October 29th, 2008 — electric vehicle
Britain’s fledging auto industry received a boost when the government announced £100 million to help it develop electric and other ultra-low emission cars in which the government will fund up to 100 electric vehicles to test how they operate in real-life driving conditions.
Gordon Brown has come down heavily on OPEC for cutting oil production when the world is going through an economic crisis.
He has also championed electric cars as a means of cutting dependence on oil and thereby reducing the UK’s carbon emission level by 80 per cent of which road transport accounts for 20 per cent.
Transport secretary Geoff Hoon outlined the scheme to fund the development of electric cars and said that the government had shortlisted 10 companies that would compete to supply low-carbon vans to local councils and government bodies so that the electric vehicles could be tested in real-life driving conditions.
He said that the scheme had the potential to create up to 10,000 jobs in the automotive sector.
Such vehicles are emissions free, and those available on the market usually cost between £9,000 and £12,000. Once fully charged they can travel up to 40 miles.
The government will also give £20 million for research and development in technology to make electric and other green cars more affordable since at present the price of electric cars is very high, the function of their batteries and the problem of recharging since Britain does not have a network of charging centres.
The government also revealed new research, suggesting that if cars are charged at non-peak times, the “widespread” use of electric cars could be supported without the need for large numbers of new power stations.
Ford Motor, Mercedes-Benz, Citroen and Land Rover are among the companies that will compete for the government’s £20 million trial of “green” vans to be tested by public sector organisations including a number of councils such as the Royal Mail, and Coventry, with Liverpool, Newcastle, Gateshead, Glasgow and Leeds, will be among the first councils to test green vans.
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September 16th, 2008 — China Automotive Movement News
By George Gao From:Gasgoo.com September 16, 2008
Shanghai, September 16 (Gasgoo.com) State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC), the largest electric power transmission and distribution company in the world, has instructed its subsidiaries to speed up construction of electric car charging stations in Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin and other large cities in the country, said xinhuanet.com today.
After the power charging stations for electric cars are built in several big cities as a pilot project, these stations will serve the electric buses and electric sedans in a trial run. The nationwide coverage of the charging station network will be launched as soon as possible if the pilot project operates well enough and gets approved by the nation’s top economic regulator, said a sales executive with the State Grid. The cost of building an electric car charging station is estimated at 250,000 yuan ($36,600) to 300,000 yuan.
China’s sci-tech minister Wan Gang, an expert on electric cars, recently said that, with four or five years of efforts, there will be at least one million new-energy vehicles, mostly electric ones, to be produced in China by 2012, accounting for 10% of the country’s total auto output that year. This will bring huge market potentials to China’s electric car makers such as BYD Auto as well as to the country’s giant power distributor State Grid Corp.
To satisfy the increasing needs of electric cars, State Grid will speed up its pace of building charging stations and standardize power chargers. The company set up a charging station network around venues of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and will build more in Shanghai for the 2010 Shanghai World Expo to serve electric vehicles and future networks.
About 600 new-energy vehicles, including 55 electric-lithium-cell buses and 410 electric cars, were used in the Beijing Olympics last month. As the world’s second largest car market, China strongly urges its automakers to manufacture energy-efficiency, low-emission and eco-friendly vehicles.
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August 26th, 2008 — electric vehicle, nissan
It’s sooner than you think.
Following the showcasing of several cars that run on electricity, gasoline and natural gas at the recently-concluded 2nd Philippine International Motor Show, the Philippine assembler of Nissan cars bared over the weekend that it is targeting a 2012 launch of its own “plug and drive” unit in the Philippines.
“I know this for a fact that Nissan is going to be launching in 2010 an electric vehicle. By 2012, it will be launched worldwide. We’re hoping that the Philippines will be one of the first in the ASEAN to receive those electric vehicles,” said Elizabeth Lee, executive vice-president of Universal Motors Corporation, Nissan’s Philippine assembler.
Lee, who is also president of the Chamber of Automotive Manufacturers of the Philippines, Inc. (CAMPI), said that aside from cars powered by electricity, automakers are working overtime to develop models that run on gasoline and electricity or both — the ones called hyrbid models.
“Each manufacturer is actually accelerating the developement and the launch of these types of vehicles because they reduce carbon emissions,” Lee said.
She added that CAMPI members are looking forward to the launch of these types of cars globally in the next few years.
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August 17th, 2008 — GM
GM announced design improvements to the Chevrolet Volt, an electric car set to debut in 2010.
General Motors Corp. has added 6 or 7 miles of range to the Chevrolet Volt through aerodynamically driven design changes to the production-version of the vehicle, the vehicle’s chief designer said.
Speaking at the Management Briefing Seminar in Traverse City, Bob Boniface, the director of design for the Chevrolet Volt and E-Flex studio, said that the automaker has removed 120 counts of aerodynamic drag, or extended the electric range of the vehicle by about 6 or 7 miles.
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August 12th, 2008 — nissan
NISSAN won’t be coming out with a model available only as a hybrid, opting instead to focus on electric vehicles for its green strategy, according to a senior executive.
Mitsuhiko Yamashita, Nissan Motor Company executive vice- president overseeing research and development, said Nissan will likely pack its hybrid system in a model already available as a conventional petrol-powered car.
Hybrids, he said, will soon be so commonplace they will no longer be the conspicuous status symbols they now seem to be for owners.
His comments last week offer a rare look into product development strategy at a major automaker. They also counter the common wisdom about the reason for the success of Toyota Motor Corp.’s petrol-electric hybrid Prius, believed to have drawn buyers because it is a hybrid-only model.
Tokyo-based Nissan is a latecomer to hybrids, compared to Japanese rival Toyota. It currently buys hybrid systems from Toyota for the Nissan Altima hybrid, but is promising a vehicle packed with Nissan’s own hybrid system by 2010.
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November 20th, 2007 — GM, chevrolet, toyota
General Motors (NYSE: GM) is setting itself up for what could be the largest unveiling of an electric vehicle ever with its Volt line of electrically-powered vehicles. As gasoline reaches and surpasses the $3/gallon mark nationwide, customers have to wonder why no car manufacturer has fulfilled the need for an electric car; and one that does not have limitations rendering it non-competitive to a standard gas-powered passenger car, like these Zapcars pictured here.
GM executives have recently said that the Volt is on track for sale for late 2010, and it will be a rechargeable vehicle that is 100% electric, not a hybrid. It’s not only nice looking, it would eliminate gas as a variable in that daily commute. To some, that means a savings of a few hundred dollars (or more) per month. GM, however, is not going at this effort alone. Toyota is in the race as well, and there will soon be a “showdown” with GM, according to a senior GM executive last week.
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