October 7th, 2011

Revenge of the Electric Car will appeal to car geeks who want to hear all they can about the vanguard of electric vehicles and the personalities behind them.

For me, the film could have delivered even more geek. Having driven a few EVs — the Leaf and the all-electric Ford Focus (which did not make the movie), I want to know ALL about them. Was it hard to achieve acceptable range? What is their range? (I guess we can look it up at fueleconomy.gov.) Why did GM decide to enter the market with a sport vehicle? Were they consigning EVs to a niche play? How do they really feel about Nissan jumping ahead with their family sedan? Will the Tesla roadster ever get below $100 grand? Why did Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn go all-in on the Leaf? We get whiffs of answers to all these questions, and some precious behind-the-scenes vignettes, like Ghosn whispering hush-hush to his staff before springing the Leaf on the world.

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June 22nd, 2011

As a car, the all-electric Nissan Leaf has received mostly great reviews. But as a positioning statement, Nissan has, in many marketers’ eyes, missed the boat. After some missteps, Nissan may now be on the right path. An ad I pulled from Fast Company recently hits all the right marks.

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May 17th, 2011

Green cars are the hot sellers right now, according to the latest data from Edmunds.com. The service looked at “days to turn” — the amount of time it takes dealers to sell a new vehicle.

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April 21st, 2011

David Crane, CEO of New Jersey-based NRG Energy, has become accustomed to the long pauses and surprised looks. Everyone knows the electric car is coming, but most envisioned it coming to California or other more cutting-edge locales first. When Crane first discussed his company’s choice for its first big foray into making privately-owned high-speed charging stations a reality, he had quite a different message to deliver.

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April 13th, 2011

Kelley Blue Book has named the Top 10 Green Cars of 2011. KBB’s editors said they were struck by the much wider range of vehicles they had to choose from this year when compared to years past. These days not only are there more hybrids than ever before, there also are more high-efficiency gasoline-powered vehicles on the road.

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November 24th, 2010

As Nissan speeds toward the December debut in showrooms of its electric LEAF, the first all-electric family sedan to hit the market in the grand slam of EV/PEV and hybrid cars coming to U.S. markets, the EPA has released its official MPG rating for the Nissan LEAF.

It’s a mind-blowing 99 mpg.

Of course, that’s not exactly what it appears to be. There’s no free ride. While the Leaf will use no gasoline, it will use electricity to recharge, and that could run upwards of $500 a year in additional energy costs for a household, depending on rates, how much the car is driven and other factors.

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November 12th, 2010

Hoping to help spark demand for its own charging equipment, General Electric Co. plans to buy 25,000 electric vehicles from makers including General Motors Co over the next five years. GE hopes the move will speed acceptance of electric cars by getting more of them on road more quickly and prompting investment in the equipment that users will need to charge them.

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October 8th, 2010

Imagine an array of wind turbines in West Texas, whirring away, generating electricity to be transmitted to more populous areas of the state. Imagine that clean, green power surging into your home. Then, imagine your new, state-of-the-art electric car plugged into a 240-volt outlet in your garage, charging that clean-running, environmentally friendly vehicle for the next day’s commute or round of errands. If all that sounds like a nice idea that will never happen, guess again. In Texas it is happening, right now, thanks to a previously unlikely alliance of planners, power infrastructure providers, utility companies and automobile manufacturers, all coming together to help the future get here just a little bit faster.

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May 3rd, 2010

From Green Right Now Reports

If you want to pick up a new LEAF when Nissan’s all-electric automobile debuts in December, you may need to take a number. Already, more than 8,000 customers have plunked down the required $99 deposit to pre-order the vehicle. That’s almost eight percent of the 102,000 who previously had signed up as interested buyers.

Those folks had first dibs in terms of making what is still a fairly nominal commitment. (The $99 is refundable.) Nissan expects the figure to grow even more after May 15, when the general public will be able to get in the game.

The company aims to produce about 50,000 LEAFs during the car’s debut year. It expects to have about half of those spoken for in pre-orders by the time the vehicle actually begins to hit the streets. The LEAF lists at $32,780, but existing federal tax credits can take $7,500 off that price, and state and local incentives can reduce the cost even more.

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April 5th, 2010

From Green Right Now Reports

Consumers intrigued by Nissan’s new all-electric vehicle – the LEAF – have been waiting for the answer to the big question: Just how much will going electric cost?

The surprising answer: About $25,000 for American car buyers after federal tax credits.

Last week, Nissan said it will offer the LEAF for $32,780 in the United States. With a $7,500 federal tax credit, the net price drops to $25,280, making it very competitive with Toyota’s popular Prius hybrid.

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January 11th, 2010

From Green Right Now Reports

Until recently, critics haven’t had to work very hard at making a case against the electric car.

Most of the vehicles in question are small. Almost all either are relatively expensive or figure to be when they finally hit the showroom. With ranges between 40 (Chevy Volt) and 100 miles (Nissan LEAF), you won’t be going very far before you have to stop for a time-consuming charge.

Lately, though, progress is being made, and just how much the times may be changing will be on display at the North American International Auto Show, which opens to the media today in Detroit. (The show’s public run is from Jan. 16-24.)

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January 8th, 2010

By Bill Sullivan
Green Right Now

The German government hopes to get one million electric cars on the road by 2020, offering incentives for BMW and Volkswagen to get behind the push. France aims to have twice that many in operation by that same year. Carlos Ghosn, who heads up Nissan and Renault, expects 10 percent of the world’s automobiles to run on electricity before the end of the next decade.

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