Replay: Google On-Air Hangout About Electric Vehicles

As noted last Thursday (before the event), I joined Jeff McIntire-Strasburg and some others last week for an “on-air” discussion of electric vehicles (mostly for folks who don’t follow EV news very closely). We also got into some talk about wind power and solar power, naturally. Jeff now has the video of the hangout up on YouTube and posted over on sustainablog, so I’ll repost that right here:

Here was an early summary of the hangout that Jeff posted on Google+ that may also be interesting to you (with added links on some of the things we discussed):

We’re still pulling together some of our links and such (which I’ll add to this post as they become available), but wanted to make sure to give you a heads up on a fantastic Hangout on Air today. +Zachary Shahan of Cleantechnica did a fantastic job of discussing the economic and technological promise of electric vehicles, and +Bill Bright  of Gallup Solar (http://gallupsolar.org/) and Earthship advocate +Jeffrey Rust tossed out some great questions… we went well over our normal 25-30 minutes, but it was a fascinating discussion!

The main news we discussed involved Nissan’s announcement that it was dropping the price of the LEAF significantly: http://cleantechnica.com/2013/01/21/major-drops-in-price-ahead-for-nissan-leaf-and-chevy-volt/

Zach also dug into EV economics, specifically how long it takes to reach a payback point on the higher prices of these vehicles: http://cleantechnica.com/2012/12/06/is-an-electric-car-worth-the-money/

Of course, if you’re a true gearhead, you may want to spend some time at our sister site Gas 2.0: http://gas2.org

UPDATE: And more links to posts mentioned in the Hangout:

The Via Motors truck:

http://gas2.org/2013/01/17/naias-2013-the-via-x-truck-an-800-horsepower-plug-in-hybrid/

http://gas2.org/2012/12/27/via-motors-bringing-800-hp-hybrid-x-truck-to-detroit-auto-show/

The UCS study on emissions:

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/04/18/electric-vehicles-greenhouse-gas-emissions-save-money/

The SunPower–Ford & Nissan–Ford partnerships:

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/01/09/ford-evs-link-seamlessly-to-home-solar-arrays-with-myenergi-lifestyle-partnership/

http://cleantechnica.com/2011/11/09/nissan-sunpower-team-up/

Prius owners using their cars for electricity when Sandy hit:

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/11/10/man-lights-house-with-toyota-prius/

(Note: I think I made an insignificant but incorrect statement about the Chevy Volt at the beginning of the video — regarding when it uses gas. Let me know, and let me know if I messed up on anything else, or if you have any other thoughts.)