Hybrid Car News

Back in January we brought you news of the new Audi E-Tron as it was unveiled at the Detroit Auto Meltdown Show. Well, just to prove that this Ingolstadt circuit breaker is for real and not another non-operational car-show art-project trucked in for the big show, we’ve got one on video.

The video is brought to us by Dan Neil—The LA Times’ (soon to be The Wall Street Journal’s) Pulitzer Prizewinning auto journalist, via YouTube. Though it doesn’t show Neil flogging the all-electric Tron car (on the roads or with his usual offbeat criticisms), it does prove that the full electrics are coming—whether we can afford them or not.

Like the Sputnik debacle of the 50s (when the Reds beat us to orbit), the Chinese have beat us to the punch for a mass market EV. Damn it!

China’s premier battery, mobile phone and now electric vehicle maker, BYD, announced yesterday the by this time next week, they’ll be the first automaker in the world to offer a mass-produced electric automobile.

Beating both the Chevy Volt and the Nissan Leaf to market, the BYD F3DM promises to deliver about 60 miles of all-electric range and sells for about $22,000.

With the Chinese government already giving Cash-For-Clunkers-style tax cuts for consumers switching from gas to electric, it looks like the F3DM is here to stay. Expect to see them on US shores sometime in 2011. We can’t wait.

Source: hybridCARS

Since the bottleneck for the advancement of hybrid and EV technology lies in battery technology, it’s refreshing to see reports like this one out of California. Looks like the eggheads over at Stanford U continue to make radical advancements in things battery parts like silicone nanowire anodes and mesoporous nanocomposites.

For the rest of us—they discovered something in 2007, reworked it and come up with the lithium-sulfur battery. The new cells are safer and hold four times the charge as lithium-ions, which promises great things for the future battery-powered products.

But before your dreams of the vibrator-equivalent to the everlasting gobstopper can come true, the scientists must overcome the fact that the new batteries can only be charged 40 – 50 times, which puts a damper on the fun—for now.

Source: engadget

Early this summer, a team of young, badass, idealistic hippies—did we mention badass—plan to lead the first ever around the world expedition in a commercially available electric vehicle. Since range anxiety is the most common reason folks shy away from EVs, the Project EVIE team is out to prove those fears wrong. After all, if they can drive a real, production EV around the freaking world, why can’t the rest of drive one to the market?

Check out their site here. They have a blog, a facebook, a twitter, a flickr, a mailing list and even a cool counter on the homepage counting down the days till they embark. Stay tuned, we have a feeling this is gonna be BIG—god speed Project EVIE!