charging
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Range anxiety is still an issue with electric cars, even though 240- and 300-mile EVs are now on the market. No matter how far the range, an EV driver could run low on charge with no charging station nearby. Amazon might have a solution for the electric equivalent of running out of gas. The United States Patent and Trademark Office recently granted the online retailer and technology company a patent for an electric-car charging drone. First discovered by The Drive, the patent details a fairly straightforward charging process. Per the patent's language, the drone deploys only if drivers do not...
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Could Elon Musk's Tesla take on 7-Eleven next?
Charging an electric car isn't exactly the same as stopping at a local fuel station to fill up in a matter of minutes. In fact, owners of electric vehicles often wait for 20 to 30 minutes while their car charges. Tesla may be interested in making the wait time at its Supercharger stations a tad...
Sean Szymkowski -
Tesla taking Supercharger network to city centers, starting with Chicago and Boston
Tesla has largely focused its Supercharger charging station network on highways and popular roads, but the Silicon Valley automaker will soon change that. Tesla announced it will begin to expand its Supercharger charging network to city centers, with downtown Chicago, Illinois, and Boston...
Sean Szymkowski -
BMW Gives i3 A Boost With New $6,500 DC Fast Charger
Up until now, if you can claim being near a publicly available fast charger, you're probably among the fortunate few in a handful of major cities (or among a few electric-highway projects, mostly on the West Coast). And for vehicles like the all-electric version of the 2014 BMW i3, which use the...
Bengt Halvorson -
BMW Launching 360 Electric-Driving Assistance At LA Auto Show
BMW 360 Electric is a suite of technologies and services that BMW hopes will make electric cars more convenient.
Stephen Edelstein -
Tesla's 'Supercharger' Fast-Chargers Spread To East Coast
Having successfully launched its first ‘Supercharger’ fast-charging stations on the West Coast back in September, electric car startup Tesla has quietly added more of the stations on the East Coast. The new stations make it possible for owners of the Tesla Model S, the only model...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
Development of Volvo’s C30 Electric prototype is continuing nicely, though the automaker remains coy on when we might see a production version. The fact that the C30 is being discontinued doesn’t bode well for the eventual launch of the C30 Electric, though it’s likely the technology behind the prototype will eventually transfer to other models. Today Volvo has announced it is testing a new electric car fast-charger, which the automaker says can reduce charge times to a maximum 1.5 hours, roughly six times faster than most electric car charging systems. Of course, Tesla...
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Tesla 'Supercharger' Fast-Charging System Has Landed
At the start of this year, Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk made the bold promise his company would eventually launch a network of fast-charging systems to allow owners of electric cars to extend their driving range with a level of convenience at least approaching that of conventional combustion...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran -
Nissan Leaf Goes Wireless: Charging Mat Under Development
Nissan is working on an inductive (wireless) charging mat for the Leaf that should make charging a matter of simply backing into a parking spot, and hitting a screen prompt to verify that you'd like to charge.
Bengt Halvorson -
Nissan Unveils 10-Minute Electric Car Charger, But It's Still 10 Years Away
There are at least three obstacles standing between electric cars and mainstream drivers: range-anxiety, battery recharge times, and the fledgling charging infrastructure. The good news is, Nissan may be well on its way to eliminating one of the three. Working in partnership with Japan's Kansai...
Richard Read -
Google Buys 30 Leafs, Volts, and 250 Charging Stations: Video
Google built its reputation as a small, simple search engine, but there's nothing small about the company's investment in electric vehicles. Google has just placed an order for 30 Nissan Leafs and Chevrolet Volts, as well as 250 EV charging stations from Coulomb Technologies. Google will add the...
Richard Read -
Need To Charge Your Electric Car? There's A Google Map For That
Despite the best efforts of some in the auto industry to keep electric cars off the roads, they're back. Given the current state of technology, the EV's revenge will likely be slow and steady, but most experts agree that electrics are the future of transportation. There are, however, several...
Richard Read -
Just yesterday, our colleagues at All Cars Electric gave readers a sneak-peek of the 2012 Volvo V60 plug-in hybrid, an intriguing new wagon that promises to earn up to 745 miles on a fully charged battery and a full tank of diesel. But of course, no high tech ride would be complete without the obligatory smartphone app, and Volvo's got one -- one that lets users keep tabs on the V60's battery-charging process. The V60's battery can take as long as 7.5 hours to top off, but with a 240V, 16A charger, the time drops to three hours. (By comparison, the Chevrolet Volt takes four hours at 240V .)...
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Powermat Car Charger Rolls Out To Other Cars (Not Just GM Models)
Last month, we told you that GM cars would soon feature built-in charging devices from Powermat and that the Chevy Volt was first in line for the goods. Now, Powermat has announced that it'll soon offer a version of its wireless charger for cell phones and other mobile devices that will fit any...
Richard Read -
2011 Nissan LEAF And Others 'Connected To The Cloud'
Cloud computing is very much a feature of 'Web 2.0'. Rather than using a location-dependent center of resources such as a server, cloud computing uses shared servers, all of which can be used to provide resources, software and data. For Average Joe, this might mean using web-based word processing...
Antony Ingram -
Powermat Portable Device Wireless Charging Pads Coming To GM Cars
Imagine being able to charge multiple portable devices, from MP3 players to USB sticks to smartphones and Bluetooth kits, in your car without having to deal with pesky cables. We all know every brand of portable device loves to you use its own proprietary charging cable but a new solution from...
Viknesh Vijayenthiran