Green Options

New insight into the potential market demand for pure electric cars is forcing Mitsubishi’s President, Osamu Masuko, to accelerate the production timeline for the company’s all electric iMiEV. The company is now targeting 50% more sales by 2011 than originally expected.

With one of Nissan’s senior EV project engineers sitting next to me, it felt like I was being expectantly doted on by a protective parent as I drove Nissan’s EV-02 electric test car around a closed course Monday. Given that the EV-02 is only one of two such cars in the world, the reaction was perhaps understandably warranted.

Earlier in the day Nissan had held a joint press conference with Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski, Portland Mayor Sam Adams, and representatives from Portland General Electric, to further affirm Oregon’s burgeoning relationship with Nissan to be one of the first and premier locations for the company’s late 2010 electric car launch.

Beginning this summer, a small EV from Mitsubishi will be available on the market in Japan. The i MiEV will be the first mass scale EV production car available from any major auto manufacturer. Although a seemingly unlikely coup, Mitsubishi has been quietly putting great effort into EV development for many years.

Mitsubishi has broken its own photovoltaic cell efficiency record in a seeming attempt to ensure domination over the solar energy industry. The company has improved the conversion efficiency rate of its PV cells to 18.9 percent— only a slight increase from the previous record of 18.6 percent.

Nine finalists in the Design LA Motorsports 2025 Design Challenge are set to revolutionize the auto sports world of the future. The Mazda Kaan (above) is kept company by designs from GM, Honda, Audi, BMW, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Mitsubishi and Toyota. The designs are drawn with a future of greener technologies in [...]

So, finally we complete the trifecta. Chrysler says they need $7 billion in loans to stay afloat through 2009 and have pointed to the example of their ENVI design unit in leading the turnaround with the introduction of many new Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEV), City Electric Vehicles (CEV), Range-extended Electric Vehicles (ReEV), and full-function battery electric vehicles (BEV) by 2012.

As the second of the Big Three to come wagging their tails between their legs to the US Congress, General Motors is asking for a total of $18 billion dollars to avoid imminent bankruptcy. The only problem: nobody gave them the electric car memo.

Unlike Ford, which in their tail wagging earlier today made a huge shift to focusing on electric car development, GM chose to focus their restructuring plan on the fact that they have a large number of fuel efficient vehicles (defined as 30+ mpg on the highway) already on the road. Plus, they say that by 2012 more than half of their cars will be flex-fuel capable.

As the dust settles out from the 2008 LA Auto Show, Nissan has clearly emerged as the car company to beat in our transportation future.

From a green perspective, even though the Mini E is getting the most hype, the Mitsubishi i MiEV is one hell of a fun car to drive, and the Honda FCX Clarity is cutting edge, those are just cars. The true measure of a car company lies in its strategies, and, after Nissan’s recent media blitz, the company has shown that there is not a single other auto manufacturer out there who “just gets it” like they do.

After my test drive of the Mitsubishi i MiEV at the 2008 LA Auto Show yesterday, I walked away with the distinct feeling that Mistubishi has designed a sporty, relatively spacious, and well-thought-out winner of an electric car.

Mitsubishi is currently testing the i MiEV in California in collaboration with Southern California Edison. Additionally, according to Mitsubishi executive, David Patterson, the company is in negotiations to partner with Oregon after Nissan announced its new electric car partnership with the state on Wednesday. I guess everybody wants to get in on the Oregon action.

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., Japan’s largest bank, will inject 900 billion yen ($8.4 billion) into Morgan Stanley to help it transition to a bank holding company. Goldman Sach’s strategy is slightly different albeit with the same ultimate objective i.e. to become a commercial bank. According to Bloomberg, Goldman already has in excess of $20 billion in customer deposits in two subsidiaries and is creating a new one, GS Bank USA, that will have more than $150 billion of assets, [...]

Last week, Mitsubishi Gas Chemical exhibited a fuel cell-based power supply unit that is small enough to be used in an electric wheelchair. The microwave oven-sized unit, which weighs 22 kg, has an output of 300W and can run for eight hours with a 4-liter fuel tank. Hitachi exhibited a similar power supply unit in July, but it only had an output of 100W with a running time of 2.5 hours.