6 Cool European Electric Cars Never Coming to the US

The European tradition of coachbuilding—the manufacturing of carriages—dates back to the 1700s. These days, it refers to the high-end auto design firms, such as Rolls Royce and Ferrari, which build custom-designed specialty vehicles.

Like nearly every automaker in the world, coachbuilders are going green, by designing and building all-electric vehicles. Their electric cars are well suited to the congested streets of Rome or Paris, but don’t hold your breath for these cool electricity-powered rides to make it across the pond. By nature, the coachbuilders produce vehicles in limited runs intended for local markets.

The cars in the list are:

Pininfarina B0 ("B Zero")
UK Lightning
Heuliez Friendly
Heuliez Pondicherry
Karmann Quicc DiVa
Ford F-150 Ha-Pa



Keep reading here

Think Electric Car

From Norway, comes the Th!nk City, the new compact electric car coming from Europe.

With a fantastic acceleration, considering the size of the car, with the following stats:

Top speed 100km/h
Acceleration 0-50km/h 6.5 seconds
Acceleration 0-80km/h 16.0 seconds
Typical charge time – standard electric socket:
0-100% SOC (state of charge) approx. 13 hours, 230VAC / 14A
0-80% SOC (state of charge) approx. 9,5 hours, 230VAC / 14A
Range IEC* 170km (summer tires, heater off)
Range FUDS** 180km (summer tires, heater off)
Range EU UDC*** 203km

With the city range around 200km(125Miles), the Th!nk City has the most attractive mileage in the Electric Car market, using the electric motor only.

Pre-launch activities of the TH!NK city have started in selected European markets like Norway, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria and now recently Spain. TH!NK city vehicles are in this pre-launch phase primarily being sold to municipal fleet, government and utility partners for early adoption EV pilot and demonstration fleets, supported by government incentives to help reduce the initial high cost of the batteries.

It might take some time before this car enters the open market in Europe and even longer in the US.

Electric Car Th!nk's Official site: www.think.no

Nissan Displaying Electric Car

Some news regarding Nissan's new electric car Leaf:

Aug. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Nissan Motor Co., Japan’s third- largest automaker, rose to the highest in 10 months after displaying its first electric car, aimed at a market it anticipates will be larger than hybrids.

Nissan gained 5.4 percent to 726 yen, the highest since Sep. 29., at the close of Tokyo Stock Exchange trading.

Nissan Chief Executive Officer Carlos Ghosn said yesterday electric cars may account for at least 10 percent of global vehicle sales by 2020. Nissan has failed to match the popularity of Toyota Motor Corp.’s Prius hybrid and Honda Motor Co.’s Insight, and is betting demand for emission-free cars will offset the restrictions of limited range.

“Investors are jumping to Nissan after it actually unveiled the much-awaited car,” said Koichi Nishi, an equity strategist at Nikko Cordial Securities Inc. “Products that fulfill the promise of environmental-friendliness are encouraging.”

The company plans to sell its electric car, the Leaf, in the U.S., Japan and Europe next year. Nissan’s new electric car can travel 100 miles on a full charge and can seat as many as five people. The car’s lithium-ion battery pack can be fully recharged at a 200-volt outlet in eight hours, or in less than 30 minutes from a so-called fast-charge station, according to Nissan. In contrast, hybrids can refuel at conventional gasoline stations.

How GM's failure will affect the Volt?

After General Motors Failure, will Volt still be released as predicted, delayed or simply be abandoned?

GM's bankruptcy and control by the US government will be decisive in keeping the Volt up float. Only time will tell if GM's failure will affect Chevy Volt, and while it might not be commercially viable in the short-term, any Research & Development of Electric cars is a long to very long-term investment that will inevitably produce good results, since the whole industry will eventually move to Hybrid and pure electric vehicles in the next decades.

The government might even try to sell the Volt to other interested parties, but I believe the end result will be the same, the Volt will come out to the public, even if delayed, with different looks or even another company using the Volt brand.

Mitsubishi i-MiEV launching in November 2009, with a $31,000 and $37,000 price range

Mitsubishi i-MiEV will be one of the first 'pure' electric cars being available in the UK.

It is a 4-door 5-seater than can travel 100 miles, or 160 Km, on a single charge.

It was just announced that the cars will become available for purchase in England beginning in November 2009. At first there will only be 50 vehicles made available, with another 150 arriving in 2010. Mitsubishi hopes to eventually sell 40,000 iMiEvs per year.

The price is being quoted as between £20,000 and £25,000 ($30,844-$37,800 USD).

The Mitsubishi i-MiEV will also abe vailable in a sports version, pictured below:

Honda Insight 2010

High mileage per gallon and a price well below $18k, the new 2010 Honda Insight is aimed at the masses, with high affordability and the known efficiency of Honda Hybrids.

With a 63.4 mile per gallon efficiency, Honda believes that real-world mileage will be much better than the official EPA rating of 40-city and 43-highway.

ZAP launches new Xebra model electric car

ZAP introduced its redesigned Xebra electric car for 2009 this past weekend at the Sacramento International Auto Show. ZAP, a pioneer in the field of electric cars, says the 2009 Xebra Hatchback is a five-door model with folding rear seats, a larger rear cargo area (34 cubic feet), and more head and leg room.

Check the original news article here

All-Electric Mini Officially Unveiled!

BMW just officially revealed the new electric Mini, that was already known to exist, with some spy photos posted on this blog way before.

Autopia brings the news story:

BMW's finally pulled the wraps off the 204-horsepower all-electric Mini it is bringing to America and says the car could be here as early as next year, although just 500 people will be lucky enough to get their hands on one.
BMW says it will lease the Mini E two-seater to "select private and corporate customers" in California, New York and New Jersey under what is essentially a big R&D project to develop EVs through its Project i. "Putting some 500 cars on the road under real daily traffic conditions will make it possible to gain widely applicable hands-on experience," BMW says. "Evaluating these findings will generate valuable know-how, which will be factored into the engineering of mass-produced vehicles."

Autopia

New Toyota Prius Leaked

The 2010 Toyota Prius has just been revealed, before the autoshow, with leaked photos that originally appeared on priuschat.com

Whether it was a leak or one of those clever viral marketing campaigns, we’ll likely never know, but photos of the 2010 Toyota Prius have shown up online months before its planned unveiling at Detroit's North American International Auto Show in January.

Leaked Photos

BMW's Electric Mini

Autopia just posted more news about to future BMW's Electric Mini, with no Tail Pipe!

Details are scarce, but Autocar says the Mini EV will use a lithium-ion battery, have a range of 100 to 135 miles and a 0-to-60 time of less than 9 seconds.
Last we heard, BMW planned to build just 500 electric Minis and bring them all to California to help meet the Golden State's zero-emissions vehicle mandate that requires automakers to build 7,500 non-polluting cars by 2014.

Autopia: electric Mini Spied!

The Original Poster of this Spy Photo was caranddriver.com here

General Motors - Chevrolet Volt

The Chevrolet Volt is one of the first serious contestants, by General Motors, to be one of the leading electric cars in the world.

The vehicle is designed to run purely on electricity from on-board batteries for up to 40 miles (64 km), or about half the range of GM's first electric car, the EV1.
Unlike many other competing cars, the Volt can actually carry 4 people, unlike many other electric cars already in the market, and when the batteries run out a small internal combustion engine starts generating electricity to resupply the batteries, the vehicle's range is potentially increased to 360 miles (579 km) on the highway.



And an improvement over the EV1 with a top speed increased from 80 miles per hour (130 km/h) to 120 miles per hour (190 km/h). The battery pack size has also been reduced between the two, from about 300 L in volume in the EV1, to just 100 L in the Volt.
There might even be an upgrade to the Volt's batteries, making it go 80 miles (128 km) running only on batteries, in a near future.

The Volt is actually ahead of schedule for it's release in 2010 and General Motors will unveil a new photovoltaic roof option at the Detroit Auto Show in January. The roof will be able to charge the battery from 1/4 to 1/3 over 3 hot blazing days of sun, such as in an airport parking lot, and could function keep the A/C on when parked on hot summer days, avoiding battery draw to cool up the car when the driver gets in.

In the United States, the Volt will qualify for $7,500 tax credit. And in Europe it could get a tax cut in many countries, like the Hybrids are, if General Motors releases the Volt outside the US. The predicted cost of this car will be around $35.000

Audi Electric Car is in the works

Audi joins the Electric Car Race:

Audi will apparently be joining the ever-growing all-electric car contingent in the near future with an ultra-small car of its own, reports Autocar. During an interview at last week's Paris Motor Show opening, Audi board member Peter Schwarzenbauer confirmed that engineers at the brand's Ingolstadt headquarters are working diligently on the brand's first all-electric city car.

Audi Electric car in the works

The Race For The Electric Car

The race for the electric car, in CBS News, 60 minutes, an interesting read:

The price of oil is up, gas guzzling cars are out, and a race for a fuel-free, practical electric car is on.

It includes the usual suspects: Detroit, Japan, and Germany. But as correspondent Lesley Stahl reports, a surprising newcomer with no experience at building cars has entered the race: Silicon Valley.

The jury is still out on whether electric cars can ever be really practical, but the computer geeks in California are betting that their inventiveness can beat out Detroit's cumbersome bureaucracy in producing a viable e-car.

The Race For The Electric Car

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