In a few weeks, we’ll come upon the four-year anniversary of when candidate Barack Obama proposed that America put 1 million plug-in electric vehicles on our roads by 2015. Even before the sale of the first Chevy Volt or Nissan Leaf, most observers knew that hitting the seven-figure mark by 2015 was more aspirational than an actual goal. Recent sales numbers for EVs (more…)

The European Union has introduced strict new auto emissions standards that officials say would cut carbon dioxide emissions by a third by 2020. The new standard, which must be approved by all member states and the European Parliament, would require that new passenger cars emit no more than 95 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer driven, (more…)

New electric vehicles are improving, but can technology catch up to consumers’ demands?

I have three small children who each have a car seat, I live in the city and I coach tee-ball two nights a week. I would love an electric vehicle (EV) to help carry my load, but the realities of my life, as well as the state of the EV market, make it, in a word … difficult. (more…)

One of the biggest hurdles to getting more plug-in electric vehicles on the road has been a lack of charging infrastructure – but America may have many more charging options than previously thought.

Of all U.S. households that own at least one car, an estimated 49.6 million housing units (49 percent of all (more…)

Despite being in the midst of a financial apocalypse, California continues to find money to support the sale of electric vehicles. The California Air Resources Board just approved an additional $27 million in incentives to spur sales of hybrid and electric cars and trucks. The car rebates ($2,500 per vehicle) will put the price tag of the Leaf and Volt a bit closer to the price (more…)

Though many startup companies in the electric vehicle (EV) industry have either struggled to survive produce a profit, or insure investors of their products’ worth (or all three), one company has consistently bucked the trend of disappointing news: Tesla Motors. In 2008, the company first began selling its first-generation all electric Tesla Roadster and since then (more…)

For the past two years, electric vehicles (EVs) have been prominent subjects of automotive news pages, with OEMs introducing new models almost monthly. The latest announcement is the Toyota Rav4 EV, which is scheduled to hit California dealers late this summer. The Rav4 really exemplifies most of the EV announcements because it, like many of the EVs, (more…)

The results of the 2012 Black & Veatch “Strategic Directions in the U.S. Electric Utility Industry Report” were released recently with plenty of media attention.

Most of the headlines focused on findings surrounding our country’s future with coal (or lack thereof). Only 58 percent of utility executives said (more…)

“Fast” DC electric vehicle chargers that can charge up to 80 percent of a battery electric vehicle (BEV) in under 20 minutes are starting to sprout up in the U.S. Consumers are expected to be willing to pay up to the price of a movie ticket to wait minutes instead of hours to charge a vehicle. (more…)

Almost every big automaker fell short of their first-year sales targets for electric vehicles (EVs), and even though total EV sales in 2011 beat hybrid sales in 2000 (the vehicle’s first year on most markets) by a hefty margin, EVs took a beating from media outlets. Bad press or not, EV sales will continue to remain a mere fraction of overall vehicle sales until OEMs figure out (more…)