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It appears that there is no end in sight to the Obama Administration's costly quest to electrify America's auto fleet, despite the recent flurry of reports that continue to confirm that the benefits of electric vehicles (EVs) are practically nonexistent in comparison to the costs. One of these reports even came from Obama's own NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) panel which downplayed the importance of EVs and claimed that electric cars will only need to account for between one and three percent of car manufacturer's product portfolios by 2025 for lofty government EPA requirements to be met. The Autoguide.com...

Tesla Motors said Thursday it would demonstrate a way to quickly recharge electric cars by swapping drained batteries for fresh power cells. Tesla chief executive and founder Elon Musk used popular the messaging service Twitter to put out word that a "live pack swap demo" was taking place at the company's design studio in the Southern California city of Hawthorne. Video from the event was to be posted on the Tesla website about 0430 GMT on Friday, according to Musk. Making it fast and easy to restore full power to electric car batteries is seen as a big step in...

General Motors has announced a $4,000 rebate (or $3,000 and a four year, zero interest loan from government-owned Ally Financial) on the slow-selling Chevy Volt. The company had a choice regarding how to deal with an excess supply of Volts that is growing faster than demand. GM could have, once again, temporarily halted production until inventory (currently at about a 6 month supply) came down to reasonable levels. It instead chooses to lose more millions of dollars by spending on incentives designed to manufacture demand that otherwise is practically nonexistent. The much-hyped Chevy Volt was originally presented by GM...

For the naysayers who maintained that Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA) wasn’t going to make it, with the Model S too expensive to be successful, here is a fact worth reflecting on: in the first quarter, Tesla outsold comparable cars from BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Audi. Tesla moved 4,750 Model S units in the first fiscal quarter. Among the top three German luxury builders, the Mercedes S Class came in second with 3,077 units sold. BMW took third place with 2,338 7-Series sedans sold and Audi’s flagship A8 sold 1,462 cars, good for fourth place. There are are few things to consider when...

California-based electric car maker, Coda, filed for bankruptcy protection on Wednesday, saying it plans to transition to the battery and energy-storage business. The company had positioned itself as a cheaper alternative to fellow electric-car maker Tesla (TSLA) and plug-in hybrid-car maker Fisker. Coda's all-electric mid-sized sedan went for roughly $37,000, but proved a huge sales disappointment, with less than 100 vehicles sold. A Tesla Model S, with its most potent battery option, goes for $72,000. Coda had the bodies and chassis of its cars built in China, with the battery systems installed in California. CEO Phil Murtaugh said in a...

“Bankruptcy now appears unavoidable, and a political reckoning is coming” writes the New York Time’s Bill Vlasic today about Fisker Motors, the Obama administration’s pet electric car company that received millions in federal loans. Vlasic described the car company as the “Solyndra of Electric car companies.” As Congress prepares to grill the leaders of Fisker Motors this afternoon, here are 47 depressing facts about Fisker:

It appears that the Mainstream Media folks may finally be starting to expose one of the worst cases of taxpayer abuse that this country has ever seen. Kudos to Deepa Seetharaman who wrote a piece for Reuters which questions the feasibility of the government-subsidized, lithium-ion based battery technology behind electric vehicles (EVs) like the Chevy Volt. While Seetharaman acknowledges the limitations of lithium-ion batteries, what remains unchallenged is the continued waste of billions of taxpayer dollars to support the failing, pseudo-green technology. The evidence that the Obama Administration's EV subsidization has been a costly fiasco (particularly regarding the Chevy Volt...

When you buy a car, there are various ratings outfits in the business of calculating the true cost of owning that particular vehicle, inc. insurance, depreciation, maintenance, cost of repairs, etc. Such a comprehensive model is surely more realistic than just looking at the monthly payment or sticker price, and the customer knows if they're actually making a cost-effective, bottom-line decision. But even if you buy-into the now imploding globaloney scam, wouldn't it make sense to apply similar logic to calculate the entire environmental impact of electric vs. internal combustion cars over the full service life... esp since the actual...

President Obama today will urge Congress to establish a research fund for transportation and fuel alternatives, called an Energy Security Trust, according to White House officials. The president will tour and give remarks at Argonne National Laboratory just outside of Chicago, a Department of Energy facility for scientific research that specializes in advanced battery production. He will propose setting aside $2 billion over the next 10 years for an Energy Security Trust, which aims to support research and development for electric vehicles, domestic biofuels, fuel cells and U.S.-produced natural gas.

Those who watched the State of the Union address last night and have an interest in autos may have noticed a conspicuous absence; Barack Obama failed to mention his goal of putting 1 million EVs on the road by 2015. Obama last mentioned the figure in 2011, stating At the California Institute of Technology, they’re developing a way to turn sunlight and water into fuel for our cars. At Oak Ridge National Laboratory, they’re using supercomputers to get a lot more power out of our nuclear facilities. With more research and incentives, we can break our dependence on oil with...

Enlarge Image Stable Ride. The performance of new lithium-air batteries is nearly unchanged after 100 charge and discharge cycles, which could bode well for their future use in electric vehicles. Credit: (car) Tony Hisgett/ Wikimedia;(graph) Adapted from Z. Peng et al., Science Researchers have long had high hopes for lithium-air batteries, a device that has the potential to store 10 times more energy than the best lithium-ion batteries on the market today. But so far, lithium-air batteries have been unstable, falling apart after a few charges. Now researchers report that they've made the first stable lithium-air batteries. If the...

Most Hybrid Owners Choosing Not to Rebuy Hybrids - Many consumers are looking to fuel-efficient cars in order to find relief from today’s high gasoline prices. And automakers have been paying attention – there are now more fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles available than ever before. But when people who currently own a hybrid vehicle buy another car, they’re not buying another hybrid.

VIDEO at link (CNSNews.com) - Former Vice Chairman of General Motors Bob Lutz said he would raise taxes on gasoline to compel American consumers to buy more electric cars. “If I were emperor of the United States, I would raise the fuel tax in the United States by 25 cents a gallon per year,” said Lutz during a panel discussion on energy independence co-sponsored by the Hudson Institute. “So that people making a purchase decision, ‘Wow it’s 4 dollars this year, $4.25 next year, $4.50 the year after that, you know what? We better buy a compact this time.’” Lutz...

The report by the NY Times that it would take up to 27 years for Chevy Volt buyers to save enough money in gas costs to make up for the high price of the car must be very confusing for apologists of the vehicle. The normal defense for any criticism is to accuse sources of having a right wing hate of the car. But the NY Times? The very vocal Volt defenders, who are quick to attack anyone who doesn't agree that the car is a technological marvel worthy of billions of dollars of taxpayer largess, will have to...

T. Boone Pickens and other energy industry executives have been promoting the increased use of natural gas in the U.S. as a means of developing a market for the abundant U.S. shale gas supply now available, as well as bolstering the U.S. economy and weaning the nation of its dependence on foreign oil. While initial efforts have been focused on the heavy-duty vehicle market, increasing the number of light-duty passenger cars that run on compressed natural gas (CNG) is viewed as the next step towards achieving these goals. In early March, Chesapeake Energy and GE unveiled plans to jointly develop...

Consumer Reports has painted an ugly picture of the Nissan Leaf, as did an early enthusiast based in Los Angeles, who described his frustrations with the heavily subsidized, all-electric car in a recent column. Now comes what must be the definitive example of the Leaf’s impracticality – this time from a (still) hard-core advocate, whose 180-mile Tennessee trek to visit family over the holidays required four lengthy stops to keep the vehicle moving. Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, set out from Knoxville on Monday with his wife and son, headed for the Nashville...

Charging stations not getting much use NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Charging stations in Tennessee outnumber electric cars and many aren't used for hours or even days at a time, according to a newspaper investigation. State data analyzed by The Tennessean show that about 270 all-electric cars were registered in Tennessee in 2011 while there are about 500 charging stations set up in public areas to serve them (http://tnne.ws/s2Mldg). The Tennessean said it visited more than 12 charging units over a 2-day period this month and found multiple cars refueling at only one site - Nissan's automobile plant in Smyrna. Nissan...

Here's another surprise for Chevy Volt owners. Autoblog reports that General Motors is holding an online chat with Volt owners about winter driving. Part of the chat reveals that, despite the fact that GM claimed the Volt is purely electric for a range of about 35 miles, the vehicle will use gas in cold conditions. GM states, "Please be aware: when starting your Volt in these colder months, in some instances, your gas engine may engage regardless of the state of charge of the battery. This was designed into (the) Volt to generate heat for the battery when temperatures...

Last week NLPC reported about aConsumer Reports reviewer’s unpleasant experience driving the all-electric Nissan Leaf. Despite Liza Barth’s frequent range anxiety and endurance of freezing temperatures so as to avoid using the Leaf’s heater to preserve its power, she declined to give it a “thumbs down.” Instead, she seemed to chalk up the inconveniences (like “numb fingers and toes”) to her own inability to adapt to new technology, rather than calling the electric vehicle what it really is: a failure that is massively subsidized by taxpayers. Last month another Leaf customer wrote about his experience, and as opposed to...

General Motors is again poised to sell an all-electric car in the United States. The Chevrolet Spark is described as a “mini-car.” It will initially be available at California dealers in 2013. A gasoline-powered version of the Spark is due in the U.S. next year. It has already proven successful in other countries, including India. Although it will be smaller, the Spark is designed to directly compete with the Nissan Leaf, which is also pure electric. It will complement the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid, which has a gasoline engine that kicks in once the electric charge is used up.