Hasta La Gadget!

Nissan’s new charging technology will juice your EV in ten minutes, ten years from now originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Oct 2011 09:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There’s still no indication that it’ll hit the North American market, but it looks like Kia will soon have an all-electric “minicar” to call its own. That will come in the form of a re-badged Hyundai i10 (pictured above), which is expected to pack a 16-kWh lithium-ion battery and a range somewhere south of a hundred miles. No word on pricing just yet either, but the car is set to roll out in late 2011, with production tapped at a modest 2,000 units for 2012.

Kia to roll out re-badged Hyundai electric minicar in late 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Oct 2011 08:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A “racing” team for the Czech electric scooter company Akumoto, with the assistance of the energy conglomerate ČEZ , is claiming the world record for longest distance traveled by such a vehicle in 24-hours — 706.1 miles. Over the course of the 1,136.3 kilometer trip, the slightly modified scooter used a grand total of 40.8 kWh of electricity, which costs a measly 190 Czech Korunas (about $10.35). Akumoto already has a network of charging stations across the Eastern European country, but there was no stopping to juice up. Instead pre-charged batteries were swapped in when the “tank” was empty. We just hope that there were several drivers taking turns at the handlebars — spending a full rotation of the Earth with your rear planted on a souped-up Vespa doesn’t sound particularly comfortable.

Czech electric scooter company covers 706 miles in 24-hours, claims world record originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Sep 2011 19:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Toyota demos Prius’ proximity notification system, touts ‘futuristic’ purr (video)

Toyota demos Prius’ proximity notification system, touts ‘futuristic’ purr (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Sep 2011 07:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yearning for an EV that can fit within your budget? You may not have to wait too long, according a group of engineers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), who are aiming to halve plug-in manufacturing costs by 2018. It’s all part of something called Competence E — a €200 million ($273 million) initiative that will draw upon the expertise of 250 scientists from 25 different institutes, in the hopes of creating new and more cost-effective methods of producing power trains and batteries. Under the publicly funded project, which was announced at last week’s International Motor Show, KIT’s researchers will construct a “research factory” where they’ll develop and demonstrate their processes and technologies. According to project leader Andreas Gutsch, the idea isn’t to create concepts that could bear fruit a few decades down the road, but to develop more pragmatic solutions that can be integrated at the industrial level within a relatively short time frame. “We are no longer focused on studying individual molecules or components, but on developing solutions on the system level, which meet industrial requirements,” Gutsch told Science|Business. “We are actively approaching industry and will even intensify these efforts…We are conducting excellent research for application, not for the drawer.” A full 50 engineers will begin working on Competence E next year, with the project scheduled to wrap up by 2018. Purr past the break for more details, in the full press release.

Continue reading German engineers want to halve EV manufacturing costs by 2018, seem confident about it

German engineers want to halve EV manufacturing costs by 2018, seem confident about it originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Sep 2011 09:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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