The Renault ZOE could be a game changing electric car thanks to a low price and fast charging system. Ahead of launching sales of the Renault ZOE all electric car in March, the company released a full write-up on Tuesday. The write-up gives more details on what may be a…
What’s billed as a revolution in urban traffic is being unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show by Rinspeed between March 7 through 17th, 2013. The company has developed the microMAX, an ingenious commuter vehicle which merges personal and public transportation in very clever fashion. It is not just a transportation…
Today 350.org organized a series of rallies in Washington D.C. and other U.S. Cities like San Francisco to protest the Keystone XL pipeline. This project has been in the making for a long time, the Keystone XL will (if built) be responsible for carrying oil from Alberta Tar Sands to…
Lord knows, EV drivers have a low opinion of ECOtality’s Blink electric car charging network already, but last week a news item circulated that the J1772 charging connectors on Blink chargers are overheating when used by electric cars with 6.6 kilowatt on-board chargers. The named cars were the Toyota RAV4…
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) believes that a single cell failure, a short circuit in one cell, on board the Boeing 787 Dreamliner airplanes is the culprit in the battery pack fires that have grounded those airplanes. The problem began occurring about a month ago, several planes had fires…
Project Better Place is turning out to be not-so-great a place to be, unless you’re working in the Israeli or Denmark operations. On Wednesday (today) Feb 6, 2012, the company announced that in order to better focus on the Israel and Denmark operations, they would stop all work on projects…
Every year zillions of gallons of fossil fuel on idling work trucks, where an electrified work truck would prevent that fuel from being burned. My home Internet connection is down, and hopefully the AT&T truck shown here is operated by the technician who will fix things. Watching his truck in…
We’ve been patiently, or not so patiently, waiting for Tesla Motors to announce Q4 2012 sales figures. A lot is riding on those sales figures (see Tesla Motors will either fly high or crash in 2013 depending on Model S sales) in that the fate of Tesla Motors hangs in the…
States and governments around the world are looking to increase the number of electric vehicles on the road, and one strategy is to offer grants to support EV charging station installation. Having more charging stations available for the public the more likely will prospective electric car owners to feel secure…
On Tuesday (Jan 8, 2013) Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell (a.k.a. “Governor Ultrasound”) proposed to eliminate the gasoline tax, raise sales taxes, raise some other taxes, in an effort to shore up Virginia’s transportation budget. In part the causative factor is the rise of fuel efficient hybrid and electric vehicles, and…
Barry Stevens saw one of my news articles, 60 kWh Tesla Model S rated at 208 mile electric driving range by EPA, and decided to extrapolate cost of ownership figures he claims shows electric cars do not currently save money and perhaps make no financial sense. In my article I talked…
Who pays for the highway system? In the U.S. the roads are paid for, primarily, by gasoline taxes, but that’s by no means the pattern around the world for highway transportation funds. Electric vehicles do not consume gasoline, so therefore electric vehicle owners aren’t paying into the funding of the…
Several good milestones were reached in the world of Tesla Motors. The first expansion of the Supercharger network began with construction of stations on the East Coast. That’s a good milestone, however the company seems to be behind original projections for the network in California. That the lawsuit from the…
Some recent news about Renault and Better Place Australia is reinforcing my kooky theory that Renault is distancing itself from Better Place. Specifically, several news reports are circulating that Renault is indefinitely delaying the Australian launch of the Fluence Z.E. sedan. Why? Better Place has yet to build the required…
The on-again-off-again Audi R8 e-tron project may be back on again, if the Audi enthusiast website fortitude.com is to be believed. The e-tron concept was first unveiled at the September 2009 Frankfurt Auto Show, but has undergone several revisions since. At that time it was a “true quattro” with four…
