Tesla has opened its 100th Supercharger site, in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, and will commemorate the milestone with a ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday morning. The new station, which has six charging stalls and will be open 24/7, is located in the Hamilton Market Place mall, just off Interstate 195, about 40 miles northeast of Philadelphia. Supercharger… Read more »
Industrial battery manufacturer Saft has received an order from Swedish ferry operator Ballerina for lithium-ion battery systems that will power a new electric ferry for the city of Stockholm. When it starts operation in September, Ballerina’s ferry will carry foot passengers and cyclists between 10 stops on a 50-minute route of Stockholm’s waterways. The batteries… Read more »
The Volkswagen Group is the latest automaker to trumpet a major push into the Chinese market, and electrification is very much a part of its strategy. The Porsche Panamera S E-hybrid is already in showrooms in China, the electric up! and e-Golf will be launched this year, and the Audi A3 e-tron and Golf GTE… Read more »
The partnership between Tesla and Daimler, which dates from 2008, has been advantageous for both companies, with the stodgy Germans enjoying a little of Tesla’s bad-boy chic, and the Silicon Valley upstarts benefiting from Daimler’s old-world respectability. However, it’s sounding as if Daimler has lost that lovin’ feeling. Chief Executive Dieter Zetsche told reporters at… Read more »
When we drove BMW’s new i3 in Los Angeles last year, we could see that it had the potential to be one of the most popular EVs on the market. As the sporty city car heads for dealers’ lots this month, demand appears to be exceeding expectations. Harald Krueger, BMW’s production chief, told Bloomberg that… Read more »
Kyocera Communication Systems (KCCS) has installed a Solar Cycle Station for EVs at the headquarters of Shintec Hozumi in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. The system uses solar-generated power to charge plug-in vehicle batteries, which can then be used as backup power in times of disaster. Kyocera’s Solar Cycle Station is a solar-powered recharging station that uses… Read more »
(Updated 4/19/2014 -12:00PM EDT with added comments from Boh Westerlund, Hybricon Founder & CTO, clarifying technical details.) Hybricon Bus Systems has been testing its new Arctic Whisper electric bus in its hometown of Umeå, Sweden, near the Arctic Circle. Using the company’s Ultrafast Charging system with the Opbrid Bůsbaar, which features a pantograph and an overhead charging rail…. Read more »
Nissan has announced the expansion of its No Charge to Charge promotion, which provides a certain amount of free public charging with the purchase or lease of a new LEAF. The offer does come with a couple of strings attached. It’s valid for two years from the purchase date, and free charging will be limited… Read more »
Underscoring the growing importance of China as a market for “new energy” vehicles, Volvo has announced that it will reveal its S60L PPHEV concept car at the 2014 Beijing International Auto Show. The gas/electric plug-in hybrid will be launched in China in early 2015, and will be produced at Volvo’s Chengdu plant. There’s no word… Read more »
The first Mercedes-Benz B-Class Electric Drive has rolled off the assembly line in Rastatt, Germany, and is scheduled to go on sale in the US this summer. With an MSRP expected to be in the low 40s, the electric Benz may prove a worthy competitor to the BMW i3, and could really shake up the… Read more »