Thursday, May 27, 2010

Gas 2.0

Gas 2.0

Nissan Plans on Selling an Inexpensive, Under 30-Minute Fast Charging Station in the U.S.

Posted: 27 May 2010 03:44 PM PDT

Mark Perry (left) next to the Nissan LEAF battery mock up

Nissan shocked everybody a bit earlier this week when they announced they had developed a DC fast charging station that had the capability of getting a Nissan LEAF’s 24 kWh battery pack from zero to 80% full in under a half hour. It wasn’t so much the fast charging capability — also known as Level 3 charging — that shocked. We’ve all known Level 3 charging was coming. No, it was the price of their charging station.

At about $17,000, it represented an astounding departure from the $60,000 to $150,000 prices that have been quoted for the better part of a year and a half for a fast charging station. I had a chance to ask Mark Perry, Nissan’s director of product planning and strategy for North America, about just how Nissan had pulled it off and what kinds of plans Nissan has for bringing their Level 3 charging station to the U.S. (more…)

Nissan LEAF Will Include Fast Charge Capability and Emergency Charging Cable at Launch

Posted: 27 May 2010 03:13 PM PDT

At the Nissan LEAF battery plant groundbreaking yesterday in Smyrna, Tennessee, I made it a goal to squeeze as much detailed information as I could out of Nissan regarding the LEAF and what kinds of equipment it will ship with.

To this point — as is usually the case in the echo chamber that is the internet these days — nobody (including myself… mea culpa) seems to have been able to get it right about two things: whether or not the LEAF will have a Level 3 fast charge receptacle when it ships and if it will be able to use a Level 1 standard 3-prong outlet.

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Japanese Team Pushes Electric Car 623 Miles Without Recharging

Posted: 27 May 2010 02:30 PM PDT

Driving in a Daihatsu Mira equipped with a huge 74 kWh lithium-ion battery and a brushless DC motor, the Japan EV Club has achieved a new world record for an electric car: 1003.184 kilometers (623 miles) without recharging.

Although the team didn’t exceed 25 mph and was on a racing oval at a constant speed, the 8.4 miles traveled per kWh (mpkWh) statistic is an amazing achievement in-and-of-itself.

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Second Generation Chevy Volt Could Use Diesel Or Rotary Engine

Posted: 27 May 2010 02:02 PM PDT

The Chevy Volt is still months away from hitting showrooms, but that hasn’t stopped people from speculating on the next generation of Chevy’s plug-in hybrid. Will it make the jump to a fully electric vehicle? Will they make a sportier SS version? Will anybody actually buy the Volt? These are just some of the questions people are asking.

Some of the focus has been on the range-extending engine, which as it stands is a smallish, 4 cylinder, 1.4 L Ecotec powerplant which can recharge the batteries on the fly. But will they stick with the conventional engine, or go with something… different. Like a rotary engine, or perhaps even a diesel?

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Will More Efficient Trucks Lead to 120,000 More Jobs?

Posted: 27 May 2010 01:54 PM PDT

Tractor trailers use a lot of gas. The trucking industry and related professions also employ a lot of people, and are a vital link in our supply chain that gets us food, electronics… just about everything from production to the store. We need trucks, and we need truckers… but we need those trucks to be a lot more fuel efficient. Why truckers haven’t already pursued green technology to pad their profit margin, I don’t know, but a new report from Calstart might change some minds.

Called “Delivering Jobs”, the report suggests that over eight years, trucking companies could save $120,000 per truck. This money could then be used to create 120,000 jobs by 2030. But is it really that simple?

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