As expected, Tesla has repaid its government loan nine years early, becoming the first American automaker to have paid back the government.

Originally awarded a loan by the Department of Energy in 2010, Tesla sent over $451.8 million today to repay the full loan with interest. The loan was originally granted as a milestone-based loan and as part of the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing program.

SEE ALSO: Tesla Aims to Repay Government by Wednesday

The payment made used a portion of the approximately $1 billion raised in Tesla’s offering of common stock and convertible senior notes. Elon Musk, Tesla CEO and co-founder, purchased $100 million of common equity.

“I would like to thank the Department of Energy and the members of Congress and their staffs that worked hard to create the ATVM program, and particularly the American taxpayer from whom these funds originate,” Musk said. “I hope we did you proud.”

Discuss this story at Tesla-Forums.com

Elon Musk, Tesla’s ever enigmatic CEO, announced over Twitter that the company will likely repay its government debt by Wednesday, May 22. 

“Given govt loan repayment this week (prob Wed), Supercharger update will be next week. Work continuing independent of announcement,” Musk said through his Twitter account yesterday.

SEE ALSO: Tesla Offers $450M in Stocks, Musk Buys $100M Worth

A Tesla spokeswoman confirmed to Reuters that he was referring to repaying the Department of Energy loan.

Last week the company announced that it would use $452.4 million from a bond and stock offering to repay the loan in full with interest.

Discuss this story at Tesla-Forums.com

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, public charging stations in America increased from 5,200 on December 18, 2012 to 5,678 on March 22, 2013.

That’s about a 9 percent increase in available public charging stations as demand slowly increases for EVs including the Tesla Model S and Nissan Leaf, in addition to plug-in hybrid variants like the Chevrolet Volt.

It is estimated that the U.S. will add around 1,900 stations this year for a total of around 7,100 nationwide. Charging stations are most popular in California with 1,207 stations while Washington has 326 and Oregon has 310. Apart from the west coast, Texas has 432 stations and Florida currently houses 352.

The published figures from the Department of Energy also showed that Walgreens has 365 stores nationwide with public charging stations while Kohls has 55. Whole Foods also has 39 stations across the country.

Discuss this story at GasStinks.com

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is backing away from its previously announced plan to see 1 million electric cars on U.S. roads by 2015, saying the timeline isn’t really all that important.

“Whether we meet that goal in 2015 or 2016, that’s less important than that we’re on the right path to get many millions of these vehicles on the road,” an Energy Department official said.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu (pictured) outlined a plan during the Washington D.C. Auto Show that could be a more realistic outlook at the pace of EV adoption by American drivers.

Achieving that and reducing emissions have both been key parts of the Obama government’s automotive plan. Regulations for corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) numbers to reach 54.5 mpg by 2025 are still in place, and electric cars will probably play a key role in helping automakers achieve that.

High costs and questions about long-term reliability hurt sales so far, but the DOE is backing a new plan now to promote research into lithium ion battery technology that could help lower those costs. The plan aims to lower the cost, which currently sits at $650 per kilowatt hour to $300.

[Source: Reuters]

Discuss this story at GasStinks.com

A year riddled with controversy for electric cars is winding down, but not without at least one more flare up — Chinese firm Wanxiang Group won the bidding war for A123 Systems.

Almost certain to stir up controversy, Wanxiang was one of four bidders competing to take control of the bankrupt U.S. battery maker in Chicago last week. Of the four, Johnson Controls was the only American company submitting a bid, but it wasn’t enough to compete with the Chinese firm’s $257 million bid.

The development has several politicians up in arms including Republican member of Congress, Marsha Blackburn who said in a blog post that any sale of A123 to the Chinese had “significant implications” for U.S. national interests.

Part of that concern, which was voiced on Friday before the winning bid was announced, probably stemmed from the fact that A123′s client list includes the U.S. military. Some might be concerned that Wanxiang’s winning will mean U.S. military technology slipping into Chinese hands, but that issue was quickly quelled. Instead, the company’s government and military projects will go to Navitas Systems for $2.2 million.

SEE ALSO: A123 Eyed by Foreign Bidders on Auction Date

Apart from military technology, A123 has something else taxpayers are likely to feel uneasy over Wanxiang taking — their money. The company received  $249 million in federal grants to promote domestic battery production. Some might see the sale as tax dollars evaporating.

But that might not necessarily be the case.

“We plan to build on the engineering and manufacturing capabilities that A123 has established in the U.S. and we are committed to making the long-term investments necessary for A123 to be successful,” said president of Wanxiang America Pin Ni.

The bidding might be over, but the final sale is still subject to approval by the bankruptcy court. Nothing is actually done yet, and if Wanxiang ends up taking A123 afterall, the deal will be likely be carefully examined.

Assuming things move forward, there is also one other important thing to keep in mind. This won’t mean American jobs being shipped overseas, at least not in the near future. The Chinese firm will acquire A123′s automotive, electric-grid and commercial business assets including its three U.S. factories which will continue to operate.

Aside from preserving jobs, that also means automakers like Fisker will still have a source for their battery packs.

Government loans to Fisker are under fire by a pair or Republican senators who disagree with tax dollars going to a company that is owned, in part, by a foreign country.

Chuck Grassley and John Thune, senators from Iowa and South Dakota respectively wrote a letter to Energy Secretary Steven Chu regarding the Department of Energy’s subsidy. ”Why should the American taxpayer have to accept the credit risk of a company owned by a foreign government,” they said in the letter.

In total, the DOE has agreed to loan Fisker $529 million, though a healthy chunk of that has yet to be paid out. Grassley and Thune’s complaints stem specifically from the Qatar Investment Authority owning a stake in the company.

Fisker insists that it is focused on creating American jobs and on keeping its business healthy. Given how unreliable the DOE can be with doling checks in a timely and predictable manner, isn’t it silly to fault a business for keeping itself afloat? Of the initial figure, Fisker has only seen $193 million.

Earlier this year the company reported selling 1000 units worldwide and total revenue equalling $100 million, something it might not have achieved without worldwide investment. More than anything, that would raise the question of whether or not the DOE should be giving tax money out to businesses that might go belly up in general, not just Fisker.

Across North America, 15 teams  will be participating in the EcoCar2 Challenge, a three-year alternative fuels vehicle competition sponsored by General Motors and the Department of Energy.

Over the span of three years, GM will award around $100,000 in prizes to the students participating in the challenge, but the competition also functions as a job interview. Recently, Year One winner of the EcoCar2 Challenge was announced – Mississippi State University – but a dozen students were interviewed with a dozen job offers made “on the spot” according to Kent Helfrich, Executive Director of Electronic Controls and Software at GM.

The EcoCar2 Challenge pits students from various universities to refine an alternative powertrain for the new 2013 Chevrolet Malibu. For Year One, the teams were judged on their engineering design plans and technology simulation with GM awarding vehicles and funds to certain teams that met its requirements.

In the previous EcoCar Challenge, students from the University of Virginia were able to increase the fuel economy of a Saturn Vue from a scant 24 mpg to an impressive 80-mpg figure.

Currently the 2013 Malibu is rated at 29-mpg and the EcoCar2 Challenge will test the teams to see how much more efficient they can make the Malibu’s fuel economy. The Year One winner, Mississippi State University, will be working to implement a series-parallel plug-in hybrid variant of the Malibu when they receive the vehicle next year.

[Source: CNet]

With the EV-Everywhere initiative, President Obama is looking to spur the creative minds of business men, engineers and scientists across the country to make electric vehicles more affordable to own and drive in the next 10 years.

One of the biggest challenges pressing car makers and buyers today is the price of gas. President Obama’s latest EV pushing strategy is meant to help the American public from having to rely on gas powered vehicles. The goal of the project is to have 5-passenger affordable American electric vehicles that will pay themselves off in five years or less and be capable of getting the average American to and from work without worrying about range. Obama said he would like to see these five vehicles on the road by the year 2022.

“The EV-Everywhere Challenge is focused on advancing electric vehicle technologies and continuing to reduce costs, so that a decade from now, electric vehicles will be more affordable and convenient to own than today’s gasoline-powered vehicles,” Secretary Chu said yesterday at an event at a Daimler Truck factory in Mt. Holly, N.C.

The initiative will bring together the ideas from several offices at the Department of Energy and aims to find ways to bring down costs of the various parts of electric vehicles.

This process will involve reaching out to Universities, laboratories and businesses. Additionally, to recruit more bright minds, workshops called EVerywhere will take place across the country in the next few months.

The EV-Everywhere challenge is the second challenge issued by the Department of Energy as part of their “Grand Challenges” model. Their last challenge involved finding a way to make solar power directly cost-competitive with electricity from fossil fuels by the end of the decade. More challenges are expected over the next few months to find better ways to harness clean energy.

Bright Automotive has just announced its plans to close up shop. It blames the Department of Energy (DOE) for not helping secure a $314 million loan.

In a letter to DoE secretary Steven Chu, Bright execs wrote that the government failed them and ultimately lost “hundreds of great manufacturing and technical jobs … and thousands of indirect jobs in Indiana and Michigan”

The company was founded in 2008, and planned on releasing a plug-in hybrid van (seen above) but has yet to manufacture any.

In 2007, the government offered loans to companies that would produce energy-efficient vehicles. Programs like this helped get Tesla off the ground, but lately it seems like the DOE is killing off more ideas than breeding innovation.

Readers may be reminded of another inventive company called Aptera which also closed its doors a short while ago. Both companies floundered after finding that their projected funding from the DOE program would fall through.

Last week we brought you a story about Aperta employees boorishly smashing the remaining shells of their 2e electric vehicle, including quotes from their disgruntled former CEO, Steve Fambro. You may wonder how things went so wrong.

If you haven’t been following the Aptera saga, or if you don’t know what Aptera is, this is a good time to jump in.

Rewind to 2006 where founders Steve Fambro and Chris Anthony found a company called Aptera with the intent to build and sell super-efficient electric vehicles. They planned to take advantage of a program offered by the Department of Energy by which companies could take over abandoned factories and enjoy low-interest loans if they made vehicles 25 percent more efficient than those they would replace.

Aptera had a funky three-wheeled car in mind that looked a lot like a tear drop made out of plastic composite. In September of 2008 Fambro found himself on the outside of the company, replaced as CEO by Paul Wilbur.

By December, Aptera’s application for money from the DoE had been submitted and promptly rejected— three-wheeled cars apparently didn’t qualify.

Over the next two years Tesla and Fisker both recieve hundreds of millions of dollars in DoE funding, and three wheel cars are provisioned for subsidy by the DoE.

In 2010 Aptera re-applies and was denied funding again, this time becuause the DoE says they cannot pay back capital costs for the company.

Shortly afterwards, the company re-allocated their remaining resources to developing a four-wheeled sedan that had a better chance of catching on.

At this point the DoE committed $150 million in loans on the condition that the company also secure $80 million in private funding. That proved to be too much. Aptera simply couldn’t find investors to pour money into their company after another operation failed to get funding because of their similar plastic composite bodies.

By early December of this year the company had run out of cash and needed to shut down. They decided to execute the close early enough to distribute remaining cash reserves among their employees as severance.

In an interview with Green Car Reports, Wilbur admitted that they spent too much time chasing DoE finding and that a better path would have been to look for private money from the beginning. The DoE, he said, took far too long to yield any money for Aptera to stay afloat.

[Source: Green Car Reports]

Back in September, the US Department of Energy, in conjunction with Nissan Motor Co, green lighted a proposal to test a Cummins four-cylinder turbo-diesel in the full-size Titan pickup.

The program was largely conceived to help big trucks like the Titan achieve better fuel economy, in lieu of the 35.5 miles per gallon CAFE requirements (that now also include light trucks), scheduled to be phased in in 2015.

The test engine, a 2.8-liter unit cranks out 350 lb/ft of torque at 1800 rpm making it comparable with the Titan’s existing 5.6-liter V-8. However substantial gains in fuel economy have already been achieved, the diesel is said to currently allow a 2WD Titan to achieve around 28 miles per gallon, a sizeable improvement on the V-8 truck’s 13/18 mpg (city/highway).

Cummins says this new diesel can be built in either 2.8 and 3.5-liter forms and thanks to the use of high strength steel pistons, is not only a sturdy engine but also rather compact by diesel standards, not that compactness is of real concern when installing one in a Titan.

The test program is scheduled to run through September this year and it will be interesting to see what further results develop when it comes to capability and fuel economy. However, regulators are now proposing even tougher fuel economy standards for 2025, as much as 62 mpg. With such shifting targets, in such a short period time, the ability of any pickup truck manufacturer to meet them is going to prove challenging at best.

[Source: Automotive News]

Chrysler is delivering  10 Ram 1500 Hybrids to the U.S Department of Energy for testing within the next week. The pickups will be delivered to Yuma, Arizona, as part of a $100 million research project. The program with the U.S Department of Energy will run through June 2014.

140 Ram 1500 pickups will be delivered by Oct. 1 across the U.S. These plug-in hybrid trucks we be put through grueling testing including extreme temperature testing with fluctuations from 25 below zero to 125 degrees.

The Ram trucks utilize 5.7-liter V8s making 345-hp. The engine is mated to a two-mode hybrid transmission manufactured by GM and a 12.9-kilowatt-hour lithium ion battery. These trucks will be capable of traveling 20 miles on electric-power alone with a total range coming in at 655 miles. The Ram is capable of towing 6,000 pounds and has a 1,000 pound payload capacity.

[Source: egm Car Tech]