In the Driver’s Seat Blog

I love newspapers (being a newspaper reporter myself), but I’m not that into cars. Conventional cars, that is. I don’t routinely read what’s produced by automotive reporters. With one exception — Dan Neil of the Los Angeles Times. There are good reasons why he won a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism[…]

I’ve had a “thing” for Daimler’s little Smart car since my trip to Paris in 2006 where I observed that the avenues were lined with legions of diesel Smarts. Since then, the appealing miniature perfection of the snobbish little automotive beast has simply turned my head and turned me on.[…]

I was super surprised about a month ago when my brother-in-law from Ohio called to ask if I knew anything about the 3Prong Power conversion kit for Prius vehicles. I hadn’t been keeping up with conversion kit technologies, so I couldn’t give Francis any feedback. Instead, he proceeded to tell[…]

‘Tis the week to be thankful, so let me count the ways… – Being part of the EV movement in the past 7 years has been a feast of rib-sticking satisfaction with exciting dishes of controversy. See Who Killed the Electric Car for details. – I am thankful for my[…]

Two items caught my attention this week. Plug In America has a new ally with the announcement of the creation of the Electrification Coalition. The goal of this high-powered group of corporate executives is nothing less than the complete transformation of our transportation sector, one in which electricity plays the[…]

What does Australia’s Great Barrier Reef have to do with the global adoption of electric transportation Reduction of CO2 emissions, that’s what. The unfortunate fact is that the Barrier Reef has an abysmal 50 percent chance of surviving if carbon dioxide emissions are not cut a minimum of 25 percent[…]

Sometimes I find myself meeting people who don’t believe that global climate change is human induced, yet they are huge fans of plug-in electric vehicles. This sort of encounter happened a couple of weeks ago when I sat in on a large investor gathering to get the “pitch” on the[…]

Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn, at podium addressing suits, beside LEAF show car Maybe it was the number of suits in attendance. Maybe it was the swag, modest as it was. Maybe it was the catered lunch. Sheesh, no one even got arrested. Yep, a number of factors made the launch[…]

As if we needed anything more to worry about, we read today in The Guardian that the U.S. has pressured the International Energy Agency (IEA) to lie about the level of worldwide oil reserves. Ostensibly, this was done because revealing the true level of reserves would cause a financial panic[…]

Reva, the Indian electric car company best known for the G-Whiz in England, has signed a deal to bring their new product to Iceland with sales beginning within a year. The NXG and NXR, revealed at the Frankfurt Motor Show recently, have a Th!nk City-like footprint, 100 mile range and[…]

Nissan has released an official sketch of an electric urban delivery vehicle that looks closer to viable than many EV concepts that have appeared at auto shows over the last few months. It is a somewhat stylized take on the NV200 light commercial gasoline van Nissan sells in Japan and[…]

Finally a more concrete example of automaker plans to recycle batteries. And it appears that Nissan Motor Company is leading the “pack” (so to speak) Nissan will form a joint venture with Sumitomo Corporation to recycle lithium ion batteries for the new EV kid on the block — the Nissan[…]

I had a chance to catch up with world renowned environmentalist Lester R. Brown who has just released a new book Plan B 4.0, available to read online. Brown is a huge proponent of plug-ins and he clearly stresses the connection between renewable energy and the power of plug-in electric[…]

I could have hoped that we were beyond the time when car companies would say they love electric vehicles and then turn around moon us. But I’ve been in the EV world too long to believe we’re done with these shenanigans yet. The latest example — Chrysler, which this year[…]

“But would you be able to drive that Tesla to Vegas?” The answer to the inevitable, omnipresent question is a resounding YES, I COULD especially if I applied the energy-sparing driving techniques practiced by a couple of guys expertly piloting a Tesla roadster through the great Australian outback to achieve[…]