Electric Car – Aminorjourney

Range Anxiety? What Range Anxiety?

For new electric vehicle owners, one of the biggest fears (at least at the moment with few charging stations publicly available) is running out of electricity when making a longer-than usual trip. For those of us who have been driving a plug in vehicle for some time the range anxiety is much less because we know the limits of our vehicles. However, any trip to the ‘maximum’ theoretical of our vehicle’s range always spawns nervousness.

After he saw the theoretical range of the Tesla would reach the Yosemite National Park, one adventurous Tesla owner decided to prove the Tesla sales team correct and take a trip out there for himself.

Yes, that's a Tesla in Yosemite National Park

_{Photo By William A Arnett.}

More after the Jump.

Drive up. Switch out. Drive on. Is it that simple?

Project Better Place have just released a video of a Nissan Crossover SUV EV at a Yokohama facility, switching out a discharged high-power EV battery pack for a fully-charged replacement. The EV then drives off on it’s merry way. It takes less than two minutes to complete. It’s an impressive video.

But is the future of electric vehicles dependent on fast battery switching, or is it an unnecessary complexity?

Let’s look at the things which we’d need to satisfy in order for a high-power battery switch out station to become a reality.

More after the jump.

More from the Citroen Ev’ie. A video from the Electric Car Corporation.

I’m well and truly eating my humble pie about the Ev’ie from The Electric Car Corporation. Today, the Electric Car Corporation uploaded their own publicity video on Youtube. It also seems that Citroen are happy for the conversion, or rather, are tacitly agreeing to the company selling converted Citroens. It’s an interesting piece and seems…

Renault’s new EV likes to dance

Renault France unveiled it’s new electric vehicle yestrday. Okay, so it’s only a prototype at the moment – but it’s an electric version (or Zero Emissions, as Renault like to say) of the new Renault Kangoo Be Bop

The Be Bop itself doesn’t immediately grab my attention. I’m not a fan of the MPV platform. Yes, they may be versatile, but they tend to look like the love-child of oversize family cars and a van. Which, quite frankly, is what they are.

But in this case, it’s rather cute. See, when you look beneath the surface the new Kango Be Bop (which has just gone on sale in Europe) has some pretty neat features such as a sliding tailgate, allowing the whole rear of the car to be open. (This isn’t the first time that this kind of trick has been pulled – Honda did something similar a few years back with one of their trucks – but it’s certainly the fist time in an MPV.)

Still, it’s not that which catches my eye. It’s the specs of the Electric version – and some of the interesting features it sports.

It's not only laptops with cool charge-meters

A plea to all EV makers. Learn how to sell a car…

If you’re wondering about the title of this post It’s quite simple. I’m fed up dealing with all the excuses that car companies make when trying to sell EVs. It’s not going to make them popular. Plus it gives the Jeremy Clarksons of the world ammunition in their mission to hate anything without a V8 and a huge exhaust. And who can blame them. When so many in the EV world make silly claims about their cars or silly excuses about how they perform.

I’ve been thinking about this post for quite some time, ever since I went for a test-drive for an EV in London and found that the company offering the test drive were about as professional as buying a car from a dodgy guy in a pub car-park. Why? It was poor organisation, delivery and knowledge. Oh, and a car which was nearly empty. Not good publicity. (They’ve since improved greatly).

Another EV Grin

Twenty-Seven days ago I tagged along with a friend to London, where we picked up a very rare and historic EV – a 1984 VW Golf City Stromer. For the next few weeks this car sat on my driveway while my friend worked hard to get it back on the road after over two years…

Join me on EVcast tomorrow.

I’d like to proudly announce that I’m going to become the regular Wednesday host of EVcast! If you heard last week’s show you’ll have an idea of what is to come over the next few weeks and months, but hopefully tomorrow will be the second in a long-running series of Wednesday EVcasts, with yours truly…

An EV is reborn

Today is going to be a low post day on www.aminorjourney.com. . It’s because I have spent most of today on the road, traveling the 300 mile round trip between my home in Bristol and the south of London. The purpose? To help a good friend to pick up his first ever EV: A 1985 CityStromer EV.

The G-Wiz goes Lithium Powered (£7,800 more for 27 more miles…)

London based retailer of the REVA, the cute electric car from India otherwise known as the G-Wiz, has started to take orders for the new, improved Lithium Ion powered G-Wiz. Hopefully it’ll let more EV users (and new EV owners) fell like this as the GWiz gets a much-needed boost in range and performance. Photograph…

Out in the wild (Well, almost)

We’re at an exciting time in the world of the EV. If the world’s automakers can be believed, electric cars are anything from a few months to a few years away. (Let’s not concentrate on the recent statement that VW’s CEO made, stating that EVs are 15-20 years away. I suspect he didn’t view the…

Tag: Electric Car