General Motors announced Tuesday that the Chevy Volt could get a government in-city fuel economy rating of “230 miles per gallon.” While the potential for a three-digit mpg rating is grabbing headlines, figuring out what it means is another matter. What's the significance of MPG in a vehicle which seldom or never uses gallons of liquid fuel?
General Motors announced last week that it plans to produce the world’s first plug-in hybrid SUV, in the form of a new yet-to-be-named Buick crossover. The vehicle will be a mash-up of the Chevy Volt, GM's full-size SUV "two-mode" hybrids, and the Buick brand.
The Department of Energy showed bias toward large well-capitalized companies when choosing recipients of $2.4 billion in grants to support electric-drive vehicles and batteries, according to critics of the DOE program.
The Obama administration announced today $2.4 billion in grants to car companies and battery-makers, setting the course for US manufacturers to build next-generation auto batteries for hybrid and plug-in cars. The spending is the US government’s bet on battery-powered vehicles—an attempt to overcome the challenges of creating small, lightweight, reliable and affordable rechargeable hybrid and electric car batteries, as well as the infrastructure to allow drivers to bypass gas stations and charge their cars from the electric grid.
What will fuel-economy numbers look like on the window stickers of electric vehicles coming to the US market next year? Trying to find the answer could short-circuit your brain.
In recent weeks, the city of Vancouver and the province of Ontario have taken two bold steps toward the electrification of Canadian automobiles. Though neither measure will singlehandedly ensure the success of EVs in Canada, they are symptomatic of a real determination on the part of a coalition of city planners, lawmakers, businesses, and green car activists to lead the world in electric vehicle adoption. So far, at least from a policy standpoint, they're getting results.
On Friday, a Nissan spokesman told Bloomberg News that the automaker is “studying possibilities to put our hybrid system in other models” in addition to the Nissan Altima Hybrid and a future luxury hybrid. The statement comes after hybrids have become number one sellers in Japan, Nissan's home market.
In the auto industry’s struggle to re-invent itself as innovative, high-tech, and environmentally friendly, car companies have fixed on the idea of plug-in hybrids and electric cars as a solution. What hasn’t been worked out is the fundamental question of how and where a million plug-in vehicles will find juice for their cars. Pike Research, a renewable energy research and consulting firm, identified a number of myths about how electric car charging will unfold by 2015.
Zipcar, the world's largest car-sharing service, announced yesterday that it will bring an all-electric vehicle "pod" to central London. Two weeks ago, AltCar began offering the Maya 300, a small neighborhood electric vehicle, for loan in Baltimore's Inner Harbor district. Several companies are currently testing the durability and profitability of offering plug-in hybrids and all-electric vehicles in their fleets.
Mostly everyone agrees that the next big leap in hybrids — the capacity to plug-in to the grid and run mostly on electricity — will be expensive. But that’s not stopping major automakers from pushing forward with plans for plug-in hybrids that promise dramatic increases in fuel efficiency.
