Cleantech Talk #3: Ford vs Chevy Bolt, Tesla Supercharger Milestone, Electric Aston Martin, & Boring Toyota Mirai
Also published on EV Obsession, Planetsave, and CleanTechnica.
Chris DeMorro and I jumped into our third Cleantech Talk podcast just a couple of hours ago. I think we really hit our stride with this one. It was a lot of fun, and felt like a really long tennis or ping pong rally this time… as I think it should.
Clearly, we had some fun stories to run with this week, which I’ll quickly summarize below the emedded SoundCloud podcast. Just a reminder, aside from listening here on the web, you can download the podcast (in fact, you can do so here, or you can listen on the SoundCloud app on iTunes or Google Play. Also, for those who prefer the iTunes “Podcasts” app, I think we’re inches away from getting the podcast on there.
If you want to read more about the stories we discussed in this episode of Cleantech Talk, below are some links.
1. The unveiling of the Chevy Bolt was one of the biggest electric car stories in history. Rumor is that Ford is going to unveil a Bolt competitor this year, which is both a huge surprise and would indicate that the electric vehicle market is making a monumental step forward this year. Read more about this hot story from Chris’s viewpoint on Gas2 or read my thoughts about it on EV Obsession.
2. Tesla just hit another Supercharger milestone, installing its 2,000th Supercharger. Frankly, Tesla is in another level in basically every corner of the EV ring. We discuss the Supercharger network a bit, as well as other automakers’ approach (historically and today) to EV charging infrastructure.
3. Aston Martin has just unveiled a fully electric concept vehicle that uses in-wheel electric motors and is absolutely hot. Chris and I had a lot of fun chatting about this, but you also need to check out the article linked above. And this was the money quote, in my opinion, from Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer: “[Aston Martin DBX] a challenge to the existing status quo in the high luxury GT segment. It envisages a world, perhaps a world not too far away, when luxury GT travel is not only stylish and luxurious but also more practical, more family-friendly and more environmentally responsible.”
4. Chris and I close out by knocking on the Toyota Mirai, Toyota’s boring approach to “new energy vehicles,” and low-performance, high-cost fuel cell vehicles themselves. As many have emphasized by now, fuel cell vehicles don’t have good performance, aren’t green, are extremely expensive, and don’t have infrastructure it actually needs in order to be useful (unlike battery electric vehicles, fuel cell vehicles can’t be charged at home). As I argue in the podcast, fuel cell vehicles are simply a delay tactic… or even worse. But listen to Chris and me chat about it. 😀
Again, download the podcast here if you want to listen later.
Check out our previous Cleantech Talk podcasts here:
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