By Scott Doggett, Contributor Ask a Tesla Roadster owner why he drives one and invariably you'll be told it's for the environment. Mother Nature, you think. Climate change. Polar bears. And that's half true. Maybe even three-quarters true. But drive a Tesla Roadster – especially the 2010 Tesla Roadster Sport – and you soon learn about the other environment, the one few motorists know. Here are a few examples of what that environment looks like: In the next lane, at a stoplight on a road that skirts Stanford University, a smirking Corvette ZR1 owner revs his otherworldly 638-horsepower 7.0-liter V8. You twist the key in your ignition forward an eighth of a turn, which instantly switches the drive mode from Standard to Performance. The traffic signal changes, you and the 'Vette driver floor it. Three seconds later the powerful Chevrolet is occupying space in your rear-view mirror. Traction-control limitations. The Chevy salesman probably forgot to mention them to the now-frowning ZR1 owner. Then there's the blue Infiniti G37 Sport 6MT with the close-ratio six-speed manual transmission and the short-throw shifter, one lane over on the 101 Freeway approaching San Francisco, Candlestick Park on the right. He's playful, as are you, and just like the Corvette driver soon he, too, is a shrinking part of the landscape behind you despite his best efforts to outpace and then just keep up. And then there's the Miata owner, poor thing, taking a sweeping onramp as quickly as possible, white…

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2010 Tesla Roadster Sport Gives Driver More Torque for His Environmental Causes

The California agency that sets the American standard for automotive emissions today unveiled a much-improved Website that helps consumers choose the least polluting cars on the market. ———- Click on art to enlarge. ———- The California Air Resources Board Website, using information collected for vehicle certification in the golden state, offers a practical and easy to use system that ranks vehicles according to their emission characteristics and provides tools to compare models. The site allows visitors to view models by technology/fuel type, smog score, global-warming score and engine family. And there's a very smart tool that, with a click of your mouse, allows you to view all the tax incentives available for a particular model. Last year, the agency adopted a state regulation requiring automakers to affix the Environmental Performance Label to California showroom models that convey the vehicle's smog and greenhouse-gas emissions. The simply illustrated graphic has two rankings, from one to 10, that depict vehicle emissions. The higher the

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California Launches Online Buying Guide That Rates Vehicles by Greenness

International agreements between heads of state often are more about politics and posturing than about getting things done. We're hoping this one is the latter. President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao shook hands over a U.S.-China Electric Vehicles Initiative agreement during the prexy's visit to the Middle Kingdom earlier this week. Bot countries are actively promoting development of electric vehicles (China more so than the U.s., we think – but it is easier when you're a government without effective opposition) and the pact calls for them to to: Develop common standards for chargers, plugs and test procedures. Identify research and development needs, manufacturing issues and issues related to the introduction and marketing of EVs and prepare a “roadmap” to help vehicle developers keep on top of technology and marketplace evolution. Pair select U.S. and Chinese cities for joint demonstrations of EVs and related technologies, with data on charging and vehicle use patterns, grid integration, customer preferences and other useful stuff to be

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US, China Agree to Cooperate on Electric Vehicle Education, Standards and R&D

Production of the Smart ForTwo ED plug-in electric vehicle began this week at Daimler AG's factory in Hambach, France, the automaker reported today. The first 1,000 of the zero-emissions ForTwo EDs (electric drives) will be provided to customers participating in various mobility projects in major cities in Europe and the U.S. in order to generate broad feedback on electric driving under everyday conditions. That said, the current, second-generation ForTwo ED equipped with the most modern lithium-ion battery pack won't be available to the general public until 2012. At that time, it will be produced as a regular part of the Smart product portfolio and be sold through the Smart sales network. The Smart brand has taken a pioneering role in electric mobility since 2007. Back then, 100 ForTwo EDs of the first generation went into practical customer operation under everyday conditions of city traffic in London. Feedback from that project was very positive and a year later Daimler introduced the second-generation ForTwo ED with a more advanced electric drive and a better lithium-ion battery pack. As for the Hambach plant, it was inaugurated in 1997 and a year later began building Smart ForTwos. By September 2008, more than 1 million ForTwos had been manufactured at the plant. Today, the ForTwo is present in 41 countries. Most of the ForTwos are sold in Germany, Italy and the U.S., and those markets are expected to be big ones for the electric version.

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Production of Smart ForTwo ED Battery Electric Vehicle Gets Underway in France

Tesla Roadster No. 203 wired for recording background tire noise for video games. A little story about a green car and noise. Tesla owner, SCCA racer and Microsoft executive Tom Burt writes in the Tesla Motors blog's

Concern among some taxpayer and environmental groups that Chrysler's recent decision to downplay development of fuel-efficient electric vehicles violated a pledge used to gain federal bailout funds are unfounded, an administration official says. ———- Chrysler, which based part of its federal bailout on promised development of electric vehicles such as this “EcoVoyager” concept, has pulled way back on electrification plans since emerging from bankruptcy. ——— “We obviously would be very happy if Chrysler and GM were making lots and lots of high mileage cars [but] it's not a prerequisite. It's not an obligation” of the bankruptcy bailout funding, auto industry restructuring task force chief Ron Bloom said

By John O'Dell, Senior Editor Introduction of the long-awaited Aptera 2e all-electric three-wheel vehicle has been delayed until sometime next year, a quarter of its small workforce has been laid off and its co-founders have taken leaves – one of them permanently – as the company slogs through a painfully slow private financing campaign it had hoped to close by now. ———- Aptera 2e prototypes sit on copmpany's new assembly line

Mazda Motor Corp. was honored today with the 2009 Technology of the Year award from a non-profit coalition of Japan-based automotive critics and journalists for the automaker's i-stop idling stop-start system, which is a little perplexing. A stop-start system automatically shuts down and restarts an automobile's internal combustion engine to reduce the amount of time the engine spends idling, thereby improving fuel economy. The technology isn't new. Daimler, Fiat, Toyota and other automakers have been putting it in some of its vehicles for a while. So why exactly did the 2009 Automotive Researchers' and Journalists' Conference of Japan decide to recognize Madza's stop-start system now? It's a good question, one we've put to spokesmen for the conference and the automaker. After waiting four hours for a response, we went ahead and posted this piece; we'll update if and when an explanation is offered. In a statement issued to the media, Mazda wrote that its i-stop system is fitted to direct injection engines and uses combustion energy to restart the engine in just 0.35 seconds, about half the time necessary for most other competing systems. This might be why Mazda received the award, but it wasn't stated. The i-stop system also suppresses noise and vibration as the engine shuts down and restarts, ensuring that drivers experience a natural driving feel with no sense of discomfort. Most other stop-start systems do that as well.

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Mazda Wins Innovation Award for Its Stop-Start System But Reason Why Isn’t Clear

Norwegian electric-car maker Think has plans to launch its vehicles in the United States and has picked a site in Indiana for its U.S. manufacturing facility, Reuters news service reported Tuesday, citing a major investor in the company. The exact location and other details will be announced in a few weeks, said Charles Gassenheimer, chairman and chief executive of lithium-ion battery maker Ener1 Inc, which has a 31 percent stake in Think and has had financial problems of its own. Think had said previously it was exploring the opportunity to launch its vehicles in America and was considering opening a new U.S. manufacturing plant and technical center. Gassenheimer declined to give more details on Think's plans in the American market, but said the carmaker has applied for a U.S. government loan under a program set up to encourage production of fuel-efficient

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Norwegian Electric Vehicle Maker Think Plans Factory in Indiana for Its City Car

Car is Heavier Than Chief Engineer Would Like, but There's Time to Slim Down Video of Volt battery pack crush test shows just one of the scores of indignities the packs have been subjected to in an effort to find any flaws before they go into production cars. By John O'Dell, Senior Editor With a year to go before production begins on the 2012 Chevrolet Volt, General Motors has 80 prototypes running around the country to test the critical battery and power electronics systems and program managers say they're happy with what they re seeing – except, perhaps, around the car's waistline. There have been problems – mostly small ones that have been resolved – Volt's new chief engineer, Andrew Farah, said in a media briefing this afternoon. One ongoing concern is weight – the battery pack still weighs in at more than 400 pounds, and the car is heavier than Farah would like. Although not critical to the launch, it's an important issue as every pound of weight eats into fuel economy and battery range. Farah (left, with pre-production Volt model) wouldn't say what the actual or target weights are for the car, GM's first extended-range, plug-in hybrid. He did say that efforts to …

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Chevy Volt On Track and Meeting Goals As Vigorous Testing Proceeds, Says GM