Gas 2.0

Peugeot and Mitsubishi have some ’splainin to do.

Mitsubishi plans to start selling their i-MiEV electric car in Europe later this year. In partnership with Mitsubishi, the i-MiEV will also be sold in Europe as the Peugeot iOn and the Citroen C-Zero.

The problem: Mitsu has said the i-MiEV will have a street price of 48,000 euros before any tax breaks and credits (roughly $66,000 US), whereas Peugeot and Citroen have said their versions of the i-MiEV will sell for less than 35,000 euros before tax breaks (about $48,000 US).

That’s a whopping price differential of 13,000 euros ($18,000 US) — for the same car! Read the rest of this entry »

While it’s long been known that LG Chem — and it’s Michigan-based subsidiary, Compact Power Inc. — were chosen to build the cells for the Chevy Volt’s lithium-ion battery packs, up till now most of the research, refinement and production of those cells has been done in Korea.

LG Chem has been hinting for over a year that all of that battery cell production will eventually shift to the US. Today the company revealed that they’ve chosen to invest $300 million in a Holland, Michigan battery plant capable of suppling cells for more than 50,000 plug-in cars per year. The plant is expected to employ over 400 workers by 2013.

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Fisker Automotive is one of the electric car hopefuls that has won many of us over with their sleek, sexy visions of what an electric car should look like. The company has received hundreds of millions in government funding, and recently acquired an old GM plant in Delaware which they are retooling to produce their Karma plug-in sedan and an as-of-yet unnamed, “lower cost” sedan.

During a recent presentation at the New Castle Chamber of Commerce, Fisker spoke about the progress of the plant and their future plans. This includes hopefully producing around 100,000 plug-in electric vehicles per year by 2014.

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In 1984, General Motors and Toyota joined forces to produce cars together at a single plant in Fremont, California. Called the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., the joint venture gave Toyota its first manufacturing base in the U.S., and GM a chance to learn from its rival Toyota on quality and lean manufacturing techniques. Over the years the plant gave us the Geo Prizm, the Toyota Hilux, and Pontiac Vibe/Toyota Matrix, among many other items.

One could argue that one company benefited more than the other from the partnership. But when GM announced it was shuttering the Pontiac brand, it also pulled out of the NUMMI plant, leaving Toyota holding the reigns. Toyota announced it too would pull out of the plant, and it looked like another manufacturing center and hundreds of jobs would be lost. Enter Aurica Motors, maker of electric cars. They have a plan to save the plant, and many of the jobs, by retooling the plant to build electric cars.

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Hummer is another one of General Motor’s zombie brands that will likely soon cease to exist (if no last minute buyer steps up). The builder of gas-guzzling SUV’s was thought to have been saved when Chinese construction company Sichuan Tengzhong, but the Chinese government squashed the deal. GM was preparing to wind down the brand, even as it entertained two other potential buyers.

But Hummer still has a little bit of life left in it, apparently. A large fleet order was placed for 849 Hummer H3 and H3T pickups. That is enough to put the Shreveport, Louisiana plant back to work for an extra month.

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Just how much help was Cash for Clunkers for automakers and America? A new study by The Maritz Automotive Research Group suggests that the Cash for Clunkers program may have been more successful than first thought.

Cash for Clunkers — which spent about $2.8 billion in incentives on about 690,000 cars sold last summer — has been criticized for costing too much and having too stringent of guidelines about what cars could be traded in. Still, Ford and GM sales are up, as are car sales as a whole, so maybe all that hubbub about robbing from “future sales” wasn’t all that accurate.

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One of the biggest barriers to the adoption of electric cars, plug-in hybrids and extended range electric vehicles is cost. The biggest part of that added cost is the battery. In the past, estimates of roughly $1000 per kWh of battery capacity have been thrown around as a way to gauge how much of a premium consumers can expect to pay. Given that it takes roughly 25 kWh to go 100 miles, you can see how this would quickly add up.

Recently, however, the cost of lithium-ion batteries has been dropping more steeply than expected; indicating that the potential in the market to reduce the premium of owning a battery-powered car has been greatly underestimated.

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Fuel efficiency has increasingly become an important factor over the past few years when it comes to buying a new car. But it isn’t the only factor that matters as evidenced by a 7.5% decline in hybrid car sales in 2009 compared to 2008 when summer gas prices soared to $4/gallon. According to a new report by Accenture, American consumers are demanding more from their green cars than just good gas mileage; they want their green cars to wow them with electronics while delivering a superior driving experience.

Are you listening Detroit?

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How many times must a man retire before he is truly and totally done?

For Bob Lutz—the man most recently known for his leadership on bringing the Chevy Volt to market—the magic number may be “two.” Today he announced he was retiring. Again. A year ago he announced his places to retire as GM’s Vice Chairman of Global Product Development on April 1st, 2009, and stay on as an advisor. Then in July Lutz came back to GM again. Is it for real this time?

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If you’re like me, then you still don’t know who to believe about Toyota’s “unintended acceleration” problem. Toyota says it isn’t an electrical issue. In the past they’ve also blamed, of all things, floor mats.

ABC news found a technology professor named David Gilbert who claims he can create a short that causes Toyotas to accelerate, although his results have been proven to be difficult to recreate. Unsurprisingly, Toyota says his results are suspect. Yet, some owners of “fixed” cars are still complaining about unintended acceleration. Toyota has said they’re looking into it.

Edmunds, determined to get to the bottom of all this, has decided to offer $1 million to whoever can figure out exactly what is behind all of this acceleration madness and fix it.

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Plug In Solutions, one of the largest plug-in hybrid kit manufacturers in California, says that it has come up with a fix for the “unintended acceleration” issue for all of Toyota’s cars—not just the hybrid ones. The fix comes in the form of a switch that allows drivers to “turn off” their engine in the case of an emergency. Interestingly enough, this is the same type of fix that regulators are currently debating a future requirement for on all vehicles.

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The jury is still out on Cash for Clunkers here in the US, though new car sales seem to have improved in the past months.

But in Germany. where a similar cash for clunkers program began one year ago, car sales plunged off of the proverbial cliff, posting almost a 30% decline last month compared to February of 2009. And analysts are predicting that 2010 new car sales could drop as much as 30% for the entire year, compared with 2009.

This news does not bode well for the German auto industry, but will the same apply here? Did Cash for Clunkers really rob from future sales? Or did it help kickstart our economy?

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A lot is riding on GM’s Volt. While General Motors is now a sleeker, streamlined version of itself, devoid of a lot of dead weight, the automotive heavyweight still has a lot to prove to the average consumer. The General was not long ago known for its gas guzzling SUVs; now it is trying to remake its image as something more well-rounded. While Chevy has performance on lockdown with the Camaro and Corvette, the Volt is the all important Ying to the performance Yang.

So when Ed Whitacre took over as GM’s CEO, he thought it important to get the Volt on the road and in the hands of consumers as soon as possible. But rushing a car this important is never a good thing, especially a car this important.

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Has the Hummer brand become too toxic to sell? After months of negotiations between General Motors and Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co. Ltd, a Chinese company, it appears as though the deal has fallen through. Speculation points at the Chinese government regulators unwillingness to grant approval to the deal.

While GM has said it is considering two previous offers on the brand, it also said it was getting ready to wind the brand down. This news comes around the same time the military announced that it winding down its Humvee fleet and preparing for a modern replacement.

Is this really the end of the Hummer era? Or will GM and its suitors find salvation for Hummer like it did for the spunky Saab brand?

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According to reports, three mid-level engineers for Tesla Motors have died in a fiery plane crash over Palo Alto, CA, this morning. Although names have not officially been released yet, witnesses say that the plane was owned by Doug Bourn, a senior electrical engineer for Tesla. Apparently the plane crashed right in to a residential neighborhood on top of a daycare facility. No other injuries have been reported, although some houses have been damaged.

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