What goes for political corruption is also great advice for understanding the future of gas-electric and plug-in cars: Follow the money. Consider the new round of $69 million that A123Systems, one of the leading US manufacturers of advanced auto batteries, has raised to expand its facilities in Massachusetts and Michigan.
At last month's Chicago Auto Show, GM added another dimension to the Chevy Volt story: the push for suppliers to develop energy-saving components in every nook and cranny of the vehicle.
Toyota is secretly developing a car powered by solar cells mounted on the vehicle’s roof, according to a report today from Japan’s Nikkei newspaper. The report said the automaker hopes the vehicle will eventually be totally powered by the solar cells—but that would take many years.
In many ways, the key to hybrid cars is the battery pack. But what is a hybrid car battery? Do different hybrids use different batteries? What's on the horizon for even better batteries? These questions, and more, are answered in our new guide to the hybrid car battery.
We’re probably showing our age when we remember Fernwood 2 Night, the 1977 mock talk-show spinoff of classic 1970s comedy series Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. But it wasn’t until we found one of the old clips that we realized: Good lord, the show’s writers anticipated the Tesla Roadster battery by at least 30 years!
San Francisco taxi drivers are providing solid information about the outer reaches of hybrid battery life. At a recent Ford Motor Company event, Paul Gillespie, San Francisco Taxicab Commission president, said some of his city’s Ford Escape hybrid taxis had passed 300,000 miles of use with no problems.
The newest version of the electric Smart, set for demonstration projects in the US and Germany, will use lithium ion batteries that should give the car close to 100 miles of range.
For the auto industry to make a transition from gas-guzzlers to super-efficient cars, it will need a steady and stable supply of advanced automotive batteries. That should be great news for Cobasys, a leading hybrid battery company. Unfortunately, recent news has been almost all bad for Cobasys. HybridCars.com spoke with Cobasys President and CEO Tom Neslage about the bad news—which Neslage refers to as “foolishness.”
By most accounts, Nissan missed the ball on hybrids. Today, the company has a single hybrid car available to consumers, the Nissan Altima Hybrid, but it’s only offered in eight states. But the company is looking very determined to make up for lost time. This week, Nissan gave journalists a glimpse of how its first dedicated hybrid-specific vehicle might work.
Lotus, the British performance carmaker, Lotus, has introduced a new device that makes hybrid cars louder. Since hybrid cars first hit the market, concerns have been raised about the potential risk who may not hear hybrids in a cross-walk.
