Electric vehicles

Deploying the same successful distribution strategy utilized in North America, Azure Dynamics Corporation (TSX: AZD)(OTC:AZDDF) today announced that it has named RohneSelmer Company AS in Oslo, Norway as its first official European dealership for sales and service of the Transit Connect Electric van.

Chicago International Airport switched to largely pure electric ground support equipment six years ago, preempting environmental regulations requiring airports to clean up their act. Now Boston Logan is taking an altogether more comprehensive view including powering its electric vehicles from photovoltaics on its buildings and introducing experimental new designs of electric vehicle from the other side of the world.

Renault is expanding its range of electric vehicles to include a larger version of the Kangoo Z.E. van.

IDTechEx forecasts of sales of hybrid cars presume that, as the decade progresses, more and more of them will be offered at no price premium.

At the 2010 Paris Motor Show Renault revealed its pure electric Fluence Z.E. sedan. Now production is scheduled to begin this summer at Renault's Turkish manufacturing plant in Bursa.

Italian automotive company Pininfarina is offering its resources to electric vehicle production by leasing their business operations, which is currently at the preliminary contractual stage.

Schindler, a global elevator and escalator provider, has decided to support Solar Impulse, the zero fuel airplane aiming to fly around the world propelled only by solar energy. Schindler will closely follow and support cutting edge technology in various disciplines.

China's foremost electric vehicle and battery manufacturer, BYD Auto, is expanding its influence into Denmark with the introduction of all-electric trial buses for Copenhagen locals.

Monash University is involved in two promising areas of science research that could deliver low cost, no-emission alternatives for our future fuel and energy needs.

Burnaby, British Columbia is to be the location for a new Mercedes-Benz manufacturing facility, which will produce electric vehicle fuel cell stacks.

The recent Geneva Motor Show provided the platform for numerous manufacturers to exhibit their new environmentally friendly vehicles as such ranges become common-place in the lines of commercial car companies. One of these corporations was Land Rover who showcased their hybrid prototype from Range-e.

Over twenty million electric vehicles produced in 2010 will employ on-board energy harvesting to help charge the traction batteries. That includes both hybrid and pure electric vehicles.

Adapting small, populous, publically available units into electric vehicle charging stations is appearing to become something of a trend. Telekom Austria have renovated archaic phone booths into charging stations and now Panasonic Electric Works are set to lead an initiative that will see Japanese motorists charging up at vending machines.

The UK's technology base was given a major boost today when Tata Motors European Technical Centre (TMETC), a wholly-owned UK-based subsidiary of Tata Motors, announced that it will be expanding its partnership with WMG at the University of Warwick. TMETC plans to increase their team of highly skilled engineers working on the campus by 40 per cent over the next two years.

Mr Sohinder Gill, director, Society of Manufacturers of Electric Vehicles in India has recently declared that, powered by an incentive package for electric vehicles announced by the Ministry of New and Renewable energy in November 2010, average monthly sales of electric two-wheelers in India has risen 20%.

In 1994 German naval manufacturer Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft began developing technology for a non-nuclear, super-stealth, hybrid submarine. The first models were released in 2003 with the updated versions recently revealed.

The Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) is calling on Heavy Duty Vehicle (HDV) manufacturers, SMEs1 and academics to take part in what is to be one of Europe's largest HDV efficiency programmes.

In preparation for its launch in Israel later this year, Better Place today announced the company's infrastructure deployment roadmap for the country and previewed the full solution at one of the company's battery switch stations.

The Electric Aircraft Elektra One, developed by Calin Gologan, performed its first internal flight on Saturday, 19 March 2011 at the Augsburg Airport in Germany.

Palo Alto Research Center PARC, developed laser printing, object-oriented programming, and personal workstations with graphical user interfaces. Now it is building a cleantech portfolio.