Electric vehicles aim for 'longest and greenest' world tour

GENEVA — Electric vehicles from Australia, Germany and Switzerland set off Monday on the "longest and greenest" round-the-world drive to promote emissions free transport and November's world climate conference.

The UN-backed "Zero Race" is organised by Swiss schoolteacher Louis Palmer, who made headlines with his 18-month pioneering world tour in a solar-powered "taxi" two years ago, picking up celebrities on the way.

"With this race we want to show that seven billion people on this planet need renewable energy and clean mobility," said Palmer.

"Petrol is running out and the climate crisis is coming, and we are all running against time."

A South Korean vehicle failed to reach the start line at the United Nations in Geneva in time after it broke down with "a minor battery problem" some 60 kilometres (37.3 miles) up the road, Palmer said.

It was due to join the other three teams later in the day.

The Zero Race is planning to stop off at the World Climate Conference in Cancun, Mexico, after touring through Europe, Russia, China, Canada and the United States before heading back to Geneva in January 2011.

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U.S. Navy Gets Solar Power for Slow Moving Electric Vehicles

The vehicles included in the Slow Moving Vehicles (SMV) group will run at a top speed of 25 mph and will be used within its premises at Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southeast in Jacksonville, Florida. The initiative is an outcome of a Navy instruction to make 50% reduction in petroleum use.

Southeast Command rated as one of the biggest fleets in the US Navy has the largest convoy of SMVs that are electric powered and it was looking for renewable source of energy to balance the ever increasing electric power demand of its vehicles. Out of its total number of 314 SMVs only 23 of them are solar powered. The command is planning to increase the strength of the SMVs to 412 by the year 2012 and to have 121 of them solar powered.

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Electric cars will overtake hybrid in 2020, forecast shows

Electric cars will not overtake hybrid technology until 2020, a new report has predicted.

GlassGuide.co.uk's Alternative Powertrain Vehicles in Europe report forecasts that by the end of the decade, the two systems will represent 21 per cent of the total UK vehicle market share.

This will represent the same level in France and Italy, although the UK will remain behind Germany, which is predicted to have a 26 per cent market share of all new car sales.

Individually, 274,000 units of electric vehicles will be sold, while 235,000 hybrid units will be bought, the report found.

Andy Carroll, managing director at Glass's, commented: "One of the central issues for the vehicle manufacturers is encouraging consumer adoption of electric and hybrid vehicles, including plug-in hybrids."

The report indicates to a positive uptake of cleaner cars in the UK's future transport technology.

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Dealers gear up for electric cars

Ray Burke will be making room at his auto dealership in Cape May Court House for what could be the car of the future: an electric vehicle. But the future will come at a cost to consumers and car dealers alike.

The Chevrolet Volt will be mass-marketed first in six states, including New Jersey, and could reportedly debut in November in some areas. The car, which runs on electricity but also has a backup gas engine, will cost about $41,000. It is a steeper price compared to new hybrid cars, such as the 2010 Toyota Prius, with a suggested retail price of $22,160, and the 2011 Ford Fusion, priced at about $28,825, according to Kelley Blue Book.

"There have been a lot of inquiries and people asking how the Volt works," said Burke, whose Burke Motor Group will be one of seven General Motors dealerships in Atlantic, Cape May and Cumberland counties authorized to sell the 2011 Volt. "With the Volt, you can drive it like a regular car. You don't have to worry about whether you'll break down somewhere. (In southern New Jersey), people drive long distances to commute."

Burke doesn't expect to receive his first Chevy Volt until March, and may get about one per month since the initial run is just 10,000 cars nationwide. But he already is scheduling classes for his technicians so they will know how to handle the vehicles, he said.

David Perry, of Perry-Egan Chevrolet in Ocean City, said he might get just a couple of cars during the first run. Citing growing interest, GM said last month it will increase production by 50 percent to 45,000 vehicles in 2012.

Jim Appleton, president of the New Jersey Coalition of Automotive Retailers in Trenton, said dealerships will see a cost burden because they'll have to get workers trained in maintaining the cars and buy the related equipment and materials to service electric vehicles.

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Japan Post Service to buy 1,030 electric cars from start-up firm

Japan Post Service Co. plans to purchase 1,030 electric vehicles from Zerosports Co., a start-up firm based in Gifu Prefecture, for collection and delivery of mail, sources familiar with the matter said Monday. Under the plan, the mail delivery service arm of Japan Post Holdings Co. will order 30 vehicles in fiscal 2010 through March and 1,000 more in fiscal 2011, they said. The plan follows Japan Post Service's experimental use of some Zerosports electric cars in which it rated their performance highly. Zerosports, which entered the electric car business in 1998, says its electric vehicles loaded with mail can travel for around 100 kilometers on an eight-hour charge.


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Lotus gets ready for multi-model launch

Lotus is pretty tight-lipped about what its plans are these days, though it is clear its ambitions are great.

"There's going to be a lot happening at Paris," Mr Doyle says - though exactly what it will unveil at the biennial motor show in October remains secret.

But one thing is clear.

"We're going to expand the model range quite significantly," Mr Doyle says.

The car world is awash with rumours about what Lotus will do and if expectations are met it will certainly create waves.

Lotus is expected to unveil four new concept cars, a notable number given that nothing significantly new has come from the company in more than a decade, with the obvious exception of the recently launched four-seater Evora.

'Old' and 'New' Lotus:

The concepts expected to be on display at the Paris motor show are said to be a mixture of "Old Lotus" and "New Lotus".

"Old Lotus" models might include an updated and perhaps more comfortable version of the Lotus Seven, which was built between 1957 and 1972, as well as a new version of the Esprit supercar, which was built between 1976 and 2004.

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Electric cars are cleaner, even when the power comes from coal

While I am not a fan of General Motors and their horrible past scandals with the electric car or their current federal financial bailout, I am surprised by the falsehoods that writers use to describe the Chevy Volt. The Aug. 10 column by Jonah Goldberg, a conservative commentator, has the facts just plain wrong.

Goldberg does not seem to understand some basic energy principles. Even with the source of electricity coming from the most polluting methods of production, in this case, coal, electric vehicles will produce significantly less CO2 and other toxic pollutants into the atmosphere than produced by gasoline engines.
This is because the efficiencies of electric motors are far greater than their gasoline counterparts. Gas engines produce lots of heat (thus are about 25 percent efficient), while electric motors produce little heat and thus can be up to 95 percent efficient.

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Hybrid revolution builds momentum

Could one American automaker's plan to sell a hybrid automobile for the same price as its gas-powered counterpart lead to more drivers enjoying a greener ride?

The car -- the Lincoln MKZ sedan, which debuts this fall -- will run on both gas and electrical power and get more than double the mileage of the traditional version in city driving.

Still, at $35,000, it doesn't come cheap.

The Lexus HS 250h, the MKZ's closest competitor, costs about $2,500 more than the Lexus IS, a similar small, gas-powered sedan. Ford charges $8,840 more for the hybrid version of its Ford Escape SUV.  

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Anti-global warming push also best for the economy

Until just recently the view prevailed that there was a tradeoff relationship between achieving respectable economic growth and reducing the emission of greenhouse gases, most of which consist of carbon dioxide. This led to a wide debate on how to achieve both goals.

A major change has occurred, however, since U.S. President Barack Obama initiated his Green New Deal, which has led me to believe that attaining CO2 

reduction targets requires the promotion of environment-friendly products and renewable energy, and that therein lies the driving force for economic growth among industrialized nations.Take, for example, solar cells, which are, at present, installed on the rooftops of only 2 percent of residential houses in Japan. The current cost of installing solar cells is about ¥600,000 per kilowatt of electricity. So, about ¥1.8 million — about the price of an automobile — is needed to equip a house with cells generating 3 kw.

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New Battery for Cheap Electric Vehicles

A new startup company will attempt to solve the biggest roadblock facing electric vehicles today--the cost of their batteries.

The new company, called 24M, has been spun out of the advanced battery company A123 Systems. It will develop a novel type of battery based on research conducted by Yet-Ming Chiang, a professor of materials science at MIT and founder of A123 Systems. He says the battery design has the potential to cut those costs by 85 percent.
The battery pack alone in many electric cars can cost well over $10,000. Cutting this figure could make electric vehicles competitive with gasoline-fueled cars.
The new company has raised $10 million in venture-capital funding, and about $6 million from the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), which will fund collaboration between the company and MIT and Rutgers University. A123 Systems will work closely with the new company, and owns stock in it. The name stands for "24 molar," referring to material concentration levels that Chiang cryptically calls "technically significant" to the company.

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Emissions Free Electric Vehicle Bus Uses Leo Motors 120kW EV Power Train

PRLog (Press Release) – Aug 14, 2010 – Leo Motors, Inc. (Stock Symbol: LEOM) announced today that it has developed and begun marketing of its 120kW power train, which is equivalent to a 5,000cc Internal Combustion Engine (ICE). See the Leo Motors website (http://www.leomotors.com) for images, EV technical information and more details. 

Power trains of this size are used in the bigger passenger cars, middle-sized buses and t 
rucks. Consisting of a proprietary motor, controller and battery pack, the 120kW power train incorporates Leo’s innovative power management solutions designed to control vehicles better than their ICE counterparts. 

Leo’s 120kW power train was tested in a 24-seat bus for more than six months. Leo converted Hyundai’s County bus and had it run at more than 70 MPH with the power train. According to the test results, the converted bus ran faster and smoother than its ICE counterparts, but without emissions, noise or vibration. 

Leo will market the 120kW power train in two ways: 

1) Leo is primarily going to provide conversion services to clients who need EVs for their vehicle fleet operations. 


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Could Tata's EV beat Nissan to the streets?

Electric vehicles from Indian manufacturer Tata could be on European roads ahead of its high-profile rivals, according to reports earlier this week.

On August 11, Tata vice chairman Ravi Kant told Indian publication The Hindu Business Linethat the company would launch two electric vehicles in the UK and Scandinavia this fiscal year, which ends March 31, 2011.

The Indica Vista EV could be launched in the UK as early as September or October, saidBusiness Line.

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Companies ready for electric cars

Southern California Edison expects 100,000 electric vehicles in its service area within five years.

“In 10 years, we expect somewhere in the order of 400,000 to 500,000,” said Steve Powell, SoCal Edison's manager of plug-in electric vehicle readiness.
The Southern California utility wants to accommodate and educate prospective electric car buyers after years of anticipation, talk and recent buzz about the eco-friendly vehicles.
The initiative comes as electric cars such as the Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt begin to roll onto showroom floors at several Coachella Valley dealerships before the end of the year.
Electric and hybrid vehicles are expected to be among the hottest topics at the 2010 Inland Empire Auto Show on Aug. 27-29 at the Ontario Convention Center. Show goers will get a chance to peruse the latest electric vehicle technology on “EcoStreet.”

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Iceland: The Next Electric Car Capital

What country will be the first to make electric cars the default national transportation? It would probably be the tiny green country of Iceland.

Some 75% of Iceland's population lives within 37 miles of Reykjavik, Iceland's capital, and the rural areas (connected by an 840-mile ring road) could probably be wired with just 15 fast-charging stations. That, coupled with the fact that 80% of Iceland's energy is cheaply produced renewable (from geothermal and hydro) should give you a good idea why this is the ideal test bed for electric vehicles.

Iceland doesn't have the world's largest geothermal resource, but it has by far the largest per capita. Here's how the country mines hot water from beneath the earth,according to Popular Science:

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Martin Eberhard predicts 500-mile range for the electric vehicles of 2020

The guy who helped bring us the 250-mile electric vehicle (EV) thinks we will be able to go a lot further on a full pack of batteries in ten years. Yes, Martin Eberhard, one of the co-founders of Tesla Motors who is nowworking with Volkswagen, is predicting that EVs will have plenty of range at affordable price points not all that far into the future. Eberhard spoke with Autocar recently and said something that should put a bit of fear into vehicle charging station companies and people who still fight against plug-in vehicles: 

At the current rate of progress, I'd say we will have banished the range anxiety problem, and will be making EVs with greater than 500 miles of operational range, within 10 years. At that point, the further development of fast charging infrastructure won't be so important - because how often do you drive more than 500 miles in a day?

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Check out BSA Motors electric bikes

BSA Motors Roamer
Make	:	BSA Motors
Battery Type	:	Sealed Lead Acid Battery
Rated Power	:	500W

Check out all BSA Electric bike models and compare their performance and features@ http://www.evhub.in/ebike-company/BSA%20Motors/

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Electric Vehicles in East Asia 2011-2021 ( EVHUB Exclusive )

The largest market and production location for electric vehicles 


56% of the value of sales of electric vehicles is and will remain in East Asia and cars only account for about half of the value of the electric vehicle business worldwide. It is therefore important to look at the big picture and, in particular, the latest ten year forecasts for EV activity in East Asia. Uniquely this report provides that information. Entirely researched in 2010 and regularly updated, the report draws many valuable conclusions including some that are summarised below.

www.IDTechEx.com/evasia

China buys over 90% of the e-bikes in the world and Japan buys the most hybrid cars. Indeed the best selling electric car in the world, the Toyota Prius, sells in Japan at twice the volume taken by the whole of the USA. All this will have changed by 2021 because China will have installed adequate charging infrastructure for pure electric and plug in hybrid cars by then and they will be more affordable. In 2021, sales of electric cars in China will have a much larger market value than the huge and growing sales of e-bikes in China. It is fortunate that the takeoff in sales of electric cars is delayed in China by lack of infrastructure and shortage of affordable electric cars with acceptable range. If Chinese people purchased a large number of plug in electric cars over the next five years it would significantly increase global warming because today, most of the power stations in China are inefficient and coal fired.

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