Category: Autoblog

Last week, Volkswagen of America announced it would build it's first US factory since it's Pennsylvania factory closed in 1984 in Chattanooga Tennessee. The new plant will build a new mid-sized replacement for the Passat. What CEO Stefan Jacoby…

Click the photo for a high-res gallery of Volt
GM Chairman Rick Wagoner announced that the company has awarded two advanced development contracts for battery systems to be used on the GM E-Flex platform. For those who have missed the news for the…

California based Zap! wants to move to lithium ion batteries in their Xebra electric vehicles, and one of the keys to making them work is proper management of the charging system. To that end they've signed an exclusive licensing deal with Danish…

Power-train engineering consultant Ricardo is partnering with QinetiQ to try bring the cost of lithium ion batteries down so that they can be commercially viable. They have launched a two-year project called RED-LION (reduced cost lithium ion) to try…

A few weeks back I did some informed but utterly unconfirmed speculation about the nature of the deal that Tesla Motors had struck with Daimler. Of the two scenarios that I posited, the more likely was that Tesla would be supplying lithium ion…

Ford Transit Connect – Click above for high-res image gallery
Following yesterday's announcement that Canada Post would acquire 1,175 Ford Transit Connects for its fleet, DTE Energy has acquired 19 of the vans as part of its sustainability efforts.…

Click on Jay's super-Vette for a high-res gallery
For the latest addition to his mega-garage Jay Leno has collaborated with Pratt & Miller to create a Corvette with body-work inspired by the C6R racers and ethanol flowing through its veins. The C6RS…

Freeman Thomas with the Airstream concept
During the concept car ride that Ford held at their Dearborn proving ground this week, some of Ford's top designers including Peter Horbury and Freeman Thomas were on hand to answer questions from the…

2010 Tesla Roadster Sport – click above for high-res image gallery
We just received the October edition of the Tesla Motors newsletter and a careful read indicated a very troubling statement near the end:
If you custom-order your car online, in…

2010 Audi R15+ – Click above for high-res image gallery
Audi has just dropped a bunch of photos of the new livery that its R15+ TDI race cars will wear for 2010, beginning with the cars competition debut this weekend in France. The heavily revised…