Chrysler set up its "ENVI" electric vehicle (EV) program  last September to develop advanced propulsion technologies for the Pentastar brand. Ten months on, Chrysler's green-eyed program has finally produced a weapon for Chrysler to use in the mounting EV wars: a press release. Today's Detroit Free Press reports that "Chrysler LLC's answer to the much-anticipated Chevrolet Volt could be three to five years away." Which is like telling the kids in the backseat that "we'll be there when we get there" five minutes into a road trip. So why even report on Chrysler's late-starting EV hopes and dreams? Because the dealers in the backseat of Chrysler's road trip to bankruptcy are starting to get antsy for some fuel-efficient product. Says one dealer: "You don't have to have every car — not everyone wants a hybrid — but it's obviously a profound proportion of the industry right now." J.D. Power's mob predicts that Chrysler will launch [non two-mode] hybrid versions of the Caravan, Avenger and and Journey over the next five years. But just like GM, Chrysler wants to do some leapfrogging. "If you want to go ahead and make everything a full hybrid system, fine, but what if you can turn everything into a range-extended vehicle and take it beyond the 2020 campaign for 35 miles per gallon?" asks Chrysler spokesperson Nick Cappa. "The new technology ENVI is developing could do that." The operative word here being could. In five years. Possibly.

Automotive News [sub] reports that the plug-in electric – gas hybrid Volt will be sold as a Chevrolet in the U.S. only. When they go on sale in Europe in 2012, they'll have different styling and wear Opel and Vauxhall badges– even though they'll be built on the same assembly line in Michigan. So why, with GM's push to make Chevy their "global" brand, are they rebadging the Volt for their Euro-brands? GM claims Opel and Vauxhall have larger dealer networks than Chevy. But let's face it… with Chevy's image as a bargain-basement brand in Europe and their current offerings of rebadged Daewoos, how many people would consider buying a high-tech, high-priced electric hybrid at a Chevy dealership in Europe? About as many as would consider buying a Corvette at one. Which is why Corvette is marketed in the Eurozone as a separate brand with Hummers and Cadillacs, and why Volts will become Opels and Vauxhalls. Stimt?

Behind every flailing/failing company is a bunch of clueless, warring egomaniacs. Students of mismanagement mishegos have a new case study to contemplate, thanks to a portrait of the aspiring electric vehicle maker in Fortune magazine. There's plenty of SNAFU granularity to consider, but the main theme is that Tesla founder Martin Eberhard is an overwhelmed Wozniak to Elon Musk's OCD Jobs. In other words, it's a simple case of the blind leading the lame. Or is that the other way around? Anyway, there are some insanely great quotes. "Musk has kept silent until now about what happened [to Martin Eberhard's crashed Roadster]. 'I was too busy trying to fix the fucking mess he left. I haven't had time to tell my story… I will say, I have never met someone who is as capable of creating such a disinformation campaign as Martin Eberhard.'" And "When an early member of the marketing team suggested putting solar panels on the roof of Tesla's new headquarters in San Carlos, Calif., Eberhard's response was, 'Why the fuck would we do that?'" And "Musk ordered the engineers to lower the doorsill two inches, thereby losing much of the cost savings that come from using a crash-tested off-the-rack chassis. 'Have you tried getting out of an Elise?' asks Musk. 'It's like you have to be a contortionist.'" There's SO much more. Suffice it to say, we learn that seven Roadsters have been completed; each cost Tesla more to build than they [in theory] make. Each will have to have its transmission replaced. The Tesla Death Watch continues. 

In a move bound to raise howls of protest from the Chevy Volt's cheerleaders, GM (along with nine other manufacturers) has asked the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to lower the 4.5 percent annual increases in the CAFE standards projected between 2011 and 2015. To justify the request, GM stated they won't have enough Volts and Vue plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) on the road by 2015 to meet the more stringent standards. GM "strongly discouraged" any assumptions that their PHEVs would impact their corporate fleet average. Their NHTSA filing flatly stated "GM's game-changing (extended range electric vehicle) technology should be treated as a low-volume application." (Only GM could use "game changing" and "low volume" in the same sentence.) How low is "low volume"? The Detroit News reports GM plans to build fewer than 200k Volts in the first five years (40k per year average). To make matters worse– for the U.S. PHEV crowd– GM says many of those will be exported. Of course, this all assumes GM will start producing Volt and PHEV Vues in late 2010 as promised. So now, it's put up or shut time. The sad thing is that GM will do neither.

Cypselus von Frankenberg. Now that's what I call a name. (Even Mel Brooks would approve.) It belongs to MINI's spokesman. When Cypselus (can I call you Cypselus?) isn't busy calling media outlets to tell them to CAPITALIZE THE GOD DAMN NAME FOR CHRIST'S SAKE, he's updating journalists on the latest MINI variant. Did you know the MINI Mars Lander is due soon? Speaking of which, Automotive News [sub] reveals that the German-owned British brand is going to sell an electric vehicle version of the Cooper in the Golden State. "The [500] electric Minis [ARRGGGHHHH] are being built at the Mini [NOOOOOOO] factory in Oxford, England, without engines, gearboxes or fuel tanks, then shipped to Munich, Germany, where they are being fitted with electric powertrains." Needless to say BMW will take a bath on every EV MINI they sell. But the PR value will be priceless. Not only will the vehicles help satisfy CA Zero Emissions regs, but they'll be "leased to selected customers" (i.e. Hollywood's green glitterati). Hang on; how will bystanders distinguish an EV MINI from a "regular" MINI? "The electric Minis are painted silver and have yellow roofs." Although range and recharge times are unspecified (of course), it's unlikely that EV MINI will be slower than the original, 1.4-liter, 90hp MINI ONE, a vehicle that kept bumping into itself (i.e. it couldn't get out of its own way). But it's not impossible.

GM wants to have a production version of its plug-in electric – gas hybrid Chevrolet Volt ready in time for its centennial this September. Automotive News [sub] cites "people familiar with the project" [Ed: my haven't they been busy today] who say the ailing American automaker is rushing to finish their four-wheeled Hail Mary by September 16, when RenCen celebrates the 100th anniversary of its founding by Billy Durant. In spite of the self-imposed deadline, "a GM spokesman declined to comment on the timeline for its next announcements on the Volt, which will include naming a supplier for the vehicle's lithium-ion battery pack." How can GM PR claim a "production version" of the Volt will be ready when they can't even say who'll supply the battery pack eight weeks before the debut? With ease, apparently. GM seems to be banking on the usual fawning media coverage to divert attention from the real issue: crashing sales, a raging cash conflagration and the threat of Chapter 11 just over the horizon. But hey! We'll have a hand-assembled "production" Volt to show off. What more could you want?

Word has leaked out that the next-generation Toyota Prius will offer optional solar cells on the roof manufactured by Kyocera. Yahoo! News reckons the new system, rated at least 2kW, should be capable of powering the air conditioner unit. The current Prius and other Toyota hybrids already have an electric AC unit. "Adding solar panels to a model targeting mass consumers would mark a first for a major automaker", The Nikkei said. Ahem. Let's flashback to fall 1991, courtesy of the New York Times archive. The last generation Mazda 929 had 500W solar panels on the sunroof. The cells ran exhaust fans in conjunction with the AC unit (the Mazda's chiller wasn't electrically powered). The rooftop solar system could trickle-charge the battery from dead to full steam ahead in one week– assuming the 929 was parked in Arizona during the dry season. The old system was perfect for the airport long-term parking lot. It'll be a lot harder for the Prius to make this work on a daily basis, but the PR benefit for both the ToMoCo hybrid– and solar technology in general– is literally priceless. Even before it turns a wheel, the next gen Prius has trumped Chevy's plug-in electric – gas hybrid Volt. 

Calling John McElroy a Detroit cheerleader is like calling Bruce Dern's character in Black Sunday a party pooper. That said, the journalist is not without his fans, nor a platform. Big Mac writes a weekly column for Autoblog, and regularly lobs underhand pitches at Motown royalty on his Autoline Detroit TV program. So why did Detroit Freep Press scribe Mark Phelan devote precious ink to McElroy's fantasy of reviving GM's battery-powered EV-1? I thought GM Car Czar Maximum Bob Lutz put that the idea to bed on June 30, when he called the concept "fucking nuts" [paraphrasing]. "Things have changed," McElroy tells an entirely credulous Phelan. "At $4 a gallon, it's a completely different market. People would beat a path to GM's door." Yes, "The automaker should dust off the blueprints, stick an assembly line in some underutilized assembly plant — no shortage of those — and hire somebody to take orders." Corroboration comes from no less than the director of "Who Killed the Electric Car?" Phelan knocks down the idea– gently. "The Volt will have a small electric generator to recharge its battery if needed, but the underlying technology GM developed for the car also lends itself to all-electric vehicles. Some of those 'EV2s' are already under discussion. As GM contends, the EV1 may not come back, but its children will flourish." Go team go!

At the recent Toyota Environmental Forum, ToMoCo’s Executive Vice President outlined the company’s five-point plan for a “sustainable mobility society.” Green Car Congress charts the ch-ch-changes. 1. Further development of gasoline- and diesel-fueled combustion engines; 2. Hybrids and plug-in hybrids; 3. Alternative fuels, including synthetics and biofuels; 4. Electric vehicles; and 5. Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Masatami Takimoto revealed that gasoline and diesel will remain the corporate mainstay. To that end, Toyota will reduce vehicle size and weight and introduce a new family of engines with start-stop, direct injection, forced induction, HCCI and variable compression. The automaker will hybridize all its vehicles lines by 2020, increasing NiMH batteries density. Li-ions are heading for city electrics and plug-in hybrids; the plug-in Li-on Prius hits the streets in 2010. And here’s the kicker: Toyota’s working to leap-frog Li-ion technology. Takimoto says a practical and cost-efficient EV demands a technological breakthrough. Maybe GM’s Volt isn’t so much a “Hail Mary” pass as an intentional out-of-bounds throw before it gets sacked by the “Sakichi” battery (named after Toyota’s founder).

Hey, why not create a national network of electric vehicle [EV] re-charge stations? OK, this video kinda exaggerates the all-important re-charge time. And if those mats recharge your EV in ten seconds, why do you need a car wash-style battery swap stations? These are not churlish questions (which is why we continue to ask Tesla about their Roadster's range and recharge times). They speak to the commercial viability of the entire project. Anyway, go for it Shai! What's that? You want MY tax dollars to pay for all this? AutoblogGreen tells the tale. "Speaking to the House of Representatives Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming (we have one of those?), Agassi said, 'For the price of two months worth of oil, some $100 billion, we can put in place the infrastructure needed to power the nation's cars and end this oil dependence.' Ambitious, no? He then threw in the 'American jobs' angle with, 'Of that $100 billion, moreover, some $80 billion will go into jobs that, by their nature, can only be performed in the US – the construction of the infrastructure itself.'" Other than remarking on Agassi's chutzpah. AutoblogGreen lets the wisdom of federal tit-sucking go unchallenged. We call boondoggle. If it's such a good idea, let the electric companies pay for it. 

Autobloggreen (ABG) is all over Mercedes' EV plans. The tree-hugging bloggers report that Stuttgart's first EV will be an A Class. Digging deeper, it seems that Mercedes will be using a battery pack from Tesla Motors, confirming Elon Musk's hint of a "small deal" with Daimler. The rumor hasn't been confirmed by Mercedes, and ABG points out that Daimler claims to already have li-ion battery thermal issues licked. Furthermore, Continental has been named as the official battery supplier of Mercedes' forthcoming S 400 Hybrid. So we'll wait to hear from official Daimler sources before we credit Tesla with its first supplier contract. And don't even ask when the EV A Class will hit the market. Automobile Woche is prognosticating an industry-standard 2010 release. Battery supply notwithstanding, the A-Class was designed with a "sandwich floor" that can accommodate either fuel-cell or EV conversion. Which means that they're good to go. Or not. 

Andy Grove, the man who led Intel to dominance, has a new cause: The Electric Car. Ken Thomas of the AP interviewed Grove on his new passion and found a true believer. Grove notes that "the beauty of electric power is its ability to be produced through multiple sources such as coal, wind and nuclear, and its 'stickiness' — it can be transported only over land." Typically the ability to transport stored energy by sea is considered an advantage for coal, oil and the like. But Grove touts the fact that electricity cannot be readily traded on the global market. Coming from the former leader of the quintessential modern multi-national, Intel, this is quite a surprise. Indeed, Grove says that the inability of the US to export electricity to voracious China means that electricity prices can be kept lower than they otherwise would be. He may have a point. Back in the 1960s a crash in US automotive sales would be paired with plunging steel prices, but not now. Grove's other hot button is the promotion of aftermarket plug-in conversion kits for hybrid cars. He sees parallels between plug-in conversion kits of today with the way hobbyists and home users got the whole personal computer industry up and running a few decades ago. 

It looks like New Mexico's SOL. The Land of Enchantment tempted Tesla with a $7m incentive package (or was that $20m?) to locate the plant for their sometime-or-other upcoming electric sedan. Despite a big announcement from the then-governor's office, Tesla's changed their mind. The San Francisco Chronicle reports the electric car manufacturer promoter will announce today that they've chosen the Bay Area as the ertswhile production site for the vehicle formerly known as WhiteStar, in honor of the owners of the ill-fated Titanic (as far as we know). What swung the deal in the favor of the Golden Gate State? Well, besides the governator placing an order for his own $100k toy, Tesla will get a sales tax exemption on purchasing manufacturing equipment and grants for training new employees. The company says they'll start production of the $60k sedan (when else but) in 2010– even though there doesn't seem to be even any concept drawings of the new car.Time to revive the Tesla Birth Watch?

To bring you up-to-speed (so to speak) on Norway's homegrown EV maker: "In 1999, Think [was] bought by the Yankee giant Ford Motor Co.," LA Times writer Dan Neil relates. "which was scrambling at the time to comply with California's Zero Emission Vehicle mandate, essentially requiring automakers to build fleets of electric vehicles. Ford renamed the company Think Nordic and began a complete redesign of the car. When, in 2003, the American automakers succeeded in modifying California's mandate, Detroit's flirtation with electronic vehicles ended. General Motors Corp. famously killed the EV1 program, and Ford sold Think to a Swiss electronics firm." So Dan flew over to Aurskog to have think about the recently resurrected Think (and avoid using the word "think" until the summation). Once again, range. "Now, after several course corrections that added perhaps 20Still the Think City — a 2,449-pound runabout with plastic body panels and an official range of 112 miles on full charge — hums along." AND [allegedly] meets federal crash and safety standards, thanks to FoMoCo development. While Think has yet to think-up a suitable anything plan for the U.S. market, Dan thinks Think proves that EVs are viable. I think. "Is a safe, practical electric car possible? The answer seems to be yes." 

Fresh from their closed door meeting– which included Ford CEO Alan Mulally– presidential hopeful Barack Obama and GM CEO Rick Wagoner took the stage at Carnegie Mellon University to discuss federal handouts. As reported by The Detroit News, Barack set 'em up. "How do we shape our energy future in a way that allows GM to remain competitive, keeps some of the best workers in the world on their jobs [some?] and generates profits for the company and shareholders?" GM's jeffe knocked 'em down. "Wagoner sounded a note of optimism," the DeN notes. "Noting GM's plan to introduce the plug-in hybrid Chevrolet Volt by 2010 and more advanced research on hydrogen fuel-cells. But he said the researchers developing batteries for hybrids and taking hydrogen power from the lab to the highway need federal research money. And he asked for government help to offset the high costs of newer technologies for consumers — aid that traditionally has come in the form of tax credits." "We need to provide some support to make sure these new technologies are affordable to consumers," Wagoner said. Anything else? "Wagoner suggested that the carmakers' 'relatively weak balance sheets' make it difficult for them to make the large capital investments needed to shift production lines to new vehicles." So that "we" is "we the people." As in you. And your tax dollars. To GM. To pay for them to make better cars. In case you hadn't figured that out.