Recently, a man named Ben Nelson put the finishing touches on his DIY electric motorcycle. His first electric vehicle project, Ben started by finding a motorcycle he liked with a blown engine and stripping it of all it’s old, gas-burning components. From there he did some research on electric vehicles, and was able to put together a great bike for a low price.
The bike certainly isn’t made for the race [...]
Editor’s note: This interview is a companion piece to Part I of the Gas 2.0 series about who might win John McCain’s proposed $300 million dollar battery competition if it were to become reality.
Last week John McCain, the presumptive presidential nominee for the 2008 Republican ticket, generated debate by suggesting that a $300 million government- sponsored competition would be a good way to spur development of next generation battery technologies.
His comments got me thinking about just who might win such a competition it if it were to become reality.
Firefly Energy is one of the companies that made it to my short list. Founded in 2003, they have been working on reinvigorating old-hat lead-acid battery technology in such a way that it would become brand new and cutting edge once again.
Firefly’s innovation is that they’ve taken the heavy lead plates you’d find in a classic lead-acid battery and replaced them with a light carbon-graphite microcell foam that’s been impregnated with lead.
I recently had a chance chat with Mil Ovan, Senior Vice President and Co-founder of Firefly, about the company, their take on McCain’s competition, Firefly’s battery technology, environmental worries about lead, the Oasis battery, electric vehicles and the company’s plans for the future.
There are lots of reason to want to live in Japan, but being able to lease the new Toyota Fuel-Cell Hybrid sometime this year is now high on my list. Later in 2008, Toyota will release their new FCHV-adv model, which reportedly has a maximum cruising range is 516 miles (compared with 205 miles for Toyota’s previous fuel cell vehicle). This [...]
In San Francisco last week I happened to bump into a Tesla Roadster outside SF Green. The pictures are below, but I also wanted to highlight something Daryl Siry, VP of sales marketing and service for Tesla Motors said during the event.
Daryl commented that yes, $100K is a lot to pay for an electric car (he also mentioned the new Whitestar sedan would be around $70k), but he reiterated how expensive the technology is for small companies.
The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Nissan plans to sell electric cars in the US in 2010. Nissan’s chief executive, Carlos Ghosn, said the company was motivated to accelerate the development of battery-powered vehicles by high gas prices and environmental concerns. Nissan expects to expand to a globally-marketed fleet of 60 electric vehicles by 2012.
John O’Dell, senior editor of GreenCarAdvisor.com, noted that this was a major announcement for the auto industry: “Nissan is upping the ante tremendously. They are the first to put it on the line and say we’re going to have an all-electric vehicle for a certain market by a certain date.”
Electric and hybrid electric car manufacturer Aptera has been turning heads since the first announced their space-age looking Typ1 prototype. The sub $30,000 electric version of the Typ1 has a range of 120 miles and is expected to be ready for limited release later this year.
Take a look at the latest video from Aptera, a guided tour of their factory:
You can also see pictures of the facility here.
Related [...]
It had to happen, just when we were beginning to think that plug-in hybrid and electric cars were the best things since sliced bread, someone has intimated that there may be a health risk involved in driving those vehicles.You remember, the power line scare back in the ’70’s (which really hasn’t gone away) and of course the more recent flap about cell phones emitting dangerous electromagnetic fields to the brain. In case you want to read more on these issues, a specific Google entry should suffice.Now, before you go somewhere else, hang on, there’s more to this electromagnetic field issue than you may think. That’s coming up, along with a short tip of the hat to the man who got us started on our way to the world we live in.
Recently, I discussed the interaction between clean energy and the future of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). The study cited makes it clear that unless we clean up power production, there isn’t much point in moving to PHEVs from regular, old hybrids (HEVs).
Interestingly enough, MIT has just come out with a new study, profiled by Green Car Congress, which studies all sorts of vehicle options and how each vehicle will perform in well-to-wheel greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions. This study was done particularly on HEVs, PHEVs, battery electric vehicles (BEVs), and fuel-cell vehicles (FCVs). The MIT researchers came to the conclusion that ultimately, electric propulsion in automobiles could eliminate our dependence on petroleum, which to me sounds like an exciting prospect, regardless of GHG emissions.
As reported by the New York Times yesterday, the two leading manufacturers of electric cars in the US are involved in a serious quarrel over alleged theft of vehicle design and trade secrets.
Tesla Motors, who recently began production of their electric Roadster, claims that Henrik Fisker took on an $875,000 design contract with Tesla in order to access confidential design information. After producing “inferior work,” Fisker launched his own company, Fisker Automotive, and released an $80,000 competing vehicle—the Fisker Karma—less than a year later.
Yesterday, according to Jalopnik, a reporter leaked out the first video of the Chevy Volt electric car. While GM is keeping their work under pretty tight lock and key, the excitement is tangible—even though the car won’t be officially released for another 2 years (2010)!
Check out the video (click on the image to go [...]
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