Last month, we brought you the story of the electric taxis that carry passengers through the busy City of Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China, based on a low-tech way of quickly swapping out empty battery packs for fully charged ones. At the time, we chose to focus on the process of battery swapping, covered at length in the original Wall Street Daily...
While Mazda prepares to unveil its new CX-5 crossover and launch its new SkyActiv engine and transmission technology, it's also quietly developing a hybrid model as well. In March 2010, Japan's small but scrappy maker of "Zoom Zoom" cars signed a deal to license Toyota's Hybrid Synergy Drive technology, which Toyota is also licensing to Subaru as...
Forget the Jaguar C-X75 or BMW i8 range-extenders. When it comes to the greenest supercars around, pure-electric drivetrains are a must. Whether its single motors, dual motors, or one in each wheel, electric cars offer enthusiasts a whole new level of performance, and capabilities never seen before. Here’s our roundup of the latest...
In the middle of his much-publicized bus tour into the nation's agricultural heartland on Tuesday, President Obama announced a new initiative to kickstart the U.S. biofuel industry, which among other things would create more jobs for rural communities in the biofuel production chain. The announcement is the latest in a closely timed-series of...
When the Cadillac ELR extended-range plug-in car goes on sale, probably in 2013 as a 2014 model, it's a given that it will cost more than the 2012 Chevy Volt. But how much more? In the spate of reports late yesterday covering GM's announcement yesterday that its 2009 Cadillac Converj concept would be built as the Cadillac ELR, one sentence from a...
Remember the story of One Red Paperclip? The guy from Vancouver, Canada who traded a single red paperclip to a full-size house in just 14 trade ups? Now fellow Canadian Martin Provost, trying to trade his way from a $30 Camera to a Tesla Roadster, has just got his first ride in the $109,000 electric rocket. But his hour of fun last week...
General Motors has just confirmed what this site reported last week: The Cadillac Converj concept car from 2009, based on the running gear of the Chevrolet Volt electric car, will go into production. Cadillac's electric sports coupe will be called the ELR, joining the current CTS mid-size sports sedan and the upcoming ATS compact sedan and XTS...
The reality of driving 1,900 miles across Australia may not be exactly what was presented in the 1996 movie, Race the Sun, a romanticized comedy-drama based on a high-school team that competed in the 1990 World Solar Challenge. But it remains an impressive accomplishment to design, support, and drive a completely solar-powered car from Darwin to...
Electric cars are often seen by the general public as slow and unsuitable for motorsport events like drag racing. Ron Adamowicz is out to change that perception, and his electric-powered 1981 Chevrolet Camaro serves as a prime example of what’s possible with some ingenuity, a few electric motors and a very large battery pack. Adamowicz...
How many vehicles are there on Earth? We'd ask you to guess, except the headline above gives away the answer. According to industry trade journal Ward's, which added up both reported vehicle registrations and historical trends, the total crossed 1 billion sometime last year. The vehicles include passenger cars, light-, medium-, and heavy-duty...
Ford's lineup used to lack small cars, but with the arrival of the stylish Ford Fiesta last year and an all-new family of Focus models this year, the automaker now has a full-line of small cars in addition to its hybrid models like the Escape Hybrid and Fusion Hybrid. The city-sized Fiesta was originally designed for Europe, where small-car...
Diesels: Dirty and slow, right? Only if you've never left the 1980s. Diesel engine technology has come along in leaps and bounds over the past two decades and the best of today's diesel vehicles easily offer a compromise between performance and economy to best equivalent gasoline vehicles. General Motors thinks that U.S. consumers want the extra...
While the first Urban Concept from Audi featured an innovated sliding roof design, the German automaker has now gone the whole hog and built an open-top version, or 'Spyder' in Audi-speak. Otherwise, the concept, which now goes by the name Audi Urban Spyder, is much the same as its hard-top sibling, still packing a tandem-style 1+1 seating...
Last month, we brought you the story of the electric taxis that carry passengers through the busy City of Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China, based on a low-tech way of quickly swapping out empty battery packs for fully charged ones. At the time, we chose to focus on the process of battery swapping, covered at length in the original Wall Street Daily...
While Mazda prepares to unveil its new CX-5 crossover and launch its new SkyActiv engine and transmission technology, it's also quietly developing a hybrid model as well. In March 2010, Japan's small but scrappy maker of "Zoom Zoom" cars signed a deal to license Toyota's Hybrid Synergy Drive technology, which Toyota is also licensing to Subaru as...
Forget the Jaguar C-X75 or BMW i8 range-extenders. When it comes to the greenest supercars around, pure-electric drivetrains are a must. Whether its single motors, dual motors, or one in each wheel, electric cars offer enthusiasts a whole new level of performance, and capabilities never seen before. Here’s our roundup of the latest...
In the middle of his much-publicized bus tour into the nation's agricultural heartland on Tuesday, President Obama announced a new initiative to kickstart the U.S. biofuel industry, which among other things would create more jobs for rural communities in the biofuel production chain. The announcement is the latest in a closely timed-series of...
When the Cadillac ELR extended-range plug-in car goes on sale, probably in 2013 as a 2014 model, it's a given that it will cost more than the 2012 Chevy Volt. But how much more? In the spate of reports late yesterday covering GM's announcement yesterday that its 2009 Cadillac Converj concept would be built as the Cadillac ELR, one sentence from a...
Remember the story of One Red Paperclip? The guy from Vancouver, Canada who traded a single red paperclip to a full-size house in just 14 trade ups? Now fellow Canadian Martin Provost, trying to trade his way from a $30 Camera to a Tesla Roadster, has just got his first ride in the $109,000 electric rocket. But his hour of fun last week...
General Motors has just confirmed what this site reported last week: The Cadillac Converj concept car from 2009, based on the running gear of the Chevrolet Volt electric car, will go into production. Cadillac's electric sports coupe will be called the ELR, joining the current CTS mid-size sports sedan and the upcoming ATS compact sedan and XTS...
The reality of driving 1,900 miles across Australia may not be exactly what was presented in the 1996 movie, Race the Sun, a romanticized comedy-drama based on a high-school team that competed in the 1990 World Solar Challenge. But it remains an impressive accomplishment to design, support, and drive a completely solar-powered car from Darwin to...
Electric cars are often seen by the general public as slow and unsuitable for motorsport events like drag racing. Ron Adamowicz is out to change that perception, and his electric-powered 1981 Chevrolet Camaro serves as a prime example of what’s possible with some ingenuity, a few electric motors and a very large battery pack. Adamowicz...
How many vehicles are there on Earth? We'd ask you to guess, except the headline above gives away the answer. According to industry trade journal Ward's, which added up both reported vehicle registrations and historical trends, the total crossed 1 billion sometime last year. The vehicles include passenger cars, light-, medium-, and heavy-duty...
Ford's lineup used to lack small cars, but with the arrival of the stylish Ford Fiesta last year and an all-new family of Focus models this year, the automaker now has a full-line of small cars in addition to its hybrid models like the Escape Hybrid and Fusion Hybrid. The city-sized Fiesta was originally designed for Europe, where small-car...
Diesels: Dirty and slow, right? Only if you've never left the 1980s. Diesel engine technology has come along in leaps and bounds over the past two decades and the best of today's diesel vehicles easily offer a compromise between performance and economy to best equivalent gasoline vehicles. General Motors thinks that U.S. consumers want the extra...
While the first Urban Concept from Audi featured an innovated sliding roof design, the German automaker has now gone the whole hog and built an open-top version, or 'Spyder' in Audi-speak. Otherwise, the concept, which now goes by the name Audi Urban Spyder, is much the same as its hard-top sibling, still packing a tandem-style 1+1 seating...
