As any child of the ’80s knows, October 21, 2015 is “Back to the Future Day” – the day that the film’s protagonist, Marty McFly, travels to the future in his DeLorean. Though it would no doubt be useful to have access to flying cars (think of the traffic one could avoid), Californians are seeing… Keep reading →
They just sit there most of the day and night, storehouses of electricity, doing nothing. So in an era of increasing renewable energy penetration, why not use electric vehicles and their batteries to help make way for more variable renewable energy? It’s an idea that’s been kicked around a lot, and now the Chinese are getting… Keep reading →
Researchers from the University of Minnesota (Minneapolis) found in a new study assessing the life cycle air quality impacts on human health of 10 alternatives to conventional gasoline vehicles “that electric vehicles (EVs) powered by electricity from natural gas or wind, water, or solar power are best for improving air quality, whereas vehicles powered by… Keep reading →
Electric Vehicles today are considered to be more expensive to purchase than their Internal Combustion Engine counterparts. But the purchase price of EV’s versus ICE vehicles tells an incomplete story about the comparative costs. While none of the EV’s on the market today are cheap, they are competitively priced for their class of vehicle. The… Keep reading →
I recently had the opportunity to test drive the Tesla Model S P85, the high-performance version of the highly acclaimed all-electric luxury sedan. Like many drivers of the Model S, I was thoroughly impressed by the performance of this machine and after examining the engineering I am increasingly convinced that electric vehicles (EVs) are the… Keep reading →
Quiz time. Which of the following two statements is true: Electric vehicle sales in the United States are growing at a remarkably fast rate. Electric vehicle sales are a small fraction of what many advocates had been hoping for just a few short years ago. OK, maybe you sniffed out the gambit – both are… Keep reading →
Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are the major cause of harsh climate change around the world, and transportation accounts for 15% of global GHG emissions. In the US, the transportation sector’s portion of GHG emissions accounts for 28%[1][2]. With the increasing number of automobile vehicles on the roads each day, there is a serious need to transform… Keep reading →
San Antonio’s Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) brings Texas the latest example of an intelligent, demand-side resource that can play an active role in the power grid and offset the use of fossil-fuel power plants. Late last month, SwRI announced that its innovative vehicle-to-grid system got the green light from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the grid operator,… Keep reading →
The US was home to around 38% of the global electric vehicle (EV) stock in 2012, but that still amounted to just 71,174 vehicles, according to the International Energy Agency’s most recent Global Electric Vehicle Outlook. There were more than 240 million cars and trucks on US roads in 2010, according to the Federal Highway… Keep reading →
