Electric Car Blogging

Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Green Daily

Let’s see. You’re a gas station owner who wants to get out of the petrol business and into something a little more eco-friendly. Electric cars, say. How do you mark the transition? For Milton Grin, owner of a Valero in Kansas City, Missouri, the answer was to attract attention to his new venture by selling his current product at discount prices - like .99 for a gallon of gas (diesel prices remained high). To take advantage of the media and customer attention his sale generated, Grin had three EVs on display at the pumps. To me, this is a pretty good way to highlight the difference between fueling at a pump and charging from a plug. You need gas? You gotta drive somewhere and wait in line. You need electricity, just plug it in. The gimmick worked, and the response was so huge that Grin had to stop the sale in the early evening because of the traffic swarm.

See news stories of the cheap gas sale here, here and here. Tipster Andrew (whose last name is also Grin, according to his Flickr profile) has also posted a collection of photos of the event over on Flickr. Thanks, Andrew.

[Source: KCTV5]

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Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Legislation and Policy, Zap, Green Daily

There has been a lot of noise in Kentucky recently as state elected officials work to bring a large electric car factory to the area. A month ago, Democrats and Republicans were fighting over just who could hold the earlier press conference with representatives from Zap. Then, two weeks ago, the governor issued an executive order to allow low-speed three wheelers like Zap’s Xebra on the roads. On Friday, officials from the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority gave the green light to offer a m tax credit package to Integrity Manufacturing of Bullitt County for an m plant that could be used by Zap to build electric vehicles. A final deal is expected this week, says the Courier-Journal, and Zap could employ anywhere between 500 and 2,500 workers in Kentucky (or maybe Indiana, if the Kentucky deal falls through) some time after the plant is up and running in late 2009.

[Source: Courier-Journal]

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Filed under: EV/Plug-in, On Two Wheels

We like the idea of electric bicycles and, apparently, the world does too. We’ve known that electric bicycles have become extremely popular in China but new numbers reveal they’re really starting to catch on in Western countries too. In America, for example, where we have rising fuel costs and an aging population, sales almost doubled to reach 10,000 in 2007. Though they say it’s partly because of an increased line-up, Amazon.com is reporting a whopping 6,000 percent increase this summer from a year ago.

In Europe, where bicycle culture has traditionally been pretty strong, demand for battery-powered rides is also on the rise. France matched America’s pace in 2007 with 10,000. And while sales in Germany reached 60,000 last year, they expect to double that number this year. As you might imagine, the Netherlands had no problem representin’ with 89,000 in 2007 and will likely reach 121,000 by the end of this year.

If you’re in the market for a new light-weight ride you’ll find a wide range of manufacturers out there with varying quality. The cheapest bikes use lead-acid batteries and you can pick them up for a few hundred bucks. Lithium ion batteries are finding their way into more bikes and, although they might be more expensive (from ,500 to ridiculous), they offer lighter weight and longer ranges. Happy trails.

[Source: Business Week]

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Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Hybrid, Mercedes Benz, SMART, Tesla Motors

It’s time to throw some ideas against the wall and see what sticks. Disclaimer: I have no inside knowledge to back up any of what follows. This is all pure speculation based on putting together some puzzle pieces that may or may not actually fit. Let’s begin with a few things that we do know:

Daimler and Tesla Motors have some sort of deal, but we have no knowledge about the details. This news came out of an interview that Tesla Chairman Elon Musk did with Fox Business News a couple of months ago. At the time I speculated that this could be either a deal to license some battery management technology to Daimler or for the Germans to supply the Smart engine to Tesla as a range extender for the Model S. We now know that the idea of an ER-EV Model S has been discarded which brings us back to the first idea.

Recently we’ve heard about a couple of different Daimler projects that involve batteries. One is the ML450 hybrid. Mercedes has a contract with Cobasys to supply nickel metal hydride batteries for the ML450. However, business problems at Cobasys have led Mercedes to file suit against the company. A Mercedes spokesman told ABG that the program is still on track but did not comment on whether a sourcing change would be made. Continue reading this twisted little tale after the jump.

Continue reading Some complete speculation on the Daimler-Tesla deal

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Filed under: Hybrids/Alternative, Green

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Where would you have rather been this weekend, checking out the classics during the Woodward Cruise or out in San Francisco looking on as 133 tiny Smart cars packed Lombard Street? Alternately, you maybe wanted to get in on the .99/gal deal that was used to promote electric cars in Missouri. So many good places to be.

• 133 Smarts pack San Francisco’s Lombard Street!
• Woodward 2008: Touring the NextCruise tents
• Woodward 2008: It’s not all gas guzzling muscle cars
• Human-powered “Dogsled” cycle shows up for Dream Cruise
• At Witz End - GM’s EV1, the True Story, part I
• Surprise: Segway loses to parked car in crash testing
• The trend continues: people want smaller cars, not compromises
• Selling cheap gas to promote electric cars?
• Zap one step closer to building electric car factory in Kentucky
• Some complete speculation on the Daimler-Tesla deal
• Toyota wants hybrids across the board, remains dubious of plug-ins
• Well, gas prices have dipped… did praying help?
• Toyota Highlander adds four cylinder option for 2009

More headlines after the break.

Continue reading AutoblogGreen for 08.18.08

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