Which technology wins in a head-to-head comparison: fuel cell vehicles or electrics? The first mass-market consumer fuel-cell vehicle will soon be available in California: the Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell SUV. It’s taken decades to get to this point, so many enthusiasts are hoping that this will be a tipping point for the technology. It’s an exciting… Keep reading →
Call it the Tesla Truck, the Tesla Pickup Truck, or the Tesla-150, but Tesla CEO Elon Musk has made it clear that the electric carmaker plans to make a pickup truck. In fact, he couldn’t be clearer: he plans to make something to compete with the best-selling light-duty vehicle on American roads: the Ford F-150.… Keep reading →
It was finally time to prove the concept. If you can drive your electric vehicle (EV) not just around the corner, but also a thousand miles down the highway to south Florida in one day, then I think you’ve proven you really don’t need petroleum any more. Here’s how it went. (Well, you may not… Keep reading →
Coal consumption has been increasing in past months as natural gas prices pushed upwards and coal stocks dipped lower. With natural gas the peak-load fuel of choice for many utilities, base load summer cooling could be powered by lots of comparatively cheaper coal – with gas peaker plants firing up when demand surges and thus… Keep reading →
Green History Without fanfare or an exact date, a collective automotive epiphany took place a decade ago. Nearly every major carmaker was in on it, except for Toyota. The Japanese manufacturer had its own environmental awakening 17 years ago when it introduced its first hybrid car. Toyota unveiled its gas-electric engine in Japan in 1997,… Keep reading →
As people purchase, drive and need to charge more electric cars a new area of social etiquette is emerging. EV drivers increasingly face uncharted territory when plugging into public charging facilities. Amy Myers Jaffe covered the issue in a recent article: US Davis ITS researchers Nicolette Caperello, Ken Kurani, and Jennifer TyreeHageman found that EV… Keep reading →
Last month, Cadillac released an ad for their Cadillac ELR, a new 2014 plug in model. A local Detroit compost company, Detroit Dirt, along with Ford released an ad last Wednesday for the Ford C-max Energy, another plug-in model. The video mirrors the Cadillac ad with a slightly different message: This response from Ford certainly… Keep reading →
Electric car maker Tesla Motors seeks to release a mass market vehicle in the next 3 years, but first has to cut the cost of its batteries in half. It plans to do this by building economies of scale with a massive lithium-ion battery factory that could cost anywhere from $2 billion to $10 billion… Keep reading →
Happy Valentines Day from Breaking Energy to you! P.S. in case you missed it, an apt video from earlier this year.
Fueled by technological innovation and favorable state policies, the plug-in electric vehicle market surged in 2013, with year-over-year sales increasing 83%. In its first full year on the market, Tesla Motors reported global Model S sales of 22,300 units for 2013. Most recently, Tesla beat fourth quarter sales estimates of under 6,000 by delivering 6,900… Keep reading →
