car
I thought it was ridiculous when GM was advertising the Volt two years before scheduled production. But now Chrysler is advertising the Volt, and they're not even GM (yet.)
A friend of mine from YouTube just asked me whether or not he should replace his totaled car with a MINI Cooper. This is actually something I think about quite a lot. Would it be better for me to just drive a very small car than to get a hybrid?
No one has been pleased to see the price point of the Chevrolet Volt continue to rise. Initially engineers were pleased to hear that I'd pay as much as $30,000 for the car. But now, with Honda on the scene with an $18k hybrid, GM has been project a cost closer to $40k than $30k.
General Motors just unveiled the final production version of the Chevrolet Volt, a car that some say will save the company while others believe it will bankrupt it. The Volt is a new kind of car, so new that nobody's quite decided what they're going to be called.
Looking to beat all other major car companies to the punch, Tata (the largest car company in India) has announced that they'll be selling an all-electric vehicle in Norway in "less than a year."
The car will be based on the Indica (pictured above) which is already on the streets as a gas-powered car in India.
Battery manufacturer Ener1 just announced that they're foreseeing an 50% drop in the price of lithium ion batteries as production increases. Where exactly this price drop will be coming from, we're not sure.
When I asked Bob Lutz almost a year ago whether he thought other car companies would be adopting the Chevy Volt's "extended range electric vehicle" platform, he said that they were welcome to join in the fun.
But he may not have expected that other car companies would be so quick to the punch. While GM has been pushing like crazy to get the Volt out of the door, it looks like Mazda (Ford) has had a little bit of work going on as well.