Sometimes a tiny nugget of information with sizable implications can slip by in the truckloads of news we sift through everyday. Just yesterday, for instance, there was a small mention in the China Real News of an "high-speed Hafei Saibao electric car" passing an Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) crash test. Big deal, right? Well, yes and no. A little digging helped us uncover that the test wasn't actually conducted by the IIHS but rather by the China National Quality Control & Inspection Center for Automobiles and was meant to replicate the IIHS 40 percent frontal offset impact. Still no biggie until you realize that this car also very likely goes by the name of XS500 and that Miles Electric Vehicles is planning on selling it in the U.S. sometime next year. One of the worries about importing cars from China has been their past crash test performance (or lack thereof) and this test offers some insight into how well the XS500 may do when it comes time for its testing over here.

So, how did it fare? After a little more digging we found out it did quite well. After hitting the barrier at 40 mph, the injuries to the crash dummy were "lower than standard limited values" (We're pretty sure that's good). All the expensive stuff, including the lithium ion batteries, motor and controller survived intact and were still operable as well. There was no mention made of any side impact or other tests which vehicles must pass to meet Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) and although Miles declined to comment on the progress of their testing, this small tidbit does offer up some hope that their XS500 may indeed make it to the American market.

[Source: EV World / China Real News]

click to enlarge

It's not all beer-powered trucks at the Democratic National Convention in Denver this week. Aside from the Daily Show's interest in electric vehicles and Daryl Hannah, there are more alternatives in action. Like the pure electric vehicles from Miles EV that are in town to help volunteers get around the downtown area without using gasoline. Miles PR says that the Democratic party's "Denver Director of Greening" (how do you get that job?) thought the Miles vehicles - a ZX40S and a MILES ZX40ST Work Truck - would work well to move people and goods. Read all the glowing words after the jump. Tom Tomorrow has been enjoying the Greenest. Convention. Ever. as well.

[Source: Miles EV]

click to enlarge

This week, at the AFVI Expo, I moderated a panel on the roll-out of electric vehicle products from Miles EV, Phoenix Motorcars and GEM. The representatives were Bryon Bliss, vice president of sales and marketing for Phoenix, Jeff Boyd, COO of Miles, and Richard Kaspar, GEM's president and COO. Oh, and our friend Ed Begley, Jr. was there as well, continuing his relationship with Phoenix.

The purpose of the panel was for each company to present their case not only for EVs but for their particular products. Since these companies all offer vehicles with quite different capabilities and styles, they're not really competitors, and it was a congenial event. Since I expect our readers to be pretty familiar with the vehicle line-ups of these three companies, I won't go into details about them. There were a few things said during the 90 minutes that caught my ear, though, that I think you'll want to hear about.

• The Miles EV offices are in Santa Monica, CA. To commute to work, Boyd drives a prototype of the XS500, Miles' upcoming highway-speed battery-powered sedan. The price target is still $35,000 and deliveries should start in the third quarter of 2009. The sedan will be followed by an electric SUV. I told Boyd that the next time I'm in town, I'll be knocking on the office door, begging for a ride. I mean, it worked for the Roadster.
• Phoenix expects deliveries of its all-electric SUT to start at the end of June (yes, in six weeks). Certification should be finished June 1, Bliss said and the company has orders for 600 vehicles to fill as of today.
• GEM's big news is the addition of new options to the back cargo space of its work trucks. Since GEM vehicles have been selling for over a decade, GEM has had plenty of time to listen to customers and find out what they want/need. New covers and door types are now available, and you can see a list of GEM vehicle options here.

Greentech media was also in the room, and wrote up this account of what happened. Both Miles and GEM had vehicles on the show floor, and I've included galleries of their displays below. The Phoenix photos are from the 2007 AFVI Expo. For those of you keeping score, Zap and Dynasty were nowhere to be found at the Expo this year (unlike last year).

Miles Electric Vehicles has a new CEO. Formerly a senior executive at
companies like Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Bertelsmann AG, Kevin Czinger took over the President and CEO position last Thursday. Tech Confidential says that former CEO Jeff Boyd will take over the COO spot, "where he will focus on day-to-day operations and leave business development and funding to Czinger." Miles EV founder Miles Rubin said in a statement that he was "delighted" to have Czinger on his team. We'd be delighted with some more updates about the status of the all-electric XS500 sedan, but we'll take this as an apparent bit of good news, as Tech Confidential wonders if "Czinger's arrival may indicate upcoming funding for Miles."

[Source: Tech Confidential]

Back in October, we wrote about Miles Automotive's new partnership with the environmental web site No Gas Required that would take the form of a video competition for college and university students. Entrants were asked to make a video on the "no gas required" theme to try and win a Miles electric car for their school to use. As of this writing, there are eleven videos up on the Miles Revolution YouTube page, and the five videos from this batch (or others, if more are forthcoming) that are viewed the most times will win a $1,000 scholarship and the cars.

I'll admit that I haven't watched all of these videos (yet). I selected the video to add to this post based on length, so don't take this as any sort of endorsement. The video above is simply the longest one. If you do check all the videos out and have a fave, let us know.

[Source: YouTube, h/t to Domenick]

NPR's Elizabeth Shogren spent a morning with Miles Rubin recently, and has a report on the man and his electric machines. The result is a 5:30 minute piece that succinctly captures the current electric vehicle market and Miles Electric Vehicles' place in it. We also hear from David Cole, Chairman of the Center for Automotive Research, on the extreme difficulty inherent in getting an EV to market. Still, Rubin is positive his company can make a difference.

"I think everybody has to do something. We can't just depend on governments. Yes it will take government action to make a change, but we can't sit back and wait for Congress," Rubin told NPR.

One human touch: The story of how Rubin's wife jokes that her husband doesn't know anything the major automakers don't, so what does that say about his chances? Miles agrees it's tough, but still told Shogren that Miles Electric Vehicles is still planning on a highway speed car in 2009 for $30,000. That's the Javlon xs500. Just two more years until we see how Miles implements this plan.

You can listen to or read the report here.

[Source: NPR, thanks to Beth @ Miles EVs]