Range-Extended Electric Vehicle
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After multiple delays and slipped deadlines, you might be forgiven for assuming it would never happen. But it did. Fisker Automotive has delivered one of its first production cars, a 2012 Fisker Karma extended-range electric sports sedan, to a paying customer. The video below shows the handover two days ago. But it's not just any old paying customer. The lucky recipient is Ray Lane, of the noted Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caulfield Byer, who held a small press conference in the firm's parking lot. Lane may represent a late change of plans as the first customer...
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2012 Chevrolet Volt Production Begins, Capacity Is Tripled
After a one-month hiatus, Chevy has begun production of the 2012 Volt. Thanks to the retooling, the Hamtramck assembly plant now has three times the build capacity.
Kurt Ernst -
2011 Chevrolet Volt's Extra 'Free' Electric Miles In Gas Mode
The 2011 Chevrolet Volt adds hidden fuel-free miles to the Volt’s total range
George Parrott -
Xtranormal Explains Plug-In Cars, Mostly The 2011 Chevy Volt
By now, you may well have seen short video clips of crudely animated people talking in monotonous tones, with more than occasional mispronunciations and odd rhythms. They're Xtranormal animations, created by feeding your dialogue into a website that animates them based on the author's choices of...
John Voelcker -
First Fisker Karma To DiCaprio, 3,000 Orders Behind Him, CEO Says
Fisker Automotive says it will, finally, deliver its first 2011 Fisker Karma range-extended electric sports sedan later this month. The lucky recipient, it turns out, will be none other than actor Leonardo DiCaprio. He's the man who kicked off the whole hybrids-for-Hollywood-stars trend, by showing...
John Voelcker -
Volvos A La Volt: Swedish Carmaker Tests Range Extenders In C30, V60
Swedish carmaker Volvo now operates a test fleet of all-electric C30 hatchbacks, and it's also rolling out another experimental car, a V60 wagon with a diesel engine driving the front wheels, and an electric motor powering the rear. The two cars are now spawning a second generation of test...
John Voelcker -
Two early customer satisfaction issues on the 2011 Chevy Volt are being addressed by dealers: a front air dam that's too low, and intermittent blank displays on the instrument cluster.
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Fisker Karma Electric-Car Charging Stations Have EV1 Roots
When you buy an electric car, you will most likely need a charging station. As buyers start to bring home plug-in cars, they will also expect their dealer to help them acquire and install a 240-Volt charging station (technically known as an EVSE, though few people call them that). Startup Fisker...
John Voelcker -
Fisker To Hire 120 At Delaware Plant For 'Project Nina' Second Model
Although its much-delayed first model, the 2011 Karma plug-in hybrid luxury sports sedan, hasn't quite reached dealers yet, Fisker Automotive is powering ahead. The company announced today that it would post job listings for what will be roughly 120 positions at its Wilmington, Delaware, assembly...
John Voelcker -
2011 Chevrolet Volt Vs 2011 Nissan Leaf: 7,000 Miles Later
After several months of using a 2011 Chevy Volt and a 2011 Nissan Leaf as our sole family transport, we have a better understanding of both cars than we did in March, when I first wrote about how they compared. First to arrive at our West Sacramento home was a beautiful crystal red 2011 Volt. We...
George Parrott -
Who Actually Buys 2011 Chevy Volt Electric Cars, And Why?
Despite media attempts to conjure a "sales battle" between the 2011 Chevy Volt and the 2011 Nissan Leaf, both companies are selling every car they can manage to get into the showrooms. Now Chevrolet has released its first look at who is actually buying its Volt range-extended electric cars. The...
John Voelcker -
VW Commits To Launching Hybrid Option On Every Model: Report
It appears Volkswagen is copying Toyota’s commitment to offer a hybrid option on every model in its lineup, if the latest comments from the automaker’s CEO, Martin Winterkorn, are to be believed. The German auto giant sees hybrids, more specifically, range-extended plug-in hybrids, as...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
Volvo likes to think of itself as a conscientious car company. "Why are we different?" asked Stefan Jacoby, Volvo's German CEO. "We are Swedish; we come from a human-centric company. We do things because they have a purpose for people." Safety, yes, but also green Those things used to revolve around safety, and Volvo still nurtures its safe reputation, adding each year to its hundreds of patents for technology to make cars safer. The company's official goal is that no one will be killed or injured in a Volvo car by 2020. But increasingly the purpose must also be producing greener cars, which...
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Luxury Hybrid Maker Fisker Automotive Raises Extra $100 Million
Fisker Automotive, which manufactures luxury plug-in electric hybrid cars, has raised an extra $100 million in its third round of funding to help fund production of its luxury sedan and a second, cheaper electric car that is geared toward more mainstream hybrid electric car buyers. The 2011 Fisker...
VentureBeat's GreenBeat -
The Father Of 'Christine' Likes His Chevy Volt Electric Car
Who knew? Stephen King, creator of perhaps the most malevolent car ever envisioned--Christine, the homicidal 1958 Plymouth Fury of both novel and movie fame--is an electric car fan. In particular, he loves the family's 2011 Chevrolet Volt, the range-extended electric vehicle that plugs in to...
John Voelcker -
Chevy Volt Goes North For 2012, Priced At C$41,545 In Canada
With Chevrolet on track to complete its rollout of the 2011 Volt range-extended electric car to all 50 states by the end of this year, the carmaker is turning its sites to other countries. And it's starting next door in one of the two closest foreign countries to the U.S., one right on our border...
John Voelcker -
Electric-Car Fire: Flaming Garage Shows Media Ignorance
A garage caught fire, destroying the two cars inside. That's what we know. One of the cars inside was a brand-new 2011 Chevrolet Volt, and the other was a home-converted electric car. But because of that, what we've gotten from various media is inaccurate at best, and potentially quite misleading...
John Voelcker -
Plug-In Hybrid MPGs: Is Parallel or Range-Extended Better?
These are exciting times to be a car shopper, as the choices in every possible category just keep getting better and more fuel-efficient. The options for ecologically sensitive hybrid buyers have taken a major step forward with the introduction of the 2011 Chevrolet Volt and the imminent arrival of...
George Parrott -
Not so long ago, the notion of luxury German brand BMW hiring an engineer from General Motors might have been a stretch. The company prefers to promote engineers from within its Munich engineering headquarters. But reports that Frank Weber, the lead engineer of the 2011 Chevrolet Volt team, has been hired by BMW demonstrate how radically times have changed. BMW was arguably the automaker of scale least knowledgeable about electric cars as recently as five years ago. Its first attempt at gathering real-world data, several hundred Mini E electric conversions, was not particularly pleasant as...
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Electric-Car Range Extender Engines: OK Now, Can Do Better
Electric cars like the 2011 Chevrolet Volt and 2011 Fisker Karma get around the problem of range anxiety the old-fashioned way: They use gasoline engines. They do it because the battery systems of pure electric vehicles are large, heavy, and expensive, but the range they produce is still...
George Parrott -
Report Threatens Badge-Engineered Buick Model Of Chevy Volt
General Motors and its brand strategies have been through a lot of turmoil in recent years. Now, GM is down to just four brands in North America--Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, and Cadillac--and is rapidly taking Chevrolet global, including its Malibu midsize model. Buick survived only because of its...
John Voelcker -
2011 Chevrolet Volt: Quick Drive Impressions
The 2011 Geneva Motor Show has come and gone and was a real treat for electric car fans. Not only could you get close to cars like the 2011 Nissan Leaf and smart fortwo electric drive, but some were even available to test. One of the cars attracting a lot of attention was the 2011 Chevrolet Volt...
Antony Ingram -
Leave Your 2011 Chevy Volt On Overnight? Not Much Bad Happens
You don't start the engine in a 2011 Chevrolet Volt. Instead, you "power up" the car by pressing a button with the universal computer power symbol on it. Once the Volt has gone through its bootup routine, complete with tones and chimes, the button glows blue and you're ready to roll on electric...
John Voelcker -
Little Lotus Range-Extending Engine For Electric Cars Proves Popular
Most car buyers haven't even heard the term "range extender" yet. But over time, expect it to become more familiar, as electric cars like the 2011 Chevrolet Volt introduce the concept of a gasoline engine that turns a generator to produce electricity to power the vehicle. Tiny, powerful, efficient...
John Voelcker