Look beyond the sticker shock — Infograph: Real Cost of Vehicle Ownership
The new infograph published by SafeCar.Info. offers some good insights into the real cost of owning a vehicle. To put it simply, owning a car these days is not easy on any wallet. the infograph provides a clear guide to the issues which everyone should consider before they make their final decision.
Source: SafeCar.info. Click Image to learn more.
Via: Safecar.info | Car safety & Insurance Magazine
All around brilliance – Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk’s CBS 60 Minutes Interview
Thank god this guy chose to focus his energy and investments on transportation, one of the most-neglected fields from an investment perspective. Elon Musk’s interview is a testament to what one man can aspire and do to inspire a generation with his ideas.
An electric motorcycle could be just what the doctor ordered for some urban drivers
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Feast Your Eyes – Ahead Of Mass Market Release Tesla Teases Audience With Assembly Line Eye Candy
(via autobloggreen)
It is always an awesome sight to see how machines build another machine. As it happens, I can’t help but think if this venture succeeds, that would mark the first time Detroit really faced a serious challenge from Silicon Valley.. June 22nd, the announced delivery date for first batch of customers (other than the ones who got the Founder series) is just few days away and let’s see what is going to happen.. Hit or miss, you gotta love the boldness of Elon Musk to enter into this venture and fight the carmarking heavyweights of Detroit and other global auto industry powerhouses.
Gulping Gallons? Fuel Efficiency in the United States – An Infographic Overview
(Source: Moving Solutions, Inc. via Autobloggreen)
MoveBuilder has put together an excellent infographic that has all these values, along with such esoteric numbers as the fuel consumption of NASA’s Crawler-transporter and how fast a person could pedal a bike if he or she could metabolize gasoline as efficiently as food (912mph, which would be a really good reason to stay clear of the bike lane).
Future of Refueling Got a Little Closer! Better Place’s Battery-Swap Station Deployed in Israel (video)
(Source: Gas 2.0)
One of the biggest hurdles for market penetration for the Electric Vehicles (EV) is the charging times associated with the batteries in the vehicles. Some of these batteries take up to several hours (4hrs to 8hrs) for a full charge , a.k.a Top off, and continues to remain a big challenge for the manufacturers to convince their buyers. Looking at the existing fleet of vehicles in the market, some question the wisdom behind the EV charging investments. If you pulled up at a gas station along the way it takes roughly 5 minutes to “top off” or fill up your gas tak and get back on the road quickly. With the existing EVs in the market placethis is not possible, at least at this moment. That’s where Shai Agassi’s Better Place excelled with a marvellous idea. Why not just swap the batteries like you would do in a household device. And do it as quickly as you buy a burger at a drive through. Combining the two ideas results in what you can call the Battery Swap Station. For those who wondered aloud about the viability of a business model proposed by Project Better Place, the recent deployment of its Battery-Swap station in Israel should be worth taking note.
Image Courtesy: Better Place on Flickr
Batter Swap Infrastructure - Image Courtesy: Better Place on Flickr
Gas 2.0 notes the following:
Project Better Place’s Israeli facility released this video of the battery swapper in action, effectively “topping off” the electric car with a simple swipe of a card in about the same time it would take to top-off a conventional ICE car. The stations themselves are designed to be modular in construction, and compatible with several different EVs – although they are presumably leaning heavily towards batteries powering Renault/Nissan’s EVs.
The Truth About Cars blog reports that 8 more Better Place battery-swap stations are currently in construction, and the company hopes to eventually have 40 similar stations operational throughout Israel.
Click here to learn more about the project.
Editor’s note: Until the battery technology is refined to the point where charging times are on par with the time it takes for filling up a gas tank in the conventional car, this approach seems prudent and better suited for rapid deployment. Oh, on a related note – if this model were to be deployed in the US, I presume it would have a slight twist. The stations will be designed to sell you a burger while you swap the batteries, which means you can see an integrated refueling station for the vehicle and the driver, just like how we have it now in the Gas Stations with convenience store options. Wouldn’t that be ironic to have a Better Place Charging Station co-located with a burger joint like Burger King or McDonalds? Haha! Oh, come on. I know you not heard many people say that: McDonalds is not a Better Place.
Electrifying Houston – City Gets Private Electric Car Charging Network
(Source: Good)
Houston, Texas, may end up being the first American city with a great electric car charging infrastructure. NRG Energy is rolling out what is supposedly the world’s first privately funded comprehensive electric vehicle ecosystem. Here are some interesting nuggets:
- The system (or “ecosystem,” in their overwrought marketing speak), called eVgo, employs a very interesting business model. Subscribers sign a three-year contract and then pay a monthly fee, ranging from $49 to $89, for both a home charger and varying levels of access to this network of public chargers.
- NRG plans to install between 50 and 150 high-speed chargers in public places— shopping centers and the like—by the end of 2011. They’ll also be installing chargers in people’s homes.
- The high-speed chargers distributed around the city can charge a car to 80 percent within 30 minutes.
Related articles
- NRG Installs Privately-Funded Electric Car Charging Network in Oily Houston (fastcompany.com)
- NRG Launches Nation’s First Privately Funded, Comprehensive Electric Vehicle Charging Ecosystem (eon.businesswire.com)
- NRG Energy Selects AeroVironment to Build the Nation’s First Privately-Funded Electric Vehicle Charging “Ecosystem” (eon.businesswire.com)
- Walgreens and NRG Energy Work Together to Bring Nation’s First Privately Funded, Comprehensive Electric Vehicle Infrastructure to Houston (eon.businesswire.com)
- Reliant Customers Among the First with Access to eVgo Electric Vehicle Charging Network (eon.businesswire.com)
- NRG Energy Launches Network Of Electric Car Chargers, In Houston (blogs.forbes.com)
- A Private Network for Recharging Cars (green.blogs.nytimes.com)
- Why Texas May Be a Better Electric Car State Than California (nytimes.com)
- Unlimited Juice Electric Vehicle Charging Plans: Good Idea or Exploitation? (allcarselectric.com)
- NRG: Nation’s First Privately Financed Vehicle Charging Network (gigaom.com)
- On the GreenBeat: Trilliant Inks Deal With British Gas, NRG Energy Launches Charging Infrastructure (nytimes.com)
The perks keep coming! Buy an electric car to become a magnet for attention –
Going electric has its own benefits which include – Tax credits, rebate checks, personalized home visits, government giveaways — even customer service calls from top corporate executives.
Mr. McNaughton, a lawyer in Nashville, paid his $99 deposit, he has been bombarded with government incentives — promises of a $7,500 federal tax credit, a $2,500 cash rebate from the state of Tennessee, and a $3,000 home-charging unit courtesy of the Energy Department.
Amplify’d from www.nytimes.com
Precisely. It is all part of an unprecedented effort by federal, state and local governments to stimulate demand for cars that have zero tailpipe emissions — and Nissan’s pre-emptive bid to corner the all-electric market much the way that Toyota dominated the early hybrid market with the Prius.
The government subsidies are shaving thousands of dollars off the Leaf’s $32,780 sticker price, while other benefits are piling up, like free parking in some cities and the use of express lanes on highways usually reserved for cars with multiple passengers. In Tennessee, where a Leaf assembly plant is being built, Leaf drivers will be able to charge their vehicles free at public charging stations on 425 miles of freeways that connect Nashville, Knoxville and Chattanooga.
“It’s almost shocking how many subsidies are available on the Leaf,” said Jeremy P. Anwyl, chief executive of the auto research Web site Edmunds.com. “We are putting a lot of money behind this technology.”
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