Electric vehicles are set to experience a breakthrough in 2011 due to a £5,000 car grant introduced by the government today, experts predict.

Motorists will have a choice of just one subsidised car to buy outright as the project is launched – the Mitsubishi i-MiEV – but should have a choice of nine or 10 fully electric and plug-in hybrid cars by 2012. (more…)

It looks like the debate on fuel economy for plug-in hybrids rages on unabated. General Motors just announced that its Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid car will carry a better efficiency rating that the Toyota Prius (long been recognized as the industry leader in the category). The fact that this is like comparing apples with trombones doesn’t seem to be of any major concern to GM, the (more…)

General Motors is prepping for the year-end release of the Chevrolet Volt by supporting the rollout of charging infrastructure. The company selected automotive supplier SPX Service Solutions as its partner for residential EV charging equipment (known as EVSE). The charger is priced at $490, or less than half of what most competitors will offer. (more…)

At the Paris Motor Show today, electric cars are everywhere.

Chevrolet is showing off the Volt, its plug-in hybrid due in U.S. showrooms this December. (Motown music blared as a Chevy rep told me all about the car’s performance.) Nissan is displaying the Leaf, its all-electric sedan scheduled to roll (more…)

RIP, Energy Bill: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced he didn’t have the votes to pass a climate-change bill that puts a price on greenhouse gases. With that statement one of Obama’s major campaign promises crashed to earth, along with hopes for slowing global warming or using cleantech to jump-start the U.S. economy. In place of a real energy bill is an (more…)

With the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt slated for launch in December, car manufacturers and regulators are scrambling to build intelligent charging systems that help consumers schedule charging during off-peak hours.

“Off peak charging” was the mantra of Pedro Pizarro, the executive vice president of power operations for Southern California Edison during a panel that also included executives from Nissan, GM and Ford at the Green:Net 2010 conference in San Francisco. Pizarro said SCE anticipates between 150,000 – 1,000,000 EVs in its service area by 2020. (more…)

The Oil Spill’s Unlikely Victim: As oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill continued to gush into the Gulf of Mexico, it tarred the feathers of an endangered creature: the climate bill. Sens. John Kerry and Joe Lieberman introduced a retooled American Power Act on Wednesday to little fanfare. Perhaps that’s because the media’s klieg lights were already divided between the grilling of oil executives on Capitol Hill or the so-far hapless efforts to plug the leak. Or maybe it’s because the two senators took to the dais without their erstwhile Republican ally, Lindsey Graham. Nevertheless, it was ironic to see a solution to our fossil-fuel addiction pushed to the side because of a fossil-fuel disaster. Must we cap the gusher before we get a cap on CO2?

More Electric Cars Roll to the Starting Line: You’ve heard that the Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Volt are on the way, but how about the Think and the Wheego? Wheego, a maker of electric putt-putt vehicles based in Atlanta, hopes that 200 highway-ready copies of its Whip Life will roll off the assembly line by August, months ahead of the well-publicized launch of the Leaf. Meanwhile, the Norwegian carmaker Think raised $40 million this week and plans to start assembly of the tiny Think City in Elkhart, Indiana in early 2011.

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I like to ride my bike and take public transportation when I can. But I still rely on the car to move me around a few days every week. That said, developments in cars and personal transportation are things I take both personal and professional interest in.

So after Ford loaned a new 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid to me and Gas 2.0 editor Nick Chambers for an extended test drive – that we would take on a trip to and from a multi-day music festival in Southern California we were both covering — I decided to share my thoughts about why Ford’s first foray into the hybrid sedan market is making a big splash:  Partly because of good business timing;  but also because they built a great car.
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