Daimler

car2go, the car-sharing service that began in Ulm, Germany in 2008 before spreading to Austin, Texas, Hamburg, Germany and Vancouver, Canada, has now announced it will launch a service in San Diego that will be the first car-sharing program in North America with a 100 percent electric vehicle fleet. The San Diego car2go program is due to start operations before the end of 2011 with 300 smart fortwo electric drive vehicles. Read More

As project leaders for the public/private EV Project (which has also received a funding injection from the U.S. Department of Energy), it is the responsibility of clean electric transportation and storage technologies experts ECOtality to oversee the installation of thousands of commercial and residential electric vehicle charging stations in various locations throughout the U.S. EV owners visiting select IKEA stores in the Western United States will soon be able to top up while they shop, thanks to a partnership formed between the home furnishing retailer and ECOtality. Read More

Electric vehicles (EVs) may be set to charge smarter following an announcement by the HomePlug Powerline Alliance at Computex 2011. The body responsible for the compliance and certification of the HomePlug powerline communications standard said that German automakers Audi, BMW, Daimler, Porsche and Volkswagen have thrown their support behind the HomePlug GP (Green PHY) standard that will allow electric vehicles to be connected via existing home electrical wiring to a home network or send and receive data over the internet via the vehicles' charging ports. This will not only allow EVs to intelligently take advantage of lower cost, off-peak electricity, but will also allow for remote checks of the vehicle's systems and battery condition. Read More

Daimler's car2go car sharing service kicked off in Ulm, Germany in October 2008 before expanding to Austin, Texas in 2010. Earlier this month, Hamburg, Germany, became the first city with more than a million inhabitants to see the introduction of the car2go service, but the second won't be far behind with a launch set for Amsterdam before the end of the year. One point of difference for the Amsterdam fleet is that the 300 strong fleet will consist purely of electric drive smart fortwo vehicles. Read More

Electric vehicles offer quiet operation, zero local emissions and instant torque – attributes that are attractive across the transport sector, not just for cars and motorcyles. One of these areas is light trucks and the Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corporation (MFTBC) Canter E-CELL concept is a taste of things to come on urban roads. Based on the 3.5 ton Fuso Canter 3S13, the Canter E-CELL sees the combustion engine replaced with an electric motor producing peak power of 70 kW and 300 Nm of torque. The result is a range of around 75 miles with top speed limited to 50 mph, while recharge time on the 40 kWh battery pack is around six hours via a 380-volt power network. Read More

smart USA announced today that it will be collaborating with Nissan on a new five-door car. According to a Memorandum of Understanding between the two companies, smart USA would obtain the rights to procure and distribute a five-door, gasoline powered, B-segment vehicle from Nissan for sale through the smart USA retail dealership network. Read More

Last year in the German city of Ulm, Daimler started up an experimental car-sharing system called car2go. It incorporated a fleet of 50 smart fortwos, that users could pick up in various locations, drive as long as they wanted, and then leave within the city. Ulm’s program is now up to 20,000 members and 200 cars, while a younger sister project in Austin, Texas, is up to 10,000 members. Given that success, Daimler has just announced a new “car2go edition” of the fortwo, designed specifically for use in the program. We got a look, at the 2010 Paris Motor Show. Read More

Daimler has announced that its smart fortwo electric drive will cross the Atlantic later this year. The tiny two seater, which has a rear mounted 30 kW electric motor producing 120 Nm of torque, a range of 100 km to 135 km and can be parked pretty much anywhere, is slated to reach cities in USA and Canada in Q3. Read More

Late last year we brought you news that the City of Austin, Texas, had launched a rather radical car2go pilot program. Well, after the successful trial, this May the city will go public with the car-sharing system. The pilot began with a joint partnership between the City of Austin and Daimler where 200 smart fortwo vehicles were made available 24/7 within the city to a select group of city employees and their relatives. Now, the number of cars has been increased and all Austin residents and students can apply to utilize them. Read More