electric cars

On 12th June Tesla announced that it was making its electric vehicle patents available to open source users. This is seen by many as a bold move – Tesla has developed a different battery technology to other players in the market, using smaller cells that run more efficiently. 

The North American International Auto Show kicked off in Detroit earlier this week, and it seem that almost every manufacturer is either promising or delivering some version of an electric car. Chevy's Volt was even named Car of the Year. And nobody cares.

If you were to believe the mainstream media, the future of transportation is electric. And so it seems: In the coming year or two, we'll see a parade of electric vehicles (EVs), hybrid-electric vehicles (HEVs), plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), and extended-range electric vehicles (EREVs) — and probably a few variations on those themes — all of which employ kilowatts where gasoline once reigned. They're coming from both the world's biggest car companies and some of the smallest.

What to make of this week's bankruptcy filing by General Motors? The beginning of the end? The end of the beginning? A death? Rebirth? Something in between?

Given the months-long anticipation of this development, much already has been written and said, and many fingers pointed. GM, as Paul Ingrassia recently opined in the Wall Street Journal, made "decades of dumb decisions."  

by: Michael Hoexter

Now as the Big Three American automakers are teetering on the brink, is the time for the government to provide direction to an industry that has lacked a decisive winning strategy and forward-looking product plans over the past decade, if not decades.

by: Jonathan Salem Baskin

 
A photo of Chevy's VOLT electric car appeared in USAToday yesterday even though it's two+ years away from the market, and GM is promoting new hybrid vehicles in three. It's a safe bet to expect that the car business will be fundamentally different in a few years.

by: Joel Makower

by: Michael Hoexter

On a Top Gear show aired last night on BBC America, the well-respected actress Kristin Scott Thomas (”The English Patient”, “Four Weddings and a Funeral”,  “Mission: Impossible”) confesses to the bloviating but funny Jeremy Clarkson that she drives the G-Wiz electric mini-car when she is in London.

by: Joel Makower