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Updated at 8:12 a.m. PDT March 30 with details on the CityZenn and Zennergy prototypes from Zenn Motor.

Zenn Motor is expanding its lineup to include a highway-legal electric car and an all-electric drivetrain for other automakers, the company announced Thursday.

Zenn (for "zero emission no noise") has been working on these particular products for some time.

In 2007, the company offered the public a low-speed Zenn car with a range of 35 miles per charge that was limited to the 25mph legal limit for cars in a certain class. In 2008, it improved its all-electric … Read more

With production set to begin next year, GM not only announced that the Chevrolet Volt will use lithium ion batteries, but also announced it would build a factory to manufacture battery packs for the Volt. However, in a sign that GM is actively looking for even better solutions for the Volt's electric power train, the independently run GM-Volt blog got Denise Gray, GM's Director of Advanced Batteries, to talk about GM's interest in the company EEStor, and whether the Volt will use EEStor technology.

EEStor has been issuing press releases for a few years now, and has … Read more

Toronto's Zenn Motors has laid out its plans for a freeway-legal car, and on paper it looks pretty good.

The CityZenn will hit a top speed of 80 miles per hour (or a 125 kilometers per hour as they insist on saying in Canada) but more importantly, it will be rechargeable in five minutes. That's an astounding breakthrough: Lengthy charge times have been one of the many reasons that electric cars have yet to go mainstream. Cars powered by lithium-ion batteries need a few hours to fully charge.

Zenn's car will be powered by an energy storage unit from secretive EEStor. … Read more

Lockheed Martin has signed a deal with EEStor to try to integrate the ultracapacitor start-up's electrical energy storage units into the defense contractor's products.

Financial terms of the agreement, announced Wednesday, were not disclosed.

EEStor is developing a ceramic battery chemistry that could provide 10 times the energy density of lead acid batteries at about a tenth of the weight and volume, according to Lockheed. A Lockheed spokesman said the company is interested in energy storage systems a soldier can carry, but also car batteries and energy systems for remote buildings.

Lockheed will spend most of the year … Read more

Former Vice President and Nobel Prize winner Al Gore has joined venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as a partner to concentrate on green technology investments.

To date, Kleiner Perkins has had something of a mixed record when it comes to clean tech. The firm has invested in Miasole, which recently swapped CEOs and has had to delay products. It is also an investor in EEStor, a mysterious supercapacitor company that has delayed its product and is going through some management changes. The firm has also not been part of some of the early, successful IPOs in clean tech … Read more

EEStor: You truly are the company that keeps on giving.

Mort Topfer, the former vice chair of Dell and one of the execs credited in helping turn it from a local phenomenon to a global PC powerhouse, has left the board of EEStor, according to Tyler Hamilton. Hamilton is not the disgraced bike racer but a reporter for the Toronto Star.

It's just one more bit of baffling news out of the Texas-based manufacturer of ultracapacitors, a device that stores electricity, and no doubt another factoid that critics will use to say that the company is not living up … Read more

A couple of people sent me links to an Associated Press story, "Texas Startup Says It Has Batteries Beat."

In the story, AP writer Grant Slater presents the claim by Austin, Texas, start-up EEStor (the company has no Web site yet) that "a motorist could plug in a car for five minutes and drive 500 miles roundtrip between Dallas and Houston without gasoline."

Now, c'mon. This is just not practical. I can say this even though I know nothing about EEStor's technology beyond news reports that it's some kind of high-density… Read more

It looks like the futuristic power system for electric cars promised by EEStor could be a little late.

EEStor CEO Richard Weir told CNET News.com in a brief phone interview that commercial production of its energy storage system--a device that holds electricity and functions somewhat like a battery--will be sometime in the next 10 months or so. The unit is also referred to as an "ultracapacitor."

"We intend to be in production on or before the middle of next year," he said.

Although that means that the company could be in production by tomorrow, the … Read more

Is it possible to achieve dharma at 25 mph?

The Zenn (which stands for Zero Emission, No Noise), available since February from Feel Good Cars subsidiary Zenn Motor, can be purchased from 33 dealerships throughout 20 U.S. states.

Surprised that you've never heard of the two-"n" Zenn? That may be because the company doesn't plan to have an official car-promoting launch until September 9, a company representative told CNET News.com last week.

Priced between $12,750 and $16,000, depending on options selected, the car offers a driving range of up to 35 … Read more