The view from the cockpit: The Aptera 2e. (Aptera photo)

It's great to dream big. I have driven in the Aptera 2e, which looks like a Blade Runner car that lost its ability to fly. It's an airplane, but with lithium-ion batteries instead of wings. But the company's founders, and its hired-gun professional CEO from the auto industry, swore that it would be on the road in 2009. Some 4,000 people believed enough to put down deposits.

The Aptera is fanciful indeed, but the company claimed down-to-earth numbers for it. It can supposedly cruise 100 miles between charges and reach 60 mph in under 10 seconds. I can't confirm the performance because, in my one up-close meeting, CEO Paul Wilbur made me ride shotgun because the prototype on hand "is not the latest model." He gave my somewhat reluctant daughter (pictured) a ride, too.

But now Aptera appears to be imploding, and largely because of money woes and the production timetable. Both founders have left (including the one who sketched the car on a napkin) and the schedule has been pushed back to sometime in 2010. The confrontation between Wilbur and founders Steve Fambro and Chris Anthony reportedly ended in a confrontation at the board level that the practical Wilbur--who insists the car isn't ready, and needs such basic amenities as wind-down windows in its cool fold-up doors--apparently won. At least he's still there and they aren't.

Is the Aptera 2e practical for mass production? I have doubts in its current form. The car is just too quirky--I left the company out of my list of "eight EV startups likely to make it" for just that reason.

Wilbur knows this and will probably introduce new improvements before launch that will make the car more mainstream. The pod body is incredibly aerodynamic and lightweight, but that's not enough of an advantage if people don't buy it.

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LOS ANGELES--Driving Nissan's new Leaf electric car around Dodgers' Stadium in Los Angeles last week was not as glamorous as it sounds. There were a lot of journalists in line under a hot sun. But there were compensations, including a touch of Hollywood--actress Alexandra Paul, ex-Baywatch and a former General Motors EV-1 driver, was there.

This was the kickoff of a 22-city national tour for the Leaf, and it may be coming soon to a metro area near you. Go to this site, enter your zipcode and it will point you to the nearest stop. Or check the full list here. The tour ends in New York City February 14.

Nissan is the only automaker (through the Renault-Nissan Alliance) to actually build charging stations. In LA, it announced its 33rd alliance, this time with Reliant, a subsidiary of giant Texas-based utility NRG Energy. Like most utility executives these days, NRG CEO David Crane talked about the virtues of the smart grid and charging electric cars off-peak during evening hours. He said the current U.S. grid could easily handle up to 10 million additional EVs. "We don't get into trouble until we're talking about 50 to 100 million cars," he said.

The Leaf, which has a 100-mile range on lithium-ion batteries and will be out next year, was revealed in sky blue. It was a little bigger than I thought it would be, with excellent seat layout and some of the same eco-verities as the Toyota Prius. Not to confuse you, but the Leaf we saw was actually a styling model and not drivable. The "Leaf" we drove was in the body of the Nissan Versa, with the Leaf's drivetrain. This is what they call a "mule," and it gives a very good indication of what the production car will be like. Here's what it was like from the back seat:

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The Tesla Roadster: Who could argue with its sex appeal? (Tesla photo)

The financial establishment is getting bullish about electric cars. I just talked to a Bank of America/Merrill Lynch analyst who told me that EVs will need "sizzle," or maybe the right phrase is sex appeal, to triumph in the marketplace.

"Cost is not the only factor driving the purchasing decision," says analyst Steven Milunovich. "EVs need to appeal to consumers on a psychological level, such as prestige and driving enjoyment." I totally agree. The good thing is that many EVs already have sizzle to burn. Or is sizzle already burning?

The car magazines are stuck in the past with high-performance dinosaurs, but most of the cars that attract buzz in the financial media today are green. The Fisker Karma, for instance, is a visual outrage--it makes Megan Fox look like a nun. And it's bristling with cool eco-features, including interior wood sourced from river bottoms and a rooftop solar panel to run the heating and cooling systems. And it's not surprising that Fisker is working on some kind of proprietary noise--a Formula One car crossed with a spaceship--so that pedestrians will know it's there when in battery mode.

The Tesla Roadster is, of course, off the charts in sizzle factor, and the forthcoming Model S is the Maserati of electric sedans. General Motors would love to pay for the positive publicity Tesla gets for free.

Another reason Wall Street likes EVs is that it can make money on them. When the battery company A123 (a supplier to Chrysler) went public, its stock--one of the few "pure plays" an investor could buy (most battery makers are either not public or part of large conglomerates) doubled in price on the first day.

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Elizabeth James (left) told ABC that her Prius hit 90 mph in a case of sudden acceleration. (Photo courtesy ABC/Elizabeth James)

Do you remember the exploding Pinto? Or the murderous Fords that the Center for Auto Safety said popped out of "park"? Toyota is now wrestling not only with lawsuits and the legacy of multiple deaths from a similar defect that it says is about nothing more than some poorly secured or inappropriate floormats inadvertently shoving down the gas pedal.

In multiple venues, including Good Morning America this morning and World News with Charles Gibson and Nightline tonight, ABC News is reporting on an "owners' rebellion" in which hundreds of Toyota drivers are saying that their cars are running away from them, and that it has to be more than floormats that are responsible.

Brian Ross, one of several ABC TV reporters who worked on the broadcasts, told me that the network's reporting is "anecdotal evidence based on dozens of cases in which problems with the floormats doesn't cover what happened. The people we interviewed don't accept the explanations they're getting from Toyota and from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). They say they've been dismissed or blown off."

The owners speculate--and it really is speculation--that the real cause of their problem is in the electronic engine control system, in the braking system, or even the result of electromagnetic interference. The latter has been the stuff of endless Internet speculation. My own report on it in the New York Times was inconclusive, and it would be far more likely in hybrid cars with high-voltage electric systems than in standard gasoline cars.

Toyota isn't really "blowing people off." It's far too smart for that. Instead, the company is sending customers letters that state, "Toyota has determined that this defect does not exist in which the driver side floor mat is compatible with the vehicle and properly secured." There's even a chart so you can make sure you have the right floormats.

The letter went out to owners of the Toyota Camry, Avalon, Prius, Tacoma, Tundra; and Lexus ES350 and IS250 and IS350. Toyota also posted NHTSA's most recent denial of a petition in a case involving Jeffrey Pepski of Plymouth, Minnesota and his 2007 Lexus ES350. Pepski's written testimony is gripping.

"Driving home from work, I experienced a sudden uncontrollable surge in acceleration causing my speed to increase from about 60 to 80+ mph," he wrote. Pepski says his brakes started smoking from the effort of trying to get the car slowed down. The tachometer soared to the redline as he finally put the car into neutral and was able to stop safely.

But NHTSA concluded, "[F]urther investigation of the issues raised by the petition is not warranted." The petition was denied.

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Simon Hackett's Tesla Roadster on the Global Green Challenge in Australia. (Photo via Simon Hackett)

Simon Hackett is the managing director of Australia's national broadband company Internode, but he doesn't spend all his time behind a computer. He is the proud owner of a Tesla Roadster, which he just drove 313 miles on a single charge -- at least a tentative world record.

The record was set on the Global Green Challenge, an Australian solar car race (from the Northern Territories to southernmost Adelaide) that goes back to 1987, when it was won by a General Motors/AeroVironment entry called Sunraycer. The solar car race, open to electric vehicles charged by photovoltaics, was won by a team from Tokai University in Japan. American teams from the University of Michigan and MIT did well, too, but that's another story.

The Challenge also includes a division for production cars, and that's where the Tesla was competing. Hackett points out that his drive smashes a record set last April by another Tesla Roadster, which completed the 241-mile Rallye Monte Carlo d'Energies Alternatives on just one charge (with more than 38 miles left, apparently).

From the road, Hackett and co-driver Elilis Prelgauskas sent Tesla an email: "Emilis and I have decades of experience flying gliders competitively, and we applied the same energy conservation techniques to our driving, with significant results! The car had about three miles of range left when the drive was completed. We traveled 501 kilometers [313 miles] on a single charge. Let that sink in for a minute."

On his blog, Hackett said, "We wanted to prove a point about the ability of EVs to drive truly large distances--and we have done so! This ends any contention that EVs aren't practical cars. They're more than that--they are the future of motoring."

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The DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center: needs a smart grid. (Florida Power & Light rendering)

The DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center in Florida will be large enough to serve the entire city of Arcadia, whose very name suggests some kind of modern-day post-oil paradise. Here's what the 25-megawatt facility, the largest solar installation in the U.S. with 90,000 solar panels, looks like on video:

But there are clouds in the solar sky, and its name is the electric grid....

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Honda's Skydeck: A two-abreast hybrid minivan with room for six. (Honda photo)

Given the worldwide recession, it's not surprising that the Tokyo Motor Show, on now, is playing host to very few non-Japanese manufacturers. Auto shows are an extravagance, and Japan is a long way away. But despite that, it's still one of the greenest auto shows in recent memory. Everybody's showing off electric, hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars.

One of the most interesting vehicles on display is a new and bigger-than-Prius hybrid from Toyota, the Sai. And like the Prius, it's a ground-up design not based on a previously released platform. The car, which gets a stellar 54 mpg, goes on sale in Japan in December, and Toyota expects to sell 3,000 a month. It's unlikely it will come to the U.S. anytime soon.

Toyota has a good start in hybridizing its entire product lineup. A month ago, it announced a hybrid version of the Auris, a Corolla-sized car not sold in the U.S. With a version of Toyota's Hybrid Synergy drivetrain, it promises not only fuel economy in the mid-70s but carbon dioxide emissions under 100 grams per kilometer.

Nissan showed off -- or at least discussed -- four new electrics in a floor speech by CEO Carlos Ghosn. The forthcoming Nissan Leaf battery EV, to be sold in major markets beginning at the end of next year, was front and center, of course (though the car on display was a non-running glider). The Leaf starts a national U.S. tour next month. An intriguing announcement in Tokyo was a luxury four-seat Infiniti battery car, doubtless drawing heavily on the Leaf. No date or target markets were specified. Infiniti spokesman Kyle Bazemore said the car would have a performance edge.

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ANDERSON, INDIANA--The Bright Idea plug-in hybrid van looks particularly cute from the back, with its cleverly designed 70/30 split rear door and neatly shaped rear fender skirt. Sure, it's a humble utility vehicle that will probably end up unloved and draped in ladders and company logos, but when you're starting with a clean sheet of paper, why not add a degree of style?

I was in Anderson, Indiana to drive the one and only Bright Idea, the fruit of a spinoff of the highly regarded Rocky Mountain Institute (famous for Amory Lovins and the "hypercar"). According to CEO John Waters, who drove me from Indianapolis (in an Audi!) and gave me a nifty Bright vest, the company surveyed the market and saw a niche in commercial delivery vans with plug-in hybrid drivetrains.

My drive was brief but fun. The Idea isn't road licensed, so I got to thrash it around the company's parking lot. This let me know it's pretty well screwed together -- no squeaks and rattles, as is common in prototypes -- and smoothly transitions between electric and gasoline mode. The steering could be improved, but I'm sure it will be before launch. I'd have loved to get it up to highway speeds. Here's the Idea on the road:

Plug-in hybrid vehicles have larger battery packs than standard hybrids, and plug into the wall for 30 to 50 miles of all-electric range. The Bright is good for 40 miles on batteries, and that means a fleet of them could recharge at a central hub and do a good part of their route without activating the four-cylinder Ford-sourced engine. Waters estimates that the Idea could be operated for 41 to 43 cents per mile, saving its operators a dime when compared to conventional gas-powered vans.

The Bright Idea hybrid van: ready to roll in Indiana. (Jim Motavalli photo)

The Idea will be somewhat more expensive than the competition, with the non-finalized price estimated in the very low $40s after a $7,500 federal tax credit. But a host of large companies, including FedEx, Coca-Cola and Frito-Lay, are looking closely at the Idea for its larger savings over time.

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The Tesla Roadster: Opting out of fake noises. (Flickr/e-connected)

I wrote a New York Times story yesterday about the idea of having very quiet plug-in hybrid and battery electric cars emit special sounds to let blind and other pedestrians know that they're approaching. It made the front page, which was gratifying.

As soon as people start talking about issues like this, it unleashes the imagination: Soon carmakers are talking about emulating starships and Blade Runner cars, and consumers want to be able to download their own individual signature sounds. The result, of course, would be cacophony on the roads, which probably wouldn't advance the original aim very much (but would be fun for some and make money for the "car-tone" vendors one imagines springing up.

The automakers are split on this. Fisker and Nissan are working up sounds, working with sound-effects people from the movie industry. But Tesla Motors, whose Roadster is a super-fast EV, is opting out: "We have been monitoring this issue very closely and do not plan to introduce fake noises into our cars at this time," said spokeswoman Rachel Konrad. "In fact, one of the Roadster attributes that customers esteem most is the lack of over-the-top obnoxious noise."

The fact is that EVs and plug-ins are a new paradigm for everybody, and will change society in ways we don't anticipate yet. Just consider the issue of charging battery EVS: It's my opinion that this will create its own momentum. As the cars start appearing, businesses will recognize the competitive advantage of offering fast charging in their parking lots. Nancy Gioia, the new director of global electrification at Ford, agreed with me that businesses might actually offer a 20-minute charge free to their preferred customers. Value added, indeed.

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Want to save gas? Well, you could buy a Toyota Prius and get 50 miles per gallon, or you could just swap the tires on your current clunker and get close to five percent better fuel economy. The key is low-rolling-resistance (LRR) tires, which are standard equipment on hybrid and battery electric cars, but rarely make it onto the average cars most of us drive. The Department of Energy says five to 15% of fuel economy is used for overcoming rolling resistance.

Of course, it's not as simple as just switching tires and saving money. The extra cost of LRRs (some run as high as $170 each) means that you'll probably come about even in spending. But your greenhouse gas and local pollution emissions will be better, and that's the main reason people buy cars like the Prius in the first place. Save a gallon of gas, and you also prevent 20 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere. The gas savings are secondary.

The Tire Rack, a big direct-response sales company, recently ran seven different LRRs (three from Goodyear, two from Michelin, and also entries from Bridgestone and Yokohama) through track tests on a small fleet of Priuses, using a set of Goodyear Integrity all-season radials as the base comparison. The results were interesting.

The best performer was the Michelin Energy Saver A/S, which delivered 53.8 mpg in a Prius, meaning a 4.74% improvement. The Bridgestone Ecopia EP100 was next, with 53.5 mpg and a 4.12%. On the other hand, both the Michelin HydroEdge with Green X and the Goodyear Assurance ComforTred (terrible name) actually did worse (down .59 and 2.64% respectively) than the control tires.

Company claims do not always jibe with Tire Rack's findings. Goodyear claims a four percent improvement in highway fuel economy (and 27% less rolling resistance) with its Assurance Fuel Max, the tire that will be on the Chevy Volt, but Tire Rack recorded only a .37% improvement in the testing. A key issue is that the Tire Rack didn't differentiate between city and highway driving, so that could be one explanation.

Matt Edmonds, a Tire Rack vice president, said in an interview that tiremakers have made major strides in producing eco-tires that perform well under both dry and wet conditions. Asked about noise -- a frequent complaint about LRRs -- he said, "We did notice that there was more road noise than usual, but we aren't that familiar with the Toyota Prius so it may have been the car itself."

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Pedestrian safety advocates and spokespeople for the blind have warned for years that hybrid and electric cars may pose a menace at intersections. That's because new green cars are so quiet on the road -- a boon to sufferers of noise pollution and wildlife everywhere. The fear has been that some people, including children, won't be able to detect a car coming, although as my article on today's front page of the New York Times ("Hybrid Cars May Include Fake Vroom for Safety") points out, there is no information to date to suggest that even a single accident has been caused by this issue.

As the article mentions, some people have argued that we don't need to worry about quieter cars, since the responsibility ultimately lies with the driver not to hit someone. Even so, there is enough concern that there is legislation pending that could set standards for auto sounds. And as I write this, Fisker is in the process of developing a sound system in the bumper of it's upcoming (and pricey) plug-in hybrid car, specifically to let others on the road know it's coming.

There is talk of customizable "car tones," sort of like cell phone ring tones, that may soon be appearing on future models from various manufacturers. Will this improve safety or annoy everyone like your coworker with the insipid Mexican hat dance rendition on his phone?

Read the Times article.

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I've seldom met anyone like Gísli Gíslason of Northern Lights Energy. I encountered this extremely self-confident gentleman in Reykjavik, Iceland, just prior to that country's annual Driving Sustainability '09 conference. Some EV geeks are entrepreneurial -- Elon Musk (Tesla), Shai Agassi (Better Place), Kevin Czinger (Coda) -- to name a few, but Gíslason appeared to be in a class by himself. Here he is on video:

He has an ambitious plan to make Iceland the first country in the world to have a national electric car grid, and he was leaving on a buying trip right after our encounter. The plan was to find more than a thousand cars from any vendor that would let them go, then resell them in Iceland (which has only 310,000 people). "If you are a Electric vehicles manufacturer," proclaims the Northern Lights website, "you need to represent your company in Iceland....where it is all happening." Who can argue with that?

Gíslason just told me via email that at the recent Frankfurt Motor Show he placed orders for 1,000 Tesla Model S cars and 400 Indian-made Revas. "Elon Musk made a decision in eight minutes to support my project," he said. The Reva cars, much more sophisticated than the tinny boxes now plying London's congestion corridors, will be the first delivered in Europe.

According to an article in Iceland Review, Gíslason is trying to buy cars in the $15,000 to $23,000 range. The aim, the story says, is "to enable the public to replace their conventional cars with electric by 2012." That's early.

Electric vehicles (EVs) make more sense in Iceland than just about anywhere else. The country has a surplus of electric generation from abundant geothermal and hydro power, and it needs to get away from wasting that extra on polluting, foreign-based aluminum smelting plants. A plan to build a hydrogen energy economy didn't really get off the ground, largely because there still aren't any available on the market.

Iceland could service its entire island with just 20 strategically placed, multi-port charging facilities, according to Gíslason's colleague, Sturla Sightvatsson. It's time to put plans like this into action. If Iceland doesn't go into overdrive (and Gíslason's plan has the support of the President of Iceland, as I wrote last month) it will lose out to other fast-track countries, including France.

As I write, Daimler has announced that it will put an electric version of the Smart car (currently under test in Great Britain) into production by 2012. That's a good plan, but as EV expert and Plug-In America co-founder Chelsea Sexton pointed out to me just now, the EV Smart could cost $30,000 and will have to compete with the gas version costing half as much.

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We recently wrote about G-OIL Ultimate Biodegradable green motor oils from Green Earth Technologies, a "new automotive motor oil made with American-grown renewable animal fats....It takes three barrels of crude oil to make one barrel of motor oil, but it only takes one barrel of animal fat to produce one barrel of G-OIL." At the time, G-OIL was available for small engines at the Home Depot, but now the company has just announced distribution for the automotive version.

Starting this month, the product is available at National Auto Stores, a family owned and operated business serving eastern Pennsylvania. G-OIL is also set to roll out to other retailers, quick lubes and online merchants in the upcoming months.

The G-OIL SAE 5W-30 motor oil passed the engine test criteria for the American Petroleum Institute (API) SM Certification, and was officially granted the API “Donut,” becoming the first bio-based motor oil to do so.

Learn more about G-OIL, and hear from the company's president.

From Popular Mechanics: Amyris Renewable Diesel, 2008 Breakthrough Award Winner (w/ Video)

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Qteros: from feedstock to fuel. (Qteros photo)

There's no nice way of saying this: A group of green-minded entrepreneurs are making a clean-burning car fuel out of, well, poop. They don't call it that, of course -- they prefer to call it "municipal wastewater" or "sewage sludge," but trust me, that's what it is.

I come from a family of engineers, and my father was a pioneer in reclaiming potable water from sewage. I have a photo of him, in a hard hat, quaffing a glass of the stuff. So this is exciting news for me. In a two-step process, Israel-based Applied CleanTech (ACT) start by removing cellulose (the part of the plant we can't digest) from both the sludge and agricultural liquid waste, then Marlborough, Massachusetts-based Qteros ferments this treated material into cellulosic ethanol using a fast-acting microbe sourced from Massachusetts' Quabbin Reservoir.

Qteros' fast-acting q-microbe. (Qteros photo)

It's called Sewage Recycling System (SRS), and ACT spent six years developing it. CEO Israel Biran says that its technology can solve the headache of sewage sludge disposal, and Qteros co-founder Jeff Hausthor says its customers can be "every municipality that has a wastewater treatment plant." And unless your town is dumping its sewage right into a bay or lake, it has one of those plants.

Bill Frey, CEO of Qteros, said his company's mission is to find the most effective way to make low-cost, non-food ethanol. Cellulosic ethanol processes have not yet been commercialized--a hurdle to getting this collaboration off the ground--but Frey said in an interview that Qteros will be looking for partners next year to make that happen.

According to ACT President Dr. Refael Aharon, a fairly large wastewater plant, handling a population of two million people and processing 150 million gallons a day, would have enough capacity to keep a small ethanol plant supplied with processed cellulose feedstock. And for every ton of that treated feedstock (which they call "Recyllose") some 120 to 135 gallons of ethanol can be made.

It's hard to see the downside of this. But wait, there's more! Last week, I was in Los Angeles with Daryl Hannah, Ed Begley, Jr. and author David Blume discussing the wonders of alcohol/ethanol fuel. Blume, author of Alcohol Can be a Gas, champions whole systems that make use of salvaged "waste" products. Here he is, on video, talking about the possibilities of ethanol fuel:

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It started with a Wall Street Journal article entitled "Gore-Backed Car Firm Gets Large U.S. Loan." That's all it took, because anything Gore-backed is red meat for the airwaves and blogosphere. When competing in the "Green Car Challenge" on the Jay Leno Show, Rush Limbaugh bashed a cardboard cutout of Gore, then backed up to hit him again.

The WSJ article is not inaccurate (except where it said that Tesla Motors produces hybrid cars, which was later corrected). Gore does like the Fisker, and even put down a deposit on one. And the company did receive a huge Department of Energy (DOE) loan to build plug-in hybrid cars, $529 million. But it was a loan, not a grant -- there's a difference!

For the record, Fisker is an American company, based in Irvine, California, and it is spending all the loan money in the U.S.A. Some of that money, $169 million, is going into final engineering work on the Karma high-performance luxury sedan, which will be built in Finland. The money will not be spent in Finland, though, but in Irvine, California and Pontiac, Michigan.

"This was a loan, and it has to be paid back with interest," said a bewildered Henrik Fisker today. "There seems to be some confusion between grants and loans. And all the money has to be spent in the U.S. -- it's a condition of the loan."

Fisker told me, in fact, that he would have preferred to build the Karma in the U.S. but could not find an American manufacturing partner able to handle the low volume (just 15,000 a year).

From the WSJ the Fisker story soon gained altitude on Fox News. As detailed in a lengthy MediaMatters.com post, the Fisker story got a lot of attention over there. The heads were certainly provocative: "$529M Gov't Loan Will Help Gore-Backed Co. Build Cars in Finland," one said. And that's true too, but most of the grant is going to finance the company's smaller, $40,000 Project Nina plug-in hybrid, which will be built in the U.S.

Fox contributor Stephen Moore described the Fisker money as a "grant" (it's a loan) and then said, "But I think the vast, vast majority of Americans would say, at least if we do it, find an American company that's going to employ American workers to do this." But it is an American company, and it is employing American workers.

Fox might have a point about the Karma being built in Finland -- that part is definitely true, though Fisker would have wished it otherwise. Somehow, when we hear that we think of socialist-medicine-loving Finns basking in their saunas and eating brie on America's dime.

Another Fox headline said, "Why is European Car Company Getting Money From Uncle Sam?" But it's not a European company; it just builds cars there.

There also seemed to be some confusion about the citizenship of Tesla Motors, which is also an American company, based in San Carlos, California. The WSJ described Tesla as "purveyors of a $109,000 British-built electric Roadster," so that's probably where that one got started. And of course, both Henrik Fisker (who's Danish) and Elon Musk (born in South Africa) have, horrors, foreign accents.

Fisker will not be wildly spending American taxpayer dollars in Europe. The DOE loan is conditional, requiring the company to clear some fairly steep hurdles. It didn't get handed a $529 million check, but will get additional money as it reaches targets. Fisker also plans to export half its cars, which should help our seriously strained trade deficit.

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