Electric vehicle batteries don’t deal well with heat. Like the Lithium-ion battery in your laptop, if the battery in your EV overheats, it can shorten its lifespan or even cause it to simply stop working. While there haven’t been as many examples of spontaneous combustion in Li-ion batteries in electric vehicles as there have been in (more…)

The 2012 Department of Energy budget submitted to Congress on Monday includes a 20-page section on Vehicle Technologies (VT), and nearly every word of it refers to vehicle electrification. In language of funding dollars, the VT budget jumps by 80 percent from $325 million to $588 million.

The majority ($229 million) of the VT (more…)

Green transportation all the way around is a great investment from many different angles. It expands the transportation sector of the economy, spurs capital investment in new technology, and most importantly is environmentally friendly. However, those are just general statements and what most experts attempt to do is to quantify the dividends from green transportation. (more…)

Inspired by LEAF technology, the ESFLOW concept will be unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show 2011.

The Nissan LEAF made a splash as the most affordable, mass-produced, all-electric car on the market, and now its creators are determined to prove you can be an environmentally-friendly driver (more…)

Sure we spend a lot of time here writing about the Nissan LEAF, the Chevy Volt, Tesla and developments in the passenger electric car industry, but that doesn’t mean we think any less of electric vans and trucks. In fact, the stop-and-go nature of delivery driving combined with the standard practice of parking fleet vehicles on company property nightly make fleet (more…)

In 1914, Rauch & Lang built an electric vehicle, the Brougham B4. I recently saw an example of this on Chasing Classic Cars. It was amazing to see that back in 1914 electric vehicles were very popular and served as an alternative to cranking the engine or getting the steam engine to work.

According to Chasing Classic Cars, the (more…)

By the time the United States reaches President Obama’s goal of 1 million electric vehicles by 2015, the collective sound generated by all those whisper-quiet electric motors will be substantially louder, thanks to legislation the president recently signed.

The Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act directs the Secretary of Transportation to study and establish a motor vehicle safety (more…)

Ford Motor Company is clearly on a roll. Despite a hiccup that sank its stock price on January 28th, the company had its most profitable year in more than a decade in 2010, and the Ford Explorer was named Truck of the Year at the recent NAIAS. The company has rebounded without the aid of government assistance, and its focus on (more…)

As the market for electric vehicles continues to grow, it is becoming increasingly common to see automobile manufacturers banding together to form research and development partnerships. With current partnerships existing between Renault and Nissan and the more recent Toyota and Tesla match, it seemed to be only a matter of time before another group of automobile manufacturers (more…)

In the world of electric vehicle manufacturers, Tesla Motors is known for their sporty and speedy Roadster that came onto the scene all at once and surprised even the most negative onlookers with their success. Now with the Roadster at their back, the Model S sedan in the works, and the partnership with Toyota still fresh in people’s minds, Tesla is taking their (more…)