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Filed under: Transportation

Not that electric MINIs are anything new, but unless you were willing to pay for all the mods yourself, procuring one wasn’t exactly simple. Now, however, we’re hearing that MINI itself will be bringing scads of these buggers to American streets in the summer of 2009. Yeah, like, one year from right now. MINI USA VP Jim McDowell was the source of said statement (so it’s pretty much official, yeah?), though he didn’t mention whether all of them would be reserved for California or if they would be available sold out nationwide. Hey MINI, we’d say you’ve got a hit on your hands.

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Source: Darren Murph

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Filed under: Transportation

Although Brent Hatch’s homegrown solar-electric whip looks eerily similar (read: just as ugly) to the SUNN solar car kit, this one was actually created without the help of any pre-packaged parts or sophisticated schematics. After his gas bill rose well over $700 a month (he and his wife have seven kids, after all), he decided to purchase a rather unsightly eight-seater bicycle and figure out a way to enable roof-mounted solar panels to power an electric motor. Nah, the top speed isn’t very impressive, and you certainly wouldn’t want to head out on I-5 with it, but it sure makes picking up the offspring from their nearby school a whole lot less painful on the wallet. Check out the video in the read link for more.

[Thanks, Dave]

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Source: Darren Murph

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Filed under: Transportation

There’s a decent chance your average hybrid owner wouldn’t know the difference between a lithium-ion and nickel-metal hydride battery if their life depended on it, but we know you — dear reader — are not one of those “average” joes / janes. That being the case, you may be interested to know that the 2009-bound S400 BlueHybrid is in prime position to be the world’s first production Li-ion hybrid, which will offer up “compact dimensions and far superior performance” compared to existing rivals. M-B goes on to trumpet the technology’s “high ampere-hour efficiency, long service life, and great reliability, even at very low temperatures.” No word on just how astronomically high this thing will be priced at, but you can expect just shy of 30 miles-per-gallon in mixed driving conditions, for what it’s worth.

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Source: Darren Murph

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Filed under: Transportation

It’s taken a while, but it looks like we could soon be seeing a new batch of Detroit Electrics roaming the roads, as ZAP has just announced that its reviving the hundred-year-old brand for some of its own all-electric vehicles. According to the company, those will be developed in a joint venture with the China Youngman Automotive Group, and will include the Zap Alias (pictured above), which we’ve seen previously under slightly more mysterious circumstances. Other details are expectedly light at the moment, but ZAP will apparently have plenty more to say about its new retro ways at the NADA 2008 auto show, which gets underway in San Francisco next week.

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Source: Donald Melanson

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Filed under: Transportation

While there are many rational and irrational reasons for the delays we’ve seen in production of a mass-market and massively adopted electric car, most of the major issues seem to be addressed by this new initiative going down in Israel. One of the primary problems with electric cars is refilling, and that’s going to be nicely addressed by entrepreneur Shai Agassi’s Project Better Place, which will build a charging network of 500,000 plug-in points across the country. Other issues were a bit more easily addressed: since Israel is a small country, the limited range of electric cars isn’t as much of an issue, and the government subsisdies should make prices competitive — with the eventual cost of ownership significantly less than gas cars to sweeten the deal even further. Nissan and Renault plan to built the cars, naturally, and hope to port the concepts into other vehicles in other countries in the near future. The plan is to launch the first cars in Israel around 2011.

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Source: Paul Miller

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Filed under: CES

GM spliced and diced a Chevy Volt hydrogen prototype and put it up for the world to see at this year’s 2008 CES. Rocking GM’s fifth generation fuel cell stack en-lieu of a regular gasoline engine, we wouldn’t hold our breath seeing this before the electric version drops in 2010. Peep the gallery below for the full run-down.

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Source: Dante Cesa

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Filed under: Transportation

After getting a good look at this thing, all we can say is that it better not take as long as the Tesla to get to market. Aptera’s ultra-aerodynamic Typ-1 most certainly has some outrageous claims behind it — most notably that 300 MPG rating — and some people are doubting how real or drivable this thing could be. Popular Mechanics got a chance take the little Jestons-mobile for a spin, and discovered that it does indeed exist, and in fact happens to drive quite nicely. The interior is just as sexy as the exterior, so we’d recommend you peep the video now before you end up the last person on your block to pre-order one of these.

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Source: Paul Miller

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Filed under: Transportation

There’s been no shortage of news surrounding Toyota and its hybrid plans of late, so it makes perfect sense to hear that the automaker may be on the verge of inking a deal to “develop recharging points for plug-in hybrid electric cars.” Reportedly, Toyota and Electricite de France are set to “announce a deal next week to develop electricity infrastructure for the plug-in cars Toyota plans to launch in a few years.” Notably, the agreement is only expected to cover France initially, but neighboring countries could be pursued shortly thereafter.

[Via AutoblogGreen]

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Source: Darren Murph

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