Electric Cars
By Karina | January 13, 2010
This week is the car show in Detroit, and have you heard about Electric Avenue? This year there are a whole bunch of electric cars out there in the works and in concept, and it’s really exciting! I’ve mentioned before my long-range car plan - I have a long long long commute, and my 4 year old car is at 110,000 miles already. So my plans are to drive the car in bad weather and winter, and ride the motorcycle as a commuter as much as possible. This will hopefully stretch out my good trusty sweet lovable Insight for as long as possible with the hopes that by the time it’s about giving up, a new shiny super-efficient car will be available for me! And Electric Avenue? fills me with hope.
So far the field is split into teensy tiny electric cars with a short range and low speed capabilities - neighborhood cars, really; plug-in hybrids which are electric for a short range and then transition to a gas engine once the battery is drained; and full electric cars (of which the majority are conceptual). While there’s a bunch of muscle cars on display I do think it’s fair to say that the focus of the Auto Show seems to be green automobiles this year! So because I’m geeking out on the Detroit Auto Show Coverage, here’s a few of the highlights that I’ll be watching over the next few years:
- The Nissan Leaf is a full electric car with a range of about 100 miles. It’s a 5-seater hatchback, but the launch date is kind of fuzzy - probably about 2012 mass market availability - and the website says something about a “home assessment” as part of the buying process. Fishy!
- I love the new Toyota concept FT-CH. It would be a low-cost version of the Prius, and either plug-in or full electric, probably. Details are fuzzy but I think the car is good looking, small, and has good potential. Production is expected in about 2 years.
- The Sporty new Honda CR-Z, however, is not really what I was hoping for. It looks just like it was built on the same platform as my first-generation Insight (and the predecessor, the old CR-X). However, even though it’s a hybrid the preliminary gas mileage estimates are terrible! 31/37 city/highway for the manual transmission - when the first-gen Insight got up to around 60 mpg easily and the old CR-X (which my brother drove for years and loved) would easily get in the 40s with careless driving. The reason for this is the power - the new CR-Z will get about 122 hp, and my old fashioned insight hybrid only gets about 70 hp. So even though this car will come with a manual transmission - which I love love love! it won’t be a good option for me.
- The Chevy Volt is due out in 2011, and is the most promising new electric car slated for mass production. And by promising I mean it’ll probably actually hit the streets. It only has a range of about 40 miles, but after that the gas engine kicks in for an estimated total range of 300 miles. This wouldn’t be best for my long commute unless my company lets me run an extension cord out while I’m working! Plus it may cost about $40,000, which is too steep for me.
- Of course everyone is excited to see what’s happening with the plug-in Prius, but according to this Toyota press release it only has a 13-mile electric range, which is way too short for my long commuting.
- Not to leave anyone out, Ford announced this week that they are planning plug-in hybrids for 2012 and small electric-only cars out in 2011. The electric car will be a full-electric Ford Focus, and hopefully it will really be offered in a hatchback option!
- And my personal favorite and long-range hopeful contender: an updated Trabbi. The Trabant (affectionately called the Trabbi) was an Eastern German classic, and it’s been updated to electric vehicle. However I don’t think it’s under production and I bet it will never hit the states. But take a look, isn’t it adorable?
- You can see a great compilation of all electric cars from around the world here. It’s where I found the Trabbi!
Sadly, the most feasible full electric cars out there are still wildly expensive - like the handsome Tesla or it’s newly announced competitor from Korea. I’m pretty committed to the efficient automobile party but at $50,000+ a car, well, I just can’t justify OR afford that! (The WSJ asks if anyone can afford an electric car) Even if the range of these cars is over 150 miles, which would be plenty to get me to and from work (which is about 90 miles away).
But I am still hopeful - at very least, finally Detroit is rolling out small vehicles like the Aveo which should get over 40 mpg - at least this is becoming more standard than just a few years ago, when small cars were still only getting 25 mpg, and a car over 30 mpg was lauded as super efficient. This is, in part, because of new CAFE standards rolled out by the Obama Administration that require automakers’ fleets to achieve 35.5 miles a gallon by 2016, up from 27.5 miles a gallon today. Regardless, maybe in another 4 years or so I’ll be able to get a plug-in hybrid or similar, and install some solar cells (to take advantage of the tax credit which expires in 2016) to power it down the road.
And if that doesn’t work? I’ll just get any old car and put a boat tail on it. And just you wait, I bet I’ll write exhaustively about it on Tiny Choices!
Any cars you’re watching out for?
[[Photo via creative commons: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kqedquest/ / CC BY-NC 2.0]]
Related posts:
- Electric Bikes Are Kinda Cool!
- 100+mpg car
- Service for cars and for bikes!
- “This isn’t Rocket Science.”
- Bike parking in Brooklyn — bye bye cars!
- Urban Farming in Detroit
- why I bought my hybrid
Topics: Transportation |
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i’m keeping my eye on the trabbi so you can get it and we can drive around (or more accurately you can drive me around as i am assuming it will be manual.)
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