A partnership between an LA-based electric car startup and a Chinese auto maker intends to produce “the most affordable EV on the market.” On Tuesday Coda announced that it has a new deal with Great Wall Motors Company to co-develop a low cost electric car. Read more »
If a breakthrough air-breathing battery design, created by none other than IBM, ever makes it out of the lab, the world could one day see an electric car with a whopping 500-mile range — about five times what the current electric cars today are offering. Read more »
Kleiner Perkin’s partner Ray Lane is not listed as a general partner on fund documents for prospective limited partners for Kleiner Perkin’s next early stage fund, though Lane will still be active at the firm, reports Fortune’s Dan Primack. Read more »
This quarter the EV market struggled to find its footing. Meanwhile, the smart-grid sector solidified and low-power technology proved itself important in the data center. Read more to learn what these news pieces and others mean for the larger space over the next few months. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
As The Daily Show’s John Stewart says in this interview with Tesla co-founder Elon Musk: a lot of people talk a good talk about ambition and sustainability, but not everyone builds a rocket, an electric car and a company to proliferate solar power. Watch the clips! Read more »
The Ford Motor Company, which will typically spend up to $100 million on a TV-rich ad campaign when it launches a new car, is creating its own original reality competition series on Yahoo to spark interest in its new Focus Electric model. Read more »
Electric car startup Fisker Automotive unveiled a design prototype of its second extended-range electric car that is now being called the Atlantic (formerly called Project Nina) at an event in New York City on Tuesday night. Read more »
When it comes to electric cars, it’s already slow going, so why make electric car charging more confusing, says GigaOM Pro analyst Adam Lesser, who takes a look at the early emerging market for electric car charging networks. Read more »
Lithium ion battery maker A123 Systems announced that it will replace some of the battery modules and packs that it’s sold that could contain defective prismatic cells, and that includes batteries for Fisker’s electric car the Karma. Read more »
With electric cars slowly rolling out in 2012, can a business model be built around providing a new kind of testing equipment for electric car chargers? A startup called Gridtest Systems hopes so, and has just started selling its diagnostic machines. Read more »
Updated: Electric car startup Fisker Automotive pushed its long-delayed inaugural electric car to market before it was market-ready in order to try to meet government milestones, according to a former Fisker employee that left the company. Read more »
Electric-car startup Coda officially drove its first ready-to-ship electric car off the assembly line at its plant in the Northern California city of Benicia, California, on Monday morning, saying that the move is the start of its customer sales. It’s been a long time coming. Read more »
A pioneer of the electric car industry has launched a startup focused on managing the charging of groups of electric cars plugged into the power grid. Read more »
General Motors is suspending production of its electric car the Volt for five weeks to help supply catch up with demand, according to The Detroit Free Press. Read more »
Check out this idea: a next-generation electric car where you could refuel the battery’s electrolyte in the same way you’d fill up an internal combustion car at the gas station. Read more »
A startup called Envia Systems that’s been working on lithium ion battery technology says it’s developed a key breakthrough that could one day lead to an electric car that has a 300-mile range and could cost around $25,000 to $30,000. Read more »
A few early Roadsters that have been left without a charge for an extended period of time, have turned into so-called “bricks.” Here’s what Tesla has to say about it: Read more »
Last week an investor, Daniel Wray, who put a couple hundred thousand dollars into electric car company Fisker Automotive, filed a lawsuit against Fisker and Fisker’s fund raiser Advanced Equities. Check out the lawsuit itself: Read more »
How likely is it that electric car company Fisker Automotive will be able to draw down on the remaining $339 million of its Department of Energy loan? According to one analyst, not likely. Read more »
Tesla reported fourth quarter and full year earnings on Wednesday and in its shareholder’s letter revealed that it has started a development program with Daimler to build a new electric Mercedes-Benz vehicle with a Tesla powertrain. Read more »
Electric car company Coda Automotive is raising more funds as it moves closer to shipping its first electric sedans. According to a filing, the company is looking to raise another $150 million, and has closed $21.5 million of that round. Read more »
Tesla’s flashy unveiling of its Model X electric SUV/minivan last week looks like it’s paid off in reservations. The car company announced on Tuesday that just a day after the launch, Tesla had accumulated reservations for more than $40 million worth of Model X sales. Read more »
Tesla’s unveiling of the Model X, an SUV-minivan electric car, this week signals to the world that the electric car can truly go mainstream despite the current difficulties in the EV market. A minivan — the world’s least cool car — just got hip, green, and sporty. Read more »
Following the sneak preview of Tesla’s third electric car the Model X, an SUV/minivan combo, on Thursday, Tesla threw a party where it officially unveiled the car and invited a thousand or so guests to celebrate the launch. Here’s our pics from the event: Read more »
We took GigaOM TV’s Green Overdrive show down Tesla’s sneak preview of its Model X, electric SUV/minivan launch, and got this first hands-on video with the car and an interview with Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk. Check it out: Read more »
It’s now clear that the delays for Fisker’s electric car the Karma have veered the company off track. But just how far is Fisker from its original goals? Read more »
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said that he thinks the electric Model X, which will be unveiled on February 9th, will be “cooler” than any SUV or minivan on the market. Tesla teased the frame of the car in its invitations. What do you think? Read more »
Some good news and bad news for the beleaguered battery maker Ener1. On Thursday, the company announced it’s filing for Chapter 11 in New York, but has done so under a pre-arranged restructuring plan that includes commitments for up to $81 million from investors. Read more »
One day it could be common to have a home battery to store energy from a solar panel, and some battery makers and startups showed off their home batteries at DistribuTECH this week. Read more »
After a variety of strategies and around $100 million in funding, startup Tendril is now largely a software company, and on Tuesday at the DistribuTECH conference in San Antonio, Tendril announced a big partner in its play to provide the software layer for electric vehicles: BMW. Read more »
Despite Coda just going into production of its inaugural electric sedan, the startup will announce on Friday it’s launching a division that plans to sell its batteries and battery management system to act as energy storage for the power grid. Read more »
Lithium-sulfur battery maker Sion Power said in a government filing near Christmas that it had raised $50 million from an unnamed investor. Now the mystery is over. The company on Thursday revealed that the equity came from chemical giant BASF. Read more »
Electric car maker Fisker Automotive ended 2011 with a couple hiccups: including a recall and a slower ramp up in production of its Karma. Now kicking off 2012, Fisker has decided to quietly double its current fund raising round from $150 million to $300 million. Read more »
Let’s face it. For cleantech, at least in the U.S., this year was kindof a bummer. But that’s what New Year’s resolutions and wishes are for: turning a new page when the year starts over. Here’s what I want from cleantech in 2012. Read more »
While electric cars are the subject of much media attention, the future of cars for the next billion people to enter the middle class on the planet could be bare-bones, low-cost cars like Tata’s $2,500 Nano. Read more »
If there is one thing to know about the pace of progress for battery innovation, it’s this: There is no Moore’s law for batteries. The rapid progress that has been made over the past decade in silicon and computing makes the pace of innovation in batteries, ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
It was a tough week for electric cars, with Chevy Volt’s sales falling short and Aptera’s filing for bankruptcy. The barriers to EV adoption are widely known but center around a few major issues, including range anxiety, charging time and initial cost. Range anxiety and unease ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
In a followup to my previous post on electric car maker Aptera shutting its doors, I’ve confirmed with the Department of Energy that it did NOT give Aptera a conditional commitment for a loan of $150 million. Read more »
Electric car maker Aptera has officially shut its doors after years developing three and four-wheeled electric cars and coming close to receiving a $150 million DOE loan. Read more »
If you like the sun, and you like cars, then I’m guessing you’d love to have a solar-powered car, right? This trick works well for chocolate and peanut butter, but not so well for garlic bread and strawberries. So how compatible are cars with solar energy? Read more »
