While car sales of hybrid models have shown a steady increase in the last decade, there is still a perception that the green benefits of going hybrid come at the cost of limited performance. This is largely due to the absence of hybrids from the racing scene, which is the platform where popular cars like the Audi A8 and the Subaru Impreza initially gained their prestige. (more…)

GM is already the maker of the Chevrolet Volt, the first wide-selling domestic plug-in hybrid electric vehicle to hit the market. With new CAFE standards put in place by the US Government, and with growing public demand for cleaner vehicles, GM has decided to expand its electric vehicle inventory. According to GM’s product development chief, by (more…)

In the 2011 film Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, Tom Cruise is upstaged by BMW’s new star supercar, the i8 plug-in hybrid. The winged-door i8 accelerates from zero to 60 miles in less than five seconds—and is capable of a top speed of around 155 miles per hour. It’s expected to deliver supercar level of performance while offering an equally impressive 90 miles per gallon. (more…)

One of the lessons we learn as we go through life is how much tougher things actually are than they initially appear. I was a reasonably athletic person as a young man, and I thought surfing might come easy. Wrong. Designing electric transportation might be an example of a subject that would certainly be a piece (more…)

Scheduled for a 2012 release date, the V60 is the first diesel plug-in hybrid electric vehicle in the world.

According to Technologic Vehicles, the V60 features three driving modes: Pure (electric only), Hybrid (default mode) and Power, when the engines act together.

It also features a four-wheel drive mode: at (more…)

The year is 2015. One million electric vehicles whoosh along America’s highways and the noise is, well, not likely to inspire fist-pumping rock and roll anthems. But if we reach the goal President Obama has set of one million EVs in four years, it’s the start of a quiet revolution that can ultimately free us from Big Oil. (more…)

The electric bike trend has apparently exploded all across the world. If you had gone to an alternative energy or electric bicycle convention 10 years ago you would have barely seen more than a dozen electric bicycle models on display. Of course, there were many reasons for this; mostly because electric power assisted bicycles were not advanced enough and (more…)

In a previous post, I wrote about patent attorney-inventor Conrad O. Gardner’s infringement suit against Toyota in which he accused the automaker of infringing U.S. Patent No. 7,290,627 (’627 patent).

In that case, Gardner alleged that Toyota infringed the ‘627 Patent by making and selling the second generation Prius, the (more…)

By imagining the entire body of the car as one giant battery, designers of Sweden’s safest car may have found a way to make EVs lighter and more powerful.

Batteries for electric cars are bulky and heavy. Adding batteries in to extend the EV’s range, only makes the car heavier, which just requires more power to go the same distance as before. (more…)