Friday, April 9, 2010

Gas 2.0

Gas 2.0

Up Close With AeroVironment’s Nissan LEAF Home Charging Unit

Posted: 09 Apr 2010 12:07 PM PDT

Just before the New York Auto Show, Nissan officially announced the incredibly affordable price of the Nissan LEAF, which will go on sale this December. At $32,780 — or a $349/month lease after Nissan claims a $7,500 federal tax credit per car — Nissan surprised the world. The LEAF will be the first truly affordable, mass-market, fully capable 100% electric car the world has ever seen.

But along with the excitement over the price came many questions, one of the biggest of which was “how am I going to charge it?”

(more…)

Electrification Coalition Says 1.9 Million New Jobs Will be Created From Adoption of EVs

Posted: 09 Apr 2010 10:59 AM PDT

Following on the heels of their ‘Electrification Roadmap‘ — a comprehensive document written in conjunction with global consulting group PRTM that details how to best shift our transportation sector to plug-in vehicles over the next couple of decades — the Electrification Coalition has just completed an analysis that finds huge benefits to the US economy would result from implementing most of the policies and strategies outlined in the document.

Chief among these benefits would be a strengthening and broadening of high paying manufacturing, travel, tourism, and professional jobs… to the tune of an additional 1.9 million of them by 2030. And now we can all add just one more reason why switching to a high-tech, innovation-based, green jobs focus in this country would do us a world of good.

(more…)

New Chinese Policy To Boost Domestic Production Of EV’s

Posted: 09 Apr 2010 08:46 AM PDT

It is really disheartening to consider how many false starts the electric car has had in America. Some of the first vehicles on America’s roads were electric cars, but for one reason or another (but mostly cheap oil) the electric car has never managed to break into the American mainstream. The closest we ever got was with the GM EV-1, the Toyota RAV4 EV and other cars brought about by the short-lived 1990’s California EV mandate, and those cars didn’t exactly have a happy ending.

Now we’ve got a new President and new policies pushing for electric cars, but so does the rest of the world. One of our biggest rivals in the coming years will be China. The Chinese government has just initiated a new policy to help boost domestic production of electric vehicles. So could we be driving Chinese-built electric cars in coming years?

(more…)

Ray LaHood Says “People Want Out Of Their Cars”

Posted: 09 Apr 2010 08:39 AM PDT

Some of our readers got mildy defensive about my post regarding extreme commuting. They made some valid points; sometimes you just don’t have a choice, especially if you switch jobs, or your partner works in the opposite direction requiring a compromise. But I still have a hard time imagining that all the driving could ever be worth it. And I love driving… just not to the same place, every day, for hours on end.

Apparently Ray LaHood, the Secretary of Transportation, agrees with me. Last month right before he announced a new policy regarding equal consideration for cars, bikers, and pedestrians, he told the National Bike Summit that “People want out of their cars”. Do they really?

I hope the car never disappears. That said, I think there are just too many cars on the road. It can really ruin the driving experience when you have to spend hours in gridlock, fighting traffic into and out of cities just to make a living. Driving should always be an option, but LaHood seems to think that given other options, people would choose public transportation. He is probably right.

(more…)
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)