BMW’s new 3 Series plug-in hybrid prototype combines a four-cylinder TwinPower Turbo gas engine from the new Efficient Dynamics engine family with an electric motor and power electronics based on the eDrive technology used in the i3 and i8. It’s designed to offer performance on a par with the legacy 3 Series six-cylinder model, with… Read more »
Kandi Technologies (Nasdaq: KNDI) has announced that its new mid-tier luxury EV has been approved by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The new model, with the cumbersome name SMA7002BEV05, has been added to the list of recommended new energy vehicles, which means that buyers are now eligible for a wide range of national… Read more »
Anyone who’s interested in the present and future state of the auto industry will want to watch this interview with Carlos Ghosn on the Charlie Rose show, in which Ghosn has a good bit to say about the EV scene. As the CEO of Nissan, Renault and the Russian automaker AvtoVAZ, this is a guy… Read more »
As the average fuel economy of US vehicles increases, gas tax receipts around the country are declining, leaving less funding available for road construction and maintenance. In an effort to make up the shortfall, Wisconsin could join five other states in imposing a fee on fuel-efficient vehicles. The $50 annual charge, which would apply to… Read more »
Florida-based CarCharging, which inherited the Blink public charging network from bankrupt ECOtality, has announced plans to upgrade its chargers, restoring the amperage from 24 Amps to its maximum capacity of 30 Amps. About two years ago, users began to report of problems with Blink level 2 charging stations at power levels above 3.3 kW. ECOtality… Read more »
Ricardo Reyes, who headed Tesla’s communications department through the Roadster era, has returned to the company, replacing Simon Sproule as communications chief. Reyes left Tesla in 2012 to work for payment startup Square. His previous gigs included running communications for YouTube and Google. Back at Tesla, Reyes will oversee public relations, customer communications and the… Read more »
The British firm Chargemaster, which operates a network of over 10,000 public charging points across the UK, uses a proprietary system to monitor the operational availability of its network, and claims a 98.7% serviceability record over the last year. David Martell, Chargemaster CEO, said, “We are proud to have the best-maintained charge points not only… Read more »
The US Department of Defense has awarded EaglePicher, a company with a long history in the defense industry, $22 million in funding for Phase II of the Lithium-Ion Battery for Military Applications (LIMA) project. The program’s goal is to assure the affordable production of items deemed essential for national defense. “This award assures EaglePicher will… Read more »
The US Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC) has awarded $2.68 million to San Diego-based Maxwell Technologies for the development of a hybrid energy storage system for automotive stop-start applications. The competitively bid contract award is co-funded by the DOE. The 19-month program will focus on the technological and economic feasibility of adapting a 12-volt hybrid energy… Read more »
The BMW i3 has proven pretty popular with US drivers since it went on sale here six months ago, selling over 4,000 units so far. At home in Germany however, sales have been less than wunderbar, according to the business newspaper kfz-betrieb. German sales total about 1,900 units after nine months, far short of the… Read more »
