Even if General Motors all new gas electric hybrid the Chevrolet Volt has not made an official debut, the automaker has started to reveal more and more details about the future electric car. GM said that the future Volt will be able to achieve a city fuel economy of at least 230 miles per gallon, and that it will be able to travel up to 40 miles in pure electric mode from a full charge.
The actual as mileage of the Chevrolet Volt will depend on how far the owner travels amongst other factors such as how much cargo or how many bodies they bring along with them and even how much accessories like the air conditioning is used. Chevrolet has already verified the Volt’s 40 mile electric range through vigorous developmental testing which results in a petroleum-free driving experience in both city and highway cycles.
Based on the EPA’s new train of thought, plug-in electric vehicles will be traveling many more city miles than highway ones in electricity only mode. So the government agency has decided to use kilowatt hours per 100 miles traveled in order to categorize the efficiency of a plug-in electric vehicle. Using this methodology, General Motors expects the Chevrolet Volt to consume as little as 25 kilowatt hours per 100 miles when driving around town. Considering that the average cost of electricity in the U.S. is approximately 11 cents per kWh, a typical Volt driver will pay somewhere around $2.75 to travel every 100 miles. That equates to less than 3 cents per mile.
The safety conscious car builder Volvo will be changing their theme from city safety to all electric this September at the Frankfurt Motor Show when they unveil an E.V. version of the sporty Volvo C30 hatchback. Although the automaker previously said that they had no plans to put the plug in electric C30 into production. This is very interesting since the last vehicle of this kind from the savvy Swedes made itself known to the world in Frankfurt just one year ago. However, according to a source at the English automotive journal AutoCar: "The all-electric C30 is a car we have talked about previously and formed the basis of the ReCharge concept shown a few years ago. At the moment, the all-electric C30 is just a concept and Volvo has no current plans to put it into production."
The ReCharge Concept is a plug-in hybrid with individual electric wheel motors and batteries that can be recharged via a regular electrical outlet for maximum environmental benefit. The recharging allows the EV to have a range of about 100 kilometres, or 60 miles, on battery power alone before the car’s four-cylinder Flexifuel engine is needed to power the car and recharge the battery. The concept had all of the style and attitude of a sports car and none of the typical hybrid foibles with its blistered arches and large green electric motor filled wheels.
The automaker will make a decision about possible production in the near future. Until then Volvo is going in a bold direction with hybrid technology, instead of staying compact and lightweight, Volvo’s engineers and design teams are planning to bring an efficient diesel plug-in electric hybrid version of the V70 SUV to market by 2012.
In a time when making profits have become rarer than finding a needle in a haystack, Tesla seems to have bucked that trend with a strong showing in July, resulting in $20 million in revenues and $1 million in profit.
It seems improbable for an automaker to be making any sort of profit these days, much less an electric car brand. But against all odds, Tesla seems to have done it.
The company’s profit came as a result of extraordinarily strong month for Tesla, a month where they shipped 109 cars to reach their profit threshold.
Despite Tesla saying that they reached their ‘overall corporate profitability’, there remains a cloud of uncertainty as to how Tesla managed to do it. It’s also worth noting that selling 109 cars at $109,000 a pop falls far short of $20 million. Nevertheless, Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO was predictably thrilled regarding Tesla’s performance. "We achieved a bottom-line profitability thanks to a tremendous amount of hard work by the Tesla team to improve quality, while simultaneously reducing costs on the Roadster,” he said.
Even if the news is not official, the latest reports are saying that the Japanese automaker, Mitsubishi, has plans to unveil an extended-range electric vehicle (EREV) at the Tokyo motor show at the end of October and into the beginning of the next month. The diamond star electric car will first be revealed as a concept followed by an all new production version that will be in dealerships by the end of 2010.
The new Mitsubishi EREV will be a compact crossover, similar in size to the Toyota RAV4 and will use a drive train similar to Chevrolet’s E-Flex platform on which the Volt is built with its 660 cc three cylinder gasoline engine acting exclusively as a generator that produces electricity to charge the EREV’s 21st century lithium-ion batteries.
The new Mitsubishi will not limit owners to around town commuting. Acting exclusively on electric power, and producing zero emissions, the EREV will have a range of 40 miles. However if you don’t mind polluting in the most efficient manner possible, you can travel up to 200 miles while using the generator to restore energy to the batteries.
We all know that the world’s oil resources isn’t going to last forever and that gas-guzzling vehicles would eventually fall by the wayside and be replaced by plug-in hybrids and electric cars.
So when car makers are slowly pushing for the development of these types of cars, you know that they’re fully aware of the future of the industry as well.
The latest car brand that’s being linked to producing an electric car is Volvo. The Swedish-based automaker has already gone on record as saying that they are in the middle of producing a plug-in hybrid. Now, it’s beginning to look like plug-ins aren’t the only thing that’s taking up Volvo’s time.
Rumors have come out that Volvo is in the infancy stage of producing an electric version of the Volvo C30 with a source, who knows his way around the industry, even saying that he is ‘reasonably confident’ that Volvo is doing more than just the standard research with regards to the future of an electric car in its line-up.
In a very bold move Nissan Jidosha Kabushiki-gaisha has made history by unveiling their first zero emissions vehicle intended for mass production. In an attempt to skip the gas/electric hybrid craze and jump directly into plug in electric vehicles, it might appear that Carlos Gohsen is set on taking over the world like a James Bond villain with the long awaited lithium ion beattery technology. This past Sunday the Japanese automaker unveiled the Nissan Leaf, a five door electric vehicle with a 100+ Mile range at their home base in Yokohama. The Leaf features a sharp, upright V-shaped body with a pair of slanted LED headlights that were designed to cleverly split and redirect airflow away from the door mirrors, thus reducing wind, noise and drag.
Those top secret batteries that we were talking about are made up of laminated lithium ion cells that are capable of delivering over 90 kW of power and weigh only 440 pounds. The battery pack sends it stored energy to the Leaf’s front mounted electric drive motor that only outputs 80 of those kilowatts for a maximum output of 107 HP. The interesting thing about an electric motor is that they make their peak torque at 0 RPM, we know this sounds crazy, but unlike the internal combustion engine, the amount of energy an electric motor can do is based upon how it was made and it delivers that power at one constant amount. That is a healthy 208 lb-ft of torque. The instantaneous power should provide off the line acceleration comparable to the Infiniti G35 sports car.
Of course the question with any purely electric vehicle is how long will it take to charge? Nissan claims that the Leaf will take 8 hours for a full charge from a 200 V source; so a high capacity 220 V outlet is recommended, otherwise it will take twice as long for a full charge from a standard 110 V AC outlet. There is an impressive 50 kW AC fast-charge capability. This allows for an 80% charge of the lithium ion batteries meaning you can go up to 80 miles with only a 30 minute charge, or if you are really in a hurry, you can get an additional 31 miles after being plugged in for only 10 minutes. Although the hardware necessary is a little too expensive for in home use, leave that up to your local municipality. The disadvantage of having to run with all that electronic gear onboard is the excess weight, however because it can be mounted low in the chassis it should make for a decent handling package.
Ever wondered what goes on behind the production of a car – and an electric one at that? Thanks to Chevrolet, you can now take an exclusive look at how the Chevrolet Volt is created from inception to roll out. Through a series of videos the company released, those who have always wondered how an electric car can come to be only needs to watch these videos to find out.
This particular video – the second episode in a series of videos – talks about how the bodywork of the Volt is created. From assembling the metal sheets of the body parts, the factory moves to welding these parts together until it can be taken to the next step where all the exterior parts like doors, hoods and trunks can be added. When the engineers finish that part, the body work is now ready for the next step, which is painting it in the right colorways.
While we may have already described the entirety – or at least close to it – of the video, we think that it’s still worth a good watch.
First it was Mercedes Benz who announced that they would be producing an electric version for the SLS AMG super car. Despite earlier reports, it is now time for the competition to make their move: Audi has announced that the R8 Eperformance electric sports car will make a Frankfurt debut. However we won’t see the production version in showrooms until 2015.
Unlike its gas burning brothers the electrified R8 will not be powered by either an exotic V8 or a high revving V10. Instead it will be a large electric motor and quite a bit of batteries, as the ePerformance name suggests.
Just like the power train, the exterior design will also be different than the standard R8, for example the signature side blades and huge air inlets will be reduced or completely eliminated as they are unnecessary for an electric vehicle, the front grille will disappear as well. However it’s the deep air intakes in the front bumper underneath the while LED headlamps that will set this particular R8 apart from the standard model. Audi will also bring the long waited R8 Roadster to the Frankfurt Motor Show.
After reporting that the Japanese automaker Toyota is planning to build a hybrid version of the Yaris compact city car yesterday, today it is time to move our attention to something even more environmentally conscious, the even smaller Toyota iQ. That is because Toyota plans to produce their first production EV when the BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle) variant of the iQ for 2010.
According to iQ’s chief engineer, Hiroki Nakajima, the all-electric iQ will feature in-wheel motors: "In every wheel we had to be able to fit an electric motor." It will also be the first Toyota mass-production model to use lithium ion batteries and will take about 8 hours to fully charge. “Our target is for customers to be able to charge it completely during the night,” and will have a range of 93 miles, more than enough for commuting or around town driving.
In an attempt to dispel the new car buying public’s belief that small means low cost, Nakajima said: “We wanted to position the iQ as premium,” so the BEV version will receive distinct bodywork from the standard iQ and "will get a much better interior” according to the chief engineer. Toyota is a company known for building a well built reliable product so perhaps they can convert a few electric skeptics as well.
Revealed earlier this year at the Detroit Auto Show, the Dodge Circuit EV has been finally confirmed for production. Lou Rhodes, Chrysler’s ENVI division president has stated that the automaker’s first all-electric vehicle will be launched next year. The electrified sports car will compete with mdoels like the Tesla Roadster, but at a lower cost.
The car’s chassis will be assembled in Europe by the engineers at Lotus and then shipped back to U.S. for the electric drivetrain to be installed. The car has already undergone significant testing. After the Circuit EV is launched, Chrysler will add a lineup of electric sedans, SUVs and crossover models to their range of vehicles.
The Circuit EV is powered by a completely electric ENVI drivetrain that delivers a maximum output of 268 HP. That much power allows the Circuit EV concept to go from 0 to 60 MPH in less than 5 seconds, while top speed goes up to 120 MPH.
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