Click Here - Orb Audio Speaker SaleCash for Clunkers was a hit, but not as big as it might have been. Is there a cheap Tesla in your future, or perhaps Bob Dylan in your dashboard? And we take a ride in a hybrid you'll either want to luxuriate in...or key!
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SHOW NOTES
The new Lexus HS250h: Straying too far from the mission of a compact hybrid?
(Credit: CBS Interactive)• CNET Review of the Lexus HS250h
• Think is back in the electric car business, sort of.
• Tesla to build an electric car you can really afford
Chinese auto company BYD plans to bring an all-electric sedan in small numbers to the U.S. next year.
The company chairman Wang Chuanfu told the Wall Street Journal that the company, which is part-owned by investor Warren Buffet, is now gearing up for a U.S. push. It plans to raise money by offering shares in the company in China to help finance the expansion.
BYD's e6, its high-end all-electric car it plans to bring to the U.S. in small numbers next year.
(Credit: BYD)BYD plans to offer a few hundred of one of its most advanced cars in the U.S., the five-seat e6, which takes seven to nine hours to fully charge and has a 250-mile range.
Initially, it will make the $40,000 car available to "government agencies, utilities and maybe some celebrities" in a specific region, Wang told the Journal during a factory tour of the BYD's lithium ion battery factory.
Part of the goal with the car introduction is to raise brand awareness of BYD with American consumers, he added.
BYD already sells plug-in hybrid sedans with a small gasoline engine that charges the batteries to fleet owners.
Although BYD is still not well known with most consumers, the company has gotten a lot of media attention, in part because of Buffet's $230 million investment. Also, BYD appears to be one of the front-runners in making electric cars for the mass market.
Other automakers betting on all-electric cars include Coda Automotive, Mitsubishi, and Nissan, which introduced the Leaf earlier this month.
Volkswagen has a test fleet of 20 plug-in Twin Drive Golfs on the road, but no word on an exact production date.
(Credit: Volkswagen)Volkswagen may be late to the gate with hybrids and electric cars, but its recent partnership with Chinese automaker and lithium ion battery producer BYD shows that the German car company is a serious contender in the race to supply the masses with an electric car.
Volkswagen has already signed letters of intent with Sanyo and Toshiba as suppliers for electric batteries, and the company is currently exploring an arrangement with BYD to supply VW with lithium ion batteries for its upcoming plug-in and all electric vehicles, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal.
BYD is one of the largest manufacturers of lithium ion batteries. High demand and cost has made these batteries one of the road blocks to building affordable plug-in and electric vehicles.
However, the battery-maker-turned-car-manufacturer has been able to make stable and durable lithium ion batteries at half the cost of batteries produced in the west and Japan due to its safer, most cost-effective iron-phosphate-based lithium-ion technology.
... Read more
Fortune magazine is no one's idea of a tree-hugger's handbook. But the April 27 issue features a green cover and a front-page photo of billionaire Warren Buffett in front of a BYD E6, an electric car from China in which Buffett is investing.
The BYD story is one of five articles in the current Fortune about the race to market a commercially successful, environmentally friendly electric car. Fortune was hardly alone among general-interest media outlets in observing this month's Earth Day by offering green-car coverage: so did The New Yorker, The New York Times, and U.S. News & World Report, to cite a few.
As automakers ramp up production of--and publicity about--alternative-technology vehicles, general-interest media are boosting reporting on green cars and trucks. For the most part, automakers and media watchers say that coverage has grown in quality as well as quantity in recent years.
But some critics argue that green-car reporting in consumer media reflects a pack mentality, embracing and then discarding alternative technologies: ethanol, fuel cells, plug-in hybrids, electric cars. Others say that much coverage emphasizes the politics and economics of green vehicles to the exclusion of important technological issues and is prey to corporate hype.
Nancy Gioia, director of sustainable mobility technologies and hybrid-vehicle programs at Ford Motor Co., talks regularly with reporters about green cars. She says mass-media coverage of alternative-technology cars and trucks is more balanced and less gee-whiz than a few years ago. But she adds that she still must work to dispel misunderstandings.
"One of the misconceptions is that the auto industry is the only factor of CO2 on the planet," Gioia told Automotive News. "Then there are concerns that batteries won't last and aren't safe. At the same time, there's a perception that the cost of battery technology is very affordable and that it's going to drop far faster than it will.
"We're bombarded with information from all media sources, and it's getting harder and harder to discern fact from fiction."
... Read moreGUANGZHOU, China--BYD is a small automaker here but a major producer of lithium ion batteries for cell phones.
The company wants to use its expertise in batteries to make practical plug-in hybrids.
At the Detroit auto show, BYD will show its F3DM plug-in hybrid, which is on sale in China in limited numbers.
BYD President Wang Chuanfu told Automotive News China that U.S. sales are possible in 2011, but he has not spelled out specific plans.
In September, BYD received a $232 million investment from American billionaire Warren Buffett.
BYD also plans to show another plug-in hybrid, the F6DM, and the E6, a seven-seat electric van.
Another Chinese automaker, Shenyang Brilliance Jinbei Automotive, will display four models in Detroit: the BS6 mid-size sedan, the BS4 compact car, the BC3 sporty coupe, and the FRV hatchback.
Brilliance plans to sell cars in the United States but has provided no details about its distribution and dealership plans.
One company source expects Brilliance to attempt U.S. sales in about 2011.
The company is reworking the BS6 and BS4 so both can meet stringent U.S. crash and emissions standards. Brilliance hired Porsche AG to work on the crash engineering of the BS6 and BS4. FEV, a U.S. engine technology company, will redo the cars' emissions engineering.
In China, Brilliance operates a joint venture with BMW AG that produces BMW cars.
(Source: Automotive News)
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The Chevy Volt and the Tesla Roadster might be getting all the press in the States, but in Europe there are a few more contenders in the electric-car market. Check out our roundup of the, ahem, current crop of new electric cars at the 2008 Geneva auto show.
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