The Chevrolet Volt and Opel/Vauxhall Ampera represent a new kind of powertrain for General Motors which the company has covered with an 8-year/100,000 mile warranty, but what happens to that expensive battery should it cause issues, or after its usable service life?
We’ve heard critical speculators say Volt owners will be in for a new battery shortly after the 8 years, or 100,000 miles (160,000 km) – whichever comes first – thus wiping away the savings offered by potentially bypassing the gas pump due to its ability to operate as a medium-range electric vehicle.
In short, there’s no reason to suspect this worst-case scenario will be the case.
Honda Motor Co. has made plans to start assembly of Fit Hybrid in Thailand. Also known as the Jazz, this follows previous announcements of Fit/Jazz production expansion, which has seen a new facility open in China to assemble conventional examples, including those destined for other export markets.
To date the Fit has been manufactured exclusively in Japan and it is Honda’s most popular hybrid car; last year some 86,000 examples were sold – mostly in Europe, Japan and the U.S. By adding Fit/Jazz hybrid assembly overseas, Honda hopes to limit the effect of a strengthening yen on profit margins.
In the UK, car-sharing firm Zipcar, has announced that it will be introducing ten Vauxhall Amperas at select London locations.
This is essentially a pilot program for the British version of the Chevy Volt that’s designed to test the Ampera’s viability as part of the Zipcar fleet, assessing customer demand, operating costs and emissions reduction.
At present, Zipcar boasts a fleet of 1,700 vehicles in Britain’s capital and by introducing the Amperas, it will allow customers to travel up to 50 miles on pure electric power.
Word has it that this weekend the first shipments of around 350 Ford Focus Electrics got underway to 67 dealers in California, New Jersey and New York.
The decision was reportedly made Friday, and the deliveries will take place over the next two weeks with each dealer getting half a dozen cars, out of which, one will be a demo model.
This news came via insiders who spoke on condition of anonymity to Reuters, but Ford has nothing official to say about it except a general statement that, "We are still on track to begin shipping the Focus Electric this spring."
Aside from the award process open to all intended to spur innovation – which you can access at this Web site – BASF has work ongoing to develop new battery components such as cathode materials and electrolytes that allow the production of high-performance lithium-ion batteries.
"Batteries are the key technology for the electromobility of the future. With the Science Award we are supporting highly qualified scientists around the world so that new future-capable battery technologies can be researched and developed even faster," said Dr. Kurt Bock, Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of BASF SE.
Better Place is now open for business in Israel, with four battery switching stations operating, and 40 to be by year’s end.
The experiment in electric mobility offers five-minute battery swaps thus renewal of 100-mile range as quickly as a gasoline stop, making travel feasible from the northern end of the small country to the southern for those driving the roughly 140 and counting Renault Fluence cars.
The first adopters of the $32,000 car with leased battery are mostly Better Place employees; Better Place estimates within weeks the general public will begin receiving deliveries with “several hundred” reportedly on order. Leasing companies have also shown substantial interest, ordering 1,800 so far. By year’s end, Better Place said around 5,000 total should be on the road.
According to Sascha Simon, head of Advanced Product Planning at Mercedes-Benz USA, the company is on track to launch an updated B-Class F-Cell for 2015 in California, with a “regular” sedan slated to follow in 2017.
However, Mercedes-Benz is adamant that its fuel cell vehicles look and feel like regular passenger cars as much as possible, thus the sedan is likely to be a derivative of the E-Class. The reasoning is that customers are more likely to consider fuel cell vehicles if they’re familiar with the shape and form of the car, despite its method of propulsion.
“We are not intending to build a particular fuel cell sub-brand that looks and feels different,” Simon said. “Our customers would like to drive our E-Class as a fuel cell car. It would work beautifully in a regular sedan shape – normal Mercedes luxury but filled with hydrogen.”
While many governments around the world have actively encouraged motorists to switch to greener forms of transportation, a prominent Think Tank in the United Kingdom says they could cost in other ways.
More specifically, a study by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and commissioned by the UK’s Royal Automobile Club (RAC) Foundation has said efficient vehicles could blow a huge hole in official revenue collection.
Chevrolet declared that Volt owners have now collectively saved a supertanker of gasoline.
According to Chevrolet, since the electric car with extended range went on sale, Volt owners have compiled 40 million miles on electricity and avoided the use of more than 2.1 million gallons of gasoline. Based on $3.80 per gallon of gas, this means total savings at the pump of almost $8 million.
“With each click of the odometer, Chevrolet Volt owners are measuring their contribution to reducing America's dependence on foreign oil and to preserving the environment,” said Cristi Landy, Chevrolet Volt marketing director. “Volt owners are also saving at the fuel pump with more than $8 million in combined savings.”
Coda Automotive, manufacturer of the all-electric Coda, delivered its first fleet vehicle yesterday.
The sale of the first fleet-destined Coda sedan was made to AEP Ohio, a unit of American Electric Power. The utility, which delivers electricity to more than 5 million people in 11 states, is incorporating the 2012 Coda into its fleet as a part of a demonstration project to learn more about electric vehicles and charging infrastructure.
