The company, started in 2009, said in March of this year it intended to have the prototype of its lightweight, electric powertrain vehicle, the Qbeak, ready to launch in 2012. However, ECOmove recently announced a third, more updated version of its city car, and that the prototype will closely resemble the final product.

In a statement, CEO Mogens Løkke said the company is “convinced that the first Qbeak will be ready to leave the factory in 2014.”

Mixed in with the announcement of the latest version of the prototype, the company acknowledged it came up short in a bid to launch the car this year, citing long lead times as a major hurdle.

The current Qbeak prototype now has a charging structure and instrumentation, and overall is developed enough that company is ready to move toward production.

Speaking to Gizmag.com Løkke said the company will announce details on the car’s battery at a later time. “However, I can confirm that the system for simple battery swap-outs is integrated and will support more different power module systems (we are working on a fuel cell system),” stated Løkke.

“The smartphone integration is progressing and is still to be implemented in the Qbeak III,” he added. “We will soon demonstrate an intelligent sound alert system as an option for warning pedestrians. We are performing simulations for crash but are planning to run some destructive tests soon.”

ECOmove also said it is seeking strategic partnerships in manufacturing and supply chain management to ensure a smooth transition to mass-producing the Qbeak. The company says it’s currently in discussions with foreign and domestic companies that will be able to assemble and deliver cars for the major markets such as Europe, America and Asia, including China.

The post ECOmove Unveils Third Qbeak EV Prototype, Ready By 2014 appeared first on HybridCars.com.

Attending a meeting of the Sherbrooke Chamber of Commerce, Pierre-Luc Desgagné, Senior Director – Strategic Planning at Hydro-Québec, took the opportunity to announce, on behalf of The Electric Circuit’s founding partners, the selected locations for the first public charging stations for electric vehicles (EVs) to be installed in Quebec’s Estrie region and the Sherbrooke area.
Four stations are already in service in Sherbrooke, at the Marché de la Gare, the parking lot at La Grenouillère downtown, the Plateau Sylvie-Daigle and the Centre récréatif de Rock Forest.

Over the next few weeks, more will be installed at five Université de Sherbrooke sites: the main campus, innovation park and health campus in Sherbrooke and the MiQro Innovation Collaborative Centre in Bromont.

The Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Sherbrooke and Cégep de Sherbrooke will also set up charging stations at 300, rue King Est, and 475, rue du Cégep, in Sherbrooke.

“I’d like to thank the Chamber of Commerce for its warm welcome and underscore the important role played by the City and its institutional partners in supporting the public EV charging station network in Estrie. It’s a very dynamic community and I’m convinced that local service companies will soon get involved, too,” said Mr. Desgagné after his presentation. “The addition of these stations is very important to us, because it will serve the Montréal-Sherbrooke corridor, a key focus of development for The Electric Circuit,” he concluded.

Louise Bourgault, Vice President and Executive Director of the Chamber of Commerce, stated during the meeting that “the Sherbrooke Chamber of Commerce is more than satisfied with the scope of The Electric Circuit in the region. It will encourage motorists to go green.”

The post The Electric Circuit’s Estrie Expansion appeared first on HybridCars.com.

As the subtext in our masthead says, we actually cover all “Auto alternatives for the 21st century.” This has long since been seen as a natural evolution to the mission that years ago led to focusing on hybrids as a means to sustainable transportation.

Where we recognize the “all of the above” approach policymakers and the industry are edging toward with all-electric, diesel, natural gas, and other technologies, we’d be remiss not to cover these as well.

So, the saga continues, and today’s updated site is in keeping with our intent to move onward and upward as well.

We have good things planned for the months ahead and pushed this launch with much content from the original HybridCars.com carried over. There will be more updating in weeks to come, and our aim will be to continue with what you liked about HybridCars.com including news, reviews, features, videos now just begun, and more.

Having majored over the past year-plus on briefed daily news with car reviews interspersed, going forward we’ll be doing more features and longer pieces as well. These will be prominent on the home page. Some time after February we also will launch an updated newsletter which readers can easily sign up for via a sidebar interface.

Our forum will be cleaned up ASAP as well. The old site was in a different content management system more vulnerable to spam. We intend to nip that in the bud, and retroactively prepare a usable forum for worthwhile discussion.

Be sure also to check us out on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

As always you can contact us with thoughts, suggestions, and questions.

Thanks for reading!

Jeff Cobb
Editor-in-Chief

The post Welcome to the new HybridCars.com! appeared first on HybridCars.com.

The car market in China is expanding at a dizzying rate. Will the country pins its hopes on unproven technologies, or begin working with proven solutions?

In a global drama to reduce the environmental impact from cars and trucks, China is taking center stage. China’s vehicle market is already the second largest in the world, after the United States, and rapidly expanding. By 2030, the total number of personal cars in China is expected to exceed the United States—which means the total number of cars on roads worldwide will approach two billion.

The cars on display at the current Shanghai auto show indicates that China is serious about alternatives to the internal combustion engine—but also reveals that it has not sorted out the differences between real short-term solutions and long-term dreams. In their coverage of the Shanghai show, the New York Times reported that the Chinese government has not chosen among options like electric battery cars, fuel cells, hybrids and ethanol combustion, but wants the industry to move quickly to find the best approach and adopt it.

Western environmentalists have long speculated whether China may actually leapfrog the West in personal transportation by embracing new automotive technologies before the country’s oil and auto industries can become too wedded to internal combustion engines.

The odds of such a leapfrogging have eroded because nobody has yet surmounted the technological obstacles that prevent a broad switch from gasoline technology to hydrogen fuel cells, said An Feng, the executive director of the Innovation Center for Energy and Transportation in Beijing.

Japanese companies, particularly Toyota and Honda, are already far ahead in the hybrid gasoline-electric designs that have proved more attractive lately to Chinese companies than fuel cells, said Kelly Sims Gallagher, the director of the Energy Technology Innovation Project at Harvard.

The key question is how much environmental damage will occur before China realizes that hybrids and other conventional fuel-saving technologies are ready today—while it throws investment dollars and engineering resources at hydrogen fuel cells.

***

> Read Full Story

> More Hybrid Cars News

The post Debate in Shanghai: Hybrid or Fuel Cell appeared first on HybridCars.com.

Civic Hybrid Commercial
This commercial introduced the "no compromise" message: a hybrid can save gas and move fast.

1999 Honda Insight Introduction
This two-minute video spot introduces the Honda Insight as "America’s first gasoline-electric hybrid."

The post Honda Hybrid Videos appeared first on HybridCars.com.

Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles
Plug-In Partners show hybrid cars modified with plug-in kits, demonstrating the growing market for plug-in options.

The post Plug-in Hybrid Videos appeared first on HybridCars.com.

The post Plug-In Hybrid from Hymotion appeared first on HybridCars.com.

The post Bill Clinton's Ford Mariner Hybrid appeared first on HybridCars.com.

“The Altima’s chassis is compliant on smooth, winding roads, but with an extra 306 pounds of hybrid equipment to carry, the suspension stumbles over rough pavement and sometimes floats on the freeway. After some initial harshness at low speeds, the engine and the electric motors work in harmony with the slick, silent, planetary-type CVT, culminating in a surge of impressive passing power. The Altima continues to make ground on the Camry and the Accord, but with borrowed components and a limited distribution area, the Altima Hybrid isn’t exactly a tour de force.”
- Automobile Magazine

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