According to Pike Research, almost 200,000 plug-in electric cars and trucks equipped with vehicle-to-building (V2B) technology will be sold through 2020. The company said that from 2012 to 2020, investment in that space will total $279 million.

That’s a lot of money. V2B and its vehicle-to-grid (V2G) cousin (more…)

Here’s an overly simplistic article that questions the validity of electric vehicles as “green” transportation, suggesting that charging EVs can require more coal to be burned. I note the comment: “I power my electric car totally from solar PV panels. This article should be citing coal-fired power plants, not electric cars.” He has an excellent point, but, since most EV (more…)

The Department of Energy (DOE) loan program aimed at commercializing clean transportation technologies has been taking hits from all sides recently. Loan recipients such as Fisker Automotive and Ener1, who have either had problems meeting deadlines or gone into bankruptcy, have become targets of opponents of subsidies for clean (more…)

Trucking has become the most common mode for transporting goods across the land. However, all those trucks on the road burning diesel fuel can create a great deal of air pollution. Plus, higher gas prices cause increases in the prices of goods. Now is the time to consider the next era of trucking, the electric truck. At the moment, they cost about three times (more…)

The U.S. Air Force recently announced that its Los Angeles base would be the first federal facility to replace 100 percent of its general purpose fleet with electric vehicles.

This switch will mean all 40 vehicles owned or leased by the base, including passenger sedans, two-ton (more…)

A new report from the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory shows that electric vehicles could aid in expanding renewable energy sources like wind in the Pacific Northwest. This region of the United States is increasingly looking at wind power to satisfy their growing energy demands. (more…)

This week, Air Force officials unveiled a plan to establish Los Angeles Air Force Base as the first Federal facility to replace 100% of its general-purpose fleet with Plug-in Electric Vehicles (PEV’s). This is the start of a broader Department of Defense (DoD) effort toward large-scale integration of PEV’s into its fleet. (more…)

I recently got the chance to speak with the vehicle-to-grid technology (V2G) firm Nuvve, which is currently working on a pilot project in Denmark demonstrating V2G. Pike Research has previously covered Nuvve’s projects in Denmark from a purely technological perspective. What is most interesting about Nuvve’s (more…)

During the past few weeks, many of the largest automotive companies involved in vehicle electrification have made announcements about using solar power to charge vehicles. While skeptics say that these are merely feel-good gimmicks to promote their vehicles, they are actually the start of something (more…)

Even before electric vehicles began their comeback, researchers started to develop technology that enable car owners to make money by selling power stored in batteries back to the grid. Under V2G, EVs charge their vehicles off-peak (primarily overnight), and then sell power back to grid operators during (more…)