Canada is currently not the friendliest place for electric car owners. Currently, due to crash test ratings, EV’s are restricted to a top speed of 40 km/h (25 mph) — placing the cars in league with farm tractors. This low top speed has made them illegal to drive on public roads, which makes owning one a little pointless.
Vancouver is now thinking differently. As part of the cities green campaign, Vancouver became the first major Canadian city to pass a bylaw to allow city electric cars. The car are allowed on all streets with a posted speed limit of 50 km/h or lower. This allows the owners of electric vehicles to utilize any street in Vancouver. The major glitch is that all major bridges are posted at 60 km/h, meaning no one can get into, or out of, downtown Vancouver. Don Chandler, president of the Vancouver Electric Vehicle Association, has proposed an idea of allowing electric cars in the right lane of multi-lane bridges. Even the idea of building a special lane on highways is being kicked around.
Vancouver has also passed another bylaw that requires provision for EV plugs in all new single family homes. They are also looking to retrofit old buildings to accommodate current home owners, as well as place charging stations in parking garages around the city.
Hopefully Vancouver has created a path that other cities will soon follow.
New York City officials recently mandated that all taxi cabs must average 25 mpg by 2012. The plan was to lessen the environmental impact of New York City’s 13,000 taxis, as well as 40,000 other for-hire vehicles, but the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission apparently forgot to concern itself with passenger safety.
The fight is over the bulletproof plastic partition, which is mandated by law in NYC and separates the drivers from their fares. The problem with it is the possible effect on airbags and other passive and active safety devices to rear seat passengers. Toyota and Honda have issued outright warnings against using their hybrid vehicles as commercial cabs. While Ford, General Motors and Nissan have refused to certify the crash worthiness of their hybrid taxis, modified with mandatory partitions. It seems that the partitions could somehow block or deflect side airbags, rear airbags and side curtain airbags. There is also the chance of injury from someone being thrown into the partition itself, their seat belt being used or not (and I don’t know anyone that wears a seatbelt in NYC taxis, do they even have them?).
The trouble doesn’t end there though. Automakers are also warning that hybrids were never designed for “heavy commercial use.” Who knows if the hybrids of today can handle the deft driving skills of a NYC taxi driver, as well as the not so great maintenance schedule the cars are on.
The New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission has yet to respond to the safety and longevity concerns, but does list several hybrid vehicles on its approved vehicle list for taxi use.<
Turns out you don’t have to give out mortgages like candy and then blow all the proceeds on drugs and strippers to get your hands on part of the government’s $700 billion bailout package. Instead, put down the hooker and pick up a Chevy Volt.
As part of the Wall Street bailout package, $1 billion is set aside for discounts for hybrid cars with batteries rated at 4 kWh (kilowatt hours) or more. While the current Prius’ 1.3 kWh battery pack does not qualify, the 6 kWh Chevrolet Volt should qualify for the maximum $7,500 tax credit. See, sometimes the good people win (or at least get some of their own money back to buy a car.)
Following the approved $25 billion in loans to help U.S. based auto groups, Europe’s car makers plan to ask the European Commission for a €40 billion ($55.22 billion) loan. European car makers plan to use the loan to aide them toward meeting the 2012 EU mandate that calls for the automakers to lower carbon dioxide emissions. If America will give the money, why can’t the EU? After all, it will be used to accelerate the transition to environmentally friendly cars.
According to a spokesman for the automaker, "All European car makers agree on the [€40 billion] demand." Shocking.
In a time when big cars seem to be out of fashion, it seems one company is looking to begin making its own large sedan for a very exclusive list of clients. How exclusive? Unless your name is Uncle Sam, you can’t get one.
Carbon Motors is introducing a model called the E7 that will be sold exclusively to law enforcement agencies. Although this concept has been around for about a year, it looks like the car is getting closer to production. While the company is still looking for investors, a prototype will begin touring the country later this month.
Part of why Carbon Motors wants to start this program is so they can buy back the cars and recycle them. “Today the criminal element is buying these cars because they still look like police cars,” said William Santana Li, CEO of Carbon Motors Corp. By taking them back, Carbon will have better control of where police and government agency cars end their life.
Although Carbon Motors will likely be taking sales away from the Detroit manufactures, Carbon says it has a good relationship with the auto manufacturers and will likely rely on them for engines. Carbon claims that the volume for these cars are about 10,000 to 80,000 per year, and that some of the major manufactures are happy to have Carbon focus on the lower-profit niche market of law enforcement vehicles. If all goes right, the E7 should be on the streets and bustin’ heads by 2012.
