With the Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf coming to market later this year, plug-in hybrids and pure electric vehicles are gaining much praise, yet the charging station infrastructure is quite limited. Enter Ecotality, an electric transportation company prepared to launch 15,000 public charging stations in 13 markets.
Fiat SpA has been selling significant volumes of natural gas-powered vehicles in the European market for several years. Now Fiat executives are promoting Chrysler electric vehicles in the U.S. market as a viable transition method during the next two years, before electric vehicles join the ranks of Chrysler products.
On average, a three-year-old used car is 11.1 percent higher than it was last year, and General Motors has some of the most dramatic examples of this trend, according to Edmunds.com. All types of used cars are up 5.5 percent. The normal trend is usually just 3.5 percent.
Terrafugia has cleared a major FAA hurdle to producing its $194K Transition car-plane by 2011 to over 70 waiting customers. Transition is being marketed as the next "wow" vehicle to private pilots who want a plane without the added cost of storing it at a hangar and having to find ground transportation on both ends of a trip.
Luxury car safety features using radar to sense up-coming crashes and cruise control that adjusts to traffic ahead are now more affordable with TRW's 24GHz sensor. These features could find themselves in more vehicles providing all-weather safety improvements.