Hey, recollect the funny Imperial College kids in the Racing Green Endurance team, a ones who took the perfectly wonderful Radical racer as well as nude it of the internal-combustion resources, flew it to Alaska, and then affianced to drive it all a approach down a Pan-American Highway? Well, they done it. 26,000km later (that’s 16,155 miles) the team has reached Ushuaia, Argentina, at a southern tip of South America and the prolonged, long approach from Anchorage. Traveling an average of 300km (186 miles) per day a group conquered desert, jungle, as well as torrential sleet storms, conditions a quite electric and decidedly track-focused appurtenance certainly wasn’t meant for, though proof that an EV can be driven approach over the limit operation — if you don’t mind taking nearly six months to do it.
[Thanks, Amanda]
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Electric vehicles as well as variety have been here to save a surroundings (or during least kill your fuel check, but if you listen to some people they’re also here to reap down our pedestrians thanks to their ninja-like ways. Nissan’s Leaf has already left the approach of sci-fi by charity the Blade Runner-inspired extraneous soundtrack to have path replicants take notice, as well as now a Prius is joining in upon the fun with its own under-hood speaker complement. Curiously, this one will be discretionary, Toyota apparently expecting which purchasers are so philanthropically minded which they’ll compensate an additional 12,600 yen (about $150) to protect poor pedestrians. You can see how it’s supposed to work in the picture on top of, in that a Prius is shown emitting tune waves to deter the toupee-wearing zombie. But, if you’d rather than watch a flashy display as well as hear it for yourself, check out the stirring video after the break. It’ll have you instruct your auto sounded similar to a hovercar.
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We’d already heard that Toyota and Tesla were operative on a little electric car prototypes, and the two companies have now come out and strictly confirmed that they have been, in fact, operative on an electric RAV4 crossover. What’s some-more, Telsa says which it’s already produced a single prototype vehicle as well as skeleton to deliver the swift of them to Toyota for evaluation “inside of this year,” and that Toyota skeleton to bring a car to marketplace sometime in 2012. Details have been still the bit light beyond which (including any word of a price), but it certainly sounds like this is only the commencement of some-more vehicles to outcome from the partnership — check out the praise the companies heap on any other in the press release after the break.Show full PR textTesla Motors and Toyota Motor Corporation Formalize Agreement to Develop Electric Version of RAV4
Palo Alto, California, U.S.A., and Tokyo, Japan – TESLA MOTORS, INC.
(Tesla) as well as TOYOTA ENGINE HOUSE (TMC) today voiced that the two companies have signed an agreement to beginner a development of an electric chronicle of a RAV4 as voiced in May of this year by Elon Musk as well as Akio Toyoda. With an aim to marketplace a EV in a United States in 2012, prototypes will be made mixing a Toyota RAV4 indication with the Tesla electric powertrain. Tesla plans to furnish and broach the swift of prototypes to Toyota for evaluation inside of this year. The initial prototype has already been built and is now undergoing testing.
In May, Tesla as well as TMC voiced their vigilant to cooperate upon a development of electric vehicles, parts, as well as prolongation system as well as engineering support. Tesla seeks to sense as well as benefit from Toyota’s engineering, production, and production expertise, whilst Toyota aims to sense from Tesla’s EV record, daring suggestion, discerning decision-making, as well as coherence.
TMC has, given the foundation in 1937, operated underneath the philosophy of “contributing to multitude through the make of automobiles,” as well as made cars that prove its many business around a universe. TMC introduced the first-generation Prius hybrid vehicle in 1997. The association also skeleton to introduce EVs into the market by 2012.
Tesla’s goal is to furnish increasingly affordable electric cars for mainstream buyers – in cold blood pushing down the price of EVs. California-based Tesla designs as well as manufactures EVs as well as EV powertrain components, and is now a only automaker in the U.S. which builds and sells highway-capable EVs in sequence production.
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Step aside, Tesla — we’ve just spotted the hottest Earth-lovin’ supe rcar since the Lightning GT. Shown off to wide-mouthed onlookers at the LA Auto Show this month, the Capstone CMT-380 prototype is an automotive beast unlike anything we’ve ever seen. Rather than mixin g batteries and a conventional engine, this whip combines the former with a diesel / biodiesel-powe red microturbine, which is — for all intents and purposes — a jet engine. Reportedly, the car can reach 60MPH from a standstill in just 3.9 seconds, hit 150MPH before being cut off by the electronic limiter, cruise 80 miles on battery power alone and drive from Idaho Falls to Spokane on just a single tank of fuel. It’s being bruited about that the company is considering flipping this bad boy into the production line, but with an estimated asking price north of $2 00,000, there’s sufficient evidence to think that the volume here would remain relatively low. Hit up Autoblog Green ’s gallery of shots from the show floor below, but only if you love peerin g at high-resolution images of stealthy, sexy things.
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With the amount of use Chuck gets out of his “Nerd Herd” mobile, plus our own anecdotal sig htings of Geek Squad vehicles around town (see what we did there? Science ), we’d say that they’re ripe for EV replacements, and what better than the hard-to-pronounce i-MiEV from Mitsubishi to do the job? As announced at the LA Auto Show on Thursday, a few Best Buy Geek Squad locations in California are getting acces s to the cars in January, with minimal fleets that will expand to the other stores over a few years. For now it’s going to be an experiment, and primarily urban, but we like where this is headed. As in, “not to our house, because we’re perfectly adept at setting up a wireless network, thanks.”
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You might’ve seen the Volt make a gues t appearance on the futuristic Surrogat es movie already, but now Chevy’s taking the opposite approach by looking toward the past to promote its PHEV. Bob’s Big Boy fast food restaurant in California got treated to a surprise visit by a production model of that m ost bodacious Chevrolet, and as you can see above, it doesn’t look horribly out of place seated in among its elders, a 1969 Camaro and an Impala SS. Joining in the weekly classic car meetup hosted by the restaurant, this appearance was a prelude to the production Volt being shown off at the LA Auto Show, which kicks off this coming Friday. So if you wanna see it, you can either attend the event or wait for the car to roll up at your nearest Wendy’s.
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The Chevy Volt is one vehicle we can really get behind. It’s hard not to be a l ittle excited over it — we have, after all, been watching its development for quite a long time now. The electric car gets an impressive 230 miles per gallon in the city (and, all shaky rating practices aside, that’s nothing to scoff at). Autoblog Green’s just taken one of Chevy’s 80 IVER pre-production prototypes for a little spin, and they s eem to have come away pretty impressed with the car. They report that the brakes are better than most hybrid veh icles, and said that when the engine does kick in after the battery’s depleted, they didn’t even notice it until they stopped and heard it running quietly. It was a short spin, so they weren’t a ble to gauge, for instance, whether the car can actually pull the full 40 miles per battery char ge that Chevrolet claims it gets, but check out their full, detailed observations at the Source link.
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The presenters of Top Gear, among the finer specimens of British television talent (Dr. Gregory House being another), were this past week engaged in designing and building an electric vehicle purportedly intended to compete with the likes of the Chevy Volt. Set a time limit of a mere 18 hours, they produced the marvel of rushed eng ineering and s hoddy workmanship you see above. The Hammerhead Eagle i-Thrust (believe us, you’ll have no reason to remember the name) was even put through its paces by Autocar magazine, whose video “review” can be found after the break. We won’t spoil the details for you, but if you want a conclusion, this one’s pretty unequivocal: “there’s a real ly good chan ce you could kill yourself” riding in this car.
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Word on the street — and by that we mean Reuters — is that Tesla’s looking to go public with the company “any day.” The luxury electric car make, whose Roadster still goes for a cool $109,000, would be the first US auto company to offer an IPO si nce Ford way back in 1956, says MSNBC. Quite a notable event, i ndeed, but earlier comments by Tesla investors (via Autoblog Green) suggest “any day now” might be any time between now and September 2010.
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