Chevy (re)Volt Song and Dance

I just thought I’d care enough to share this with you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvwTMZNWGuk

Echo and the Funny Men

While my car waits for some final parts, the Echo conversion is progressing well and we hope to have it drivable very soon. There’s an EV show coming up and the Echo will be perfect for it, taking pride of place amongst the smaller vehicles and some funny guys riding funny go-carts etc – yet demonstrating what can be done with the new generation of lithium phosphates. Small cars will be a big feature, with lots of folks contending for the ‘smaller is better’ stakes – hah-hah.

Like the Getz, the Echo is reasonably easy to convert (and a lot easier to work with than the angular confines of my Starion) and if such things were mass-produced as EVs to start with, the price would be a lot lower than a converted car (in fact comparable to a gas equivalent).

More talk? More action please!

While Ford are thinking of releasing a fully-electric work van in 2010, Mercedes has got in on the EV action with a proposal for a new EV in a B-class range, namely the BlueZERO.

Mercedes BlueZERO concept car

Blue is not so Green?

While the BlueZero has a concept proposal for a 100% electric ‘E-cell’ vehicle, we wonder if this will actually come about as compromises in the form of internal combustion range extenders are also in the planning for complementary models. However, they have touted a battery range of 200km or so on electric only for a single charge – not bad. Their ‘hybrid’ version would extend the range to some 400km or so, and a fuel cell version is also proposed. All these range figures are arbitrary, as whatever batteries they wind up using will chiefly dictate this. Evonik are in the game for now.