March 13th, 2013
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) recently published a very misleading op-ed on electric cars. Given their similar history on climate change and oil subsidies, I’m sure this shocks you as much as would a dog bites man story. But the frequency of opinion pieces in the Journal and other publications that are peddling bogus memes around electric vehicles (EVs) calls for continued push back. Read More
December 19th, 2012
$1.5 billion in a single day. That’s the estimated value of internet purchases made on Cyber Monday this year, up 17 percent from last year and the current record. Most of those purchases, ranging from iPads to Furby’s, will have traveled thousands of miles by ship, train, or truck before making the final leg of their trip in a local delivery truck. Of course, internet shopping prompts the question: Is getting the package delivered to your house better or worse for the environment than picking it up at the store? Read More
October 31st, 2012
Lost in the noise of the news of battery maker A123’s bankruptcy filing is an ongoing fight over who will get their hands on A123’s battery technology and manufacturing capacity. If clean tech like electric vehicle batteries was such a bad bet, as naysayers have tried to claim, you’d think nobody would touch the assets with a 10-foot pole. But, the naysayers are wrong. Read More
October 25th, 2012
October 17th, 2012
Fall is officially here and television lovers are tuning in to the new season of their favorite shows. And, in an annual ritual dating back more than 60 years, we TV viewers are also tuning in to commercials from car companies promoting their 2013 Model Year (MY) line of cars and trucks. Of course, for me the start of the new model year also means it is a great time to look at all the sales data that’s now out for MY 2012 to see if there are any new plot twists when it comes to hybrid and electric cars. Read More
September 26th, 2012
California leads the nation in plug-in car sales, but the state isn’t resting on its laurels to maintain dominance in the emerging market for zero tailpipe emission vehicles. Read More
September 24th, 2012
A recent survey of electric vehicle (EV) owners shows that a significant number of Californians may be leaving hundreds of dollars a year in fuel-cost savings on the table. The survey by the California Center for Sustainable Energy suggests that more than a third of EV owners in some utility territories may not be on the utility rate plan that would save them the most money. Read More
September 11th, 2012
Imagine that 8 out of 10 cars on California roads release no tailpipe emissions, that the telltale exhaust plumes of soot from ships sailing into our ports are no longer visible, and that freight trains run on electricity. These are a few examples of what California air quality regulators, including the Air Resources Board and the air districts of the San Joaquin Valley and South Coast regions, envision in the recently released Vision for Clean Air. Read More
September 7th, 2012
At the beginning of every month, automakers report their sales and auto journalists and analysts pore over the data to see what trends there are to see. Many of the stories that result seem to indicate that doom is on the way for plug-in electric vehicles, so I dug into the data to see what big trends there were to uncover. Read More
July 16th, 2012
Seeing an electric vehicle driving down the street isn’t really a novelty anymore, at least not in the San Francisco Bay Area. I no longer do a double take whenever I spot a Chevy Volt or a Nissan LEAF. Granted, there are far more gas-powered vehicles on the road, but it’s clear that electric vehicles have finally hit the streets. And more and more automakers are offering electric variants for consumers to choose from. Read More
© 2013
