Elon Musk rips into Nissan Leaf’s "primitive" batteries

Filed under: EV/Plug-in , Nissan , Tesla Motors If there’s ever going to be a green car cage match, we can guarantee that one of the fighters will be Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk, who apparently can’t pass up the chance to take on an competitor. His latest target? The lithium-ion battery pack in the Nissan Leaf , about which Musk had some critical things to say in a conference call with investors this week.

Executives online for live webchat at 4pm today to discuss Chevy Volt battery news

Filed under: EV/Plug-in , Hybrid , Chevrolet , GM Later today, General Motors will make some announcements* regarding the battery pack in the Chevrolet Volt . Volt marketing director Tony DiSalle and vehicle line director Tony Posawatz will be hitting the keyboards this afternoon to answer any questions from readers about the news. General Motors’ massive battery lab in Warren, MI has been cycling battery packs for more than two years through accelerated tests in order to have confidence that the packs will last for 10 years and 150,000 miles

Univ. of California issues $992K grant to study in-home use of EV batteries

Filed under: Etc. , EV/Plug-in , Green Daily A recurring question in the plug-in vehicle world goes something like this: When an electrical vehicle (EV) battery can no longer provide adequate power and range in its primary role of propulsion, then what? More specifically, what else are these partially spent batteries still capable of powering

Is the advanced battery market already too crowded?

Filed under: EV/Plug-in , Green Daily Nissan Leaf battery pack - Click above for high-res image gallery It seems like not a day goes by that we don’t hear about some battery company expanding its operation by opening more plants to produce hundreds of thousands of advanced batteries.

Magna International invests $400-600 million in battery production

Filed under: EV/Plug-in Ford Focus Electric battery packs - Click above for high-res image gallery Magna International has decided that it will invest between $400 million and $600 million in lithium ion battery production over the next three years.

Report: Toshiba working with automakers on lithium ion batteries

Filed under: Emerging Technologies , EV/Plug-in , Hybrid , Honda Toshiba is no stranger to the consumer electronics battery business, but now, like so many other companies, it wants a piece of the burgeoning automotive market. Ryuichi Nakata, head of Toshiba’s grid and battery unit, announced that the company is collaborating with several unidentified automakers to adapt its new super charge ion batteries (SCiB) for use in hybrid and plug-in electric vehicles. Toshiba currently has a plant under construction in northern Japan to produce the new cells

Bake it, drown it, fire bullets at it - how batteries are tested in the real world

Filed under: Emerging Technologies , EV/Plug-in , Green Daily We know that General Motors has the largest battery lab in the world , one that’s capable of carrying out all kinds of scientific tests, but that’s a little boring, if you ask us. If you want to test a battery’s durability, do you really need fancy lab equipment and sophisticated computers?

Report: Sanyo to get into li-ion EV and hybrid market big-time, claims 40 percent global share by 2020

Filed under: EV/Plug-in , Hybrid , Green Daily After supplying batteries for the record-breaking Mira EV (pictured), Sanyo had little choice but to follow it up with something big. So that’s just what they did.

2011 Nissan Leaf US pricing officially announced: as low as $25,280*

Filed under: EV/Plug-in , Nissan , USA It’s official: starting this December, Nissan dealerships in select U.S markets will start selling the all-electric Leaf , the first mass-produced, zero-emission vehicle, at a starting price of $32,780. After $7,500 worth of federal tax credits, the price should drop to as low as $25,280. There are several states offering additional tax credits that could lower the cost of owning a Leaf even more - such as a $5,000 statewide tax rebate in California, a $5,000 tax credit in Georgia and a $1,500 tax credit in Oregon

Analyst discounts lithium-ion battery oversupply reports

Filed under: EV/Plug-in , Manufacturing/Plants Not too long ago, some analysts were predicting a big oversupply of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles . Yeah, that sounded strange to us, too.

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