Ah, the moment so many greenies have been waiting for: The EV version of the Smart two-seater is starting series production. Soon, you’ll be able to buy a city car fitted with a highly efficient lithium-ion battery and a 30 kW electric motor is fitted at the rear axle. As with all electric motors, it’s got lots of torque and all of it is available form essentially zero RPM. In the case of the electric Smart, that means 120 Newton meters of torque that are immediately available.

The smart fortwo electric drive is aimed at ease of use. It can be plugged into any normal household socket and charged the way you’d get juice into your iPod. And it’s cheap too. In Germany, for example at current exchange rates, a full charge costs around two Euros, or about three bucks. Once charged, you can get 115 kilometers of range (about 65 miles), which, as Smart puts it is “more than enough for city traffic.”

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The world of electric cars, or at least electric cars that are more than half-assed jokes, golf carts with pretensions and pipe dreams of the well meaning, just got a lot more interesting. For those of you that don’t follow this stuff, there’s an electric car company out there called Fisker Automotive. To a certain extent, they are to Tesla what Chevy was to Ford 100 years ago. They are serious, well funded, and aim to have the car you see pictured here, up and running as a viable, every day car for sale to the public. And to show you just how serious they are, Fisker just hired away Maserati’s chief sales and marketing “guy”.

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100% electric, 100 mile range, 100% torque, 0 emissions.

That’s the headlines from Nissan’s advertisement for their upcoming Leaf electric vehicle. This is, essentially, what greenies, the eco conscious and the like have been waiting for since the Chevy Impact disappeared lo those many years ago. This, if you believe the PR, is not some afternoon toy, or a plaything for the rich. This is a car, made by one of the world’s leading manufacturers, intended for every day use.

This better work, as advertised, or it will be a huge setback to acceptance of EVs.

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BMW, a company that has been obsessed with technology since they started, recently showed off a bunch of what it considers answers to offsetting carbon emissions in London. Makes sense. London has been on the forefront of emissions regulations in Europe, and is also a large market for what BMW makes.

The real question is whether BMW’s low carbon technologies will make it to the States.

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It looks like BMW was serious about not only building an electric version of its MINI (all caps, and boy is that lame), but they’re also serious about actually selling the things. Not that there’s anything wrong with these ideas at all, just ask Peter Trepp of Pacific Palisades California, because he’s the first guy in the country to get one.

Other MINI customers in Los Angeles, New York and New Jersey will take delivery of MINI Es by the end of June, but Peter Trepp is the lucky #1 when it comes to this car.

So what sort of person do you think would be the kind of guy that would jump through all the various hoops to actually get a MINI E (and you know that getting one of these quiet little runabouts wasn’t like going to the store to pick up a loaf of bread)? Continue Reading…

Volkswagen seems to be on a real tear these days with continuing rumors of them acquiring Porsche outright, and sales numbers indicating that they could displace GM and become the second largest automaker in the world. And now word comes out that VW will be partnering with the Chinese automaker BYD to make electric cars.

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