Last week Tesla Motors excited us by taking a big step toward the promised Gigafactory, that in turn is the necessary big thing to build to enable the Tesla Model 3 electric car. While many people in Nevada are excited to know the Gigafactory is coming to Reno, and it’s…
Is your electric car powered by coal? Routinely, electric cars are dismissed as being coal powered, and therefore the environmental fruitcake treehuggers flocking to electric cars are delusional. That critique is really saying electric cars externalize all the negative environmental harm over to a power plant. Is that true? If…
Back in 2010, Tesla Motors and Toyota surprised us all with a deal to jointly develop the 2nd Generation Toyota RAV4-EV. Toyota also sold Tesla a factory it wasn’t using, with which Tesla now plans to build a half million EV’s a year in 2020. The resulting vehicle is being…
Tesla Motors has chosen the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center to house the Gigafactory. While we’re excited at the fact that Tesla has made a bold concrete step forward with their plans, reiterating the goal of selling 500,000 electric cars a year by 2020, there’s a big question – the incentives package.…
The starting point of LongTailPipe is cars and the transportation system, looking at solutions to the transportation system’s negative environmental impact. We look at the full spectrum of impacts and solutions, even though we seem to focus on electric vehicles. That’s why the topic is sometimes fracking, and we’ll cover…
Are “we” doing too-little-too-late to fend off the crises caused by peak oil and climate change and the impacts both will have on the world economy, our food systems, and more? Looking at the level of resistance against clean energy technologies like electric vehicles, it’s easy for gloom and doom…
On Thursday, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval and Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk announced, as we revealed yesterday, that indeed the Reno Nevada area has been chosen as the Gigafactory location. As if to answer critics of the size of the incentive package, Gov. Sandoval stressed the job creation (over 22,000…
All the car companies are working on what’s called Intelligent Transportation Systems, that will lead to self-driving cars over the due course of time. Today, Toyota announced the fourth annual Toyota Advanced Safety Seminar (TASS), convened in Ann Arbor, Michigan ahead of the Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) World Congress next…
According to reports surfacing today, Tesla Motors has gone ahead and chosen Reno as the site of the Gigafactory. Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval is holding a press conference on Thursday to announce “a major economic development announcement” and according to the reports, a special legislative session has been called so…
Later this year Kia is due to launch sales of the Kia Soul EV in California. It’s thought production will be small at first, and with distribution only in California we might think this car is a Compliance Car – however, it’s also thought Kia will ramp up production and…
The Blink Network has gone to kilowatt-hour pricing, in states where it’s allowed. The electric car charging network, now owned by the CarCharging Group, says this move is being done to become more competitive, by adapting to changes in the market. Another change that will be greatly appreciated is a…
Last week at the Vetter Fuel Economy Challenge in Utah, Terry Hershner became the first electric motorcycle rider to win the challenge. With new modifications to his 2012 Zero S electric motorcycle, he easily finished the 172 mile route, at 2/3rds the cost of the closest finisher. In the fuel…
The US Dept of Energy is seeking information (RFI DE-FOA-0001145) on fuel cells to be used as a range extender in a battery EV. It’s important to remember that a fuel cell vehicle is an electric vehicle, but with a pathetically small battery pack, and all the energy comes…
Tesla Motors is still saying the Tesla Model 3 will go on sale in 2017, despite my prediction the date will slip. To make that date the company has to ramp up the gigafactory, and time is ticking. Since that’s the key, what’s the latest news? It’s been almost a…
I’m beginning to think the real future of electric vehicle charging has to switch to a filling station model. Today most public electric vehicle charging uses a parking lot model, because the typical charging rate (Level 2 AC at 6 kilowatts) gives 20-25 miles of range per hour of charging.…
