Chevy Cruze

Chevrolet has just released official photos of the first car to be based on the company’s next generation Delta platform, also known officially as the Global Compact Car platform. The Chevy Cruze will get its official debut at the Paris Motor Show in October and will be available globally starting in Europe next March. The U.S. market should get the Cruze about a year later with initial sales alongside the existing Cobalt, though eventually the Cobalt goes away in favor of the Cruze. At it’s European launch the Cruze will have 1.6L and 1.8L gas four-cylinders with variable valve timing and a new 2.0L diesel good for 150 hp. The U.S. market Cruze is expected to debut with the new 1.4L direct injected turbo four that will be built in Flint, MI. Cruzes for North American drivers will be built at the GM’s Lordstown OH plant alongside the Cobalt.

The Cruze platform will ultimately spawn a whole plethora of small vehicles in the GM family, including the next generation Astra and a compact MPV to replace the Zafira. That MPV is planned to be built in Detroit alongside another member of the Delta family, something called the Volt. The Volt will have different styling and a hatchback body style along with a normally aspirated version of the 1.4L to charge its lithium ion battery pack. The Volt will also share many under-body components with the Cruze. More details on the Cruze are after the jump.

[Source: General Motors]

Continue reading Paris Preview: Chevy Cruze official pics released

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Original post by Sam Abuelsamid

Filed under: Chevrolet, GM, USA

The General, along with the rest of the American automakers, has a long established history of making the most profits from the largest vehicles. Small cars from the Detroit 3 have therefore fallen way behind the imports when it comes to desirability. GM Global Design Chief Ed Welburn went so far as to say, “In North America, we never did a good small car.” Ouch. Instead, all the best designs come from overseas, which GM has plenty of experience in. “Today, we are able to draw on resources of design centers in Korea, Brazil and Europe who really know how to do small cars,” says Welburn. Like the ones who designed the Aveo?

So, if the Cobalt and Aveo are not good small cars, at least they’d better be cheap, right? Sure, but expect that to change too as upcoming replacements for its aging small cars will be more expensive than current models. The Chevrolet Cruze, not expected in the U.S. for at least a few more years, will cost an extra few thousand dollars compared to the Cobalt. Hopefully by then, the Beat will be properly engineered for the American market as well.

[Source: Automotive News, sub. req’d]

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Original post by Jeremy Korzeniewski

Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Tesla Motors

Tesla Motors held the grand opening of its Northern California dealership in Menlo Park Saturday evening. A slew of valet parkers greeted. Then, I walked down the red carpet past an orange Tesla Roadster to the large showroom. Beyond the gazpacho cocktails and first of three full bars one entered the even larger service area where the Elon Musk and Ze’ev Drori mingled among the hundred or so invited guests.

Conversation with various Tesla personnel revealed that founder Martin Eberhard received his repaired Roadster earlier in the day. Presumably his blog will shortly contain his first impressions. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, I was told, will be delivered his Roadster within a few weeks, although the color remains top secret. Once he and the state’s First Lady Maria Shriver spend some time driving this powerful and impressive electric car one can only hope state policies will begin to reflect the near-term role that plug-in cars can play in carbon and petroleum reduction.

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Original post by Marc Geller

Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Tesla Motors, USA

click the photo of Eberhard and his car for a high res gallery

We are now happy to officially confirm what yesterday seemed a likely fait accompli. Martin Eberhard, co-founder of Tesla Motors, has now happily received his very own “Founders’ Series” Tesla Roadster. The car,shiny gray with double orange stripes and a matching interior, was silently delivered by Tesla employees early on Saturday morning to Eberhard’s solar panel-equipped home. After signing off on all the paperwork and getting the official walk-through of the Roadsters special features, Martin and his wife, Carolyn, were left holding the keys as the rising sun highlighted the orange accents of the beckoning electric sports car. Time to go for a ride!

The trio spent the morning together traveling the very roads for which the Tesla was designed. We suspect Martin’s grin only grew wider every time a slower-moving vehicle appeared in his cars sights, giving him yet another opportunity to experience the “never-ending torque” the Roadster delivers while overtaking. You can read all about Martin’s first day with his roadster at his blog, Tesla Founders Blog. Bookmark it, as he promises to update that space frequently now with more photos and Roadster observations.

[Source: Tesla Founders Blog via Tesla Motors Club]

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Original post by Domenick Yoney

Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Tesla Motors, USA

Well, after at least one false alarm last week, it now appears that Martin’s Roadster has been repaired. Of course, it is still impossible to say for sure, at least until we get an official update from either Tesla Motors or Martin himself, but a picture of what certainly appears to be Martin’s distinctive Roadster was supposedly taken just yesterday, Friday July 18, and uploaded directly from the iPhone it was taken on to Flickr by user marliemars. The car appears to be damage free, though only a single side-profile is available. In any case, it appears as if the ongoing saga of the protracted delivery of the second Tesla Roadster ever produced may soon come to an end. Martin, we’re sure you’ll love your new car. We are, of course, waiting anxiously to hear if you’ve gotten a delivery date yet, and even more so to hear about your first drive. Thanks for the tip, Joseph!

[Source: Tesla Motors Club Forum]

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Original post by Jeremy Korzeniewski

Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Solar, Tesla Motors, USA

Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria recently got some face-to-face time with Elon Musk, who, as you surely know by now, is one of the “product architects” at Tesla Motors. There were plenty of interesting quotes to come from the interview, but a few truly stood out from the rest. For instance, Musk slams plug-in hybrids pretty mercilessly while also claiming that the “a majority of all new cars produced in the United States, perhaps worldwide, will be electric. And I don’t mean hybrid. I mean pure electric,” within just thirty years. What’s more, Musk adds that one of his other start-up companies, SolarCity, has the solution to what he refers to as the “‘long tailpipe’ criticism,” where EV opponents point to the fact that much of the electricity in the U.S. comes from dirty sources such as coal. A small solar-panel setup of about 10 by 15 feet [is enough] to generate 200 to 400 miles a week of electricity for your car,” according to Musk. We can get behind the idea of charging our own electric cars for the week with our own solar array mounted atop the roof our our garage. Maybe in thirty years that won’t sound so far-fetched.

[Source: Newsweek]

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Original post by Jeremy Korzeniewski