EV Report

The solar impulse HB-SIA has completed its 24 hour flight (after 26 hours) by flying to an altitude of almost 29,000 ft! The EV Plane is made up of 12,000 solar cells and lithium polymer batteries four 10 horsepower electric motors. The total weight is 1.7 tons. It was flown by André Borschberg on July 7th and landed on Thursday July 8th. Borschberg said this has been one of his most exciting flights out of his 40yr flight career.

Tesla is putting it all on the line this Tuesday by offering wall street its initial public offering. Even though the company has lost more than $290 million since it began in 2003 it expects to raise at least $185 million on its IPO. Will they reach their goal? Although everyone wants a Tesla its difficult to know if everyone wants Tesla stock. Regardless it should be interesting to watch!

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The Nissan Leaf will be ready for consumers on December 2010. Nissan’s recent leaf efforts have shown that the leaf is just the start of a larger change that is shifting the company towards electric cars in a big way. R&D has been at the core of Nissan’s efforts in their search for the perfect balance…Range, speed, affordability and usability has been at the crux of their efforts to develop a car that will not only impress but sell.
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Coulomb Technologies will be installing 4,600 ChargePoint electric car charging stations in 9 major metro areas. The cities to be exact are Austin, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Orlando, Sacramento, San Jose/San Francisco, Redmond, and Washington DC. The $37 million dollar project is supported by Chevrolet, Ford, and Smart as well as a $15 million Department of Energy grant from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Why are they doing all of this? Mainly to support the electric cars that will be following.

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That’s right Bugatti is said to be working on a new EV that pumps out 800hp. This will be achieved by using twin 400hp electric motors. The battery system that will be used is unknown. Bugatti used to develop electric cars in the  1930′s and is now getting back to becoming king of the fastest EV.

GTM announces the top 50 VC-Funded Green Tech Startup Companies. In the list are solar, Smart Grid and EV Infrastructure, Green Buildings, Lighting, Biofuels and Biochemicals, Batteries, Fuel Cells, Energy Storage, Transportation, Other Energy, Water, Green IT among them are Eestor, Tesla & Fisker Automotive. Some of these green companies could be future Wall Street gems. Only time will tell.
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Nissan hasn’t launched the new Leaf yet and it already has 56,000 pre orders with more orders planned from big government purchases! With virtually no electric car competitors, Nissan is positioning itself to be the market leader in EVs. Nissan plans to go into mass production in 2012. With this many orders they may need to go into mass production even sooner.  It looks like the Nissan Leaf could potentially be the new ‘Prius’.
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Boostcap technology gets more love as Voith announces it will use Maxwell’s 125-volt BOOSTCAP® ultracapacitor modules in new hybrid bus drive systems. For those who don’t know about boostcap technology it uses capacitors to more efficiently save energy and provide energy during high energy demands of the drive system thus saving the battery system from getting burned out.
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Yes its true…Tag Heuer and Tesla team up to develop a TAG branded Tesla complete with a Heuer Limited Edition Stopwatch.  Do we have the money to afford this? No. Do we appreciate it? Hell Yeah!
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Plugless Power is gearing up for production of their new plugless charging stations. Where will we first see them? We do not know. How cool does this sound? VERY COOL. This means you can park at a station and you’re good-to-go. We’ll likely start seeing these charging stations at public chains like mcdonalds or starbucks where you’d normally park for more than 15 minutes while getting a bite to eat & charging your EV at the same time.