Posts Tagged ‘miss electric’

If you reserved a Nissan Leaf electric vehicle, chances are that you’ve already been contacted by Nissan to schedule your first test drive. For the rest of us, there’s the Drive Electric Tour and it may be coming to a city near you.

For those who live on the west side of Los Angeles, that magical test drive happened this past weekend at Santa Monica’s annual Alt Car Expo.

Nissan set up a large-scale test drive center for the expo that resembled an amusement park ride (minus the life-size cartoon characters). Those who have already reserved a Nissan Leaf were notified before the event and could register early for their spin around the block.

After registration, drivers were invited to wait in a general lobby area where you could meet and chat with other zero emissions enthusiasts as you waited for your chance to drive Nissan’s new green machine around the test track.

Even though I’ve already reserved a Leaf of my own, I decided to give up my spot and let others take a turn behind the wheel. I was able to test drive Nissan’s EV two months ago at Plug-In 2010 event in San Jose and wanted to let someone else get enjoy the exhilaration of electric power.

What astounded me about this particular display, however, was the sheer number of people there to experience electric drive. Everywhere you looked there were smiling faces and excited people.

There really is only one way to understand the beauty of electric drive…and that is by getting behind the wheel of a green machine. Nissan plans to offer 50,000 test drives across the country this fall and you can check tour dates and schedule a test drive of your own here.

.

Shannon Arvizu, Ph.D., loves driving clean, green machines. You can read more at MissElectric.com

The Kia Pop Concept is beyond Car 2.0. This is Car 3.0.

The South Korean automaker’s futuristic three-person city car was unveiled at the 2010 Paris Motor Show and it’s one concept car I hope makes the passage from fantasy to reality.

About the size of a Smart ForTwo, the Pop Concept’s design is centered around the user experience. The long, sweeping windshield is meant to provide optimal vision for driver and passengers while the chic purple interior is enhances ambiance and style.

All the controls for the vehicle are accessible via one button in the cabin that powers a touch screen Transparent Organic LED display. This display shows the speedometer, battery’s state-of-charge, and other readouts on a small piece of plexiglass in front of the steering wheel.

As for the technology under the hood, the Pop Concept goes beyond the electric cars coming to market this year with a new battery technology based on lithium polymer gel. This new gel can hold more energy than current lithium-based batteries and Kia promises more energy storage at a lower cost.

The concept is said to have a 100-mile driving range and a top speed of 87 miles per hour. A small seat for a third person is located behind the front passenger.

Says Gregory Guillaume, Kia Europe’s Chief Designer: ”We’re trying to stir things up in the automotive world, to surprise people even more. We wanted this car to act as a loose nucleus, a wild atom,”

.

Shannon Arvizu, Ph.D., loves driving clean, green machines. To read more, visit MissElectric.com.

The Chevy Volt, GM’s extended-range electric vehicle, is set to hit the pavement in select cities in the next six months. You can reserve your own Volt online, but what if you want to see and feel it in person first?

The Chevy Volt will be on tour this fall, with several stops across the country for you to get up close and personal with the car that GM promises will revolutionize the way we drive.

The “Volt Unplugged” tour includes a fleet of six Chevy Volts that will be available for test drives. You will also have a chance to meet with a team of engineers, designers, and others who will be on hand to share details on the Volt’s technology and story.

So which cities are on the tour?

• Oct. 9 and 10 – Seattle
• Oct. 13 and 14 – San Francisco
• Oct. 16 – 18 – Los Angeles
• Oct. 20 – San Diego
• Oct. 22 and 23 – San Antonio
• Oct. 24 and 25 – Houston
• Oct. 28 and 29 – Miami
• Oct. 30 – Orlando
• Oct. 29 and 30 – Washington, D.C.
• Nov. 1 – Raleigh, N.C.
• Nov. 5 – 7 – New York City
• Nov. 18 – 20 – Chicago

Don’t worry if your city or state is not included on this tour or on the first wave of production vehicles this fall. The Volt will first be sold in California, Texas, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Michigan, and Washington DC and General Motors plans to sell the Volt nationwide 12-18 months later.

You can register for your own test drive on ChevroletVoltage. Just be sure to come back and let us and other Honksters know how you liked the car!

.

Miss Electric, Ph.D., loves driving clean, green machines. Follow her at MissElectric.com.

Remember the Honda Accord Hybrid sold from 2004-06? You may have to dig deep because Honda sold fewer than 6,000 of those cars in its final year before deciding to cancel the hybrid model. New rumors suggest that the Honda Accord Hybrid may make a comeback soon, though.

But first, why did the first generation Accord Hybrid fare so poorly?  Critics say it’s because Honda engineered the car for performance instead of fuel economy. Rather than convert electrical energy into miles per gallon, Honda used the hybrid’s motor and battery pack to add about 15-horsepower to the already stout 240-horsepower V6 engine.

The result was the world’s first “performance hybrid” that boasted the power of a 6-cylinder engine and the fuel economy of a 4-cylinder engine. Had Honda added its hybrid system to the Accord’s thriftier 4-cylinder engine, it may have given competitors like the Toyota Camry Hybrid a run for their money.

Maybe the Honda Accord Hybrid was simply ahead of its time, though. I had a chance to drive two new muscle-bound hybrids recently: the BMW ActiveHybrid X6 and the Cadillac Escalade Hybrid. While these large sport utility vehicles are very different from a midsize sedan, they do share the old Accord Hybrid’s preference for power.

Both of the models I drove featured burly V8 engines with a two-mode hybrid system that allows for all-electric driving at low speeds. The fuel efficiency gains of these two hybrids are modest, but no one can complain that these brawny ‘utes are slow.

So what will the new Honda Accord Hybrid offer? It’s too early for specifics, but my hope is that Honda will change direction this time and uses those extra electrons to eke out more MPGs instead of horsepower.

If there are any muscle hybrid drivers out there, sound off and share your thoughts.

What makes an ultimate commuter car? How about fast, stylish, and cheap on fuel? That’s the idea behind a new version of electric cars tailored for drivers on a mission to their daily 9-to-5.

In fact, there is currently an around-the-world race taking place right now made only of these ultimate commuter cars. The Zero Race, as it is called, is made up of teams from four continents that compete to traverse the planet in 80 days using no gas at all. The only rules of the race are that the vehicles:

• Be propelled by an electric motor
• Drive at least 250 kilometers (about 155 miles) distance at an average speed of at least 80 kilometers per hour (about 50 miles per hour)
• Be able to reach a maximum distance of 500 kilometers per day (about 310 miles), with a recharge stop of 4 hours during the competitor’s lunch break
• Carry at least two people on board

The race started on August 16 in Switzerland and you can follow along on their journey here.

I had the opportunity to drive around in one of the original versions of these commuter cars two years ago. The Sparrow was originally conceived of and produced by Lee Iaccoca and I had a chance to take one out for an exhilarating spin around the block. Some say the concept was ahead of its time. While that may be true, I definitely had fun putting the pedal to the metal in this baby. And the looks that I got from passerby’s were priceless.

I happened across another electric commuter car at this year’s Plug-In 2010 conference called the Arcimoto Pulse. The Pulse is less designed for speed as it is for comfort and efficiency. It features room for two and a has an MP3 stereo system to accompany your ride around town. It has a 40-mile range, a top-speed of 65 mph, and charges in 4 hours.

Electric commuter cars revolutionize the way we think about mobility. Does it really make sense, for example, to drive our SUVs that seat eight if we are going solo to our jobs? These cars are yet another example of the wide variety of technologies that are shifting our transportation sector towards clean electric drive.

Dr. Shannon Arvizu loves driving clean, green machines. You can find out more at MissElectric.com.