Electric Cars

While solar-power electric hybrid vehicles are a proven success story on the roads, the time is ripe for the appearance of solar-electric watercraft. Already a pontoon boat - Loon - is available in the market. It is solar-electric powered and can seat eight passengers. Now a smaller one - the purely electric run, Infinyte I4 - is the new kid in the block. Plans for a bigger boat solar-electric type are also on the anvil. View Comments

Today there seems to be more and more and yet more vehicles on the road than ever. Everybody wants to have their own transport and a smaller car with least carbon emission seems to be an ideal solution for this inexhaustible number of cars that seem to be coming up. Tiny cars electrically driven but looking unique in design and performance may be the ideal solution, according to Chaoyi Li, designer of the MiraQua car. Though he designed this as a solution for Australia and China's excessive traffic congestion, this car can become popular all over. View Comments

The 2011 Chevrolet Volt became the first electric car to be chosen as the Green Car of the Year 2011. Chevrolet Volt received this honor at the Los Angeles Auto Show, which is held every year by the Green Car Journal. The 2011 Chevrolet Volt electric car was chosen as the electric car of the year by an eminent jury, which consisted of the editors of Green Car Journal, Jean Michel President of Ocean Futures Society, Carl Pope Chairman of Sierra Club, and the host of Tonight Show Jay Leno, who happens to be a big fan of cars. View Comments

The entrepreneurial Audi is planning to take advantage of changes portended in the automobile market with an eye towards emission-free vehicles. Until now Audi has not shown any interest in electric car production but now that there is a growing demand for small and electronically-driven cars, Audi is keen to join the race. View Comments

The Chevrolet Volt is giving its extended range electric vehicle customers a great deal with an eight year/100,000 mile (whichever comes first) warranty for its lithium-ion battery. The battery pack has some 161 components, nine modules and 288 cells. The warranty is offering coverage for all the parts. The battery is basically made up of Chem. cells by LG but almost 95% of other battery components have been designed and are manufactured by GM. The thermal management system, electric drive system and the charging system also come under the warranty coverage. View Comments

A trip around the eCRP plant headquarters at Modena: The eCRP is the first of its kind of purpose-built electric superbikes, and today it is pitting against the legendary gas-powered Ducati, MV Agusta et al in the Italian TTXGP. With classic gorgeous looks and efficiently designed high performing parts, Moto2 bikes are packed with top-notch specifications. Agni 95 DC twin motors, battery packs from 7.4KWh, Marzocchi D.43 Superbike forks, CRP-built aluminum cast alloy Chassis and other features make the eCRP 1.2 a great bike. CRP has strictly adhered to the TTXGP rules and specifications in the making of eCRP 1.2. View Comments

This can very well happen in the near future with billboards advertising - bold and strong, beckoning electric vehicles for recharging. Already in Berlin-Adlershof, this is happening. The largest independently functioning solar charging station is offering high-quality, computerized and completely safe kind of solar charging to electrical cars. Electric-power cars' handicap - finding a place for recharging on the run - is now being conquered by this power refill station. Precise calculated billing, electronic identification for access and automatic safety flaps are added attractions. And no queues to bug you! At a time, eight vehicles can be recharged! Components of solar station: What makes this station so unique? Three great components - a mover to generate electricity, a battery to store the power efficiently and an intelligent and totally computerized connector system -for charging and billing - add to up to ... View Comments

Mira EV has created a world record with completing 1000 km run on a single battery charge non-stop, powered by Sanyo's lithium-ion battery systems. This experiment took place on the world’s longest race course in Japan, in Shimotsuma. Organized by Japan Electric Vehicle Club, this long marathon driving was accomplished by a relay team of 17 auto-racers from a training school in Ibraki, Japan. View Comments

Mark Moore, an aerospace engineer, is the person who dreamed about the Puffin. Puffin is a single seated electric powered airplane. Moore conceptualized the idea of electric aircraft for his doctoral degree. Operating it from your house is as simple as taking out your car from the garage. You can launch this aircraft from your own home because of vertical take-off and landing. Mark Moore is trying to combine the best feature of a plane and a helicopter into a hybrid known as the Puffin. The Puffin is not some abstract reality that is not going to take a concrete shape. View Comments

Consumers surely remember the days of seeing pictures off all the funny looking electric cars. They looked like something out of the Jetson’s and were hardly something any of us would be caught dead in. Say goodbye to those old stereo types because the Volkswagon E-Up is raising the bar in electric car technology. View Comments

The carbon footprint that automobiles leave is about to change, and that change is going to happen much sooner than we think. While it is unlikely that the Micron will replace every car on the road, it will present a very interesting alternative to daily travel. This unique design is eye catching and more importantly, totally emissions free. Make no mistake about it, the Micron is the future of the automobile. View Comments

We are registering good progress in the field of alternative energy. Scientists and researchers are working tirelessly to come up with newer and better alternatives to fossil fuels. Scientists are also trying to apprehend the future problems related with clean and green fuels, for example, cleaning of windows and solar panels and expanded battery storage capacities for the next electric car. Nature Nanotechnology has just published the New Tel Aviv University research. The research findings deal with a breakthrough in assembling peptides at the nano-scale level that could make these futuristic luxuries come true in the coming years. View Comments

It seemed like it would only be a matter of time before Toyota would jump into the market of using renewable energy to charge a car and they have done so in a big way. The solar charging station by Toyota will be put on display at the Tokyo Motor Show 2009. While there are other charging stations on the market for electric cars, the fact that this one is solar powered has the industry abuzz in anticipation. The solar charging station by Toyota almost looks like something that you would have seen in one of the old sci-fi movies, but this is the real deal. It works by collecting the suns energy through solar panels and then stores the energy in a battery that is later used to charge and power the vehicle. This is just another great innovation that is pushing our world to a 'greener' lifestyle and will use renewable energy in yet another every day application. View Comments

FPL Group and Duke Energy are the renowned companies known for their commitment to clean and green energy. It is often said, charity begins at home. They are trying to lead by example. They will collaborate with each other and invest $600 million to transition all their company passenger cars and trucks to plug-in hybrid or all-electric vehicles. This process will be set into motion by the next year and more than 10,000 vehicles will have the capability of re-energizing from the power grid. View Comments

When scientists unveiled the mystery of boiling of fluids in the form of tiny "microchannels" they cracked various formulas and models to keep the high-power electronic gadgets cool. These high power electronics generally are electric and hybrid cars, aircrafts, computers and other devices. Suresh Garimella – the R. Eugene and Susie E. Goodson Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University – tells us that if we heat a liquid in cooling systems then we can analyze how much heat can be removed, compared to simply heating a liquid to below its boiling point. View Comments

Imagine a parking lot that keeps your car cool and charges it while you do whatever you need to do after parking your car. That’s what the new solar forest designed by designer Neville Mars aims to achieve. Electric-powered automobiles are a great way of reducing pollution levels but the main hurdle in the way of them becoming mainstream vehicles is long duration of time they need to recharge. Even to cover small distance you need to recharge your vehicle for hours. One solution is to speed up the recharging process, and another is recharging the cars while they stand unused, like in a parking lot. View Comments

We are familiar with the better qualities of electric vehicles. They use alternative energy and leave less carbon footprints on the climate. But they are still not mass produced. They have many drawbacks and one has to find a remedy for such disadvantages. One of the hurdles in making them vehicles of masses is that they can’t be charged easily. They need lots of time to be charged fully. MIT students are trying to produce an alternative to fossil fuel driven cars. They are trying to build up a car that is clean and green but provides good competition to recent automobiles. They claim that their electric cars can be charged fully within ten minutes. Normally an EV vehicle takes overnight to get fully charged. Radu Gogoana is an undergraduate on the Electric Vehicle Team. He claims "Right ... View Comments

Aircrafts are notorious for adding carbon content into the atmosphere because more and more people are choosing this mode of travel. We are trying to reduce carbon emissions on the ground. But we are not giving enough thought to reducing carbon content by aircrafts. Environmentalists are concerned that the figures are bound to reach staggering heights in the next couple of decades. Though it is a fact that manufacturing clean and green aircrafts is not an easy feat to achieve and people want faster aircrafts for commuting. View Comments

Coulomb Technologies has taken the initiative to install their ChargePoint™ Networked Charging Stations for electric vehicles in Walnut Creek, CA. Walnut Creek has got the distinction of becoming the third Bay Area city to deploy charging station. Coulomb’s charging stations were officially inaugurated on Tuesday, June 9, 2009 at the Locust Street Garage. The charging stations were installed in three public parking garages in the heart of downtown Walnut Creek. View Comments

A normal fossil fuel car (using an internal combustion engine) only needs the battery to start the engine as well as run the air conditioning system and the car stereo. But the scene is quite different with electric cars. Batteries run everything. So when one tries to buy an electric car his/her prime concern is battery. Electric car owners are still grappling with the quality and reliability of the electric car battery. The main concern is how long the battery will last before it needs recharging. Researchers are continuously trying to devise new ways for the battery to last longer and recharge easily. Imagine your phones, mp3 players, computers and laptops running for days without recharging, or for that matter your car running far longer on one charge than it presently can with a tank or two of gas. Using air power, it might be possible in as early as 5 years. View Comments