electric cars

Imagine millions of plug-in vehicle owners returning home from work on a hot summer day, plugging in their cars at the same time, and melting down an overtaxed, outdated, and otherwise atrophied electrical grid. But the geniuses at Google say averting a disaster scenario could be as simple as a few lines of code (well, a few more than just a few).

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The Honda N360 microcar was a modern marvel, sporting an all-alloy engine that could rev to 9000 rpm. The 360 cc unit only topped out at 45 hp, but at 1,100 pounds, the N360 could hit an astounding 81 mph. And that came in handy while sharing the highways of 1970 with Buicks the size of a Japanese prefecture. Now, Honda's recast the classic N360's iconic design as a thoroughly modern concept car, the EV-N. Though just as tiny, this concept was created with some of the company's latest e-tech.

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Imagine pulling into a service station, but instead of filling the tank with unleaded, you slide out your drained battery and -- for a fee -- slide in a fully charged one. It's a similar model to that many stores use for propane tanks, and it could one envisioned for Tesla's new Model S sedan. Edmunds Green Car Advisor reports the new model was designed with swappable batteries in mind, according to Tesla's outgoing director of vehicle engineering and manufacturing.

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By 2020, one in every five cars sold in the U.S. will be a hybrid electric vehicle. That’s nice for the planet, but bad for pedestrians who can’t hear the quiet vehicles’ approach. Some automakers will equip hybrids with artificial engine sounds, but some drivers say that less noise pollution isn’t such a bad thing. Here, a cheat sheet to the noisemaker debate.

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Electric-vehicle startup Myers Motors already builds a one-seat electric car with three wheels. Now, the company says a new model is on the way with something extra novel -- a passenger seat. Dubbed the NMG2 (the first model is called NMG), the part-car-part-motorcycle will also get more storage space, creature comforts like air conditioning and a 60-mile range on a charge of its lithium-ion battery.

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It's one of the simplest energy-storage devices known to man: The spring. Think of how a jack-in-the-box keeps hold of the mechanical energy it takes to compress that clown into the box, releasing it only when the weasel song reaches its climax. And that energy storage is a long-term proposition. The clown could likely sit, poised in that box in grandma's attic for 100 years, until some joker comes along, cranks the handle and, POP!

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In a high-velocity demonstration that proves green and badass can coexist in the same vehicle, Mission Motors has set a new speed record for electric motorcycles.

Topping out at 161 mph, the Mission One motorcycle beat out 70 percent of the gasoline-burning bikes during a recent event at the Bonneville Speedway in Utah.

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A major auto show without concept cars is just a heated parking garage with shrimp cocktail. So with the Frankfurt show's press days underway, Audi revealed a technical study that examines what its R8 sports car might be like if powered by four electric motors. The answer is the E-Tron. Those four motors together produce a modest 313 horsepower, but an astronomical 3,319 pound-feet of torque.

Not all that torque comes on at once, of course. Such a quantity of twisting force -- as much as an M47 Patton tank -- would turn all four tires into rubber vapor at the first throttle stab.

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India's Reva electric car company has a UK hit on its hands with the diminutive G-Wiz, an increasingly common addition to London traffic. This year, the company will introduce a new model, the Reva NXR -- a four-seat, three-door hatchback -- and plans to unveil a two-seat sports car, dubbed NXG, at next week's Frankfurt motor show. But what's got the electric-car world talking is something the company calls REVive -- a new feature purported to allow a driver who finds himself with insufficient battery charge to get an "instant remote recharge."

Could Reva be ready to roll out an inductive recharging system that would work over the course of miles instead of just a tabletop? (And is Japan involved?)

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It's been the talk of the hybrid-car crowd since the first hybrids landed in dealerships: The plug-in Prius. And with GM's plug-in Volt set for a 2010 launch, all eyes are now on Toyota. This week the company offered its first tangible evidence of a plug-in Prius, at least in two dimensions. The company released the first official photo image of a new Prius concept car that can get juice from the electrical grid.

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