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Tesla Sales & Share Price up 20 Percent

Tesla Motors said Tuesday it sold 6,900 Model S electric cars in the last three months of 2013 — 20 percent above the previous forecast.

On news that the company delivered 6,900 Model S cars in the fourth quarter, Tesla’s shares spiked 15.74 % in regular trading, and another 3.56 % in after-hours trading.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based Tesla had forecast just under 6,000 Model S sales in the fourth quarter. Tesla delivered about 22,400 Model S vehicles for all of 2013.

Diarmuid O'Connell, vice president of development for Tesla, said demand remains strong for the vehicle, but the company continues to wage battles with franchised auto dealers in different states. Tesla sells its vehicles directly to consumers, not using franchised dealers, which has drawn attacks from many of the dealer groups around the country.

Mr. O'Connell said Tesla is now fighting new political battles in Ohio and New Jersey, and expects a battle in Georgia. Last year, Tesla waged fights in Texas, Virginia, North Carolina and New York.

"We have had some success when we have been able to shed some light on the issue," he said. "But dealers in some states have not changed their point of view" on Tesla's sales system.

Tesla said it is still on target to deliver the first Model X sport-utility vehicle by the end of the year, but the company didn't give any other updates on the vehicle. Currently, the Model S is its only model.

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CHRIS HARRIS – 2014 Chevrolet Volt Review [VIDEO]

YouTube's DRIVE channel test specialist Chris Harris reviews the 2014 Chevrolet Volt.

The Volt electric car has a backup engine to extend its typical 80 km electric range. It is quick, quiet, and responsive, with a taut ride. Once the lithium-ion battery is depleted, the 1.4-liter engine acts as a generator to extend the range by 500 km with Volt drivers averaging 1500 km between fill-ups. Recharging take 4 hours using a 240-volt supply and 10 hours with 120 volts. Lease deals start from $269 / month.

Overall the Volt is a brilliantly executed example of automotive innovation that makes any ICE only car seem primitive by comparison. It combines the benefits of a full EV powertrain with a part-time duty-cycle ICE to provide 600 km of combined range. Where the Toyota Prius is an ICE powered car with electric assistance, the Holden Volt is a plug-in electric car with ICE assistance.

The Volt fills the gap between the 500 km all electric range Tesla Model S, which due to it's 85 kWh battery can costs up to $100k, and the more affordable but shorter range battery only cars like the Mitsubishi iMiEV and the Nissan Leaf.

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Toyota Prius: Top-selling car in California Again!

The Toyota Prius isn’t just the best-selling hybrid in the US, it is the best-selling car in California according to the California New Car Dealers Association for the second year running.

YTD November 2013, the state received 54,063 new Toyota Prius registrations, not including fleet sales, commercial customers, the government and rental car companies. The Prius edged out the Honda Civic, which reported 50,580 new car registrations up to Q3 last year.

Toyota vehicles actually secured three of the top 5 spots in 2013:

  • Toyota Prius – 54,063
  • Honda Civic -50.580
  • Honda Accord – 48,071
  • Toyota Camry – 43,855
  • Toyota Corolla – 40,941
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    Audi e-tron Allroad 400 HP plug-in hybrid concept officially revealed

    The Audi Allroad Shooting Brake has been revealed ahead of its motor show debut in Detroit.

    The show car’s engine is a 2.0-litre petrol with 288bhp and 280lb ft of torque, which drives the front axle. This is supplemented by a 54bhp electric motor that’s integrated within the six-speed automatic gearbox.

    The second motor is mounted to the rear axle, and produces 114bhp and 199lb ft of torque. It can either power the car on its own – in rear-wheel-drive pure electric mode – or combine with the powertrain over the front axle to turn the Allroad Shooting Brake into a four-wheel-drive hybrid.

    In pure electric drive mode, the rear motor can propel the car up to 80mph, while the battery can power the car for 31 miles. A hybrid mode lets the engine and motors work together as efficiently as possible, permitting the front motor to top up the lithium-ion battery when required.

    This generator function means that the pure electric range can be replenished, which would allow for multiple stints of all-electric driving on a long enough journey. The car has a range of 510 miles using the most efficient settings. Average fuel economy is a claimed 148.7mpg, while CO2 emissions are just 45g/km.

    There are ‘Hold’ and ‘Charge’ settings within Audi’s redesigned MMI infotainment system that allows the driver to choose how the battery’s charge is managed. Hold mode will keep the battery at its current state of charge, while Charge mode will replenish it until it is full.

    The final drive mode is Sport, which combines the petrol engine and both motors to give a total power output of 402bhp with 479lb ft of torque. In this set-up, the car has a 0-62mph time of 4.6 seconds, and a limited top speed of 155mph.

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    Nissan Expect U.S. Leaf Sales To Double in 2014

    Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn said he expects to double Leaf sales in the United States in 2014.

    Sales of the battery-powered Leaf jumped 130 percent last year to a record 22,610, aided by 2,529 deliveries in December, the most ever in a single month for the carmaker. That figure should keep rising, Ghosn said in a CNBC interview.

    "We are now on a trend of 3,000 cars a month in the U.S., which is about 36,000 cars" a year, Ghosn said. "The next step is moving up to 4,000 a month, which is going to be approximately 50,000," he said, without setting a target date.

    Nissan and other automakers delivered a record number of hybrid and rechargeable cars and light trucks last year as the industry remains under U.S. pressure to boost fuel efficiency. Sales of vehicles powered partially or entirely by electricity totaled at least 578,000 units last year, up more than 100,000 units from 2012 and accounting for about 7.5 percent of all new cars sold in the U.S. last year.

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    Harvard Team develop Organic battery that costs only $US 27 / kWh

    Harvard researchers have developed a battery that harnesses energy by using the electrochemistry of organic molecules rather than metals. The battery, which they say can be applied on a power-grid scale, uses naturally abundant and small organic compounds called quinones rather than electrocatalysts from costly precious metals such as platinum.

    Quinones would be inexpensive to obtain and can be found in green plants or synthesized from crude oil. The battery designed by Harvard scientists and engineers used a quinone molecule that's almost identical to one that's found in rhubarb.

    Unlike solid-electrode batteries, flow batteries are recharged by two chemical components dissolved in fluids that are kept in separate tanks. Flow batteries are well suited to storing large amounts of energy, but a major drawback to metal-based flow cells has been cost.

    According to MIT Technology review, a conventional metal-reliant flow battery costs an estimated $700 per kilowatt-hour of storage capacity, whereas the Harvard team's metal-free technology would bring those costs down to $27 per kilowatt-hour.

    "The whole world of electricity storage has been using metal ions in various charge states, but there is a limited number that you can put into solution and use to store energy, and none of them can economically store massive amounts of renewable energy," said Roy G. Gordon, one of the researchers who helped screen more than 10,000 quinone molecules to find the best candidate for the novel battery.

    "With organic molecules, we introduce a vast new set of possibilities. Some of them will be terrible and some will be really good. With these quinones we have the first ones that look really good."

    Source: Harvard

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    New season of Fully Charged – Volkswagen XL1 [VIDEO]

    Robert Llewellyn test drives 'the most fuel efficient production car in the world' according to VW.

    Volkswagen made big claims about the efficiency of their purpose-built XL1 diesel-hybrid. They claimed the car was good for 314 mpg, which equates to 0.9 l/100km in the Metric system.

    However, at a test drive event organized by VW last July, a handful of journalists were given the chance to drive the mid-engined XL1 and results ranged from 160 to 200 mpg.

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    SIM-Drive Develop 4 motor AWD electric Toyota 86 [VIDEO]

    The EV SIM-86e, a Toyota 86 developed by SIM-DRIVE, was exhibited at the Odaiba Motor Fes. The car is an 86 based EV, with all 4 wheels powered by independent motors.

    Technical specifications haven't been released (in English at least) but we can make some educated guesses. The AWD EVs developed by SIM-Drive to date, SIM-Lei, SIM-Wil & SIM-Cel have all used direct drive in-wheel motors. We can see from the picture below, the standard friction brakes are visible in the wheels so the SIM-86e must be running in-board motors.

    In developing the SIM-86e, Tajima Motor Corporation used E-RUNNER technology, which the company has been developing for racing vehicles to participate in the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb. TMC Chairman of the Board and SIM-Drive President and Director Nobuhiro Tajima explained:

    “Since our development of a 4WD automobile with a twin engine, we have been playing with such car-control technology as multiple power sources and 4 independent motors. In the SIM-86e we have thoroughly employed the control know-how cultivated through developments to E-RUNNER technology.”

    While the Pikes Peak winning E-RUNNER was all-wheel-drive, it used only two motors driving the wheels through a differential on each axle. The motors were supplied by GKN and belived to be 2x AFM-240 Axial Flux motors, each capable of 335 kw (455 hp) and 1200 Nm Peak. As the GKN Evo motors are not suitable for in-wheel mounting we might speculate that the SIM-86e may be running 4x in-board AFM-140 Axial Flux motors driving the wheels via standard half-shafts, with or without gear reduction.

    “This year there were some wet roads, and for that reason our times didn't improve. However, with next year’s dry conditions, I think it may be possible to achieve a new course record. Also, our efforts for next year’s car are making it compatible with a fast charger, meaning we will get technological feed back for product version EVs as well. Both for practical reasons and in times of crises, EV’s clearly need to have the ability to charge quickly. I’m confident that fast charging technology for harsh motor sports conditions will be useful for developing the product versions to come.”