Parking spots in the city are often hard to find and they always come at a price. And sometimes those spots are so small, there’s no way you can fit your car into the space. Engineers at Hiriko Driving Mobility have come up with a solution – a car that folds up to fit into even the smallest gaps.

The Hiriko Citycar as it’s called, is set to make its public debut in Europe next week when it’s shown to European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso. And it gets better – the Citycar could be available for the public by mid-2013 and hopes are it will cut pollution and road rage.

The idea for this foldable EV started out at Boston’s MIT-Media lab before being picked up by Hiriko Driving Mobility. Think of the Citycar as a child stroller. Of course, it’s a bit more complex than that, but the concept is the same – you fold it up so it’s manageable, compact and easier to store. Since it’s so small, it can only fit two people, but the Hiriko Citycar can go for 75 miles before you have to charge it. One idea for the Citycar’s usage will be a rental system, where drivers can rent one for the day. Of course, you can always buy one – the Citycar can be yours for about 12,500 euros (US$16,000).

[Source: Inhabitat]

Coming to grips with the taxing nature EVs can have on a residential power grid is causing some car companies to explore products more akin to the housing market than the auto industry.

BMW is the latest company to announce special plans and research designed to counteract that burden by rethinking how homes use electricity. The German automaker expects to have a demo home as part of their Mountain View, Calif. technology office, completed by the end of March.

The home is designed to efficiently charge their EV, the ActiveE, which is a variation on their 1-Series while maintaining flexible power consumption to compensate for increased consumption during charging times.

Toyota introduced something similar in October, 2010 called the Toyota Smart Center, which they said would be commercially available in 2015… Do you love your Camry enough to let the same person style both your car and home? In Japan, Nissan built a demo house called Kan-kan-kyo for the same purpose.

As for BMW, they’ve paired up with Tendril, an energy management company that is helping provide data to fully examine how an EV changes household power consumption.

“We’re keen to understand how utilities will gain benefit from a program like this,” Tendril CEO Adrian Tuck said to the New York Times. “The car guys don’t want to have 3,000 relationships with all the different utilities.”

Tuck also said that even a small number of EVs charging at once could actually create demand peaks. While we’re still a long way off from having electric vehicles in every driveway, or even more than a handful per city, it could feasibly create a problem.

The auto industry is not known for sharing ideas between competitors, in fact that behavior routinely rips contracts between car companies to shreds, but keep your eye out for some serious copy cat strategy down the road.

Chevrolet is offering Volt owners a service via their OnStar system and a smartphone app that will show sources of renewable energy. That sort of power is at its peak availability during otherwise off-peak hours, encouraging Volt owners to charge off-peak.

Perhaps a similar service will be available in the future from other companies as well. For now, there are only 700 BMW ActiveEs available by lease, so it seems unlikely that they will actually market streamlined home services any time soon.

GALLERY: BMW ActiveE

[Source: New York Times]

Honda took the first major step in its Honda Electric Vehicle Demonstration Program by delivering the first 2013 Fit EV to the city of Torrance, California.

The program will set up the retail market launch of the Fit EV to customers in California and Oregon starting this summer. Over the past year, the city of Torrance and Honda has been working together to gather input from local residents about potential recharging station locations and held numerous public awareness events with the Fit EV. The city of Torrance will also receive a Honda plug-in hybrid for additional testing at a later date.

“This is an exciting day as we take another important step toward Honda’s comprehensive vision for reducing CO2 emissions while at the same time advancing our relationship with the city of Torrance,” said Steve Center, vice president of the Environmental Business Development Office at American Honda. “Honda has a long history with electric vehicles starting with the introduction of our first battery-electric car, the EV Plus, nearly 15 years ago. With Honda’s extensive experience and the real-world feedback from the city of Torrance, we will be even more prepared for the further customer adoption of electric vehicles.”

The Honda Fit EV will have a 123 city-mile per charge (76-mile range combined adjusted city/highway), powered by a 20-kWh lithium-ion battery and 92 kW coaxial electric motor. The Fit EV can be fully recharged in as little as three hours when connected to a 240-volt circuit.

Honda will also be testing the Fit EV with Google and Stanford University in order to receive real-world feedback on the new electric vehicle.

Officially, Toyota will tell you that the future is in hybrid powertrains. But unofficially, well, they’ve built an electric sports car, which was revealed at this year’s Tokyo Auto Salon.

Based on the chassis of a Toyota Sera (a rare sports car built from 1990-96), the TES-ERA EV shares that car’s gullwing door concept, though the car is altogether more modern looking. While tiny (roughly 10 inches shorter in length than a second generation MR2), it’s certainly not cutesy looking thanks to plenty of angles and a wide stance.

A proper rear-drive machine the TES-ERA EV makes roughly 165 hp and produces 247 lb-ft of torque.  Weighing in at 2,500 lbs it’s not going to be a rocket ship, but should produce some modest smiles.

Built by the Toyota Engineering Society (hence the TES in its name), the car is part of an annual skunkworks project made up of volunteers within the automaker and isn’t even technically an official Toyota concept car.

Created in 1947 to explore organic new ideas and actually move ahead with them, last year’s TES project car was the TES Concept T-Sports, looking at a baby Scion FR-S.

See videos of the TES-ERA EV in action below:

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True Mustang lovers could never dream of the iconic muscle car without a GT badge and a burly V8 engine. Sure the V6 might have over 300 hp, but, well… it’s not the V8. So imagine what the legions of die-hard ‘Stang fans would say if Ford rolled out an electric Mustang?

Interestingly enough, reports – or rumors – are surfacing that Ford is doing just that. In fact, one source has confirmed that an electric Mustang prototype already exists.

As wild an idea as it seems, it’s really not that unbelievable. Many automakers are investing in all-electric vehicles, with some being variants of their current popular models. Audi‘s E-Tron and BMW‘s i-Series are great examples that electric vehicles could be stylish and sporty, while Tesla paved the way when it came to building an appealing electric sports car.

[Source: Car Driven]

The new year is rapidly approaching and with it a host of new vehicles begging to be driven are sitting in dealer lots waiting to wow shoppers. When it comes to new cars, those shoppers often expect more for less as new models hit the showroom, but that wont be the case for electric vehicles like the Nissan Leaf (pictured above).

Next year the government is removing three of the four subsidies available to consumers as incentives to adopt the new technology. The fourth, and arguably most important, will remain in the coming year. A total of $8,500 in tax incentives will get the ax as the ball drops in Times Square, which represents more than half of the total $16,000 in incentives offered this year. Consumers buying EVs next year won’t enjoy this year’s $1,000 maximum to install a home charging station, $2,500 maximum for two- or three-wheeled EVs with 2.5-kWh batteries or larger and the $4,000 maximum for converting either a hybrid to plug-in or a regular ICE to EV power.

People purchasing EVs will still be eligible to receive up to $7,500 in tax credits for buying a new plug-in vehicle, though the subsidy depends on the size of the battery in the vehicle. These incentives are meant to boost the number of EVs sold and will be phased out on a per-manufacturer basis once the individual automakers sell more than 200,000 plug-ins.

It might be good to act before the new year if you’ve been planning on cashing in with those incentives, but don’t worry about losing out on the $7,500 credit that will remain. The 200,000 vehicle figure isn’t likely to be hit any time soon thanks to low selection and relatively high prices for EVs with or without bonuses.

[Source: AutoBlog]

Initial estimations for electric vehicle sales may have been a tad too optimistic, as a new report is coming out that EV sales may total half of what was originally expected by 2025.

It’s probably too early to tell given human nature – who would have thought the Prius would be a hard to get vehicle – but Morgan Stanley now expects electric vehicles to account for 4.5-percent of total auto sales in 2025 instead of the initial 8.5-percent figure.

Automakers are still optimistic however, Renault-Nissan still expects electric vehicle sales to account for 10-percent of the global market by 2020.

The skepticism towards the originally inflated figures comes from the fact that without government assistance, electric vehicles will be too expensive to meet those forecasts. Electric vehicle sales are currently heavily subsidized by various governments but that’s not expected to last.

Analysts believe that sales will increase once the battery technology on electric vehicles becomes less expensive, but that’s not expected until 2025. We’re a little more optimistic though, given how technology has improved exponentially over the years.

GALLERY: Nissan Leaf

[Source: Left Lane News]

The struggles of the electric car are well documented, and it appears that the struggle is not going away anytime soon.

According to the latest news, the Federal Government will pull its funding to ease the cost of buying an electric vehicle charger. Up until now, the Fed’s have been discounting these units as an incentive to get the public to buy an electric vehicle. In 2010, the deductions covered 50% of the cost, and in 2011 it was reduced to 30%. Now it seems that from 2012, no deduction will be offered to those buying these charging units.

If you use electric vehicles for commercial use, the savings were good for up to $30,000; but that will no longer be the case either.

Genevieve Cullen, the vice-president of the Electric Drive Transportation Association said that: “The timing of this couldn’t be more unfortunate”. Cullen and her supporters have been urging congress to extend the tax deduction, but it doesn’t appear to be working at this moment. However, if you buy an electric car now, you will still get the $7,500 tax credit offered by the government. So if you are thinking of buying an electric car, buy it before the government pulls its support from that program.

In 2011, the electric car and plug-in hybrids accounted for less than 2% of new car sales in the States.

[Source: Left Lane News]

Never heard of the American car company Coda? We won’t blame you. This electric car upstart is trying to make a name for itself, but has so far run into production delays plus other birthing problems new car companies face.

However, the editor’s at Forbes believe in Coda and that it will soon be among the most successful new companies in America. Forbes has thus included Coda in their annual “100 Most Promising Companies” list.

Coda is also the only car company in this exclusive list, which mostly is comprised of software companies, and has placed a burger joint (Smashburger) at the top.

Forbes says that the reason Coda is on its list is because of  “compelling business models, strong management teams, notable customers, strategic partners and precious investment capital.” Even in tough times, Coda has managed to raise money, hire more people and start production, which is a huge accomplishment in these tough economic times.

Coda’s CEO Phil Murtaugh said he is “honored and excited for this recognition.”

If all goes to plan, Coda will start delivering their electric sedan in a few months time. Price start at $39,900 plus a destination charge of $895. However, due to its green credentials, you’ll get a $7500 credit from the Government. The Coda requires six-hours (from 220V) to charge fully and has a range of 150-miles.

[Source: Autoblog]

In the 1960′s there was the muscle-car wars, and in the 1980′s it was all about who can sell the most minivans. Now its time for the green-car wars, to see who can sell the most plug-in hybrid or fully electric cars.

The two biggest rivals at the moment are the Nissan Leaf and the Chevrolet Volt. While the Leaf is a fully electric vehicle, the Volt in a plug-in hybrid, so when the battery dies, you can still keep moving, provided you have some gasoline in its tank.

These two vehicles have been going head to head all year, and in America, it is the Leaf that is winning by quite a margin. Nissan has moved 8,720 Leafs thus far, while Chevy had moved just 6,142 Volts in the U.S.

North of the border, there is a different story developing. The Volt is actually outselling the Leaf. Chevy has moved 243 Volts thus far, while only 111 Leafs have found homes in Canada.

Part of the reason the Leaf is having a harder time selling in Canada is because there are only 27 Leaf Certified Dealers in the country, and even they will only sell a car to someone who lives within 42-miles from one of those dealers. The Volt on the other hand is sold through all Chevrolet dealers.

Chevrolet has been dealing with a lot of negative publicity regarding the Volt in recent weeks due to its battery issue, which could result in a fire. This little sales victory in Canada might give the bow-tie boys something to cheer about.

[Source: Auto North]