It could be the quickest vehicles to go from concept to a public, drivable prototype in automotive history. As previewed, "Israelis got a first demonstration Sunday of the electric car that developers hope will revolutionize transportation in the country and serve as a pilot for the rest of the world," began the report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
A parking lot in Tel Aviv hosted the demonstration of the Project Better Place/Renault collaboration. Acceleration was said to be impressive and the silent drive familiar to proponents of electric vehicles was noted in the silver, normal looking sedan. The car is expected to have a range of 125 miles, more than sufficient for most drivers in a nation that's no more than 60 miles wide and 260 long. Haaretz reports that several hundred cars will begin appearing on Israel roads in 2009, with sales to begin in late 2010.
We have heard some interesting claims about upcoming electric vehicles before but 175 mph for the Volta G/T (pictured above) definitely raises some eyebrows. While being interviewed by CBS4 at his offices in Boulder, CO, we heard Electric Vehicle Company (EVC) president Bill Kent state that, "Performance wise, this bike will do zero to 50 in about 4.5 seconds". Ok, that's pretty quick and, for all we know, it's entirely possible. He then went on to say, "In the series you have top ends that range from about 120 to 175 miles per hour." Whoa! Now that's fast! But is it true?
According to the specs listed (PDF) on the EVC website, the fastest bike in their 3 deep line-up is the EVC-21. The top speed listed for this lithium ion battery powered machine is 110 mph which is still pretty fast considering the Vectrix is "only" capable of a humble 62 mph. It could be that the information at the website is outdated or that possibly Mr. Kent misspoke. CBS reporter Dave Aguilera did take the bike for a ride but as he was not on a track (or wearing a helmet), we don't think he had the chance to wind it out. According to the report, six bike models will be available this summer with prices starting at $8,000. We look forward to news of the official launch and more details.
In April, the Electric Drive Transportation Association (EDTA) started targeting 580,000 movers and shakers in the Washington, D.C. area who listen to WTOP, 103.5 FM with a series of ads called "The Electric Drive." You can now listen to the EDTA's ads online to see how this major partnership is trying to explain electric drive to the masses. Brian Wynne, the EDTA president, wrote in an email that the radio campaign and the EDTA's Earth Day Congressional briefing were quite effective in getting the word out. Wynne described the hearing as "standing-room only" and that one of the specific goals of the EDTA Policy Committee is to build support for a plug-in vehicle tax credit this year. EDTA is also working with lawmakers to ensure that the Department of Energy will continue to fund electric drive research and development in FY09. Promoting EVs and hybrids and PHEVs has got to be something of an easy sell in a time of $120+ barrels of oil, but it still takes a good amount of effort to make people understand how electric cars will/might change our future. I mean, Toyota reps still have to reassure people that you don't need to plug in a Prius. Read Wynne's full email after the jump.
One of the launching points for Shai Agassi's Project Better Place is in Israel and it looks like the first tangible progress might be demonstrated this weekend. The CEO of PBP is planning to drive a prototype electric car that is being developed at around noon on Sunday at the Fairgrounds and Conference Center in Tel Aviv Israel. Agassi will apparently provide an update on the status of the project to develop both electric cars and a charging infrastructure. Israel is just one of a number of countries to express interest in the program. According to Israeli President Shimon Peres, the hope is to have electric vehicles on the road in Israel by 2010. If any readers happen to be in Tel Aviv on Sunday and catch this send us a report.
Even though GM has said it will wait until late 2008 to name the battery supplier for the Chevy Volt, Continental CEO Manfred Wennemer told Reuters on Thursday that he believes his company has a "good chance" of winning the fight with LG Chem / CPI. Of course, it's no surprise that a CEO would talk up his company's chances, but winning the Volt contract will be a huge coup to whoever wins it. Wennemer said that not winning won't kill the company, but "it would be very, very important for us to be the one," he said. Winning the Volt deal would see Conti build a production plant in the U.S., Wennemer said. Since both Continental and CPI packs seem to be doing fine in the testing lab, there is probably a lot of number crunching and haggling going on behind closed doors to figure out which supplier can deliver the right packs to GM for the right cost.
Not all electric conversions are small Geo Metros, Volkswagens or Porsches. For sale on the San Francisco Bay Area Craigslist, here, is an eVolvo. It's a converted 1995 Volvo 850 sedan. It's got new batteries and new low rolling resistance tires. The seller claims a range of about 40 miles with 15 kWh of lead acid batteries. Asking price is $14,000. Searching through the EVAlbum database, a useful resource with over 1,500 electric vehicles listed by their owners, one only finds three Volvo conversions in the U.S., including, I believe, this car listed by its previous owner in Seattle.
For Volvo fans awaiting the ReCharge plug-in hybrid, we've previously reported about, this could get you into an electron-driven Swede today.
Ecotricity founder Dale Vince is a guy with a dilemma we here at AutoblogGreen can empathize with. He's very environmentally aware yet he really likes fast cars. His solution? Build an electric sports car. Luckily, he's got wads of cash (and previous connections with Lotus) to make this sort of dream come true and, according to a post on his zerocarbonista blog, construction is already under way.
An Exige, judging by the rendition on his blog (picture above), is probably the donor chassis for this project and is currently lying in pieces in Norfolk, presumably at the Lotus shop there. No word on whether the new hybrid and electric car group within Lotus Engineering is involved with the undertaking but it seems rather likely. Of course we are familiar with another existing electric sports car with some Lotus DNA that Vince could have put his name on a list for but the required waiting time is probably too long for a guy so committed to green he only drove about 3,000 miles last year. Of course, if those miles were traveled in the Mercedes which appears with him in his explanatory video (after the jump) than that would be like 100,000 Prius miles.
UQM Technologies has announced a new 125kW permanent magnet electric motor system. The motor system is developed specifically designed for automotive applications. The 125kW rating is the peak power output while continuous power output is 60kW. The 11 inch diameter motor has a peak torque production of 221lb-ft with a continuous 118lb-ft rating. UQM developed the motor for use in subcompact cars with electric drive. The packaging has been optimized for those cars that can't fit the UQM's existing 150kW motor while still providing good performance. The new motor only weighs 90lbs. UQM was originally tapped to be the motor supplier Phoenix Motor Cars SUT and SUV. In the second half of 2007, Phoenix decided to re-engineer their vehicles and switched from a rear to front wheel drive configuration with a different motor supplier. So far we're not aware of any manufacturers that have selected UQM for a production EV application.
Whether contemplating the possibility of a Lexus Prius or dreaming up a Prius convertible, people sure do like to tinker with Toyota's halo car. Of course, for many, the reason to mess with the hybrid is to squeeze more miles per gallon out of the car.
According to CBS Chicago, two brothers from Du Page county, Illinois - Chris and Andrew Ewert - have modified a Prius to get 100 mpge (the "e" here being very undefined in the original source), simply by adding more batteries (battery type? also undefined) and a charger to the stock model. While techy details are not forthcoming about this particular PHEV conversion, at least one message comes through nicely: "My brother and I built this, and car companies should be able to do it, too," Chris said.
If you'd like to see some technical information on how a Prius conversion looks like, check out what Kim Adelman is doing.
Come rain, come shine... come lawsuits, Fisker appears determined not to let anything get in the way of a late 2009 launch for its upcoming Karma electric sedan. Along with the spy shots over on Autocar, the first indication of what on-board powerplant will charge the batteries is mentioned: a Volkswagen 1.4 liter. No mention is made of which 1.4 liter engine is being considered for the Karma, but we'd imagine it'll be a basic engine without forced induction of any sort if we had to wager an early guess. There is also no mention of whether or not the photographed sedan was using battery power or dino power. Regardless, seeing the Fisker Karma undergoing testing in California gives a bit of a the "warm fuzzies" to those who are in anticipation of the vehicle, which, as its second place finish in our list of the Top 20 most exciting green cars proves, definitely includes AutoblogGreen.
There has long been an interesting paradox in the realm of cars. For some peculiar reason, people who buy really expensive cars are willing to make more compromises to the foibles of the car and cut them more slack. How else to explain grief that owners of Italian exotics withstood for decades in terms of reliability, ergonomics and build quality. Buyers of mainstream cars that often have far fewer problems as a percentage of the number of vehicles built have a fit at every little thing that goes wrong. That same paradox exists today. The Tesla Roadster by virtue of its price and performance falls into entry level of exotic cars. Despite numerous delays in getting the car into production, and obvious compromised in terms of its functionality, most people have been willing to cut the car and the company a lot of slack, myself included. In my case my experience in the auto industry allows me to understand the difficulty of the task Tesla had. I never actually expected them to meet their aggressive timing targets and I've written on numerous occasions about the potential problems they might have. Nonetheless most people believed in the company.
General Motors on the other hand faces an entirely different standard with the Volt. In spite having a much more complex vehicle to develop with a much greater level of functionality and a shorter time frame than Tesla, GM seems to be being held to a higher standard than Tesla. At the slightest hint of time slips or cost increases, so many people jump on GM thinking that the car will never happen. Admittedly, we have yet to see a running prototype of the Volt (although they do apparently now exist) but that doesn't mean the company isn't fully committed to making the car happen. GM's task of creating a car that will be an affordable mainstream sedan for four passengers that meets modern standards will strangely mean that customers actually expect it to work all of the time. That's a situation that the much more expensive Tesla won't face to nearly the same degree.
Whether the new TX4E electric cab is right for your favorite London cab driver just might have a lot to do with where that driver lives. According to a story in the South China Morning Post (can only find a Lexis Nexis link that probably won't work), the upcoming all-electric black cab made by London Taxis International, part of Manganese Bronze, has one major drawback: a 100-mile range. "Hey," you might be saying to yourself, "an EV with that sort of range would be perfect for me." And that might be the case. But for London cab drivers who live outside the city - and therefore need to commute 40 or so miles a day from home to downtown - the TX4E just isn't going to cut it.
The general secretary of the Licensed Taxi Drivers' Association, Bob Oddy, told the Post that only about 40 percent of London cabbies will be able to be able work a full eight-hour shift on a 100-mile charge. A company spokesperson defended the cab and said that drivers will be able to get a one-hour "quick charge" that will refill the battery 25 percent when needed. Considering the slow but steady increase in EV charging stations, recharging is at least a possibility. Of course, for cabbies, time is money, so if they're not the leisurely lunch types, this particular EV isn't the right car. Still, shifting 40 percent of London cabs from diesel to electrons would be a nice move.
The city of London is moving ahead with both a carrot and stick approach when it comes to encouraging drivers to use more environmentally friendly vehicles. The infamous Congestion Charge clearly falls into the stick category. On the carrot side, the city has been experimenting for some time with public charging stations for electric vehicle operators. Ten new Juice Points have switched on around Westminster. The charging stations are set up in pairs at various locations. The first two trial units attracted 80 people to sign up. The city council hopes to have 200 users by the end of 2008. Drivers can plug in their vehicles for up to four hours at a time although most have been using two hours or less so far. The next task is to get Juice Points installed into the 48 parking garages in the city. The city would also like to get a battery exchange program going, but that probably isn't feasible since replacing high voltage batteries is not a trivial task and they aren't compatible between different cars.
With all the money going into gas these days, is it any surprise that companies in the business of making gas alternatives are seeing increased financial interest as well? Mascoma was obviously one of the recent big winners, but the list is long and we can now add Firefly Energy. Firefly recently closed its third round of funding, which brought the company $16m. Firefly has been on our scope for a while, especially with their Oasis Group 31 batteries. The U.S. Army is also interested, to the tune of $5m, in the company's lead acid 3D and 3D2 batteries.
Khosla Ventures, known for its investments in various ethanol start-ups, is one of the new investors in Firefly Energy, as is Infield Capital. The DOE has also given Firefly $3.2m to develop the 3D batteries, according to VentureBeat. For the 2006 scoop on the 3D2 batteries, check out our interview with Firefly Energy co-founder Mil Ovan. And, if you have a few million to throw around, it seems to be the thing to do to fork it over to green auto tech companies. In case you were curious.
Taking an older vehicle, gutting the powertrain and converting it to operate solely on electrons is certainly not a new phenomenon. It's been done many times and many ways with varying results. Fairleigh Dickinson University graduate engineering student, Sai Sankar, is a relatively new to the art of EV conversions. Sankar started with a 1994 Chrysler minivan for his project. According to Edmunds, you can get one in running order for about $1,500. Of course, for a project of this type a non-running example would suffice and should cost considerably less. Sankar built the electric van for a sustainable entrepreneurship symposium at the school called Growing the Next Generation of Green Ventures. He evidently used about $6,000 worth of off-the-shelf components to create his emissions-free family hauler.
The whole lashup has a top speed of 55 mph, can carry 800 lbs of people and/or stuff, and has a range of 20-25 miles. A full charge of the battery takes 4 to 6 hours and costs an estimated $1.50 in New Jersey. Assuming a Voyager or Caravan of that vintage gets around 20 mpg, this would be considerably less expensive to operate with gas prices around $4 per gallon. Of course, the gasoline-powered variant can hold significantly more than 1 gallon of fuel and can be replenished in minutes rather than hours. But for someone who just needed to hustle the kids to school and go get some groceries something like this could be viable.
It could be the quickest vehicles to go from concept to a public, drivable prototype in automotive history. As previewed, "Israelis got a first demonstration Sunday of the electric car that developers hope will revolutionize transportation in the country and serve as a pilot for the rest of the world," began the report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. 
With all the money going into gas these days, is it any surprise that companies in the business of making gas alternatives are seeing increased financial interest as well? Mascoma was obviously one of the 
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