The cover story of the current issue of IEEE Spectrum is a profile of Denise Gray, the GM executive in charge of making sure that the Volt’s battery packs are delivered—on time, in adequate quantities, at an acceptable cost. That could be the most critical role for the project.
By most accounts, Nissan missed the ball on hybrids. Today, the company has a single hybrid car available to consumers, the Nissan Altima Hybrid, but it’s only offered in eight states. But the company is looking very determined to make up for lost time. This week, Nissan gave journalists a glimpse of how its first dedicated hybrid-specific vehicle might work.
Lotus, the British performance carmaker, Lotus, has introduced a new device that makes hybrid cars louder. Since hybrid cars first hit the market, concerns have been raised about the potential risk who may not hear hybrids in a cross-walk.
The size, shape, and primary attributes of a 2018 model American car will bear little resemblance to today's vehicles. The most visible signs of a car revolution already in the works can be seen today in the shift from large SUVs and trucks to small cars—and the growing popularity of gas-electric hybrids. But there's something more transformative at play. By 2018, the American love affair with the car will become platonic.
In early July, various print and online media announced that Toyota would offer a rooftop solar panel as an option on the next generation Prius due in 2010. Some hybrid fans got excited about the possibility of on-board solar energy generation, while solar power and automotive experts cast the news aside as fluff.
Chrysler is showing signs of desperation. The company signed its second deal with a Chinese carmaker in recent months—this one one apparently aimed at filling the company’s void of small, fuel-efficient cars as quickly and cheaply as possible.
Some forward thinking auto-watchers imagine using vehicles with large-capacity batteries as adjuncts to the power grid so that cars become “cash-back hybrids” that would, in theory, make money for their owners. But for those worried about the present, it's more a matter of: “Let’s just get the batteries driving the wheels first!”
A sobering reminder of the hazards in adding plug-in capabilities to hybrids comes from reports that a plug-in Prius conversion was destroyed in a fire. The news spread quickly through the online community of plug-in enthusiasts, bringing calls for all known information to be publicized as quickly as possible.
In a speech at Fresno State University in California, Republican presidential candidate John McCain outlined a series of new proposals for dealing with the energy and environmental crises that figure to play a bigger role in this year's elections than ever before.
These days, auto safety recalls don’t get much attention, so the news that General Motors was recalling 9,000 of its 2007 Saturn mild hybrids to replace the high-voltage battery pack in each one was no more than a blip in the press. But behind the scenes, it was an expensive and annoying distraction for General Motors, and a huge blow to Cobasys, makers of the nickel-metal-hydride batteries. For six months now, GM has been forced to divert batteries it should have fitted to this year’s mild hybrids toward its dealers’ repair bays instead.
