Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Nissan, AutoblogGreen Exclusive, Green Daily

When Nissan announced that it would be the first major auto manufacturer to sell (not lease, EV1 fans) a mass-market electric vehicle (EV) in the U.S., executives there knew that potential rewards were high – and so was the pressure to get it right. Speculation has been running high for years about who would be first to market: Mitsubishi with the i-MiEV, General Motors with the Chevrolet Volt (Okay, it’s a serial hybrid, but close enough), or perhaps a product from a dark horse like BYD or Coda.

As Leaf reservation holders began placing their final purchase orders with dealers last week, a number of big questions loom for Nissan and its chief executive, Carlos Ghosn, who has seemingly bet the farm on its success.

Let’s begin with the premise that, as a mass-market car, the Leaf has to offend no one even as it proceeds down the road less traveled. It must embrace future technology but feel as familiar as an old pair of blue jeans. It must capture the hearts and minds of early adopters who are either fanatically pro-EV and/or have the financial means to buy cars several classes above the Leaf, while having the staying power to be a viable mainstream car for years to come at a modest price point.

If the ordering process has shades of Tesla and Smart associated with it, the car itself is in many ways the anti-Tesla or the anti-Smart. To succeed as a mass market car, it can’t be all novelty and no follow through like Smart’s diminutive Fortwo, and it can’t comfortably languish in the rarified air of a halo car like Tesla’s Roadster, a placeholder for some mainstream offering still years away. In short, it has to be all things, to all people, right from the get-go. But is that even possible? (this post continues after the jump)

Continue reading David Vespremi: A lot is hanging on the Leaf

David Vespremi: A lot is hanging on the Leaf originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Mon, 06 Sep 2010 18:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Tesla Motors, Green Daily, Japan

Less than four months ago, Tesla Motors entered the Japanese market by shipping a dozen or so right-hand drive Signature Series Roadsters across the pond. The base Roadster, which starts at a rather shocking price of 12.8 million yen ($151,500 U.S. at the current exchange rate) has now been approved for the Japanese government’s Clean Energy Cash Rebate program and is available at a deeply discounted price.

Qualifying for the cash rebate program means that the Roadster’s price will be slashed by an astounding 3.24 million yen ($38,000 U.S.), which certainly makes Tesla’s high-performance sports car more appealing. But, with an after-rebate price that remains at $113,500, the Roadster is still a far cry from what we would consider affordable. But hey, it’s that way here in the States, too. The Tesla Roadster joins the plug-in Prius hybrid as the only two standard-sized vehicles to qualify for Japan’s rebate program. Follow the jump for more on Tesla’s raging deal on its Roadster in Japan.

[Source: Tesla Motors]

Continue reading Tesla Roadster eligible for $38,000 clean energy rebate in Japan

Tesla Roadster eligible for $38,000 clean energy rebate in Japan originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: EV/Plug-in, GM, Tesla Motors

As clever marketing response to General Motor‘s attempt to trademark the term “range anxiety,” we have to give Tesla Motors some credit. GM will (is already?) come out swinging against all-electric vehicles, and it’ll take some judo-like moves from smaller companies and electric vehicle fans to turn GM’s energy against itself, if we want the intra-plug-in community fighting to continue. Here’s Tesla’s stab at GM’s trademark attempt:

By all means, GM can have “range anxiety.” To Roadster owners, the term is as irrelevant as “gas stop” or “smog check.” We are, however, looking into trademarking “Tesla grin.”

You might thing that quote came from Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who’s been known to offer us an eyebrow-raising remark or two. But no. This one comes from Tesla vice president of communications Ricardo Reyes, indicating that the company is officially behind this line of attack. Will it work? For some, it probably already has.

[Source: Tesla]

Tesla bites back at GM’s trademark attempt: you can have “range anxitey” originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 18:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: SMART

The sad tale of Smart, especially in the U.S. market, is a prime example of the adage to “be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.” Smart has faced multiple problems, ranging from its design to its execution. On the design side, small vehicles with only two seats have always had a very limited appeal, especially in the U.S. market. People may drive alone most of the time, but that doesn’t meant they want to be restricted to just one passenger. The execution of the Smart ForTwo is undoubtedly a far larger problem, with both the transmission behavior and the disappointing fuel economy leaving many drivers wanting. Weak U.S. sales that are likely to fall short of 8,000 units in 2010 (3,909 so far through July) mean that global sales probably won’t hit 100,000 this year.

Unfortunately, Smart’s outlook is likely to remain weak for at least several more years until the next-generation model arrives. The new car will be codeveloped with Renault on a common platform with the next-generation Twingo and should see the return of the four-seat ForFour model and the demise of the annoying semi-automatic transmission used in the current ForTwo. Until then, the only way to avoid Smart’s transmission issues is to get one of the 250 available battery-powered Smart Fortwo ED . The electric Smart should have wider availability in 2012 when Daimler drops the current Tesla-sourced battery in favor of a pack using lithium-ion cells from the Daimler-Evonik joint venture Deutsche Accumotive GmbH.

[Source: Automotive News - sub req'd]

Smart’s problems mean sales will likely be under 100,000 units for 2010 originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Tue, 31 Aug 2010 08:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Mitsubishi

For years now, some electric vehicle advocates have argued that despite the higher up-front cost of batteries, plug-in cars would be cheaper to own and operate in the long run. The problem was, until the Tesla Roadster came along a couple of years ago, there were no factory-built and sold electric vehicles (EVs) to gather any real evidence from. The real test will begin in the next few months when Nissan, General Motors, Mitsubishi, Ford and others start to sell EVs to the masses.

Two big factors really can’t be argued against right now. Even with government incentives, EVs will be more expensive to buy than an equivalent internal combustion vehicle and energizing them from the grid will cost less. However, one of the big arguments against buying most new cars, regardless of power plant, has been that they lose a good chunk of their value as soon as you drive them off the lot. The rate of depreciation varies widely and is often connected to how well they hold up after several years on the road. A typical car might be worth half or less of its original value after just five years.

How will this affect plug-in cars? With an EV, the battery pack often accounts for a much larger percentage of the car’s original value other types of vehicles. While an engine that has been maintained properly can easily exhibit most of its original performance after 100,000 miles – and many can often go 200,000 miles or more – the same cannot reliably be said (yet, as far as we know) of a battery in an EV. The reality is that no one really knows how much value a battery will retain after 50,000 or 100,000 miles. It’s a hard number to calculate. Nissan has said that the Leaf battery might only hold 80 or 70 percent of its original charge after ten years, for example, which will make it worth less. Speaking to the BBC, Mitsubishi has acknowledged that the i-MiEV’s depreciation over three years could turn out to be more than the original cost of an internal combustion car (a Fiat 500 Lounge 1.2 petrol, in the example given). That’s a tough bunch of numbers.

[Source: BBC]

Mitsubishi admits i-MiEV’s total cost of ownership might be higher than expected due to serious depreciation originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Sun, 29 Aug 2010 18:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Manufacturing/Plants, GM, Toyota, Tesla Motors

When Tesla struck a deal a few months ago with Toyota to buy the closed NUMMI factory in Fremont, CA it was made clear that the $42 million price tag only included the building and property. At the time, Tesla officials indicated that most of the equipment previously used to build Toyota Tacomas and Pontiac Vibes was unsuitable for its upcoming products.

Apparently, after going through the machinery that was available, Tesla did find some items it can use and has reached an agreement with Toyota and Motors Liquidation Company (the remnants of the old, bankrupt General Motors) to buy some of that equipment for a total of $15 million. Tesla has paid $4.6 million as a deposit toward the purchase and will close the deal along with the property purchase. The purchase likely covers generic equipment such as lift trucks, robots and perhaps paint equipment.

[Source: The Street]

Tesla to buy old resources from GM, Toyota for NUMMI plant originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Sun, 22 Aug 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Image credit: Particle Men

From the 100mph “wind-powered” Nemesis through the record-breaking Tesla to the more affordable Nissan Leaf, electric cars are a popular feature here on TreeHugger. So I’m not sure how we missed this one (274,000 views on YouTube tells me it’s popular!), but They… Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Hybrid, GM, Tesla Motors

By the time the ball drops in Times Square this New Year’s Eve, chances are there will be more Chevrolet Volts on the road than Tesla Roadsters. Motor Trend Editor in Chief Angus MacKenzie writes in a new editorial that during the Tesla IPO road-show last June, CEO Elon Musk called his company a “technology velociraptor.” However, it took five full years from the formation of Tesla to start delivering the first few dozen crippled Roadsters. It then took nearly another year after that to reach maximum production speed. Similarly, the Model S has slipped from a mid-2009 delivery date to at least 2012. Tesla was able to quickly whip up a new package for its off-the-shelf lithium-ion cells for the Smart ED and then bang out a couple of mule vehicles for Toyota to test. However, actually building real customer cars is a very different matter.

Meanwhile General Motors has gotten endless grief from electric vehicle advocates about how long it has taken to get the Volt to market. The Volt is a vastly more complex and technologically sophisticated vehicle than either the Roadster or Model S and yet when the first production examples are delivered to customers in November or December of this year, it will have been less than four years to get from barely mobile styling buck to showroom readiness.

Tesla absolutely deserves a lot of credit for showing that it’s possible to build a zero-emissions high-performance sports car with a very respectable range and inspiring the rest of the industry to take another look at battery electric vehicles. But, as MacKenzie says, the Volt – and possibly the Nissan Leaf – will likely have a much more lasting impact.

[Source: Motor Trend]

Motor Trend: Volt more significant than anything Tesla ever likely to build originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Tesla Motors

Back in June, when Tesla CEO Elon Musk was out and about trying to convince investment bankers to buy the stock in his company at the initial offering price, one of the slides in his presentation deck showed some thumbnail images of the Model S and the currently planned follow-on models.

Among those was a convertible that will hopefully one day replace the Roadster, Tesla’s first product. Unlike the mid-motor Roadster which is derived from the architecture of the Lotus Elise, the new car will be born from the same platform as the Model S, allowing it to be a four-seater. Left Lane News has produced a larger rendering based on that thumbnail and it shows a huge departure from the current Roadster.

Instead it looks like a blend of Fisker Karma S, Tesla Model S and second generation Dodge Viper with its massive side vents. It’s not particularly original but it sure has the aggressive looks one might expect of a sporting machine. Given that the thumbnail appeared in a road-show presentation and that it’s still at least three years from production – and that Tesla has acknowledged the design of the Model S isn’t even final yet – anything is possible.

[Source: Left Lane News]

2013 Tesla Model R rendered, maybe originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Fri, 20 Aug 2010 08:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Martin Eberhard with a Tesla electric Roadster. Photo: Flickr, CC

EV Forecast: Sunny, But Uncertain
Martin Eberhard, one of the original co-founders of Tesla Motors in 2003 and now director at Volkswagen’s Electronics Research Laboratory (ERL), is predicting that that within the next 10 years, electric cars will have a range of 500 miles and more. It’s a bold prediction considering that the Tesla Roadster has a range of 244 miles (at a very high cost, and for a lightweight 2-seater) and that most other e… Read the full story on TreeHugger

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