In March 2015, the Solar Impulse took off from Abu Dhabi on a journey to fly around the world while using zero fuel. As a solar powered electric airplane, the Solar Impulse flies in the face of conventional wisdom, in that it flies long distances without burning liquid fuel. It…
Tesla Motors just released production figures for Q2 2016 — 18,345 vehicles for a 73,380/year annualized rate. This is the Tesla Model S and Model X, both of which target the luxury car market. The company also announced projected production rate increases for 2016, and that they should (knock on…
On Friday, the Solar Impulse 2 solar-electric airplane landed at JFK Airport in New York, completing the North America leg of its around-the-world journey. The Solar Impulse project, conceived by adventurer Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg, is seeking to fly around the world while consuming zero fuel. This “zero fuel…
Electric car charging resources are limited, meaning we all must do our best to share them effectively. It’s bad enough that gasoline car owners routinely block charging stations either from confusion/ignorance or from politically motivated spite. In some cases electric car owners block charging stations, maybe thinking they have a…
It’s clear that Toyota has for a couple years now downplayed battery electric cars in favor of Fuel Cell vehicles. Rather than stay invested in Tesla Motors, Toyota sold off their stake, they’ve buried the Toyota Prius Plug-in, did not produce any more of the Gen2 Toyota RAV4 EV, and have…
Today Tesla Motors released its Q1 2016 quarterly financial results. Those results were eclipsed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s statement that Tesla Motors is speeding up the production plans. Their new goal is to hit 500,000 vehicles/year production rate by 2018, a full two years ahead of previously announced plans. The…
Every day the trees wake up, watch the sunrise, and spread their leaves to capture the energy needed to live another day while storing excess energy away so the tree makes it through the winter. Trees, and other plants, have done this for millions of years. It is a natural…
With today’s victory in the New York Democratic primary, Hillary Clinton has reversed the momentum Bernie Sanders achieved with his recent string of wins. In her victory speech this evening Secretary Clinton essentially declared victory, and all but declared she will be the Democratic Party nominee. She called for Sanders supporters…
In late March, CharIN e.V. made the briefest of announcements that looks to make a huge impact on the electric car charging scene: “CharIN e. V. is happy to announce that Tesla Motors Inc. has been granted core membership in the association on 24th of February 2016.” This is important…
Recently a big-box retailer in Romania, Kaufland, announced it would build a network of 10 fast charging stations across Romania. I take this as a cool sign of progress with electric vehicle adoption. While Western Europe has taken to electric vehicles in a big way, especially Norway, Netherlands and Germany, Eastern Europe…
A few days ago a Tesla Model S crash in Germany, on the A93 between Abensberg and Siegenburg, gave the local (volunteer) fire crew a chance to practice emergency recovery of a crashed electric car. What’s nice for the rest of us is they posted a writeup along with detailed pictures…
As we move towards fully autonomous cars, many entrepreneurial types are chomping at the bit anxiously hoping to offer robotaxi services. The plans are wrapped in this “car sharing” ideology that we won’t have to own cars, that instead we’ll pay a monthly fee for access to cars. That could…
Today the Geek Squad and Toyota announced that Best Buy (the Geek Squad’s operators) is switching from their iconic VW Beetle’s over to Toyota Prius c’s. While this is great for Toyota and Prius sales, it strikes me that an interesting opportunity is being missed. There’s several companies offering services in…
This morning Islamic Extremists attacked Brussels, with suicide bomb attacks at the Brussels International Airport and in a Subway station near the European Union HQ. This is the latest in a series of attacks on targets in The West, and is probably not the last. It followed the attacks in…
In tonight’s Democratic Party Presidential Debate (hosted by CNN on March 6, 2016) we had another round of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders having a most interesting policy debate. Compare this to the Republican Party debates, the latest one had a long segment concerning penis sizes and manliness, and it’s…
