Tesla will be producing a $60,000 all electric sedan scheduled to be released in 2010 announced by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today. The Model S will go 225 miles on a single charge. The plant was suppose to be in New Mexico but will now be located in California due to some financial incentives under the California Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority. An estimated $100 million worth of manufacturing equipment will be leased to Tesla by the state and would save Tesla as much as $9 million. Tesla would also benefit from a grant worth at least $1 million to train its new employees under a state Employment Training Panel. By producing the Tesla Model S in California, it will help the state meet a goal of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2020 under the landmaker legislation AB32. The current Tesla sportscar costs $89,000 so the sedan will surely be a hot commodity. The 2009 model is already sold out with a $5,000 wait list. There are a lot of highly anticipated electric and hybrid cars coming out in 2010 and it will be a great time to be in the market for a new car.
This isnt a new video, but it is a good and detailed video describing the details of the Aptera. Aside from being a very fuel efficient cheap car, it has some cool technology such as using video feeds instead of rear view mirrors and a touch screen navigation/media system. Since it is a three wheel vehicle, it can travel in the HOV carpool lane which makes it an awesome commuter car. I am very tempted to get one, but there still isn’t much detail about when production is actually starting. It is scheduled to start anytime now but to actually get one could take up to a year depending on how many people are on the reservation list.
The Senate voted on a bill by Senator Barbara Boxer to overturn EPA’s decision on blocking California and 13 other states from requiring automakers to cut emissions by 30% in new cars and trucks by 2016. The bill passed 10 to 9 with Sen Tom Carper, a Democrat voted no while a Republican, John Warner sided with the rest of the Democrats and voted yes. The original bill required passenger vehicles under 3,750 pounds to average 43.7 mpg by 2016 and trucks by 26.6 mpg. Under the current cabinet, it will not make any difference since President Bush would veto it but this may make a difference for the next cabinet. All three current Presidential candidates, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain support California’s efforts so that is good news. With a Democratic President, we will probably see more improvements, but as of now, it does not look good. If Obama is the Democratic candidate, he will not be able to win over all of America and McCain will be the next President of the United States.
The BMW X6 is coming out this year but the Hybrid version will be coming out next year which I would love to have. Well, i don’t mind having any X6 actually because a mix of the X5 SUV and a Coupe looks pretty nice to me. The Sport Activity Coupe launches in 2009 with a 4.4L turbocharged V-8 thhat uses a two mode hybrid system. BMW chose to use the hybrid technology on a heavy powerful vehicle so that the fuel savings is much larger than applying it to a smaller vehicle. The Chevrolet Tahoe, GMC Yukon and Cadillac Escalade all share the same technology which was developed by the Global Hybrid Cooperation. The ActiveHybrid technology will have a 20% reduction in fuel consumption. The current BMW X6 V-6 model gets an average of about 17 mpg and the V-8 gets about 15 mpg so the hybrid version should get about 18 mpg. That isnt very fuel efficient compared to pure Hybrids but the X6 is still pretty sweet if you want a car for its safety, performance, and power.
A test done was done on a 545 mile London to Geneva stretch with a BMW 520d diesel sedan and a Toyota Prius and surprisingly, the BMW got 41.9 mpg while the Prius only got 40.1 mpg. Everyone knows the Prius as being the ecofriendly Hybrid car but no one would ever expect a BMW to perform better when it also weighs 500 lbs more and claims to have 66 mpg. The story is on the Sunday Times of London where there is also a video. Both cars attempted to make the trip on one tank of gas but the Prius ran out due to a smaller tank size. Diesel cars are popular in Europe but it is quite the opposite in the US. BMW however iss actually planning to sell diesel cars in the US starting in 2008 with the X5 3.0d and eventually the 530d and 535d. We will see if the diesel versions catch on since there are such strict regulations here.
