General Motors aims to build as many as 500,000 vehicles that utilize some sort of electric technology by 2017.

Speaking to reporters this week, GM’s product development chief, Mary Barra, said the company’s fleet of cleaner vehicles will include the plug-in Chevrolet Volt; the all-electric Spark EV, which will go (more…)

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…)

Below is a wonderful video that explains the multiple drivetrains at work in the Chevy Volt. A couple of immediate impressions:

1) No wonder the price on this sucker is $41K, with all that going on. The bill of materials (costs of the individual components) must be enough to choke a horse. And the non-recurring engineering costs must (more…)

National and local incentives promoting the use of electric vehicles in Asia will help put more than 1.4 million plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles on roadways by 2015, making it the largest market worldwide for electrified vehicles, according to a new report. While Asian markets have so far focused on production of plug-in hybrids, market attention will increasingly turn to the (more…)

Strangely enough Edison had one of the first electric vehicles and Detroit made them until World War II. Then they died until in the 1990s some electric battery driven cars were recreated as something brand new to the marketplace. Then they withered and were reborn again in the (more…)

Recently my colleague John Voelcker over at Green Car Reports wrote about why he and some fancy report thought that people will buy hybrid electric cars if more car companies offer electric cars and prices come down. Only then will we see that it’s not about being “seen.” Instead, it’s about trying to do the right thing, which is moving our transportation sector to an all-electric model.

People who buy new technology do that because they are early adopters. However, I can tell you that most of the electric cars that come out (except for the Tesla) have not been the sexiest. Does anyone remember the first generation Toyota Prius or the THINK City in 2001?

However, here is the thing: (more…)