Overnight Terry Hershner and Bun Bun ran into a couple delays – an accident on I-10 that blocked the road for a few hours, and then strong headwinds that increased energy usage. Even with that improved aerodynamic fairing, riding directly into a headwind still takes up a lot of energy. …
Terry Hershner’s modified Zero S, in Craig Vetter’s shop Terry Hershner has taken a 2012 Zero S – the same one which Jeremiah Johnson rode in the 2012 TTXGP World Final at Daytona Beach (see the video at the end of an article I wrote on him) – and modified…
Road & Track Magazine has named the Fiat 500e the “Best Electric Car of 2013.” Which begs the question of why is Fiat making such a good electric car, but building it in such limited quantities? “It is deeply satisfying that Road & Track editors are so taken with the…
In part what will drive electric vehicle adoption is the fact that electricity is a cheaper fuel than gasoline – so long as electricity rates stay about what they are today. But the price premium for today’s electric vehicles over equivalent gasoline powered vehicles make it hard to recognize the…
Brammo, whom we know mostly for ultra-fast electric motorcycle prototypes, and reasonably fast electric street bikes, is also looking to build an electric sports car for plus-sized people. Ahem, like Brammo CEO Craig Bramscher. If Tesla Motors’ product plans seem eerily like the personal needs of CEO Elon Musk (first…
Should Ethanol or Fossil Oil be the fuel driving America’s cars and trucks? To me that’s a nonsensical question because the answer is “electricity” and the question doesn’t even ask about that fuel. However, a report on NPR’s All Things Considered yesterday talked about “Two large industries — agriculture and…
Audi A3 e-tron electric car Audi has had on-again-off-again plans for electric vehicles. They also, like parent company Volkswagen, really like turbo-charged diesel (TDI) engines. Both Audi and VW claim that TDI diesel engines produce dramatically less emissions than regular diesel. Given that traditional Diesel engines produce the larger particulate…
Arthur Kowitz just posted an announcement in the Electric Racing group on Facebook (which I manage) titled – “Announcing a New eMotoRoadRacing Series in the USA!“. The announcement is basically that AHRMA will host an electric motorcycle racing series starting in 2014. For the first year it’s an exhibition series,…
Yesterday another Tesla Model S fire occurred on the heels of Tesla Motors’ Q3 2013 financial results which had disappointed Wall Street who sent the stock down 14% on Wednesday. News of the Model S fire came too late in the day to affect the stock on Wednesday, so it’s…
A couple weeks ago another Tesla Model S burned, this time following a wreck in Mexico. Some jumped to the conclusion that this proves electric cars are dangerous after all. Instead, the accident actually demonstrates how safe the Model S is, and that the driver of that car put it…
The 2014 Zero SR Zero’s first race-ready electric motorcycleIn the Laguna Seca corkscrew Zero Motorcycles has ditched their dirt bike roots, and added a race ready version of the Zero S. While this is exciting for electric motorcycle racing fans, it means electric dirt bike fans might be disappointed. Or…
2013 Ford C-MAX Energi Ford today released some sales figures for the Ford C-MAX Energi and Ford Fusion Energi demonstrating that their plan to win market share from Toyota and Honda, in California, is beginning to work. Taken together, Ford’s two Plug-in Hybrid’s have 34% market-share, beating both the Toyota…
Jalopnik, a so-called “automotive news” website (so far as I can tell, they rely on luridness rather than journalism) just posted a “10 worst electric cars of all time” list, placing the Coda electric sedan at the #10 spot. Really? I think they missed on some real gems they put…
(the actual video is below) Why have Conservatives in America fought so hard against electrified vehicles? This is puzzling since electric and plug-in hybrid cars are in huge alignment with lots of Conservative Values. EV’s mean less fossil oil consumption, which means sending less money out of the country, which…
Recently, Tesla Motors appointed Doug Field as a Vice President to lead development of new vehicles. Their press release presented him as an employee of Apple Computers, having led development of their computers. This makes us think of him as a consumer electronics guy, and this points to Tesla’s product…
