Automobiles

Last year, the City of Boston ordered that all cabs must be converted to hybrids by 2015.  However, last April, taxi drivers sued the city over this and today the judge ruled that Boston cannot force cabbies to buy hybrids.

Currently, most of the taxis are refurbished police cars (mostly Crown Victorias) and cab owners are required to keep all cabs in their fleet under 6 years old.  The taxi drivers said that this ordinance could put them out of business and that they aren't against ultimately greening the fleet.

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San Diego is trying to get ahead of the curve and spearhead the next stage in automotive history.  I recently wrote about how the California city will be one of five designated spots for Nissan to sell its new Electric Vehicle, the Leaf. Nissan chose this city because it is part of a giant Department of Energy battery funding project.  The city will receive $400 million to create infrastructure for a new all electric fleet.  All this goes together with a recent announcement from the San Diego Gas &amp... read more

Tesla owners rejoice!  No longer are you stuck waiting for power to drive you little roadster.  Nope, now a 40 amp, standard outlet can completely charge your Tesla Roadster overnight.  This negates the need to use (and install) the costly High Power Charger provided by Tesla.... read more

After a recent article about Tesla Motors turning a profit, I received a friendly e-mail from a regular reader that I was actually painting a false picture of the automotive landscape.  This was of course the last thing I wanted to do.  The reader wrote that I wasn't highlighting a couple of bright spots in the auto-field, mainly Ford and Hyundai.  I knew of both of these companies' situation but was focusing on Tesla, the only all-electric car company with such profits, in the article.  In the pursuit of being fair and balanced, I want to present the recent news on these two automakers, too.

First, Ford, an American automaker, posted a quarterly profit of $2.3 billion.  This impressive profit was mainly due to onetime gains resulting from debt restructuring this past spring.  The automaker did improve its American market share by 2 percentage point. The company only one of the big three that did not need any type of bailout fundings is banking on hybrid and improved gas efficiency to keep this streak of profit alive.  Ford will improve fuel efficiency in all vehicles approximately 20 percent through the end of 2010 vs. 2005, and the company is on track to improve fuel economy by more than 35 percent by 2015.

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What kind of car has 526 horsepower, 649 pound-feet of torque and can go 0 to 60 in four seconds?  Why an all electric one, silly.  Yes, Mercedes Benz plans to create a Gullwing Super Car that provides zero-emssions.

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