Car-free Zermatt

We arrived in Zermatt via the Glacier Express train and were greeted at the station by a fleet of electric taxis, the only vehicles allowed in town. Our hotel was in walking distance so we didn't need to catch a lift. Tourists wishing to visit this ski resort town by car will find that they need to part 5 km away at Täsch and continue their journey by train.  These transporters are manufactured in Switzerland by Stimbo,  and Jumbo-Garage and Italy by Simai .

Swiss Post delivers via electric scooter

In a bid to reduce CO2 emissions, Swiss Post aims to replace its 7500 scooters with an electric version, like the one above spotted in St Moritz, by 2016. These funky looking 3-wheelers are safer, have larger carrying capacity and can go 20 km (12.4 miles) on a single charge. Photo by RLT.

Kamoo Smile

Kamoo is a Swiss electric car company that offers a variety of models for sale. This funky looking"Smile" is a two seater with a top speed of 110 kph (68 mph). It takes just 90 minutes to charge and comes with either a hard top or targa top, seen above. Read more here.

Autolib "Libre Comme L'air" electric car sharing

• cars share program started in 2011 in Paris
• Bluecar is a front wheel drive electric four-seater hatchback with a  basic interior
• 1,800 Bluecars are available at 670 kiosks in Paris
• the 660 pound (300 kg) lithium ion batteries are made in Brittany and Montreal
• vehicle range is 155 mi (250 km) in urban use and 93 mi (150 km) on highway
• more than 40,000 people have joined the car share system

Read about it on Autolib's website

Renault Twizy

Production of this two-seater electric vehicle started in 2012 at the Renault plant in Valladoid, Spain. In Europe it's classified as a heavy quadcycle and it has a 100nkm or 62 mile range. Read more on Wikipedia or the Renault UK website

This Twizy belongs to the Château of Versailles and is ideal for driving its 7 ha or 17 acre grounds.

I photographed this Twizy on the Rue de Lisbonne, Paris.

EVs: Drivers demand range, convenience

By Peter Gorrie - Toronto Star
Two weeks ago, I asked how much range an electric vehicle must have before you’d consider buying one.
From your responses, carmakers must dramatically improve range, but charging convenience is equally important.
“Although today’s electric vehicles may suffice for commuting, they’re woefully inadequate for longer trips,” writes John Pereira. “How do I get a five-minute fill or 80 per cent recharge during the trip?”
Ron Robinson, who drives a Mini, notes electric-vehicle owners could rent for longer trips, but that “still adds to my costs as well as the trouble it takes to pick up and return the vehicle. He awaits “an infrastructure to support battery swaps because I am not going to sit for a few hours on a trip to wait for a battery charge.”
“I really want a vehicle I can drive from, say, Toronto to Montreal,” writes Alister Sutherland. “I suppose one can always rent a conventional car for trips like that, but I want to use the one I paid for.”
Gunther Petersen, of Barrie, says his minimum range requirement is 500 kilometres. “As well, you have to take winter driving into consideration, first to keep the windshield clear, and second to heat the car’s interior. I have spent many winter nights driving in Ontario. Only a big, fat, fully charged battery would be acceptable.”
Andre Tonelli agrees on 500 kilometres. “But the real question is: How much does it cost to recharge?”
“I will be persuaded not by range of kilometres or even price, but rather by charging that is as fast, available and convenient as gas is now,” says Al Strickler, of Toronto.
Read full story here.

Volkswagen to unveil oddest car at Frankfurt

Electric Nils city car concept makes smart fortwo look bulky

You can expect some weird concept cars to debut at the Frankfurt Auto Show next week, but this single-seater Volkswagen may take the cake for the least conventional. Green Car Reports just posted pictures of the Nils city car concept, an electric vehicle under 10 feet long (shorter than a smart fortwo) and four-and-a-half feet wide. It rides on 17-inch wheels, naturally. Scared the thin body and outboard wheels won't protect you at 128 km/h? It's got a full safety cell and hazard avoidance systems, so you can feel safe in the 450-kg (1,000-lb) car. The car should have a range of about 65 kilometres, and should debut alongside the similarly different Audi Urban Concept two-seater.

View source.

Smart Forvision:a solar-powered roof with plastic wheels never looked so good

No, it's not a Micro Machine -- it's the Daimler Smart Forvision. Daimler paired up with chemicals giantBASF to improve Smart's flagship EV after being soundly trounced by the Nissan Leaf's longer range. With an emphasis on efficiency, the Forvision goes up to 20 percent further than the standard Fortwo. It has a transparent solar-panel roof which generates power to keep the cooling fans running even when stationary, see-through dashboard and clear OLEDs for internal lighting at night. BASF's wizardry helped in the development of all-plastic wheels, a super-thin heat shield and aluminum fiber paints that insulate the car but allow for GPS, WiFi and Bluetooth signals to pass through unimpeded. The concept will be unveiled properly at the Frankfurt Motor Show but check out the preview gallery and press release to learn more.

Read full article here.

Third generation Smart Fortwo ditches Tesla powertrain, gains two wheeled cousin

By Dante Cesa posted Aug 17th 2011

Time and tide wait for no man, folks. Nearly nine months after delivering the first electric Fortwos tosnuggie-toting yanks, Daimler's gone and announced its faster and longer-lasting successor. It's not an entirely new car mind you, rather an extensive under the hood nip and tuck that replaces the Tesla powertrain with a more potent unit sourced from EM-motive. Up 34 horses from the previous model, the 74 horsepower EV now scoots from 0-60 in a "lively" 13 seconds -- a vast improvement over the 23.4 second (!) time of its predecessor. It's got a larger 17.6kWh battery pack too, which increases range a smidge to 87 miles. And this isn't another EV trial: it'll be produced in volume and sold (not leased) in 30 countries at an undisclosed price.

Joining the revised city dweller is the matching Smart Ebike. The electrically assisted bicycle gives meat bags a choice of four levels of laziness as it propels them 60 miles between charges. At €2,900 (or around $4,000) it's no bargain, but you didn't think transportational color coordination came cheap, did you? Expect more on both come September when they are officially unveiled at IAA Frankfurt.

View source.

Smart electric set to plug in next summer

By Steve MacNaull The Canadian Press - Thu, Jul 21

KELOWNA, B.C. — Dana Sleigh pushes the pedal to the metal on the Smart electric car and gets only silent acceleration.

"I knew that’s what’s supposed to happen," said Sleigh during a recent test drive of the 100 per cent electric vehicle.

"But it’s still a bit unexpected because when you accelerate you expect all the revving and accompanying noise. I love the quiet of this car."

Sleigh of Kelowna test drove the Smart ED (electric drive) when the Smart Plugged In Tour promoting the vehicles came to the local Mercedes-Benz dealership recently. Mercedes-Benz is the maker of both the regular Smart and electric Smart cars and the vehicles are sold through their dealerships.

While the electric Smart car won’t start to be sold to the public until summer 2012, the tour is meant to bump up awareness and excitement about the brand.

Smart has an advantage in the electric car race because its gas and diesel models have already been on the market for years and people are familiar with the distinctive snub-nosed shape of the cute littletwo-seaters.

That will come in handy when the electric car market explodes next year with not only Smart coming on stream, but also the Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf and Mitsubishi Miev.

Read more here.

Channel Islands: Alderney

During our six day visit, we count 7 or 8 fortwos including the one above at St Anne's Harbour.

Also suited to island driving is an electric GWiz made by Mahindra Reva Electric Vehicles Private Limited, pictured below.

Smart car goes electric

100 Smart Fortwo Electric Drives are being leased to people in London and the west Midlands, part of a larger government scheme that will see 340 electric vehicles loaned out and data on their usage collected.

Read and see more here.
With thanks to Peter F.

Nissan's new Leaf sells out in US, Japan: Ghosn

The first year of production of Nissan's new electric car Leaf has been sold out, the head of the Japanese automaker, Carlos Ghosn, said Tuesday.
"We have 13,000 orders in the US and 6,000 orders in Japan," Ghosn said at a news conference in Detroit, the US auto industry capital.
Ghosn said that all of the US orders had come from individuals and not from government entities, whereas some orders in Japan were for municipal fleets.
"I don't think we're going to have a problem marketing and selling these cars for the first two or three years," the Nissan president and chief executive said, adding that tax incentives had made the car very popular in California.
The Leaf -- an acronym for Leading, Environmentally Friendly, Affordable, Family -- is billed by Nissan as the world's first mass-produced electric vehicle with zero emissions.
The first deliveries are set in December in the United States and Japan.
The car, which has a top speed of more than 90 miles (140 kilometers) per hour and is powered by a lithium battery, will go on sale in Portugal and the Netherlands in December, and in Britain and Ireland in February 2011.
Read full story here.

Miles ahead

My sister in Seattle spotted her neighbour taking delivery of one of these:
Miles ZX40S
From their website: "At Miles Electric Vehicles, we believe in the power of positive change and are working to make a sustainable difference that will benefit the environment today and for generations to come.
Not only are our zero emissions all electric, low speed vehicles ideally suited for fleet and neighborhood driving, but they also set the category standard for safety, comfort, quality and value. For the average commuter, MILES is developing a highway speed model, the MILES XS500, which will meet most daily transportation needs while preventing CO2 emissions."

What is this car?

The picture on the left accompanied a story "Behind the wheel of the plucky Think City electric car" on the CTV website. The article describe the Think City electric car as a two-seater. Why then four doors?
The photo on the right is a Think City car from the Norwegian manufacturer's official website. Sure don't look like the same car to me. Question is, what is the car on the left?

2010 New York Preview: Are GM’s EN-V concepts the future or folly?

Toronto Star - John LeBlanc
As a follow up to last year’s two-seat Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility concept developed with Segway, Government Motors brought to last year’s New York auto show, the U.S. automaker has released details of a trio of new Electric Networked-Vehicles (EN-V) concepts for this year’s Big Apple show media days, scheduled for next week.
This time around, GM teamed with its Chinese manufacturing partner, Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. Group (SAIC), for its trio of show cars.
GM says “they represent three different characteristics that emphasize the enjoyable nature of future transportation: Jiao (Pride), Miao (Magic) and Xiao (Laugh).”
In addition to being shown in New York next week, the concepts will be showcased from May 1 through October 31 at the SAIC-GM Pavilion at World Expo 2010 Shanghai.
The EN-V concepts, two-seat electric vehicles—that weigh less than 500 kg and about 1.5 metres in length—were designed to “alleviate concerns surrounding traffic congestion, parking availability, air quality and affordability for tomorrow's cities.”
GM’s press release ominously predicts that “by 2030, urban areas will be home to more than 60 percent of the world's 8 billion people.”
GM’s Blade Runner-like projections aside, do you think the automaker, using our tax dollars, should be playing around with cars that won’t see the light of day for 20 years, if ever?
Or should GM stick to trying to make more competitive Chevys and Cadillacs?

Electric two-seaters are traffic beaters

By Michael Bettencourt - Globe and Mail

Almost invisible among all the flashy hybrid supercar concepts at this year's Geneva auto show was the Smera, a super-skinny electric car from French start-up Lumeneo that underscored a growing presence of such tandem two-seaters at major auto shows this year.
The Smera looks like a Smart given a giant squeeze from both sides - the passenger sits behind the driver, leaving a vehicle that's just a touch wider than a typical front seat.
The idea behind it is also an extension of the Smart's vision - that most cars typically carry only one person at a time, and therefore are much larger than they need to be for commuting.

Read full article here.

Russia’s richest oligarch wants to launch a city car

So you own the New Jersey Nets and you have a few billion in assets. And you’re Russian. What do you do next?
You start a line of $12,000 city cars designed to look sort of like the Smart car but more Slavic. The oligarch, Mikhail Prokhorov, is investing $141 million in the Yarovit Motors plant and will create a hybrid or electric vehicle.
From the images it seems you’ll be able to dock your phone into the car and use it as a read-out, something decidedly futuristic. However, considering the success thus far of Russian-made vehicles (the Lada comes to mind) I’d be worried about the generally salability of these things.
View Source: Crunch Gear

Driving home in a future winner?

Less wheels,less size and gasoline free – at least somebody is thinking outside the box

By Mark Richardson

Is this the future of personal transportation?
The Triac electric commuter, seen here at the Detroit auto show, is the brainchild of Mike Ryan, president of California-based Green Vehicles, a two-year-old company with 15 staff so far.
It's a three-wheeler, which classifies it as a motorcycle and so gives it automatic access to almost every High Occupancy Vehicle lane. So it's a speedy commuter.
(I say "almost" because the Ontario Ministry of Transportation refuses to accept its mistake and still prohibits motorcycles with a single rider in the HOV lanes. I believe it's the only jurisdiction in the entire world to be so dumb.)
Being officially a motorcycle also means that there's no crash testing needed, which saves Green Vehicles a pile of start-up cash.
But because the driver is completely enclosed, the West Coast states of California, Oregon and Washington don't require its operators to wear a crash helmet or even have a motorcycle licence. After all, it has a steering wheel and pedals for the power and brakes.
Ryan wasn't sure about laws in the other states, or Canada.
The two-seater, $25,000 Triac can travel at up to 130 km/h for up to 160 km on a five-hour charge.
There are four on the road now and 16 more spoken for. Ryan wants to make 1,000 a year. Don't look for them in Canada anytime soon.
Source: http://www.wheels.ca/

iPhone fizzles at Toronto Autoshow

To Toronto Autoshow where a girl on the smart stand has been hired to take competition entries on an iPhone. After two failed attempts she gives up. We can enter the competition via the web at home, but the system fails to take our entry. We'd like to win the smart car, a prize celebrating the tenth anniversary of the car, but our chances are slim it seems.
The show is generally very quiet on the Thursday, particularly in the Skydome, and experienced stand staff point to reduced attendance and less "buzz" compared to previous years. Every manufacturer is trying to adopt a green pose but with little real justification. For example the Saturn Astra needs a diesel option, like its European counterpart. Hybrids and EVs were everywhere, but you have to wonder about the potential market for these cars. The third-generation Toyota Prius was on show with a Pontiac Aztec like rear-end. I've yet to be convinced that the Prius has ever turned a profit. An example of the electric car trend is the Mitsubishi MiEV shown below.

Words and pics by RLT.