Clean Break » electric cars

Desperation or long-term planning? Daimler AG acquires 10 per cent of Tesla

Tyler — Tue, 19 May 2009 14:04:44 +0000

The subject line speaks for itself. Perhaps this will spark Ford and GM to take similar equity stakes in other emerging EV companies. Now, some may point out that the big car companies also had/have stakes in fuel-cell companies (i.e. remember Ballard). But this is different. Tesla has a car and is selling it today. It’s expensive, but it already has plans to sell its less flashy sedan in the coming year.

Here are a few places to read about the news:

Actual announcement here. Earth2Tech coverage here. CNET coverage here. And AP/CP coverage here.

A universal cellphone charger? Nice idea, even if years late

Tyler — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 01:38:57 +0000

Personally, I must have a dozen chargers from cellphones of Christmas past. I hate throwing them away, even though I’ve yet to find them useful for anything else. So it was with great delight that I heard about attempts to establish — finally — an international standard for cellphone chargers that would prevent unnecessary duplication of electronic crap that ends up in landfills (though I heard Apple and its iPhone is the odd one out). Thankful, car manufacturers seem to have learned from this mess and, apparently, such a standard is accepted for the connectors/cables used to charge up electric cars.

Better Place coming to Ontario

Tyler — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 12:55:47 +0000

Seems the talks I reported on last summer between the Ontario government and Better Place have proven fruitful. Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and auto industry officials, as well as Better Place’s Shai Agassi, will host a conference call/press conference at 10:30 a.m. (EST) in Toronto this morning to discuss a new partnership with Better Place. This adds Ontario to a list that includes Denmark, Israel, Australia and California.

Details to come, but for background here’s a story I wrote for the Toronto Star back in September.

UPDATE: A few bullet points from Better Place’s announcement…

It appears to be a symbolic commitment. Very early days. No money has changed hands, though there has been handshakes.
Better Place will set up its Canadian head office in Ontario.
It will also establish an electric vehicle demonstration and education centre in Toronto.
The government will do a comprehensive study, to be released in May, that will look at ways to accelerate the manufacture and deployment of electric vehicles.
Better Place will at the same time come up with a charging-network plan and estimated timeline for building it out. This will also, presumably, estimate costs.
Toronto-based “green electricity” retailer Bullfrog Power has partnered with Better Place as its electricity provider, though it’s unclear where this partnership will actually lead.

I’ll be writing a more detailed story for the Toronto Star, so check back for the link tomorrow.