Electric Vehicles

When Paul Scott decided to reach out to President Obama a mere letter or meeting with a lower staff member wasn't enough. The Los Angeles-based Nissan salesman is paying $32,400 out of his own retirement fund so he can make a case for stronger presidential support for electric vehicles in person.

The county passenger fleet in Broome County, New York (halfway between Buffalo and NYC) used about 191,000 gallons of fuel, at a cost of $468,000, in 2006. While the county cut back and used 6,000 fewer gallons in 2007, the total cost for the fuel went up (we all know why) by $5,000. With numbers like these, it's easy to understand why county government officials were excited to see the Vantage Vehicle electric van last week. Government employees were able to test drive the Vantage and a peek at

Back in 1993, eBay.de member goldlady77 imported the electric car you see above from Miami to Germany. Fast forward 15 years and the car is now ready for a new home. Similar to the old CitiCar, this boxy EV was designed for mail carrier duties (hence the right hand drive) and is likely the only vehicle of its type in Germany. One ironic angle is that the owner needed to install a gas heater in the car to defrost the windows thanks to motor vehicle requirements back in the day (all of this info

Great Scott! An all-electric 1981 DeLorean DMC-12 is now up on eBay for the bargain price of $15,600. Well, it'd be a bargain if it could jump through time and wasn't under the reserve price. The one-off conversion was done by the seller and a friend and uses a WarP 9 electric motor that gets juice from thirteen 12 volt 100 amp-hour deep cycle Deka 9A31 Intimidator AGM batteries (they take up the trunk and underhood spaces. These can power the car for a 40-mile range and recharge in eight hours

Zap's been having a pretty good last few weeks. There was the groundbreaking at the Kentucky plant and now we hear that August electric vehicle sales set a new record. According to a new release from Zap (pasted after the jump), the company sold $737,000 worth (unaudited) of vehicles in August, compared to $392,000 in August 2007. Back in April 2007, Zap announced a "sale" of $79 million, but we had questions about that.

NOTE: If you missed them, you can read parts one and two.

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There has been a lot of noise in Kentucky recently as state elected officials work to bring a large electric car factory to the area. A month ago, Democrats and Republicans were fighting over just who could hold the earlier press conference with representatives from Zap. Then, two weeks ago, the governor issued an executive order to allow low-speed three wheelers like Zap's Xebra on the roads. On Friday, officials from the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority gave the green light to o

People who insist that cruising the streets of London should be done in an electric vehicle like the G-Wiz (pictured) can't really complain that the city isn't supporting them them with ways to power their rides (see also here and here). The latest addition to the EV charging infrastructure in London will be in the southern and western parts of the city - in the buroughs of Wandsworth, Richmond Upon Thames, Sutton and Hammersmith & Fulham - and is made up of nine new charging stations. The d

While many automakers are getting a bit bullish about diesel cars in America (see Mercedes, Nissan and VW), a board member of parts supplier Continental AG told Handelsblatt (via Thompson Financial) that an overall downturn in diesel interest in the U.S. means his company is looking more toward electric cars than diesel-powered ones. Board member Karl-Heinz Neumann said, "Regarding diesel fuel, I'm more sceptical by now. There's not much happening in the U.S. The opportunities of the electrical

How can we figure out how much potential electric car buyers are willing to pay for their battery-powered rides? Why not just ask them?

Driving a Ford-branded Th!nk Neighbor (NEV) around Pasadena wasn't good enough for Bill Provence. He wanted more speed, more safety and a little more protection from the elements. So, he did what any of us would do and teamed up some engineering and manufacturing friends in Michigan and built his own dream car. What? You don't have engineering and manufacturing friends in Michigan? Well, it appears you may be in luck because in a video telling us about his new sealed AGM lead acid battery-powere

Remember the WIRED article exposing the, let's say, odd things that have happened at electric car company Zap? EDN's technical editor, Paul Rako, has written an article saying that EV hucksterism needs to be everybody's business. Basically, he writes, don't buy the hype. "When unknown hucksters start peddling their BS it is time to take a deep breath and hope sanity prevails," he said. Rako singles out John Goodwin, who's creating Neil Young's LincVolt, as the best example of EV hucksterism. Rea

Click above for a high-res gallery of the Mitsuibshi i MiEV.

Click above for more images of the SAM from Cree Ltd.

You're probably familiar with the recent problems with quiet and silent vehicles and people with less-than-perfect sight. The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) has been on the case for a while, but there is one angle of their advocacy I didn't know about until Harper's printed the lyrics. The lyrics to what, you might ask? Well, the lyrics to a reworked version of the 1943 song Surry With the Fringe on Top (from Oklahoma!) and used by the NFB's Committee on Automobile and Pedestrian Safety.

Need an audio guide to the electric vehicle world while you wait for the Who Killed The Electric Car sequel? Internet entrepreneur and author Bo Bennett along with his EV co-host Ryan Levesque think that their new electric car podcast - EVcast - is just what the doctor ordered. The free show is available at the website or in iTunes and the first episode will be released today at 1 pm EST via a live stream (podcast version to follow). According to a release sent out by Bennett, the show will "inf

Dean Patterson, a visiting professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, isn't waiting for the OEMs to make him a plug-in hybrid. Patterson and his team of researchers are building a range-extended electric car in the school lab. Patterson, who expects all cars made in 10 years to have electric drive, told a local TV news team from KETV that the goal is to give the car a 50 mph top speed and an EV-only range of 20 miles. Sure, those aren't Volt-like numbers, but ther

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RTEV, the Ruff & Tuff Electric Vehicle company, is not the first to realize that a battery-powered ATV could be a good seller (we spoke with Electric Vehicle Systems about their ATEV last year). RTEV is now ready to expand into the electric recreational vehicles market with three models - the Cruiser, the 4-wheel drive Hunter, and the Workman - and has high hopes for more EVs down the road.