'electric vehicles'

Nissan announced a partnership with San Diego Gas and Electric to develop and promote an electric vehicle-charging network for the San Diego area.

The automaker will help the power company acquire electric vehicles and will work with agencies and city departments to flesh out EV infrastructure implementation to make San Diego "plug-in ready."

SDG&E has made a commitment to bring 100 of Nissan's EV to San Diego to start, and Nissan representative Katherine Zachary said she expects zeros to be added to that number in the future.

For consumers, Nissan will publish deployment plans for … Read more

President Barack Obama on Thursday launched a $2.4 billion program to boost development of plug-in electric vehicles in the U.S., including grants to finance domestic production of auto batteries.

Obama spoke at Southern California Edison's Electric Vehicle Technical Center in Pomona, Calif., where he said the Department of Energy has now started taking grant proposals from electric-vehicle battery makers.

The stimulus plan passed earlier this year set aside $2 billion to jump-start electric-vehicle manufacturing. Out of that total, $1.5 billion is available for U.S. battery manufacturing and $500 million for related technology, such as electric … Read more

General Motors plans to build prototypes of its Chevy Volt electric car this summer based on successful development of its battery powertrain technology to this point.

Despite GM's grave financial problems, the Chevy Volt is still scheduled for release in November 2010, company executives said in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday. The four-door sedan can go 40 miles on a full charge and has an internal combustion engine to charge the battery for longer trips.

During the call, executives said GM engineers have been able to meet its battery performance goals and that the company is already … Read more

NEW YORK--Ener1, which manufactures lithium ion batteries for electric cars, is testing energy storage systems for the power grid, the company's CEO said on Tuesday.

Ener1's roots are in the automotive industry and its Indianapolis-based EnerDel division already has agreements to supply battery packs to a handful of auto companies, including Think and another automaker in Europe.

The company is also expanding into different markets, including the military and utility-grade storage, said Ener1 CEO Charles Gassenheimer at the Jefferies Global Clean Technology Conference here.

Ener1 is working with a few utilities that work in its Midwestern region on … Read more

Engineers at MIT have made a breakthrough that could translate into smaller, lighter, and faster-charging lithium ion batteries, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced Wednesday.

Gerbrand Ceder, the Richard P. Simmons Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT; aided by Byoungwoo Kang, a graduate student in materials science and engineering, have made a small battery that can be fully charged or discharged in 10 to 20 seconds.

A detailed explanation on how they did this has been published in the March 12 issue of Nature, but here is a brief recap of what they essentially accomplished.

While lithium ion … Read more

Nissan recently announced a partnership with the city governments of the Tucson Metro Area and the Pima Association of Governments (PAG), a nonprofit metropolitan planning organization in the Tucson area, to help them prepare for the anticipated wave of electric cars.

Most of the market research to plan and implement an EV-charging network will be done by ECOtality, a clean-electric transportation and technology company in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Part of Nissan's role will be to help PAG acquire electric vehicles. Nissan has been promising to come out with an all-electric car in late 2010, although it won't say what it is. Nissan has been adamant that the electric vehicle will not be the prototype electric Cube that was displayed in car shows last year, but it has committed that the car will be able to get up to 100 miles on a single charge. The five-passenger compact car will be about the size of a Sentra.

The new electric car will be equipped to handle the next-generation of 440-volt fast-charging stations, says Nissan spokesperson Katherine Zachary. The fast-charging stations are able to charge Nissan's electric car in 26 minutes and will be critical to extending transportation corridors and easing consumer fears of being stranded for hours with a drained battery. … Read more

In Aptera Motor's manufacturing facility, visitors are given a sledgehammer and encouraged to swing away at the company's electric vehicle prototype. Dent it, and you can win $100.

This challenge, of course, will not apply to accidents on the streets when the three-wheeled aerodynamic vehicle hits California's congested highways in October.

The hands-on exercise demonstrates the vehicle's inherent safety, and is an attempt to overcome the perception that a small, lightweight, three-wheeled vehicle isn't as safe as a conventional gas-fueled car. … Read more

Alternative energy company Ecotality said on Friday that it will supply charging stations in Arizona as part of the planned roll-out of plug-in electric cars from Nissan next year.

Nissan North America has committed to making its electric vehicles available to municipal or private organizations in the Tucson, Ariz., area, Ecotality said. Nissan's all-electric sedan is scheduled to be available in certain areas of the U.S. next year.

Ecotality said it will plan the installation of charging stations in the area and work with local politicians to establish policies to promote plug-in electric cars.

There are a number … Read more

With the roll-out of plug-in and electric vehicles this year, car owners are going to need to know where else besides their home they can charge their car. Communities are working to accommodate these new vehicles by installing public charging facilities, but that won't help much if no one can find them.

Tying the pieces together is the Electric Vehicle Charging Stations Map created and maintained by the Cleantech Authority, an environment-conscious information hub that provides actionable resources for readers to use. … Read more