The Good NET Guide

Posts Tagged ‘electric’

It’s hard to ignore the looming EV vehicle showdown between the Chevy Volt and the Nissan Leaf even though the vehicles are totally different in nature and target market. While the Nissan Leaf is simply a beautifully-packaged electric vehicle with around a 100 mile range, the Chevy Volt takes a different approach by having a somewhat limited 40 mile EV range but an on-board gas-powered generator that will power the electric motor as long as there’s gas in the tank. GM is clearly targeting the a higher-end market with a $41,000 MSRP while the Nissan Leaf is a bit more down-market with a starting price of $32,000.

That’s fine. There’s more than enough room in the world for both of the vehicles. There doesn’t really have to be a winner here. In terms of sales numbers, the Nissan Leaf will enter more markets than the Volt (or its Opel Ampera counterpart) initially anyway. GM only expects to sell about 10,000 Volts during the first year where Nissan already 17,000 Leaf pre-orders, 5,000 more than the first year estimate. Clearly both vehicles are highly anticipated, though, so comparisons will no doubt be made around workplace watercoolers from now on. Here’s what we know so far.

It’s hard to ignore the looming EV vehicle showdown between Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf even though the vehicles are totally different in nature and target market.

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By The Numbers: Chevy Volt vs Nissan Leaf

The all-electric RAV4 is set to make a comeback. But this time around Tesla Motors is going to provide the electric powerplant, rather than Toyota themselves. In fact, Tesla might even be doing the bulk of the assembling if this CNN Money report is correct.

Toyota announced that the Japanese auto maker planned to invest $50 million into Tesla after a successful initial public offering. That took place a couple weeks back on June 29 and this is the first we’re seeing from the investment.

General Electric is crowdsourcing their next digital / social media ad blitz, Global executive Director, Advertising and Branding Judy Hu just announced on stage at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference.

In the spirit of disruption, GE is bypassing the traditional agency model for marketing campaigns. The company has set up both a basic Google Moderator tool and a dedicated email inbox (ad.ideas@ge.com) in order to solicit ideas from anyone (including industry pros).

Got a great idea for an ad campaign? A creative concept for a killer contest? A truly innovative social media program? With your help, we can avoid the lame and embrace the awesome.

The idea is for people like you, our readers, to submit what you think are the best ideas on how to engage online audiences, being the monster company GE is. One thing to remember: this is also open to advertising industry professionals or startups, as a way to win GE’s business.

In other words, don’t forget to share your contact info.

Of course, there are some ground rules to take into account.

So there you have it: do you also think large companies tend to come up with lame online advertising and social media campaigns?

GE thinks if you’re such an expert, you should put your next clicks where your mouth is.

One of the biggest obstacles that prevents electric cars and other vehicles from becoming mainstream is the insufficient battery life. In most cases, potential buyers of those green vehicles are scared off by the fact that there still aren’t enough charging stations out there or that the travel distance (on a single charge) is just too short. But many companies are working on the battery problem, and one of them apparently is Sanyo

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Guinness World Record: Sanyo battery lets e-car travel 555.6 km without recharging

You can watch Steve Ballmer talking about Ford and Microsoft’s new partnership here but we’ll run a liveblog for you all here so you don’t have to whip out the headphones. Refresh this page to see updates.

10:41 - Ballmer talking about Hohm. Decreases energy costs. Automating and optimizing the process of charging your electric vehicle.

We covered various products from Tokyo-based robotics venture ZMP in the past , including a mini robo car , but we never had the chance to blog about an actual robot car (from any company actually).

The rest is here: 
RoboCar G: Japanese venture to sell electric robot car (videos)

From the product description, We wanted to make a clock that was ultra-hackable, from adding a seperate battery-backed RTC to desiging the enclosure so you could program the clock once its assembled.

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I wouldn’t know what to do with the Monochron

Couple of things to talk about, Honda just announced that they are going to showing off an electric concept vehicle, and a Hungarian company is making a concept car that’s capable of splitting in to two separate vehicles. Of the two, I think the Honda is more likely to become a reality. The Honda 3R-C is a single person transport, but pulls design cues from a trike instead of a motorcycle.

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Electrical vehicle concepts running rampant

That’s the JVC GZ-HM340 , which they say is the lightest and smallest HD camcorder with a built-in drive. Full review will be up later this week, but this picture was too cute not to share. Aww, look at them!

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Aw – they love each other