Today, in the first qualifying round for the 2015 TT ZERO, John McGuinness unofficially broke the TT ZERO lap record with a 118.056 miles/hr lap speed. He of course set the official lap record last year at about 117 miles/hr riding the 2015 Mugen Shinden electric motorcycle. Given that his…
Does Tesla Motors owe its existence to government subsidies? More than once the company was on the edge of bankruptcy, and kept afloat by infusions of capital, and of course their products (Model S) are sold in part because of government subsidies for electric cars. Recently a big news outlet…
Renewable energy sources like wind and solar are taking off in a big way, in the U.S.A. That’s not just a claim by a random meme picture on Facebook, the latest Federal Energy Regulatory Commission reports say so. According to the recently-released “Energy Infrastructure Update” report from the Federal Energy…
Over the next few days, the TT ZERO race will have several activities leading up to the TT ZERO race on Wednesday morning (Isle of Man time). Today they have a practice round, and a couple qualifying rounds are scheduled over the weekend. There’s also been some social media chatter the…
How is the highway system paid for? Car drivers need roads to drive on, or else those cars will be pretty looking pieces of art stuck in the driveway. While modern western countries today have extensive road and highway networks, unless the government highway administrations are funded those roads will eventually…
The 2015 TT ZERO electric motorcycle race is coming up — the electric companion race to all the gas bike racing during the famous Isle of Man Tourist Trophy week. A new face is having a go at the TT ZERO, Victory Motorcycles, a subsidiary of Polaris Industries. Polaris recently bought out…
Yesterday I posted a very long (nearly 10000 words) piece summarizing the TTXGP’s history. It took over 24 hours of effort to sift through all my old news reporting and pictures, to construct the summary. All that work for a dead electric motorcycle racing series may sound like I’ve lost my…
Back in 2009, three electric motorcycle racing events formed the basis of several years of electric motorcycle racing. I was privileged enough to attend two of the 2009 events, and form a relationship with the TTXGP series that let me attend several years of electric motorcycle racing events in North America…
Last week I had the chance to visit Hyundai’s North America headquarters as one of a gaggle of automotive press trying out the 2016 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid and 2016 Sonata Plug-in Hybrid cars. This is an important step for Hyundai, because until now they’d been touting their Tuscon Fuel Cell vehicle,…
Maybe the 2016 Leaf will (finally) come with two battery pack sizes – 24 kWh and 30 kWh? And maybe Nissan will be selling upgraded battery packs to owners of existing Leaf’s? But maybe the people on a certain MyNissanLeaf forum are just smoking crazy stuff? Over on a MyNissanLeaf…
This week Hyundai is holding a series of press/media events at which they’re unveiling the 2016 Hyundai Sonata Plug-in Hybrid. I’ll be in Los Angeles on Friday to see the car, and a few days after that will be posting my review. In the meantime let’s go over the press releases…
A couple days ago, an Amtrak train crashed in Philadelphia killing 8 people and injuring dozens more. While the NHTSA hasn’t finished its investigation, thus learning the root cause, it’s known the train was traveling at 106 miles/hr on a track segment with a 50 mile/hr speed limit. Therefore the immediate…
On Monday the Obama Administration, specifically the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, approved a plan by Shell Oil to begin exploratory drilling for oil and gas in the Chukchi Sea, off the north coast of Alaska, on the Outer Continental Shelf. It’s an area where the Bush43 Administration held a…
Today Tesla Motors released preliminary quarterly financial results figures through a shareholder letter (as is Tesla’s customary practice, a 10Q giving official figures will be published in a couple weeks). The good news is the manufacturing rate was 11,160 vehicles (10% better than guidance), averaging more than 1000 cars built per week,…
PlugShare just became extremely more useful. It was already the best smart phone app for locating electric car charging stations, not just in the U.S. because its data extends to Australia, Europe and other places. What’s new is Recargo has added a Trip Planner that’s pretty useful. What’s shown is trip…
