September 24th, 2012

Say what you will about the high costs and short ranges of electric vehicles , a good many people who’ve had the privilege of driving or owning one are awestruck in love with them.

We caught up with members of the unofficial EV admiration society at a National Plug In Day celebration in Frisco, Texas on Sunday. The event, one of dozens around the country, showcased commercially available EVs like the Chevrolet Volt and the Nissan Leaf, as well as cars just entering production, such as the elegant Karma by Fisker, the popular Prius Plug-In Hybrid (available in selected states) and the petite Mitsubishi MiEV.

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April 9th, 2012

April, a celebratory time for Christians and Jews, not to mention landscapers, also is a season of hope for greenies.

This spring, like Trekkies, eco-minded people will band together at festivals to celebrate new frontiers — though they’re looking for the next new thing on this planet, in their backyard even, and won’t arrive in costume.

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January 26th, 2011

Climate action is so far off the agenda in Washington it may as well be floating on an island of melting sea ice. With dozens of lawmakers expressing doubts about whether climate change is real or is some zany idea cooked up by 10,000 scientists, issues like cap-and-trade have been iced. Even environmentalists now speak about amorphous “pollution” instead of those off-putting greenhouse gases.

Thankfully, though, clean energy, electric cars and high-speed rail – the nuts-and-bolts improvements that could help America build muscle in manufacturing and technology sectors, salvage its remaining natural spaces and reduce “pollution” (wink, wink) — remain firmly on the table.

At least that’s where the president has placed them.

In what may have been his most pointedly green national speech, President Barak Obama called out ambitious, explicit green energy goals in last night’s State of the Union Address. Obama wants a transformed America to be:

• The first nation to put 1 million electric cars on the ground

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October 29th, 2010

Herman K. Trabish

Who Killed the Electric Car?, director Chris Paine’s renowned documentary about the effort to save GM’s EV1 and Toyota’s RAV-4 EV, left the identity of the culprit an open question, and for good reason: the electric car wasn’t killed; it was wounded. And now, with Nissan’s all-electric Leaf and Chevrolet’s plug-in hybrid electric Volt coming to U.S. showrooms in November, it’s back, healthier than ever.

Plug-In America (PIA), which was born out of the protest to save the 1990s EVs, met at Paine’s sprawling hilltop home overlooking Los Angeles Saturday night to celebrate the organization’s fifth anniversary and the triumphant re-emergence of the car with a plug.

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July 28th, 2010

Enterprise Rent-A-Car will offer electric vehicles at select rental locations in the U.S. starting in 2011, the St. Louis-based company announced today. The company will begin its EV offerings with 500 Nissan LEAFs, the first of which will be delivered in January. The company will add other electric cars to its fleet as they become available. Enterprise, which operates a network of auto rental outlets at more than 5,000 locations in the U.S., already has added about 7,000 hybrid vehicles to its fleet in recent years as it strives to be more sustainable and green-friendly.

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February 3rd, 2010

From Green Right Now Reports

Could Nissan’s marketers have planned this any better?

Just as the carmaker is in the midst of a national tour of the Leaf, its much ballyhooed new electric plug-in, competitor Toyota finds itself in a tailspin over mysterious sudden acceleration events that now affect even its energy-efficient darling, the Prius.

The Prius, the nation’s best-selling and highest mileage hybrid car, looked to have a fruitful future, until this week, when it was implicated along with other Toyota brands in a safety scandal that grows larger with every news cycle.

The Leaf is not a hybrid, but part of the new generation of all-electric, plug-in vehicles (EVs) that will go head to head with hybrids already on the road. Due in showrooms this coming fall/winter, the Leaf is riding the leading edge of this new technology. It will offer excellent mileage as well as zero carbon tailpipe emissions (the car will still have an energy footprint related to its electricity use, which could be clean or fossil fuel energy, depending on where it is charged).

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January 29th, 2010

(Photo: Nissan)

From Green Right Now Reports

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced today that the Department of Energy has made a $1.4 billion loan to Nissan North America that will pay for the modification of the automaker’s Smyrna, Tenn., manufacturing plant to produce the new all-electric Nissan LEAF.

In addition to producing the zero-emission EV at the existing plant, a newly built plant will make the lithium-ion battery packs to power the next-generation car.

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August 7th, 2009

From Green Right Now Reports

Nissan has opened a chat room to discuss it’s newly unveiled all-electric vehicle (EV), the Leaf, with potential customers.

The car company’s also publishing more pictures of the family sedan, due out in 2010 and revealed this past weekend in Japan.

Many of the questions, predictably, center on the infrastructure to support electric vehicles. For instance, how does an apartment-dweller recharge the thing? There’s not a great answer for that, just yet; apartment building owners will have to get on board and provide parking lot charging stations. Nissan replies that urbanites might find some help at public facilities.

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August 1st, 2009

From Green Right Now Reports

Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. today unveiled the boldest product it has ever launched — the Nissan LEAF. The company is billing it as “the world’s first affordable, zero-emission car.”

Powered entirely by a lithium-ion battery — there is not even a tailpipe — the Nissan LEAF will be a medium-size hatchback that will seat five adults and has a range of more than 100 miles. It will go on sale in late 2010 in Japan, the United States, and Europe.

“Nissan LEAF is a tremendous accomplishment – one in which all Nissan employees can take great pride,” Niss an President and CEO Carlos Ghosn said in a statement at the company’s new global headquarters in Yokohama, Japan. “We have been working tirelessly to make this day a reality – the unveiling of a real-world car that has zero – not simply reduced – emissions. It’s the first step in what is sure to be an exciting journey – for people all over the world, for Nissan and for the industry.”

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