The Green Optimistic

People tend to think electric cars will be more expensive and unaffordable than their petrol/diesel relatives. Furthermore, people usually expect high maintenance costs, because of the batteries.

Ford recently disclosed their long term plan coming to align with governmental laws related with fuel efficiency: by 2020, at least 25% of Ford’s new cars will be either electric or hybrid vehicles. In North America, 7 of 10 vehicles will be gasoline-electric hybrids, such as the current Fusion hybrid version.

Hitachi Vehicle Energy Ltd and Hitachi Ltd have developed a lithium-ion rechargeable battery that has a high output density and a high energy density for PHEVs (plug-in hybrid electric vehicles).

We all know that one of the industries that pollute the most is the automotive industry. With several millions of vehicles on the roads, that consume every day millions of tons of fossil fuels, the air in the megacities becomes more and more unbreathable.

One of Europe’s largest automotive manufacturers, Mercedes-Benz, announced that the next generation of the S-class will come with a plug-in hybrid engine.

The partnership between Kia and Hyundai resulted in some huge steps forward regarding fuel cell technology. Kia has just released some footage about their latest FCEV prototype called Borrego (Mohave for the Korean market).

Even though electric vehicles seem to be the future, some car manufacturers do not rush into changing to green, alternative energy sources. There is some incertitude when it comes to changing so fast from fossil fuels and some automakers just take their time to see what is best for the market.

Lately the automotive industry had directed its attention to the Electric Vehicle market and to the green energy usage. But if the electric energy that will power the EV is obtained from fossil fuels the EV won’t be green anymore. Because of that particular reason several solar-powered charging stations were developed lately to help EV use alternative energy.

The predictions are based on the widespread adoption of the recently release Electrification Roadmap that estimates battery powered EVs and Plug-in hybrids making up 25% of new vehicles sales in the U.S. by 2020.

The European Union has an ongoing plan of designing an assisted towing they call “road trains”. A road train wants to be a wireless controlled system in which a leader truck, driven by a professional driver is the coordinator, and the cars behind it are the followers. The train is going to run on highways, and all the cars would be free to attach and detach the train at will.

Former General Motors economist Walter McManus reveals some shocking statements that show GM not only ignored the consumers’ wishes regarding fuel efficiency, but intentionally misled the public opinion on fuel efficiency.

This year’s Tokyo Motor Show was dominated by the Nippon market, Alpina and Lotus being the only foreigners with a stand at the show. Big companies like Daihatsu, Honda, Toyota, Suzuki, Nissan and Mitsubishi presented a lot of new concepts and hybrid or electric cars.

This year’s Air Resources Board’s ZEV Technology Symposium from California brought to attention the presentation of Tatsuaki Yokoyama from Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America. “Progress and Challenges for TOYOTA’s Fuel Cell Vehicle Development” had a huge impact on the crowd.

Daimler AG plans to introduce its electric Smart for Two by the end of this year. Serial production of this model will only start in 2012 in the plant from Hambach, France.

A German supplier of electronics and powertrain design to most of the major automakers for the last 25 years gives a solution to both the battery and the car manufacturers. The company is called IAV (Ingenieurgesellschaft Auto und Verkehr), and their solution is to charge the electric cars on-the-go through electromagnetic induction.

The French government announced that it plans to spend €1.5 billion (about $2.2 billion) in the development of an infrastructure that will encourage the development of clean vehicle technology and battery manufacturing.

As battery mileage efficiency for electric vehicle is still in huge debate and controversy Tesla Motors came with a great idea to please its buyers.

I don’t want to cross the decent border of believing in a conspiracy theory, but when the oil business is threatened these days, it’s normal that oil magnates wouldn’t sit back and watch electric cars and alternative energy providers take their piece of meat from right in front of them.

Th!nk, the electric car from Norway, has started a relationship with Oerlikon Graziano, who makes gearboxes. So, they designed a special gearbox, the only one at this time made specially for electric vehicles. With this gearbox, th!nk wil have the most efficient transmission system, would not waste energy on useless rpm, and run quietly.

The economical crisis is the best moment for auto industry’s ruling players to fuse their forces and/or technologies, for increasing profit on everyone’s side.