Dale Vince of Ecotricity has posted some musings and video on his Zerocarbonista blog about the progress his team have made with his wind-power Exige we we're telling you about a few months back and things seem to be coming along quite nicely. His team seems to be more than up for the challenge of turning the gas-powered Lotus Exige into an electric vehicle capable of doing 0 to 60 mph in less than four seconds. Of course, the Exige could already meet their top end goal of exceeding 100 mph but doing that with an electric car can be challenging. Like the Tesla Roadster their prototype will unavoidably be compared to, it won't make use of a transmission. Unlike the Roadster, they will also forgo a rear differential by using a separate electric motor for each rear wheel. The motors can spin at speeds of up to 8,000 RPM so their engineer has each one going through a reduction gear that will turn a lot of that speed into power torque. Using the final 2,000 RPM figure to estimate the top speed, our in-house math wizard has calculated this baby could do 148 mph, give or take 10 mph. Probably take. Hit the jump for more.

*Update: Video now after the break!

[Source: Zerocarbonista via Smartplanet]

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.

Wind-power is proving a popular choice for automakers in their quest to curb costs and present an environmentally-aware public face. Nissan has eight turbines at its Sunderland plant, Toyota has one planned for its Flintshire, Wales factory and even Chrysler is investing in a wind project at its Chelsea Proving Grounds in Michigan.

While that may seem like a decent effort they will have to do better than that if they want to match the initiative of Ford at its Dagenham Diesel Center. Already supplied with 100 percent wind-generated electricity for its existing operations, expansion plans for a 1.4/1.6-litre Duratorq TDCi engine line means they're adding a third wind turbine to supply the extra needed power. The new installation will be handled, as before, by Ecotricity and should produce 1.8 megawatts. Check out the press release from Ford for all the details after the jump.

Group Lotus, the British Company that comprises Lotus Cars and Lotus Engineering, is now trying to go green for their operations at their Hethel headquarters. The company has been working with numerous car-makers on electric and hybrid vehicle technologies such as Tesla, ZAP and Proton. Today they announced that they would be working Ecotricity to build a wind park at their factory/test track in Hethel. The wind turbines could provide all the electricity the facilities need and excess energy would be fed back to the grid.

Lotus has been doing analysis of the conditions at the track and wants to install three turbines on the inside of the track. They are currently requesting approval from local authorities, and other government agencies. The Lotus press release is after the jump.

[Source: Lotus]