My Clean Break column is a defense of electric vehicles, which are often dissed by auto reviewers who can’t wrap their heads around a world not dominated by noisy, smelly, polluting vehicles. Yes, the internal combustion engine can become and is becoming more efficient. Yes, the internal combustion engine will be here for decades to come. But electric vehicles, despite the pronouncements of some skeptics, will not be dead on arrival. What these folks fail to take into account is that many of the problems associated right now with electric vehicles are likely to be overcome within the next 10 or 20 years as the rate of adoption begins to pick up. The amount of innovation going on in this area is unprecedented, and the benefits will become clear enough by 2020. Nobody is claiming electric vehicles will completely take over. Nobody is saying the adoption of electric cars will be quick. But electric cars are coming – get used to it – and the world will be a better place for it.

It’s time to stop stubbornly clinging to the past.

Arlington, Virg.-based GridPoint Inc., a leading smart grid platform developer, has acquired a small Seattle company called V2Green, which is leading the charge — excuse the pun — toward grid-vehicle interaction as electric-car development gathers momentum. Basically V2Green has “smart charge” software that will synchronize the charging of electric vehicles that connect to the grid, aided by an on-board vehicle communications device that talks/negotiates with the power utility when an EV is plugged in. (more…)

I have a story in today’s Toronto Star about exploratory talks taking place between the Ontario government’s ministry of economic development and Better Place, the Shai Agassi venture that has electric-vehicle infrastructure projects on the go in Israel and Denmark. Sean Harrington, head of global development at Palo Alto, Calif.-based Better Place, said Ontario and the Toronto region specifically is a “good fit” for the Better Place model because of the high population density in the area — 5 million people within a 180-kilometre radius. He said talks are preliminary but that there’s already an effort underway to find a car manufacturer willing to participate in “Better Place Ontario” by locally manufacturing electric cars for such a project. (more…)