Honda had been the first automaker that had the Insight to sell a hybrid in the U.S. But what about pure battery-powered ones? After a lot of hesitation, Honda will throw an all-electric Fit on the U.S. market, says Bloomberg. The plug-in will arrive in 2012, which might as well be pronounced “year of the EV.”
The car will be standard EV fare: Lithium-ion-powered, range about 100 miles between charges – on a good day. A price has not been announced. Expected volume? It “will be small” said Honda President Takanobu Ito at the Los Angeles Auto Show. (Read More…)
Toyota is the king of the hybrid hill, but they have been accused of dragging their heels on pure plug-ins. Then Toyota plunked $50m on Tesla (and convinced them to move into the NUMMI plant.) This got people thinking. Some thought it was just an elegant way to unload the NUMMI plant. Some saw it as the beginning of Toyota’s electric future. Half a year later, Toyota puts their concrete plans on the table. (Read More…)
The Fisker Karma looks as sleek and and sexy as any four-door car on the market, but it’s got a secret: Spanx. Fisker’s powertrain sand battery suppliers tells the New York Times that prototypes of the series-hybrid Karma are weighing in at “over 5,000 lbs.” Says battery supplier A123 System’s Jason Forcier
It’s a pretty heavy car, but you have to look at all the technology, which includes a large gas engine, large electric motors and large batteries.
Fisker reps insist that the final product could come out weighing slightly less, but don’t hold your breath. Meanwhile the 50-mile EV range, 5.9 second 0-60 time and 125 mile top speed goals remain unchanged…. it will probably just feel lead-footed in the twisty stuff. On the other hand, by packaging its batteries in a low, central mass, Chevy’s Volt (the only other EREV on the market) actually handles fairly well for a nearly 4,000-lb compact. Still, “over 5,000 lbs” is full-sized SUV territory, and the Karma is being positioned as a green performance luxury car, not a chauffeured limo. Could this possibly end well?
America – the greatest country on earth. At least when it comes to Chevy Volt prices. You think its $41,000 tag is expensive? Wait until you hear what the Europeans will have to fork over for the rebadged Opel Ampera, and the Volt will look like the greatest deal on earth. Especially after subsidies. Ready? (Read More…)
Now that the worst part of the global economic crisis is over, investors are fired up for any investment opportunity that looks good and doesn’t smell funny. Especially in the alternative-energy field. Some ventures make sense while others are based on a rather exotic logic. Better Place, for instance: its institutional investors say it’s “the only EV + infrastructure play”, and therefore something you’d better not miss. I’d just say it requires weird financial reasoning to justify electric filling stations stocked with expensive exchange batteries.
Earlier this week, I was at Mindset Holding’s press conference in Switzerland, where they announced they had received 75 million Swiss Francs of financing from a US fund, GEM Group, with another 108 millions optional. Mindset will be using this money to produce its exotic electric sports coupe — the one I thought was fantastically forward-looking when I witnessed it last year.
Is this madness? After all, Mindset in 2012 will be competing with Tesla’s Model S, the Fisker Karma, and numerous electrified or hybridized German and Japanese luxury cars. Who’d spend 100,000 Francs on a Swiss made electric three-seater?
By gobbling up EVs, GE certainly helps to jump-start the industry, but they also gobble up future tax credits that consumers would have gotten, unless GE opts to forego the EV tax credit. Which would be bad business.
Yup, GE’s huge EV buy will be good for GE… but it won’t be so great for the 25,000 Americans whose tax credit will slurped up in the process. After all, the credit expires after a manufacturer sells 200k qualifying vehicles, so every credit GE uses brings GM and Nissan that much closer to the day they have to ask consumers to pay full price for their pricey EVs. No wonder GM is already pushing for an extension of the credit past 200k units.
Toyota will no longer stand on the sidelines and leave the huge (joke, joke) EV market to Mitsubishi and Nissan. The Nikkei [sub] has it that Toyota will start marketing an all-electric car in Japan in 2012. (Read More…)
Given Toyota’s dominance of the hybrid market, and its early skepticism about pure-electric vehicles, it’s safe to say that we didn’t expect this badge to show up anytime soon. But sure enough, Toyota’s new corporate EV badge will grace the firm’s RAV-4 EV concept, which debuts at this fall’s LA Auto Show. And it won’t be the most jarring image on that vehicle either…
We’ve been hearing about the Chevrolet Volt for so long that it’s hard to believe that it is finally here. Or almost here. Close enough for a preview drive. And?
California EV maker Tesla has reported its Q3 results, and they’re a sizable helping of not great. But before we dive into the messy reality, let’s check in with CEO Elon Musk for an unreasonably rosy take on the loss:
We are very pleased to report steady top-line growth and significant growth in gross margin, driven by the continued improvement in Roadster orders and our growing powertrain business. Roadster orders in this quarter hit a new high since the third quarter of 2008, having increased over 15% from last quarter. While some of this is due to seasonal effects associated with selling a convertible during the summer months, we are pleased with the global expansion of the Roadster business and the continued validation of Tesla’s technology leadership position evidenced by our new and expanding strategic relationships
Translation: Toyota is investing in us… now get out of here with your awkward questions. Unfortunately for Mr Musk, it isn’t quite that simple… (Read More…)
The strange looking vehicle on the right is a European-spec Mitsubishi i-MiEV, a 63 HP, 75-100 mile-range electric vehicle. The strange looking vehicle on the left is a US-spec Mitsubishi i-MiEV, specially “improved” for the US audience. USA Today puts it best, reporting
The iMiEV for the U.S. will be — surprise, surprise — bigger than the ones it sells in Japan and Europe. That’s because Americans are fatter.
In case you’d forgotten. No word on just how much bigger the i-MiEV needed to become in order to “meet the expectations of U.S. consumers,” but considering the apparent necessity of grafting on a slack-jawed underbite, one hopes the difference is noticeable on the inside. We’ll find out for sure at the LA Auto show, but in the meantime, hit the jump to find out what we hope doesn’t grow as the i-MiEV slips into something a little more American.
When is it a good time for a CEO to step down from an automotive company? This year we’ve already learned that ditching mere months before a major IPO was not a great move for GM CEO Ed Whitacre. But that surprise drop-out may just have been topped by CODA Automotive’s Kevin Czinger, who just resigned a month before his firm starts sales of its very first vehicle. The firm is in the midst of its pre-sales marketing, and is also currently pursuing $125m in financing from Morgan Stanley and others, making this a highly unusual time for a CEO to leave. Czinger, a Goldman Sachs alum, was crucial in bringing investments to CODA from other Goldman alums, including former Treasury boss Hank Paulson and John Bryson. Czinger will stay on as an adviser to the firm, as co-chairman Steve Heller will take over as interim CEO and COO. Earlier this year, Czinger called the CEO position his “dream job” (see video above). (Read More…)
The recently-debuted Chevrolet Volt ads are built around the same basic assumption that drove the design of the Volt’s extended-range electric (EREV) drivetrain: Americans will not tolerate running out of vehicle range. So severe will be America’s Range Anxiety®, GM is guessing, that its electric vehicle (EV) consumers would be happy to lose some electric range and pay a significant price premium compared to the pure-electric competition in order to fill up on gas when they forget to plug in. But while we wait for this psychological insight to prove true across the broader market, recent news seems to show that GM has forgotten about another beloved American freedom: the freedom of choice. For example, the choice to buy a GM-made “pure” EV. To find that kind of freedom you have to go to China…
Wasn’t BYD the miraculous Chinese company that would bring electric cars to the masses? Weren’t they supposed to go hundreds of miles on a single charge? Forget about it. So far, their electric cars are being tested as taxis in Shenzhen in low numbers. What if you would be crazy enough to buy one yourself? They won’t sell you one. (Read More…)
With battery partner Toyota already $50m deep in Tesla’s equity (and another $60m deep in an electric RAV4 development agreement), Automotive News [sub] reports the Japanese automaker’s main EV partner, Panasonic, is investing $30m of its own in the Silicon Valley EV form. Panasonic and Toyota jointly build NiMh and Li-ion batteries in a venture called Primearth, and the move appears to bring Tesla closer into Toyota’s orbit. Tesla already uses Panasonic cells in its drivetrains (although not exclusively), and the two firms have already partnered on power-pack development. Panasonic’s $30m investment is said to have bought it a two percent stake in Tesla, and the two will cooperate together on sales and marketing of those battery packs in the future.
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