Yesterday BMW announced the release of the brand-spanking-green electric Mini Cooper, which is expected to hit the road next month.   The British-designed, German-built eco-friendly Mini-E will initially only be seen around the U.S., driven by 500 selected corporate and private customers.   I guess they don’t want to rush a green alternative.   I mean it’s not like we’re running out of oil and poisoning the planet with the fumes from combustible engines, or anything.   But at least they’re making a notable effort, let’s just hope their ambitions don’t get pummeled as previous electric vehicles have.
While Mini’s are not usually chosen for roominess, the electric version will only have two seats to make way for a bulky lithium-ion battery pack.   So as long as you’re not a huge troop of clowns, you should have no problem.   And it’s got considerable kick, according to BMW, the peppy roadster goes from 0 to 62mph in 8.5 seconds, has a top speed of 95mph, and can go 150 miles on a full charge.    Personally, I’m excited to witness the cars fascinating launch capability, which may or may not involve a flux capacitor.

takepart by watching Who Killed the Electric Car, and encourage car companies to make the switch, not throw the switch.

John McCain wants to unleash the power of American innovation to ween the country off oil with an old fashioned, but effective motivator; a cash prize. The presumptive Republican nominee for President proposed awarding a $300 Million prize to the inventor who could come up with a car battery far advanced from the current technology available, in a recent speech at Fresno State University.

While enormous strides have been made in recent years in battery technology, what’s currently available for mass production limits plug in electric cars to about a 250 mile range per charge, and leaves little to no room for trunk storage with the space needed for the Lithium Ion Batteries. The batteries are also costly which prompted Senator McCain to require the winner of his proposed challenge to deliver battery power at 30% of current costs having as he put it, “the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars.”

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