Green Options

According to a report from Autocar UK, Renault and Mercedes are teaming up to design a new, modular small car platform that will form the basis for a new Smart Car, a new Renault City car and the upcoming Renault Twizy EV. In addition, the two companies are jointly developing new engine platforms to power these vehicles—well, the gas versions anyway.

Due to the fact that our current energy grid is roughly 51% coal-powered, electric cars and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) have taken some heat as being more polluting than their manufacturers claim, and as we get closer to the release of actual mass-market electric cars, the debate seems to get more intense. Although studies have shown that electric cars and PHEVs are cleaner than pure gas cars even when run off of mostly coal power, the debate still goes on—ad nauseum.

But from my perspective, that debate is a completely irrelevant smokescreen.

Top Gear is one of my all-time favorite shows. It never ceases to provide laughs and good entertainment while simultaneously managing to actually deliver useful content as well. My only gripe with it is that here in the States, we are always at least one season behind. So, while season 14 starts up on BBC in Britain, we’ll be lucky if we see the start of season 13 by February on BBC America.

That lag especially sucks right now because in episode two of season 14, which just aired in Europe, the Top Gear crew has built themselves a “car to save the world”—the Hammerhead Eagle i-Thrust. Due to the fact that BBC in Britain restricts video viewing from their website to Europeans, I can only bring you a mish mash of bits and pieces of the episode from youtube… but even without the full episode, there are plenty of laughs to be had.

Cheers and enjoy.

The all-electric Mitsubishi i-MiEV isn’t set to hit U.S. shores for another 18 months, but already the company is considering selling a gas version of the car alongside its battery-powered sibling in the U.S. to compete in the same segment as the Smart Car.

Editor’s Note: This is part four of an exclusive sit down I had with Hideaki Watanabe, Nissan’s Division Manager of their Global Zero Emission Business Unit, at last week’s U.S. debut of the LEAF in Los Angeles. Part one is devoted to battery swapping, part two to battery leasing, and part three to the quietness and safety of EVs.

During the Frankfurt Motor Show in September, Renault invited Gas 2.0’s own UK-based Chris Milton to an exclusive event detailing the company’s electric car strategy. The event introduced some rather quirky (and quirkily named) electric cars, including the Twizy, the Kangoo, and the Zoe. These aren’t just concept cars, they are cars that Renault intends to build and sell—some by next year.

Based on those releases—and the fact that Nissan hasn’t invested anything in battery swapping while Renault has jumped in head first—it started to seem that the Renault-Nissan Alliance was taking two completely different paths on the road to EV world domination. On the one hand you have Nissan with the rather mainstream-looking LEAF and plans for a luxury Infiniti electric car. And on the other you have… the Twizy.

In my recent sit down with Hideaki Watanabe, Nissan’s Division Manager of their Global Zero Emission Business Unit, I asked him to explain why Nissan and Renault were apparently moving in opposite directions.

Editor’s Note: This is part three of an exclusive sit down I had with Hideaki Watanabe, Nissan’s Division Manager of their Global Zero Emission Business Unit, at last week’s U.S. debut of the LEAF in Los Angeles. Part one is devoted to battery swapping, part two to battery leasing, and part four to the different zero emissions directions of Renault and Nissan within their alliance.

Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn made it a point to highlight how quiet the upcoming Nissan LEAF electric car will be during an event in Los Angeles last week to mark the car’s U.S. debut. “LEAF has no engine, no tailpipe, no fuel tanks,” he remarked. “As a result LEAF has zero carbon emissions, zero particle [emissions] and zero noise. It’s quiet and clean.”

The gathering crowd of electric car makers has been drumming this “quiet mantra” since day one, and, indeed, it is certainly a great selling point. But recently the quietness of EVs has come under scrutiny as a potential safety hazard to the blind, the elderly, and children; if you can’t hear the car, it’s one less warning you have of an impending accident.

Update 11/19/2009, 9:00 AM Pacific Time: According to Th!nk’s Twitter feed, Indiana has not been officially chosen, saying “We’re moving toward completing our US site selection — but it will take another week or two to finalize the location. Stay tuned…” Apparently other states, such as Oregon, are still in the running. Whether this is a genius marketing ploy to increase interest, or simply a misstep by Ener1, we’ll have to wait and see.

Norwegian electric car maker, Th!nk, has seen some rough financial patches as of late—having gone through a bankruptcy and restructuring—but they seem to be clawing their way back to relevance these days. With a long wait list and more demand for the Th!nk City than they can meet in Europe, think has once again turned their eyes on the U.S. market.

Editor’s Note: This is part two of an exclusive sit down I had with Hideaki Watanabe, Nissan’s Division Manager of their Global Zero Emission Business Unit, at last week’s U.S. debut of the LEAF in Los Angeles. Part one is devoted to battery swapping, part three to the quietness and safety of EVs, and part four to the different zero emissions directions of Renault and Nissan within their alliance.

As the Nissan LEAF nears its release to the consumer market, the topic of whether or not the battery will be leased or purchased with the car has come to the forefront. In many ways, Nissan has had an on-again, off-again relationship with the topic—leading to confusion among the media and potential customers about what, exactly, Nissan is planning.

In truth, Nissan hasn’t done the best job of presenting a clear picture of the topic. So I was surprised when, at last week’s U.S. LEAF unveiling, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn made the most definitive statement I’d heard on the subject to date: “The battery will not be sold, it will be leased, and the lease will be calculated in such a way that for the average U.S. citizen—which today drives between twelve thousand and fifteen thousand miles per year—the cost of the lease of the battery plus the cost of electricity is lower than the cost of gasoline.”

As expected, many in the media latched on to this statement as the final say on whether or not the LEAF battery will be leased, but based on Nissan’s past experience with this topic, I had a hunch that wasn’t really the full story. So I asked Hideaki Watanabe, Nissan’s Division Manager of their Global Zero Emission Business Unit, to elaborate.

Editor’s Note: This is part one of an exclusive sit down I had with Hideaki Watanabe, Nissan’s Division Manager of their Global Zero Emission Business Unit, at last week’s U.S. debut of the LEAF in Los Angeles. Part two is devoted battery leasing, part three to the quietness and safety of EVs, and part four to the different zero emissions directions of Renault and Nissan within their alliance.

The Renault-Nissan Alliance’s strategy regarding battery swapping has been somewhat unclear to the public as of late. On the one hand, Renault has partnered with battery swapping stars Better Place in such countries as Israel, Denmark and France to develop a purpose built car for those battery swapping markets. On the other hand, Nissan has ignored many other potential battery swapping markets, such as the U.S., and has remained quite non-committal in those areas.

In a rather open conversation with me, Hideaki Watanabe, Nissan’s Division Manager of the Global Zero Emission Business Unit, explained why.

Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn making remarks at the US unveiling of the Nissan LEAF.
(Photo: Nick Chambers)

Back on the campaign trail last year, President Obama set a goal of having 1 million plug-in hybrid and electric cars on US roads by 2015. Since the campaign promise, the Obama administration has made available billions of dollars for the development of plug-in hybrids, electric cars, and smart energy grids—mostly for the ultimate goal of actually reaching 1 million plug-ins on the road by 2015.

Last Friday, at the Los Angeles unveiling of the upcoming Nissan LEAF electric car, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn indicated that the president’s goal of 1 million electric cars was quite obtainable, in fact he said that number will be easily surpassed.