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A closer look at the recently passed federal fuel economy rules highlights how electric vehicles complicate the familiar measures of mileage for industry and even consumers.

The Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration last Thursday published final rules for automakers to meet fleet-wide requirements on fuel efficiency on light-duty vehicles. Fuel efficiency averages need to increase to 35.5 miles per gallon within six years, up almost 10 miles per gallon from now.

On the question of how electric and fuel cell vehicles contribute to the fleet totals, the EPA and NHTSA said the rules seek … Read more

We really wish that we could say that this was an April Fools' joke, but it's not. The Garia Soleil de Minuit golf cart is an actual product, heralded as "the most expensive golf cart ever made by a manufacturer."

The Soleil de Minuit is based on the already pricey Garia golf cart (MSRP $17,499), a luxury cart built in the same factory as the Porsche Cayman and Boxter using aluminum frame made by the same company that supplies Aston Martin and Jaguar. The Garia features an F1 inspired suspension and a drive train built by … Read more

Think will begin selling its all-electric City cars in the New York metropolitan area within the coming months, the company said Thursday.

Think's City model is a highway-legal electric vehicle that runs solely on a lithium ion battery system and gives off zero emissions. The car, which has a top speed of 60 mph, can be charged from either a standard U.S. 110-volt household outlet, or a fast-charging 220-volt station that can be installed for home use. The small two-door car, clearly intended for city driving and parking, has a battery system with a range of about 112 … Read more

Ford Motor and Microsoft are collaborating on software for consumers to manage how and when to charge electric vehicles.

Executives from both companies at the New York Auto Show on Wednesday announced that drivers of Ford's electric cars will use Microsoft Hohm, a Web-based home energy management application.

The 2011 electric Ford Focus will be the first car to use Hohm, which company executives said will let consumers take advantage of cheaper electricity rates. That will also help utilities manage the added load of electric vehicles which can be substantial if many people in a neighborhood charge up at … Read more

Nissan said on Tuesday it will begin taking orders on April 20 in the U.S. for the electric Leaf sedan which will be priced starting at $32,780 before subsidies.

The all-electric car, which has four doors and a hatchback, will start shipping in 20 areas in the U.S. in the first half of next year and be available nationally later next year. A lease costs $349 per month.

In addition to the purchase price, it's recommended that consumers have a home charging station, made by Aerovironment, installed for an average cost of $2,200, according to … Read more

General Motors on Wednesday unveiled its Electric Networked-Vehicle (EN-V), a two-seater urban transport concept vehicle it's developing in conjunction with the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. (SAIC).

The EN-V is not intended for highway driving, but for what GM refers to as "personal urban transport," an idea already taken up by several companies and academic research groups. Many feel there's a need for "last mile" transport or gap transport, a means of transportation that covers the area between where public transport drops off and an exact final destination.

Walking is already the obvious solution in many cases. But in severe weather, when touting packages, or in cities lacking extensive public transport reach, people still tend to take a car over public transport. Providing another option could be the key to getting people to leave those cars outside the city.

The EN-V aims to offer a solution to city traffic congestion, parking, poor air quality, and affordability, according to GM. Using the same platform, the car could come in three distinct looks: the Jiao (Pride), Miao (Magic), and Xiao (Laugh).

The EN-V, which looks like a cross between a Smart Car and MIT's City Car, is actually a descendant of the Project PUMA (Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility) that GM unveiled in April 2009. The PUMA is a two-wheel car built with Segway technology.… Read more

Qualcomm is adding 4G technology to its Gobi laptop modems and expanding its chip offerings that support 3G technologies.

The San Diego-based company announced at CTIA in Las Vegas Tuesday that it will add, for the first time, LTE, or Long Term Evolution 4G technology to the roster of 3G technologies that the Gobi modem supports. 4G technology is expected to offer much greater data throughput than current 3G technologies (see chart below).

Gobi modem technology is significant because it supports more than one type of 3G service. In effect, Gobi allows switching to a different 3G provider in software. The integrated Gobi modem on HP EliteBook business laptops, for example, supports Verizon's EV-DO and AT&T's HSPA 3G services. Before, a user would have to replace the internal modem to switch providers.

And Gobi modems will now be future-proofed by supporting LTE, too. Michael Concannon, senior vice president of connectivity and wireless modules at Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, explained how this could play out for PC makers. "A PC supplier, for example, may go with a 3.6 megabit-per-second module on a very low-end laptop, while in the mid-range they may want to go with a 14.4 (Mbps), and at the very high end… Read more

Ford surprised everyone earlier this year when it snagged the 2010 North American Truck of the Year award with a small-van-hatchback thingy. The Ford Transit Connect won over the judges with its big truck utility and small car footprint. Even we have to admit that it's an efficient little package.

Hot on the heels of the win, Ford announced that it was developing a battery-electric vehicle version of the Transit Connect in partnership with Azure Dynamics that will go into production in mid-to-late 2010. Well, 2010 is here and so is the Ford Transit Connect Electric. We were given a tour of the electric prototype, and then were tossed the keys and allowed to take it for a spin around the block. The BEV surprised us with just how normal it was.

The interesting thing about the Transit BEV is that--save for the gaudy electric blue graphics--there's not much different from the gasoline variant, at least not on the surface. Both vehicles have about the same footprint as a Ford Focus and both have the same 135-foot cargo volume. There are split cargo doors at the rear as well as rear-sliding doors on both sides. The Transit is designed primarily with fleet buyers in mind (such as cab, delivery, and service uses). As a result, it can be ordered with rear seats or configured as a cargo van with an empty cargo bay and a dividing wall separating the driver from the payload. She's not looker, but the general consensus is that the Transit Connect gets the job done.

If you lift the Transit BEV's hood, it's immediately obvious that this is no ordinary fleet vehicle. Ford replaced the Transit's 2.0-liter drivetrain with a high-voltage electric motor that sends torque through a single-speed gearbox to the front wheels. Behind the fuel cap is an electrical charging port that accepts 120V and 240V AC power. It then converts it to DC power for storage in the BEV's 28kWh lithium ion battery pack, which resides where the gas tank used to live. Because the electric drivetrain doesn't have the alternator or a vacuum system of its internally-combusting sibling, the electric Transit Connect features all-electric power steering, cooling, heating, air conditioning, brake boosting, and other systems. There's also a step-down transformer that takes the high-voltage power coming out of the battery and outputs lower-voltage power for running 12V accessories.… Read more

Not even a year after Virgin Mobile introduced Broadband2Go, its pay-as-you-go broadband service, it is now expanding it with even more data while still keeping costs low.

The $60 plan, for example, now offers 5GB, when it was 1GB previously. You now get 1GB for $40, and the 300MB for $20, though you do need to use the data within 30 days. As before, there's a $10 plan that only gives you 100MB that you need to use in 10 days instead.

There are no activation fees, and megabytes can be added as needed. To use it, you can … Read more