Green Options

Leo Motors, a parts supply company with its roots in Korea, has an outspoken CEO with an interesting eye for the future and a grasp of where we’ve come from. For instance, after speaking with him it became apparent that Dr. Robert Kang has come to the conclusion that most of the electric vehicle technology we see today is based on technology developed for electric toys combining a simple motor, battery and ampere controller.

I don’t know if this is a fully accurate representation of electric car design, but it’s certainly true that electric cars are relatively simple systems.

Canadian province Ontario is to introduce green-coloured licence plates, available only to drivers of plug-in hybrids and battery-powered electric vehicles.

Sounds like another gimmick? Well, here’s the deal - vehicles sporting the new green plates will be able to drive in the province’s dedicated carpool lanes until 2015, even if only one person is in the vehicle.

Speaking about the initiative, Transportation Minister Jim Bradley said, “The McGuinty government’s plan is to have one out of every 20 passenger vehicles on Ontario’s roads an electric vehicle by 2020.”

Ford Motor Company and Azure Dynamics have teamed up to introduce a battery electric commercial van called the Transit Connect. The electric van will be available in America and Canada beginning in 2010 and is the first vehicle to be produced as part of Ford’s accelerated electric vehicle strategy. Azure will integrate its Force Drive battery electric drive train into the van and Johnson Control-Saft has been selected as the lithium ion battery cells and battery packs supplier. The Transit Connect van is being marketed for fleet and retail use.

What Ford has not brought to market is their Ford Escape Flex-Fuel Hybrid which they have been working on for close to a decade. I actually drove one in a car rally in upstate New York two years ago (it was a great car) but the company discontinued its work claiming that there was no demand. How quickly times change.

A US-built Tesla Roadster has broken the world record for the distance travelled by an electric production car on a single charge.

While competing in the Global Green Challenge, Australian Simon Hackett and co-driver Emilis Prelgauskas drove an incredible 313 miles before the batteries finally died in their Roadster.

Until now, the record has been held by another Tesla Roadster, after completing a 241 mile road rally on one charge.

Cops based near Oxford in the UK have revealed that they are unable to to use flashing blue lights on their new electric car - in case it drains too much power from the battery.

The Thames Valley police force is testing out the £20,000 ($33,000) Mitsubishi iMiev in an effort to improve its environmental credentials. Apart from this quite obvious setback, they have been pleased with the silent, emission-free car, capable of travelling 100 miles on a single charge (with the lights off).

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) along with the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) is looking to fund $2 million dollars in coal research as part of the University Coal Research (UCR) Program. The research projects will be an attempt to improve the “fundamental understanding of the chemical and physical processes that govern coal conservation and utilization, by product utilization, and technological development.”

From an Administration that is attempting to reduce America’s dependence on oil through greenhouse gas emissions reductions, this is one of the—excuse me—stupidest ideas our country has had… at least for today. Look people, coal is NOT clean, even though the coal industry wants you to believe it is. As a matter of fact, Americans for Balanced Energy Choices, a front group for the coal and utility industries, is currently running a ‘clean coal” campaign in excess of $35 million according to a Washington Post article from last year.

Legendary Italian carmaker, Pininfarina, may yet have some surprises up its sleeves. Even with recent financial difficulties, Pininfarina’s CEO, Silvio Pietro Angori, told Italian newspaper, Il Sole 24, that the company’s Bluecar electric car venture with french investor Vincent Bollore is not simply a concept car and still on track for a 2011 market debut.

One might be surprised that the EV dates all the way back to the 1800s. In fact, in its heyday, there were 4,192 cars made in the U.S. and 28-percent of them were electric! Here are some defining moments from New York City’s first fleet of electric taxis to setting the very first land speed record.

Carriage Built in 1830s Uses Non-Rechargeable Batteries

Robert Anderson built a crude electric carriage in the [...]

Less than a week after switchable EV battery pioneer Better Place announced a newly expanded agreement with French car maker Renault, the company’s founder and CEO, Shai Agassi appeared as a guest on Comedy Central’s Colbert Report in hopes of getting that sought-after ‘Colbert Bump’.

The Colbert Bump, as it is known, is a phenomenon wherein people (places, companies, ideas) that appear on the Colbert Report receive a sudden boost in popularity for their cause.

The deal announced by Agassi in Frankfurt builds on an agreement reached between the two companies in August and will be to install the Better Place battery system (and build-out the charging network) for the Renault Fluence ZE for sale in Israel and Denmark. The Fluence ZE was one of four models in Renault’s new line of electric cars unveiled last week at the Frankfurt Auto Show.

Exciting new pictures of a hotly anticipated Audi electric car concept have been leaked, a week before the ‘official’ unveiling at the Frankfurt Motorshow.

The car will apparently be called the ‘e-Tron,’ and as you can see from the pictures, will take a lot of its design cues from the R8, but with a different front grille, LED headlights, wheels and rear end. Inside, the cabin is also quite different, featuring a driver-biased center console with two screens; one for the rear view camera and one showing a navigation map (see picture gallery after the jump).

-Above: the Nissan “Leaf” Electric Vehicle (learn more on the Nissan/eTEC partnership).

With $99.8 million from the Federal Government, ECOtality is on a mission to make America plug-in ready.

There’s been a tremendous flurry of activity in recent weeks with President Obama’s announcement of $2.4 billion in grants to accelerate the manufacturing and deployment of the next generation of U.S. batteries and electric vehicles. We at ECOtality and our subsidiary Electric Transportation Engineering Corporation (eTec) are thrilled to be a part of that activity as the recipients of $99.8 million grant for the largest electrification transportation project in history.

Our history in electric transportation dates back to 1989 and we have worked on every EV initiative in North America since then. Today, through our grant from the federal government, we’re embarking on an exciting project to truly make America plug-in ready: we are partnering with Nissan to deploy 5,000 zero-emission battery electric vehicles and 12,750 charging stations in five markets across the United States.