About two weeks ago, Coda Automotive (a new electric car manufacturer), announced that it will have an all-electric sedan hitting the California market in 2010. The Coda electric car delivers a range of between 90 and 120 miles on a single charge, with a top speed of 80 mph.
Tianjin Lishin Battery is supplying the batteries for this particular vehicle. You may be familiar with Tianjin, as this is one of the world's largest manufacturers of lithium-ion cells and a key supplier to Apple, Motorola, and Samsung.
Coda is expected to have about 2,700 vehicles available in 2010, with production capacity set to reach 20,000 by 2011.
Of course, Coda's electric car is just one more option in an ever-growing line of higher mpg (or mpg equivalent) vehicles. Truth is, from the smallest suburban garages to the biggest automakers, these next generation, fuel-efficient vehicles really are being developed quite rapidly compared to where we were just a few years ago...
GM's still committed to getting the Volt out next year.
Ford will be pumping out new electric vehicles in just two years.
Mitsubishi recently announced that it will begin leasing its i-MiEV electric car in Japan, next month.
Subaru's new Stella EV is expected to be available to consumers this summer
Daimler has invested in Tesla Motors (maker of the electric vehicle sensation, the Tesla Roadster), and will use Tesla's batteries in its Smart electric car...which is expected to hit later in the year in a testing phase.
And don't forget the guys (and gals) that are converting conventional and hybrid vehicles to Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs)...right now. While conversion are nothing new, the momentum behind conversions is definitely growing and developing.
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We recently saw Raser Technologies (NYSE:RZ) show off its electric Hummer (with a 40-mile all-electric range) in Washington. And a small California company - Plug In Conversions Corp. - has just completed a new software upgrade that enables all-electric driving at speeds of up to 70 miles per hour in a converted Prius.
Building Tomorrow's Vehicles...Today
A new generation of engineers is also being groomed to take on the personal transportation challenges of tomorrow. In fact, last Friday, students from Ohio State University took first place in the EcoCAR Challenge - an advanced vehicle technology competition run by the DOE, GM and the Argonne National Laboratory.
Essentially, this challenge requires students to design and build advanced propulsion solutions, utilizing a variety of clean vehicle options. These include...
All-electric
Range-extended electric
Hybrid
Plug-in hybrid
Fuel cell
The students also incorporate lightweight materials, improve aerodynamics and use alternative fuels, like ethanol, biodiesel and hydrogen.
Interestingly enough, Ohio State also announced a 2,000 mpg-equivalent solar car just last month. It's not a practical vehicle you could drive to work everyday. But the technology that these college students are developing is exactly the kind of technology that so many car manufacturers ignored , or simply denied for decades. Of course, that all changed when gas hit $4.00 a gallon.
Nonetheless, we're certainly excited to see what the future holds for a new generation of fuel-efficient vehicles. And while I am partial to electric and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (particularly because these vehicles more than meet my needs, as well as the needs of more than half the daily commuting population), there are dozens of potential options coming down the pike. From electrification to advanced biofuels to new designs of old ideas - the race is on to take us out of the stone age of vehicle development...and into the 21st Century.
Which do you think will take the lead?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
To a new way of life, and a new generation of wealth...
Jeff
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They are building Hybrid buses and medium sized trucks ( Purolator Etc..)
They seem to have a solid plan
One of the main reasons that we have stayed with fossil fuels so long has been by governmental designs....The government can orchestrate the development of any areas of industry it wants to with by changing the direction of tax benefits....
What we need is an all out push by the government utilizing these tax incentives to develop and promote the use of green technologies...especially the electric car....This could go hand in hand with the use of both nuclear technology and the widespread usage of wind and solar technologies...
P.S. Don't blame "government" for voters not seeing the light of day. Sooner or later the "Gov." does what voters want when they out-shout the special interests.
and also a platform for a wind turbines. put this all in one package with space in the box for groceries, sports equipment etc. That will satisfy the majority of people and and when up to speed will run alone on solar and wind.The batteries would only get the vehicle up to speed. GOODBYE OIL PRICES.
That was ten years ago. Now I'm healthier, richer and less toxic to my Earth. I imagine quiting gas cars is like that time when I quite smoking. It will be very expensive to do and people's minds will think of all sorts of crazy things to say and to do to reason with continued use of gas cars. In truth, every American knows we can't continue to support our expensive oil habit, by having expensive and life robbing wars in the Middle East.
Moveover, people of America go out and buy a new gas less car and spread the word. If you find the person who is preaching gas less cars then you have found the Massiah.
"Perhaps even a stronger reason for voting against the $95 billion because it is needed for healthcare is the need for the money elsewhere as follows:
Many of us know it but hardly any of us wants to express it. That is, the primary reason we are in Iraq or in any other Mid East country is because of oil. If we continue to stay in the Mid East Countries we will only continue our expensive use of foreign oil instead of converting to 85% Ethanol and Biodiesel for the next forty or so years while concurrently Hydrogen is fully developed to the point of completely replacing combustion engines. Since globally we have already reached and passed peak oil we cannot afford to keep on using oil until it is all gone and find ourselves without alternative fuels transportation. OUR ENTIRE NATION NEEDS TO TRANSITION TO ETHANOL AND BIODIESEL NOW. WE ARE ALREADY LATE IN DOING SO."
Coal gives more bang for the buck; there is more geothermal electricity coming on line in addition to other producers of electricity and natural gas. There will be more electric cars. Therefore, I think that it is time to stop investing in solar, wind and bio-fuels and look to the near future where we will not need to import much oil.
Also, I am trying to get a high speed material transport system developed that will greatly reduce the number of tractor trailers on the roads and increase our Nations productivity while reducing the need for diesel fuel. (I don’t see those golf-cart-sized cars on the roads with large trucks.)
Why not use hydraulic motors on each wheel, eliminate a transmission completely by controlling speed with a hydraulic pump driven by a small high efficiency diesel. I saw a proto type depicted in Popular Mechanics over 40 years ago and the simplicity and practicality beats the high cost of cumbersome limited range batteries.
You must be kidding, right? If you want to import less oil, we need to transition yesterday. What I mean by that is investing heavily in renewables so we're not so reliant upon fossil fuels. Which whether you want to admit it or not, are extremely harmful to the environment. Burying CO2 is a joke too. Until I see an economical solution there, it doesn't exist. Not to mention, what happens if the CO2 leaks out? That's a nice lawsuit waiting to happen. We need to get at least 50% of the daily passenger vehicles electric. We'll keep drilling domestically in the meantime, just to cover the transition time.
Oh, and stop using the "golf cart" argument. You know damn well most of the electric cars in development are NOT golf carts. I do agree that electric vehicles won't work for large trucks. For those, we should focus on natural gas.
I have ageo-exchange heat/ac system and I just installed a 10kwh solae system on my home. We all need to do this. RM
even fungus.
my 2 cents worth
What about you? What do you guys drive? What are you planning on driving in the future? I think your readers would like to know.
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I'm glad to see others are finally seeing this alternative. Just put tanks for hydrogen at practically all service stations.
I hope we don't spend too much time and money going after all these other alternatives.
Over 20 years ago a city, I think Salt Lake City, was running all of their city vehicles on hydrogen. I wonder if they still are?
Motoring is making massive strides of course. About 1955 Popular Mechanics promised a production electric car in about five years. We still await the results.
Does anyone remember the Chicago, Aurora, and Elgin, the Chicago North Shore, or the great Pacific Electric. Every city had an electric railway and they sometimes ran at 80 mph,hundreds of hp, and they never took a single "recharge". We scapped most of them and the few survivors were made unusable.Today they are "trying" to rebuild a few. What chance is there that the Coda will kill them off. Few and none I'd say.
Maybe the Coda will kill fewer people than a Cadallic, maybe it will cause less congestion, maybe it will compete in economy and comfort, and maybe it won't require a coal fired generating station to keep it clean and green.
But why be sceptical. Slow progress is better than none. Until now the automotive industry hasn't delivered either. It is getting what it well deserves!
A hundred years later- goodbye Coda, hello trains...
Joe
Some years ago, Chrysler built a diese hybrid Intrepid that got 72 mpg but didn't put it into production. A big plus for diesel engines is that they will run on a variety of fuels such as straight vegetable oil or used frying oil than many people are now using. Vegetable oil can be produced from almost any vegetable product but corn and soy are not the best choices for level of productivity. Algae definitely looks, by far, the most promising but no one ever talks about this and only a few small start ups are working on it.
About hydrogen, where is all the hydrogen going to come from? I believe at this time it takes more energy to produce hydrogen from water than the fuel would supply. Correct me if I'm wrong.
The important fact is Zenn's partnership with EEStor, a Texas company working on what will be the most revolutionary battery in the world. They claim to be within months of final testing and production.