Gas 2.0

Yesterday, Chrysler/Fiat’s new CEO Sergio Marchionne presented the 5-year business plan he hopes will save Chrysler, and bring Fiat back to the US market for the first time in nearly 30 years. The company presented its plan during a live, seven-hour-long marathon webcast, which was notable for two things: first, a virtually unprecedented willingness to discuss future product, and, second, the conspicuous absence of New Chrysler’s much-ballyhooed ENVI electric-vehicle division.

What happened to the Dodge EV? Can we expect some innovative green tech from Marchionne’s new Dodge product future? The depressing reality, after the jump.

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Tata Motors, the company whose claim to fame is selling one of the world’s cheapest and most fuel efficient cars, is considering letting other local India-based manufacturers produce and sell their Nano under their brands.

The company began selling the 56 mpg car last July, and, due to high demand, is in the process of building a manufacturing facility that would produce an additional 350,000 units per year. The plant, located in Sanand in Gujarat, should be up and running by March of 2010.

But in the meantime, Tata Motors is considering allowing smaller manufacturers produce, rebrand and sell the car under license from Tata. The maximum amount of production per year in this fashion would be 10,000 cars. Now that’s an interesting way of selling more cars. I would venture to say that I doubt an American car company would take a similar tack since they use the brand to drive sales. Read the rest of this entry »

Ford Motor Company and Azure Dynamics have teamed up to introduce a battery electric commercial van called the Transit Connect. The electric van will be available in America and Canada beginning in 2010 and is the first vehicle to be produced as part of Ford’s accelerated electric vehicle strategy. Azure will integrate its Force Drive battery electric drive train into the van and Johnson Control-Saft has been selected as the lithium ion battery cells and battery packs supplier. The Transit Connect van is being marketed for fleet and retail use.

What Ford has not brought to market is their Ford Escape Flex-Fuel Hybrid which they have been working on for close to a decade. I actually drove one in a car rally in upstate New York two years ago (it was a great car) but the company discontinued its work claiming that there was no demand. How quickly times change. Read the rest of this entry »

Indiana-based Bright Automotive has released some pretty impressive performance figures for its technically (and aerodynamically!) slick new IDEA cargo van. Aimed primarily at delivery fleets and in-town rental companies, the freshly-upgraded guppy promises to shave operating costs by thousands of dollars per year, per van.

More pictures, an official company press release, and my own opinions (that nobody asked for) after the jump.

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Many manufacturers of high-mpg and electric vehicles have adopted a 3-wheeled layout for cost and weight savings, and—in some cases—aerodynamic efficiency. In most states, however, these vehicles are classified as motorcycles. That motorcycle moniker has made them ineligible for DOE funds set aside to foster innovation among American automakers… until now!

More details, after the jump.

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Imagine driving from San Francisco to New York City in a plug-in hybrid Prius that uses algae for fuel.

At the beginning of this month the first ever algae-powered plug-in set off on a ten day coast to coast demo from California to show that a plug-in hybrid can be fueled with green crude.

The algae fuel for the plug-in Prius was supplied by Sapphire Energy. They are developing an algae fuel completely compatible with current gas pumps and pipeline infrastructure.
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Total US hybrid sales jumped 48.6% in August from last August, buoyed up by Cash for Clunkers.

We Americans did the right patriotic thing with our clunker money last month, it turns out. We bought more American. And we bought more hybrid cars.  Ford was the big winner, making a big dent in Toyota’s hybrid sales.

Consumer reports tells us that 80% would rather buy US cars and 46% of us now prefer fuel efficient cars.

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Scanning the week’s news of the leading fleet magazine, more than half the headlines are focused on automotive manufacturers including Toyota, Ford, Nissan and their commitment to greening of their fleets by moving to electric vehicle technologies.

For example, Nissan plans to use a $1.6 billion U.S. loan to rework a Tennessee factory so that battery-powered cars can be manufactured there. Ford Motor Company said it has developed an intelligent vehicle-to-grid communications and control system for its plug-in hybrid electric vehicles that “talks” with the nation’s electric grid.

Indeed it is exciting to read on a daily basis how much closer we are to the reality of EV’s for consumers and fleets.  Fleets will be the first mass adopters of EVs and PHEVs. We are already seeing businesses, government agencies, cities and countries across the world that are making significant and meaningful steps to reducing their fuel costs, our nation’s dependence on imported fuel, and our carbon footprint by converting their gas guzzling and polluting fleets to eco friendly EV’s…but what about the infrastructure needed to support such vehicles?  Is there different technology needed to support EV fleets vs. consumer EVs?  Just what are the needs of fleet managers when it comes to EV fleets?

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GM’s recent “230″ PR campaign (previously covered HERE and HERE) has certainly caused a lot of controversy, most of it centered on the fact that the EPA initially “backed away” from the automaker’s optimistic (?) Chevy Volt mileage claims.

Despite the fact that the 230 mpg rating will likely stand (once GM gets a final-production Volt into the hands of the EPA, that is), so much attention has been paid to the matter that the good in charge at Progressive’s Automotive X PRIZE decided it was time to chime in, asking “Is MPG still relevant?”

Short answer:  No.

Read the X Prize group’s long(er) answer, and learn about their proposed MPGe rating system, after the jump.

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Project Better Place, the brainchild of entrepreneur and CEO Shai Agassi, in partnership with French automaker Renault, is an increasingly popular electric car service model that looks to the “service station” concept for electric cars. By developing an infrastructure of “swap stations,” drivers can swap discharged batteries in their electric cars in little more than five minutes, and be on their way. Pilot projects are already underway across the globe, including Denmark, Israel, Japan, Hawaii, California, and Australia.

Renault and Better Place announced this week plans sell up to 160,000 electric cars annually throughout Denmark and Israel starting in 2011.

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It was a one in 20 chance encounter. I felt like a paparazzi who got a chance to spy a celebrity but in this instance my camera caught a shot of the Tango, the car that makes look the Smart Car look like a Lincoln Continental.  Only about 10-20 Tangos exists which makes the sighting more special. Actually my neighbor (a solar guy who already drives an EV-4) had the thing in his driveway in the Lower Haight and a crowd of passersby, tourists, and green auto enthusiasts formed around this electric only car.

As they say, looks can be deceiving. My neighbor said that the Tango can beat a Tesla in terms of acceleration. The Tango can accelerate from zero to over 130 mph in one gear. It accelerates from zero to 60 mph in about 4 seconds. We say Zoom to that. Read the rest of this entry »

British Manufacturer of electric vehicles (EVs), Modec, has announced a joint venture with U.S. based Navistar International Corporation, a $15 billion per year truck manufacturer. The announcement comes at an ideal time as earlier this month, President Barack Obama announced the largest grant ever to develop and bring to market electric vehicles. Obama made the announcement at the Navistar premises in Elkhart County, Indiana. As part of this funding, Navistar was awarded a grant of $39 million, which will be used to accelerate EV production.

“The all-electric delivery vehicle is a concrete example of what business and government can do when we work together,” said Daniel C. Ustian, Navistar Chairman, President and CEO. “The future is now with this electric vehicle. In fact, we already have interested customers, including some of the most respected names in the industry.” Read the rest of this entry »

There has been one benefit to having the American auto companies bankrupt, and that is that many companies and ideas for cars that would have otherwise never had a chance now do. One such idea is from CT&T United, newly based in the United States. The company has announced plans for a proprietary manufacturing, sales and service model called RASS or Regional Assembly and Sales System. This system will help to support the companies U.S. market launch of their all-electric vehicles and each RASS will cost between $8-$10 million to build.

“Just as just-in-time parts delivery from Toyota revolutionized the auto industry, we believe the RASS system from CT&T has the potential to do the same by regionalizing manufacturing and sales and allowing us to offer EVs at an incredibly reasonable price point,” said Young Gi Lee, Chairman and company founder. “RASS will also speed up our national rollout so that we an stay on the leading edge of the EV market.” Read the rest of this entry »

Three weeks ago, I wrote a story about the upcoming public debut of the Fisker Karma Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV). Well, it’s official. The Karma PHEV made its public driving debut over the weekend, just 19 months after being introduced as a concept car. Behind the wheel was Bernhard Koehler, co-founder and COO of Fisker Automotive. Fisker Automotive is just one of several companies, such as Bright Automotive, that have brought concept cars to market in less than two years - a feat I don’t believe any major automotive company in the states has ever accomplished.

“This demonstration represents a significant milestone for Fisker Automotive and PHEV technology,” said Fisker Automotive CEO Henrik Fisker. “The future of clean cars is bright.”

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Aptera Motors publicly debuted it Aptera 2e during TED 2009 this past February, but the company has announced that it will modify the interior of its Aptera 2e in its production models. According to the company’s newsletter, they did extensive consumer testing of the car and discovered some elements that would turn off consumers including cabin space, cargo space and well, space. So they fixed them.

The first major issue found was that there wasn’t enough space for men or women. I remember this being an issue in the first version of the Honda Insight as well. Very tall people couldn’t fit into the car. Like Honda, Aptera has gone about to fix this and using their Aptera formula - safety, then aerodynamics, then lightweight - they have increased the interior cabin by 10 percent. Read the rest of this entry »