Project Evie getting ready to go 'round the world in an electric car

Filed under: EV/Plug-in, Green Culture, Green Daily

How far can an electric car go? Project Evie thinks you can take one around the world. To that end, the small group of young electric vehicle (EV) enthusiasts has partnered with an unnamed large automaker to drive one of their EVs around the world. Yup, it’s time to circumnavigate in an official EV. Of course, we’ve seen a Tesla Roadster drive across the United States, the Xof1 go across Canada and one amazing Swiss teacher, Louis Palmer, drive around the world in his solar taxi (a trip that took 17 months and 32,365 miles). Still, this is the first global trip in a production electric car that we know of.

Project Evie is set to launch this June, and more details - like which car, exactly, they will be using - will be announced soon. For now the plan is to start in New Zealand and finish up in New York. If you’re saying, “wait, that’s not all the way around,” a look at the planned route shows that is may not be a loop, but the drivers do hope to hit pretty much everywhere except northeastern Russia and western Africa during their 18-month trip. The group believes that:

With the development of electric vehicle technologies and the pressing economic, geopolitical and environmental need to find alternatives to fossil fuel consumption, one deciding factor stands in the way of a sustainable future - public opinion. While many Americans would consider buying an electric vehicle in principle, few do so in practice. The most common reason cited for shying away from EVs? Range anxiety. By proving just how easy it is to travel long distances with an EV, and with your help, we are confident we can push public opinion past the tipping point of adoption.

We’ll be watching.

[Source: Project Evie]

Project Evie getting ready to go ’round the world in an electric car originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Tue, 02 Feb 2010 13:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Forth Bridge could be car-free

Scottish ministers are studying plans to make the famous Forth Bridge car-free.
The bridge is ageing and in need of repair, so minister are discussing plans to build a new bridge for car traffic.
The old bridge could then be made available for use by public transport vehicles and cyclists only.
Connecting Edinburgh and Fife, [...]
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DOE to receive huge spending boost

The need to continue to provide financial support to the energy industry as it undergoes a transitional phase has not been overlooked by the White House, with the President's 2011 Budget providing $28.354billion for the Department of Energy – an 8.9 per cent increase over financial year 2009.
The money will be used to support scientific [...]
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Secret, horizontal lithium mines being dug in Canada

Filed under: Emerging Technologies, EV/Plug-in, North America

There is a general consensus that the world’s lithium supplies are quite plentiful, with the metal found in Argentina, Bolivia and Russia, to name just a few places. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t some shady mining going on to find more of the stuff that is regularly seen as the most important advanced vehicle battery material for the coming decades.

For example, there is a lithium rush going on in West Quebec, Canada that has some property owners discovering “unknown prospectors drilling horizontally onto their land in their search for minerals.” Yikes. The problem is that landowners there only have surface rights, which means companies like Stelmine Canada Ltd., a Montreal-area mineral exploration company, can stake claims on 13,000 acres of private land in the area. As one resident told the Windsor Star, the unknown prospectors:

came with bulldozers and dug up everything with no letters, warnings or anything. They left the place a total disaster and didn’t fix anything. You feel that you shouldn’t own or develop anything because you could be left completely in ruins and destroyed.

That doesn’t sound very green to us.

[Source: Windsor Star]

Secret, horizontal lithium mines being dug in Canada originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 19:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Volvo launches S80 and V70 DRIVe editions, bringing 119 g/km CO2 to saloon and estate levels

Filed under: Diesel, Volvo, UK

Volvo DRIVe V70 and S80 - Click above for high-res image gallery

A little over two years ago, Volvo introduced four-cylinder engines to the V70 and S80 models. This year, with new clean diesel powerplants, the two models also get the company’s DRIVe badging and now emit just under 120 grams of CO2 per kilometer - one gram under that level, to be exact. The 119 figure is available in either model, but which trim levels achieve that goal was not spelled out. Previously, the lowest CO2 figures available in the S80 and V70 were 129 grams per km.

The new DRIVe V70 and S80 use a 1.6 liter turbocharged diesel engine that boosts fuel economy by 5.1 miles per gallon to 62.8 mpg (UK) on the combined cycle. This means that any range anxiety drivers of these cars have won’t kick in until they’ve driven almost 1100 miles.

Gallery: Volvo DRIVe S80 and V70

[Source: Volvo]

Continue reading Volvo launches S80 and V70 DRIVe editions, bringing 119 g/km CO2 to saloon and estate levels

Volvo launches S80 and V70 DRIVe editions, bringing 119 g/km CO2 to saloon and estate levels originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jersey offers half price parking to green cars

The Isle of Jersey is offering a 50 per cent reduction in parking fees for owners of green cars.
It's not all good news though for the inhabitants of the Channel Island as parking fees in public car parks are going up by 14 per cent.
The Island's Transport and Technical Services (TTS) department is to introduce [...]
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Miliband declares battle on climate deniers

It's not quite war – but it is a battle.
UK climate secretary Ed Miliband declared a "battle" against the "siren voices" that denied global warming was real or caused by humans and those who think there is no need to cut carbon emissions to tackle the problem.
In an interview with the Guardian's Observer, Miliband stated [...]
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