Plugs and Cars

JULY 13, 2011

Plug-in cars are being delivered at long last. Yet there remains confusion about the necessary infrastructure and its expense. Electric Vehicle Service Equipment (EVSE) home wall units are priced at between about $1000 and $2500. Plus installation. Need it cost this much? Is it as complex and time-consuming a process as has been experienced by many new owners of plug-in cars?

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Plugs and Cars

JULY 3, 2011

Tiny compared to the Gulf spill (remember that?,) it warrants only page A-9 of the SF Chronicle. An ExxonMobil pipeline that runs under the Yellowstone River ruptured and leaked hundreds of barrels of oil into the waterway, causing a 25-mile plume that fouled the riverbank and forced municipalities and irrigation districts downstream to close intakes, officials said Saturday.

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Oil Montana Miles 100

Plugs and Cars

JUNE 30, 2011

To ensure effective and tough federal CAFE standards for 2017-2025, enviro groups are holding on to the California card - the state's right to set its own auto emissions standards - according to Jim Motavalli in the NY Times. Read the full story here. [Source: NY Times ].

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Plugs and Cars

JUNE 22, 2011

Think has declared bankruptcy in Norway. Sad. [Source: ElectricAid , Indianapolis Business Journal ].

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Plugs and Cars

JUNE 14, 2011

Think, maker of the Think City, is in trouble, Norwegian business newspaper E24 reports. It's not paid it's bills since February, according to Swedish parts supplier AQ Wiring Systems. At the same time, sales of electric cars are booming in Norway. The iMiev has become the fastest selling car in its segment, beating out gas vehicles. 764 new electric cars were registered in the first five months of the year.

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Think City Norway Market Gas-Electric 124

Plugs and Cars

JUNE 9, 2011

I’m sure I’m not the first to say it. China is electrifying. When I was studying China and Mandarin Chinese 35 years ago, “Red” China was unrecognized by the US, literally, and dark in a way difficult to imagine now. Who knew what was going on over there? Was “reality” that the world’s oldes t civilization was throwing off the shackles of Western domination and its own past to offer a new vision of civilization, or was it bodies floating downriver to Hong Kong during the Cultural Revolution?

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Plugs and Cars

JUNE 5, 2011

Interesting piece by Katie Fehrenbacher about Tesla and the period of limited revenue that approaches. ". this latest funding underscores how Tesla will be transitioning into a period where the company will be generating a lot less revenue for several months — hence part of the reason it needs to raise more funds now." Fehrenbacher had thought components sales might provide a backstop until the Model S appears, but points to the recent S-1 filing. " Tesla doesn’t have any signed agreements for p

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Plugs and Cars

JUNE 3, 2011

The Independent reports four workers at the Chevron refinery in Wales were killed yesterday in what is being described as a "tragic industrial accident". Billowing black smoke gushed from the refinery and spread across the sky in what some have described as a "mushroom cloud".

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Plugs and Cars

MAY 31, 2011

A oil spill has been detected, and another explosion occurred, at Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, here. How Japan uses public works projects, including gyms and swimming pools, to buy acquiescence for its nuclear projects, here.

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Plugs and Cars

MAY 30, 2011

Germany calls it quits on nuclear power. Last plant to close in 2022. Today about 25% of Germany's electricity comes from nukes. The U.S. gets just under 20% of its electricity from nuclear.

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Plugs and Cars

MAY 27, 2011

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Plugs and Cars

MAY 26, 2011

It seems in Foxland if Obama didn't cause the problem, George Bush found the solution. Check out " George W. Bush -- Father of the Modern Electric Car?" Read more: [link].

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Plugs and Cars

MAY 24, 2011

ClipperCreek, an Auburn, CA based manufacturer of electric vehicle charging equipment, has just announced the shipment of its 5,000th unit. Some of those units are being paid for by a California Energy Commission grant to upgrade existing Avcon charging stations across California. Seventeen Avcons eligible for replacement are located at San Francisco city-owned parking lots.

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Plugs and Cars

MAY 6, 2011

Mitsubishi iMievs have played a roll in the petroleum deprived region around Fukushima. New York Times Wheels blog has the story. The picture tells the story.

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Japan Mitsubishi New York 100

Plugs and Cars

APRIL 29, 2011

Four electric vehicle charging stations were unveiled today at a new parking structure in downtown South San Francisco. The Coulomb J-plug/120V units were installed under grants to ChargePoint America (DOE and CEC money). For the time being, there is no charge for either the parking or charging for vehicles that plug in. The opening of the new parking garage and office complex one block off Grand Avenue was a big deal.

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Plugs and Cars

APRIL 28, 2011

Once again, charge station serendipity. I arrived a couple of days ago at the parking garage beneath One Montgomery Tower in the LEAF with Peter Van Deventer, Dutch EV guru, and a couple of professors from Holland. Jay Friedland, Plug In America Legislative Director, followed in a RAV4 EV with some more profs, who had come to learn about California's EV efforts.

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Charging San Francisco Plug-in Plug 100

Plugs and Cars

APRIL 19, 2011

Some more places to plug in. SFO now has 120V plugs available in each of its public parking garages. You'll need to provide your own cable; of course every new EV comes with one. Airports are one of the places 12oV makes lots of sense. Most cars sit for many hours, some for days at long-term parking. And it's very cheap to install, probably less than 10% the cost of a Level 2 unit.

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Plugs and Cars

APRIL 13, 2011

The Norwegian energy company Ishavskraft yesterday unveiled its plan to make the stunning vistas of Norway's isolated fjords accessible to vacationers in electric cars with a 2500 mile network of DC Fast Chargers using the CHAdeMO connector. Displaying a stunningly Nordic prototype charger in downtown Oslo, Ishavskraft announced it is looking for partners, public and private, to make this electric highway a completed reality within two years.

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Plugs and Cars

APRIL 11, 2011

A few more J-plugs have appeared in the San Francisco Bay Area, tho I challenge you to find out where they are. They are not listed on the DOE funded charge station project sites. Not on ChargePoint America/Coulomb's c harge station map. Nor on The EV Project/Ecotality's m ap. I did find one of the three on recargo.com , one of a number of outfits aggregating charge station locations.

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Juice San Francisco Oakland Cheap 100

Plugs and Cars

APRIL 7, 2011

The Times has story of the consequences of crop production for bio-fuels: higher food prices and tragic irony.last year, 98 percent of cassava chips exported from Thailand, the world’s largest cassava exporter , went to just one place and almost all for one purpose: to China to make biofuel.It can be tricky predicting how new demand from the biofuel sector will affect the supply and price of food.

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Plugs and Cars

MARCH 30, 2011

[The following is an article I wrote in Earth Island Journal last year to answer the question "Public Transit or Electric Car? " ] Greater support for mass transit and appropriate land use policies that make mass transit accessible are essential. They are essential for more livable communities and more efficient use of resources, including energy. However, we have created a nation that is dependent, for the foreseeable future, upon the automobile.

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Plugs and Cars

MARCH 19, 2011

The Coast Guard is investigating reports of a potentially large oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico not far from the Deepwater Horizon site. According to a knowledgeable source, the slick was sighted by a helicopter pilot on Friday and is about 100 miles long. A fishing boat captain said he went through the slick yesterday and it was strong enough to make his eyes burn.

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Oil Miles Mexico 100

Plugs and Cars

MARCH 19, 2011

Nissan may have to ship engines from Tennessee to Japan. Honda is extending the shut down at its shuttered plants. Worries about Prius supply has already increased the average price by the consumer by $1,800. GM and Nissan production in the US is being disrupted by lack of Japanese parts. [Source: NYTimes ].

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Plugs and Cars

MARCH 3, 2011

I wrote back in December about my unhappy experience attempting to charge my loaner LEAF at San Francisco City Hall's electric car charging stations. Parking in these Coulomb charge stations is restricted to city-owned vehicles and Car Share companies under threat of towing. A threat taken seriously in San Francisco. I wrangled a few hours of charging back in December from Bob Hayden, the SF Department of the Environment's EV Czar.

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Plugs and Cars

MARCH 7, 2011

For years we've been hearing there's a chicken/egg situation with EVs. Consumers, it's often suggested, have rejected plug-in cars because there is no charging infrastructure. No, I've always said, we have a chicken problem. No plug-in cars. The infrastructure, ubiquitous electricity, exists. Volts and LEAFs are being slowly delivered, but the public charge station rollout paid for by the feds is coming even more slowly, especially in places getting early vehicle allocations.

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Plugs and Cars

MARCH 3, 2011

After nearly a decade of mismanagement, theft and fraud, the U.S. military still hasn't found a way to staunch the flow of what is likely hundreds of millions -- if not billions -- of dollars in lost fuel in Afghanistan, some of which is sold on the black market and winds up in Taliban hands, a TPM investigation has found. [Source: TalkingPointsMemo.

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Plugs and Cars

FEBRUARY 26, 2011

I just ran across the latest available data, from 2005, for the electricity consumption by petroleum refineries. ( Source: Energy Statistics Database | United Nations Statistics Division ) The US is, hoorah, #1. Almost 49,000,000,000 kWh. One electric car, roughly speaking, will use about 3000 kWh to go about 12,000 miles. That means the electricity alone we use to refine petroleum each year could drive over 16,000,o00 electric cars 12,000 miles each year.

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Plugs and Cars

FEBRUARY 3, 2011

Norway's EV enthusiast site Electricaid reports that iMiev is #1 in Norway. In its small car segment in January, the little electric outsold each of its gasoline competitors. 99 iMievs sold. [Source: Electricaid ].

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Plugs and Cars

JANUARY 20, 2011

While governments scrape together money to roll out a public charging infrastructure for the plug-in cars that are already being delivered to customers, Mercedes is pleading for more money to enable hydrogen fuel cell vehicles they have failed to deliver for a decade. [Source: AutoBlogGreen ].

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Plugs and Cars

JANUARY 3, 2011

LEAFs are beginning to arrive by the truckload. Seven drove in to a SoCal dealership this morning.

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Nissan 133

Plugs and Cars

DECEMBER 28, 2010

Here's an unexpected opportunity to purchase an EV, especially if you've had a hankering for a Th!nk City. According to the Seattle Clean Cities Newsletter, you've got three days to order a Th!nk City for $6000 off from the base price of $41,695 if you live in a ZEV state. Th!nk is apparently looking to quickly sell 150 of the vehicles they are putting together in Elkhart, IN.

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Tax Credit Seattle Nissan Tax 100

Plugs and Cars

DECEMBER 22, 2010

Felix Kramer, indefatigable campaigner for plug-in cars, took possession today of his Chevrolet Volt. Here he is, with his son Josh in the driver's seat. Andy Frank, father of the plug-in hybrid, drove down from Davis, California in the Volt he received yesterday to join in the celebration.

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Davis Volt Chevrolet Plug-in 100

Plugs and Cars

DECEMBER 15, 2010

I've got a LEAF for a few days. Very exciting. I'll have a full report soon. But I've got to mention one frustration I've encountered. Restricted charge stations. In San Francisco at this moment there are, I believe, six deployed new J1772 charge stations. One, a ParkPod unit in the Hilton parking lot, was installed with private funds. Two are at a private parking garage on the Embarcadero, paid for with federal and state money via Coulomb's ChargePointAmerica grants.

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Plugs and Cars

DECEMBER 11, 2010

Olivier Chalouhi, owner of the first LEAF sold in the world with Carlos Tavares, Nissan Executive Vice President for the America. Olivier at the wheel driving off to the Nissan event in San Francisco Civic Center. Caravan of LEAFs headed to SF as seen from my RAV4 EV. Olivier surrounded by the media outside SF City Hall. Crowd gathered in SF Civic Center.

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Plugs and Cars

DECEMBER 8, 2010

From Plug In America: Last year, Plug In America, along with electric vehicle and EV infrastructure manufacturers from coast to coast, worked with members of the House and Senate to get a critical plug-in vehicle infrastructure tax credit into the stimulus bill. And then you helped us get it passed! These EV tax credits of 50% up to $2,000 for individuals, and 50% up to $50,000 for businesses have led to the beginning of early deployment of EV charging infrastructure all across the United States

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Plugs and Cars

NOVEMBER 30, 2010

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Plugs and Cars

NOVEMBER 24, 2010

Senators Coburn and DeMint have corn ethanol subsidies in their sights. The environmental case rests on a thin reed indeed. I'm hoping they succeed. Firedoglake has the story. Tags: ethanol ethanol subsidies corn ethanol.

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