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CODA Automotive have announced that they will begin shipping their all-electric sedan in the 3rd quarter of 2011 to the US state of Hawaii. The horribly boring looking but innovative electric 4-door sedan will begin limited deliveries on the US mainland in the 4th quarter of 2010 making it, in their words “one of the first affordably priced, all-electric vehicles on the road in the U.S.”. The primary competition will be the Nissan Leaf although the fact that the Leaf has already sold out its first year of production may play into the hands of CODA, some people may not want to wait another 12 months. Read the rest of this article »

Electric cars have been around almost as long as gasoline powered cars, the model above was built by Detroit Electric in 1931 – a company that was seemingly about 80 years ahead of its time. Detroit Electric began producing electric cars back in 1907, that was long before anyone knew whether electricity or gasoline was going to be the dominant power-train option for the automobile. Gasoline powered cars had longer range in their corner but electric cars were far more reliable, quieter, cheaper to run and they didn’t need a crank start. All of this meant that if range wasn’t an issue, the smart option was electric. Funny how some things never change. Thomas Edison had a Detroit Electric in his garage and believed that electric cars were the way of the future, if only he knew how far into the future it was going to be. Read the rest of this article »

Pike Research released a report yesterday indicating that we can expect to see 3.2 million plug-in electric vehicles (PHEV) and battery electric vehicles (BEV) by 2015, interestingly they are predicting that China will outpace the US in PHEV and BEV adoption with the mainland accounting for 27% of global sales and the US just behind at 26%.

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I know what you’re thinking, what is Peugeot thinking calling a car “3008 HYbrid4″, I have no answer to that question although I suspect it may have a meaning in French that is lost in translation. The car itself is actually very interesting, it’s a diesel hybrid, a rare mix, and it also features a unique hybrid drive system that sees both axles operate 100% independently. The rear axle is powered by a 37hp electric motor and NiMH battery system where as the front axle is powered by a 2.0 litre 160hp diesel engine, both systems can run together or at low speeds the electric motor can run the car independently. Read the rest of this article »

Top Gear is a television show that is based in the UK, there are offshoot versions in both America and Australia but they are awful and I refuse to acknowledge their existence. The show is a huge success, they drive fast cars sideways, blow stuff up and are responsible for the largest non-government rocket launch in European history. And I’m not even joking about that last one. On the downside, up until now that is, they have hated electric cars, so much so that when they reviewed the Tesla Roadster they faked a dead battery to make a point. Read the rest of this article »

Epic is a small scale electric vehicle manufacturer who, as of yet, haven’t released any cars for sale. They are working on it feverishly though and the images you’re looking at here are of their Torq model, a 3-wheeled racer with obvious design influence from both the Ariel Atom and the KTM X-Bow. As these are teaser shots and come with no hard specifications we have to make some assumptions, it appears to be either a front or 3-wheel drive set up with an adjustable front wing and Formula 1 style Read the rest of this article »

The Brammo Enertia has won the Electric Motorcycle of the Year category in an annually published list of motorcycles on Motorcycle.com. The MOBO Awards are only in their second year but have become very popular across the two-wheeled web and are widely quoted by winning manufacturers. This year saw Brammo beat Zero to the punch with their much loved Enertia model, I had personally thought that the Zero DS or Brammo Empulse would take the award this year but it’s good to see the venerable Enertia still winning fans. The runner up for 2010 was the Native S, an electric motorcycle from a small California based manufacturer that beat out MotoCzysz to be the first US manufacturer to win the Isle of Man since 1911. Read the rest of this article »

Bugatti is a name synonymous with extreme luxury and more recently with extreme engineering. The Bugatti Veyron Super Sport is currently the fastest production car in the world and has a price tag of just under two and a half million clams. The car that you see pictured above and below is a project from the designer Douglas Hogg and it’s based on the original 1935 Bugatti Aerolithe (pictured below) which was handmade from aircraft grade magnesium aluminium alloy, an exceptionally light but occasionally combustable material that earned the car the nickname “Electron” after the name of the name of the aforementioned alloy. Read the rest of this article »

Nathan Fillion, star of the never-should-have-been-cancelled TV Show “Firefly” and current star of “Castle” is in the market for an electric car and he thinks he might have just found it. It’s called the Arcimoto Pulse and it’s a little different from your run of the mill Tesla Roadster. After sending out a tweet to his 600,000 followers saying “I think I’ve found my spaceship” the celebrity electric car enthusiast crashed Arcimoto’s website with the ensuing traffic spike. The Pulse is licensed as an electric motorcycle due to its 3-wheel configuration and has a top speed of 65 miles per hour and uses lead-acid batteries rather than the more commonplace lithium-ion, the use of the cheaper lead acid batteries is going a long way towards keeping the cost down to an estimated $17,500 USD however the range is limited to just 40 miles per charge.

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Editors Note – Please welcome the first of our new writers, James Anderson Merritt.