IBxAnders, Author at Electric Vehicle Forums - Page 17 of 21

The 2011 Detroit Auto Show holds promise for Prius-lovers, with the first addition to the ubiquitous hybrid brand’s family: an MPV, or multi-purpose vehicle. Americans may want to call it a wagon, or a hatchback, or something else, but whatever it’s named, it’s a longer, larger version of the Prius.

X Games skateboarder Bob Burnquist, himself a big fan of sustainable living and minimizing environmental impact, gives us a few teasers of what to expect–including a look down its long cargo area–in the video below. Beyond this small sneak peek, however, we know a bit about what to expect of the Prius MPV.

First previewed by the Hybrid X concept back in 2007, the idea of a larger Prius is not new. Nor is the story of a full family of Prius-badged vehicles. The production version of the new, larger Prius has even been teased on Facebook. But what of the specs?

The hybrid drivetrain, including both the combustion engine and Synergy Drive electrical portion, are expected to be identical to the standard Prius, though it’s possible the hybrid system of the foreign-market Toyota Auris Hybrid could be tapped to haul the larger load. Roughly 50 percent more cargo volume will be found inside, and seating for up to seven passengers is possible.

This isn’t the only addition to the Prius family, however. A smaller, Yaris-like car is expected as well. Toyota is keeping mum on this expected addition, though we should see a concept version of the car in Detroit alongside the Prius MPV’s unveiling–Toyota says “a Prius concept vehicle” is coming to the snowy show. It’s not expected for sale until the 2013 model year, however.

It all kicks off January 10 at 1:05 p.m. EST, and we’ll be on hand to bring you the live images, news, and details, so stay tuned. In the mean time, see how many unique elements of the new Prius family member you can spot in the video.

[Toyota]

This story originally appeared at Green Car Repor

The 2011 Fisker Karma is still on track to reach U.S. dealers in March or April, according to the company.

But there’s one new piece of info: The price of the extended-range electric sports sedan has gone up. Again.

Originally announced in 2008 at a price of $80,000, the Karma fairly quickly went up to $87,900 and stayed there. Now, just before launch, ‘final pricing’ has risen another $8,000.

Based on an e-mail forwarded to us last night and originally sent by Fisker of Santa Monica, the final pricing for the 2011 Fisker Karma is:

• Eco Standard: $95,900
• Eco Sport: $103,900
• Eco Chic: $108,900

There’s also a mandatory destination charge of $950 on top of those prices.

Karmas are eligible for a $7,500 Federal income-tax credit as well as a variety of state and local incentives. In California, the car qualifies for a $5,000  purchase rebate on top of the Federal allowance.

Options for the 2011 Fisker Karma run as follows:

• Tri-Tone Leather Interior: $2,200
• Diamond Dust Paint: $3,000
• “Special Paint”: $3,000

The Fisker Karma order guide shows all the available colors, as well as various other choices for future owners to make.

According to the dealer’s e-mail, test drives will be available in late February or early March.

Fisker exhibited its prototype Karma at each of its dealers in a lengthy U.S. national tour last summer.

The company hasn’t released final specifications, but the 2011 Karma is expected to travel 50 miles using only electricity from the battery. After its lithium-ion battery pack is depleted, a range-extending 2.0-liter direct-injected four-cylinder GM Ecotec engine switches on.

The engine turns a generator that produces electricity to operate the drive motors for a further 250 miles of range.The rear wheels are powered by a pair of 150-kilowatt electric motors. Fisker has quoted a 0-to-62-mph time of less than 6 seconds, and a maximum speed of more than 125 miles per hour.

This story originally appeared at Green Car Repor

Last fall we brought you the first drive of the 2012 Ford C-Max, but since the vehicles we drove were European-spec vehicles, we’ve been waiting on word of the final U.S. specifications.

Today Ford’s released those specs, starting with engine output in both the C-Max’s standard 2.5-liter four-cylinder or in its 1.6-liter EcoBoost turbocharged four. Both chime in with 168 horsepower–with the catch that on premium fuel, the EcoBoost four ups its power to 180 hp. Both fours come with a six-speed, dual-clutch transmission standard. Fuel economy hasn’t been released, but Ford execs say a 30-mpg highway target is intended for the EcoBoost engine.

In other U.S.-specific ways, the C-Max MPV reaches up to the buyers of bigger minivans with a rich mix of features and standard equipment. The five-plus-two seating arrangement stays, as do the twin sliding side doors and the fold-away middle-row, middle seat–it tucks away into the bottom cushion of the right-side seat to leave a walk-through for easier access to the third row. American buyers will be able to delete the third-row seat, Ford says.

As for other features, the C-Max will offer a capless fuel filler; an optional Sony audio system and SYNC Bluetooth-activated controls for the navigation system and the satellite and HD radio packages; a panormaic roof; and ambient lighting. For safety, a rearview camera and parking sensors will be offered as well as push-button start and active parking assist.

The C-Max also will offer the first U.S. application of foot-gesture opening for the tailgate, a technology first seen on Euro versions of the BMW 5-Series.

The 2012 C-Max arrives in showrooms late next year, but Ford promises more information at the 2011 Detroit auto show. Stay tuned.

This story originally appeared at Motor Authori

The 2011 Nissan Leaf electric car is now officially on sale. Over the past several days—beginning with the first delivery in San Francisco we covered this past weekend—Nissan has begun making actual deliveries of the Leaf. Not just to company fleets, public utilities, or those in transportation think-tanks, but to actual consumers.

One of these—the fourth nationally, and the first to take delivery in Oregon (Portland being one of the Leaf’s key initial markets)–is John Duncan, who was presented his car by Mark Perry, Nissan’s director for product planning, and his keys by Joel Fowler of Tonkin Nissan, in Wilsonville, Oregon, outside Portland.

One key difference we’ve already noticed among those interested in the Nissan Leaf versus those thinking about the Chevrolet Volt is a level of early adopter zeal—an EV evangelism of sorts—and Duncan has it.

Is this fervor familiar?

Coincidentally, it’s sounding somewhat like the sort of enthusiastic fervor that Saturn owners developed (and, coincidentally, the Leaf will be built in Smyrna, Tennessee, about 40 miles from Saturn’s Spring Hill home). The last car Duncan, a part-time college instructor, bought was a basic 1997 Saturn SL1 sedan, and in 2000, after becoming interested in EVs for a number of years—perhaps prompted in part by the EV1—he promised himself that his next car would be an EV.

Luckily, Duncan’s SL1 made it; it’s held up so well over the years that he’s going to pass it along to his son as he starts to drive the Leaf.

Duncan commutes 22 miles round-trip each teaching day to a nearby campus. On other days he goes from his suburban Portland home, near the dealership, into downtown Portland—nearly 50 miles round-trip. “I would almost never go more than 50 or 60 miles. Seventy at the most on a very heavy driving day.”

Gridlock-friendly, on the grid

“One of the nice things about the electric car of course is that when you get stuck in Friday-evening 4:45 traffic and you’re at a standstill, you’re not using any gas,” said Duncan. “It’s a really good commuter car. And I feel very good about the fact that my carbon footprint’s down…it’s a socially and politically responsible thing to do.”

The Portland area already has about 50 publicly available 240-volt charging stations, and the Portland area has the first publicly accessible quick-charging station in North America, at public utility PGE’s Portland headquarters. Eventually, with cooperation from Nissan and public utilities, there will be about 1,000 publicly accessible chargers in the region.

“It’s a good thing for the community,” said Duncan. “And I’m going to let any of my friends who wants to, to drive it.”

The other car in Duncan’s household is his wife’s Toyota RAV4, which they need because she’s a ski instructor and they’ll use for longer trips.

Volt vs Prius Plug-In vs Leaf

It wasn’t a no-brainer, says Duncan, who drove the Leaf and got a tour in Hillsboro Oregon a number of months ago. He says he certainly did think about the 2011 Chevrolet Volt. “I looked at it, and I thought about it. It just didn’t make sense to me.”

With a base price of $32,780 for the Leaf versus $41,000 for the Volt—and that’s before the $7,500 federal tax credit and any additional state incentives—the Leaf also costs considerably less.

Ultimately, Duncan says that carpool-lane privileges were very important, and when California decided not to allow the Volt that was a significant factor. So was carrying around gasoline and an engine.

He also thought about a Prius or Prius plug-in, but that, Duncan said, seemed like “going to the swimming pool and just putting your feet in…not diving into the water and going swimming.”

And before you say the deck is loaded: Like the other first-round Leaf recipients, Duncan is paying full price for his Leaf and was chosen simply because he was one of the first to reserve, quick to respond to Nissan, and willing to make his delivery a public appearance.

“If I had to haul a lot of kids around to soccer practice like I did when I was younger, it might be a different story,” he confesses, referring to those other cars. “But right now, this is exactly the right kind of car for me. And I think it is for a lot of people.”

This story originally appeared at Green Car Repor

Auto executives always want you to buy their cars, today. That goes without saying.

But it’s slightly less common for them to say, in effect, “This is the month to buy, ’cause we’re going to be discounting the heck out of ’em.”

Nonetheless, that was the message from Bob Carter, Toyota’s group vice president and general manager, about the company’s quintessential hybrid-electric vehicle the Prius.

At the end of a press call two weeks ago to discuss November’s sales, Carter said December “will be the month” in which to buy a new Prius, because Toyota finds itself overstocked with the hybrid in some markets, including southern California.

Several factors play into the oversupply. First, the end of tax incentives in Japan that favored high-efficiency cars led sales in that market to drop off, and Prius production that had formerly supplied Japan was freed up to build cars for the States instead.

Second, with gasoline prices staying relatively low, sales of all hybrids have stayed flat or fallen even as the overall U.S. auto market gains momentum after two years of downturn.

Sales of the Prius fell 2 percent compared to the previous year, though the car still accounts for half the hybrids sold in the country.

To clear out its stocks, Toyota is planning an aggressive marketing, finance, and incentive program for leftover 2010 Prius models and new 2011 models as well.

Prices for the 2011 Toyota Prius hybrid start at $23,050 for the Prius II package, which is the least expensive Prius model offered to individual buyers.

How aggressive will Toyota be? “Our national program will be 2.9% financing and a very attractive lease,” Carter said in trade publication Ward’s Auto. “It’ll be the most aggressive (Prius) marketing we’ve had.”

You heard the man. If you want to buy a Prius hybrid, this may be the month to do it. Especially if you live in southern California.

[Ward’s Auto]

This story originally appeared at Green Car Repor

Today’s small cars are better than they’ve ever been, even if few of them are among the EPA’s all-time gas mileage champs.

And spurred by tighter fuel-economy laws, 40 miles per gallon on the highway is becoming the new target for subcompact and even compact cars.

There’s just one little problem: Not only are 40-mpg models not selling particularly well, the whole small-car segment is anemic at best.

As auto sales have started to recover, the fastest growing segment is midsize sport utilities and crossovers. According to sales data from Ward’s Auto, small cars have been the only segment to decline in sales even as sales rose overall. (All data cover the 12 months from October 2009 through September 2010.)

Declines of 25 percent…or more

In fact, sales of the much-praised 2010 Honda Fit fell a remarkable 26.6 percent, with the older 2010 Toyota Yaris declining more than 30 percent. Sales across the Scion brand, which offers only small cars, plummeted 30.7 percent, while Smart was down 63 percent and Suzuki lost essentially half its sales.

The 2011 Ford Fiesta, new this year, “isn’t setting the sales world on fire,” in the words of Cars.com. The optional trim level that rates the Fiesta at 40 mpg on the highway doesn’t seem to have helped much.

Hybrid sales, too, fell 3.8 percent for 2010 model year offerings. The car that accounts for more than half of all hybrids sold here, the 2010 Toyota Prius, was in short supply just 18 months ago but is now easily available on dealer lots.

Gas prices, of course

The culprit, of course, is essentially stable U.S. gasoline prices–which remain at levels far lower than those in much of the rest of the world.

It’s a truism that new-car buyers generally opt for the largest, best-equipped vehicle they think at the time that they can afford. Not every buyer, but most of them. And that seems to apply equally in Europe and Asia too.

New entries regardless

Several new compact cars are entering the market, or about to. The 2011 Chevrolet Cruze is now in dealerships, the 2011 Hyundai Elantra will arrive shortly, and the eagerly awaited 2012 Ford Focus will land in a matter of months.

Then there are the plug-in cars, albeit in small volumes: the 2011 Chevrolet Volt and 2011 Nissan Leaf. Despite high purchase prices, they’re essentially sold out for the year. Their real test won’t come until 2013, when much higher volumes are available and waiting lists will have been sated.

What will it take?

But it may take the next spike in gasoline prices before U.S. car buyers look again at small and subcompact cars.

In the summer of 2008, remember, when gas prices soared to $4 a gallon or more, buying behavior changed so abruptly that for several months, the mix of models sold would have–if continued–met the 2016 fuel economy standards a full seven years earlier.

But then gas prices ebbed, and gradually U.S. buyers returned to larger vehicles. Which poses a question: What would it take to raise sales of subcompact and 40-mpg vehicles?

Leave us your thoughts in the Comments section, below.

[Kicking Tires, Ward’s Auto]

This story originally appeared at Green Car Repor

Production of the world’s first range-extended electric car is now a reality.

Today, the first shipment of 2011 Chevrolet Volt electric cars left the Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant. The cars are bound for dealers and buyers in the initial launch markets: California, Texas, New York, and Washington, D.C.

Today’s shipment comes exactly four years after Chevrolet began briefing the press, under embargo, about the Chevrolet Volt concept car it would unveil at the 2007 Detroit Auto Show. That concept became the 2011 Chevy Volt extended-range electric vehicle.

Chevrolet publicity included the usual carefully-crafted corporate statement, couched in a language very much like English. “Today is a historic milestone for Chevrolet,” said Tony DiSalle, the latest marketing director for the 2011 Volt.

“We have redefined automotive transportation with the Volt,” he continued, “and soon the first customers will be able to experience gas-free commuting with the freedom to take an extended trip whenever or wherever they want.”

Chevrolet said it expects to ship 160 vehicles this week, in contrast to the very small handful of the first 2011 Nissan Leaf electric cars to be delivered to buyers in a few cities before the end of the year. The very first 2011 Leaf was delivered to a retail buyer in San Francisco on Saturday.

Fifteen pre-production Volts were delivered earlier this year to electric-vehicle advocates, technology enthusiasts, and other influential early adopters who formed the Volt Customer Advisory Board. They are taking part in a 90-day evaluation of the vehicle and its associated 240-Volt charging station.

The 2011 Chevy Volt is the only mass-produced electric car being manufactured in the U.S. Its 16-kilowatt-hour battery pack provides roughly 40 miles of all-electric driving, after which a 1.4-liter gasoline engine switches on to generate power that operates the electric drive motor.

Total range from both modes is up to 379 miles, Chevrolet says.

[Chevrolet]

This story originally appeared at Green Car Repor