A new site with some great video promoting all things Iceland. If you haven’t been here before, now’s the time! Visit it here.

We are pleased to announce the Jan Brentebraten will be speaking at DS10 Reykjavík. A previous speaker at DS07 Reykjavík when he was with Ford Europe, Jan is now the Director Marketing, Sales and Service, Think Global.

"We at Driving Sustainability have pointed out the fact that importing energy to Iceland should not be necessary."

Founder and Executive Chairman of Driving Sustainability, Pétur Haraldsson was interviewed by James Guyette of Aftermarket Business. Highlights of the interview include insight into the impact of the Icelandic economy on transportation, emerging technologies that may have lasting implications and the current political state. The full interview can be found here.

“Iceland is unique in the sense that the country’s usage of energy is already 80 percent sustainable,” reports Pétur Albert Haraldsson

Although international air travelers may wish that Iceland?s infamous Eyjafjallajokull volcano put its ash somewhere else, the underlying geographic conditions belching super-heated gases from below are assisting with a global push toward wider implementation of electric vehicles and subsequent independence from petroleum. Read the full article here.

For those interested in both sustainable transportation and cool information visualizations, there's this:

Real Time Rome, a pioneering MIT project that promises to usher in a new era of urban mapmaking, will have its worldwide debut at the Venice Biennale, the prestigious biannual exhibition of contempora

The project utilizes data gathered, in real time and at an unprecedented scale, from cell phones and other wireless technologies, to better understand the patterns of daily life in Rome, and to illustrate what ubiquitous connectivity in an urban environment looks like.

“In today’s world, wireless mobile communications devices are creating new dimensions of interconnectedness between people, places and urban infrastructures,” said project director Carlo Ratti, director of the SENSEable City Lab at MIT. “The goal of Real Time Rome is to use this connectivity to map the city in real time, which may ultimately lead to a deeper understanding of how modern cities function.”

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The historic Indian city of Ahmedabad has won the prestigious ‘Sustainable Transport Award 2010′ for the successful implementation of Janmarg, India’s first full bus rapid transit (BRT) system.

The largest city in Gujarat, with a present day population of about 5.2 million was founded in 1411 by Sultan Ahmed Shah to serve as the capital of the Gujarat Sultanate.

Ahmedabad’s Janmarg BRT system is a sustainable model for the future of transportation in India, where a quarter of the world’s population lives, said the announcement by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP).

The award was handed over to the Ahmedabad city officials, in the presence of Indian Urban Development Secretary M. Ramachandran at a function on the sidelines of the 89th annual meeting of the Transportation Research Bureau held here Tuesday.

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On January 15, 180 transport and climate change experts from local and national governments, multi-lateral development agencies, academic institutions, nonprofits and private companies

gathered in Washington, D.C. to discuss “Next Steps After Copenhagen: Opportunities and Challenges in the Transport Sector” as part of the annual Transforming Transportation conference.
The full-day event, held at the Inter-American Development Bank headquarters, came one month after the international community met in Copenhagen to negotiate the next phase of the Kyoto Protocol and a new international climate agreement on reducing global greenhouse gas emissions. The event was jointly organized by the Asian Development Bank, EMBARQ – The World Resources Institute Center for Sustainable Transport, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Partnership on Sustainable Low Carbon Transport.

Read full article

Iceland looks to green, innovative income sources

Greek unions this week ramped up a revolt against draconian budget cuts as their government faced new pressure to reign in a deficit that has sparked the most serious crisis faced by Europe’s common currency.

But while the turmoil in the Mediterranean state continues, another debt-stricken European nation that last year experienced an even worse economic collapse is exploring innovative ways to lift itself out of the doldrums.

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Thursday, February 04, 2010 Jos Dings writes in the Feb. 4, 2010 European Voice:

Visitors to the Brussels motor show last month could have been left with only one impression: the future is electric. As your special report on the future of cars noted (14-20 January), virtually every manufacturer exhibited a car powered by batteries.

It is just as clear that electric cars are the talk of the town in Brussels’s political quarter. In September, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso declared that “the development of clean and electric cars” would a key priority in the next five years. On 20 January, Spain’s Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero echoed that vision in a presentation of his country’s EU presidency plans (“Zapatero sets out economic vision”, EuropeanVoice.com, 20 January). And electric cars will be a central point of discussion at the informal Competitiveness Council in San Sebastián on 9 February.

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General Motors will invest more than $494 million and create nearly 550 jobs in three U.S. plants to produce the next generation fuel efficient Ecotec engine.

Those plants include:

• Tonawanda — $425 million site investment will add capacity for the next generation Ecotec engine at 370,000 per year and bring about 470 jobs to that community
• Defiance – $59 million site investment will support precision sand cast block at a capacity of 188,000 annually and result in about 80 jobs to that community
• Bay City – $10.5 million site investment will bring new product to the plant (Ecotec connecting rod) and will create about 15 jobs for that plant.

The investment includes facility renovation, new machinery, equipment and special tooling to support this engine program at the three plants.

Read more at Green Car Magazine

The Driving Sustainability Forum.

Iceland is unique in the sense that the country’s usage of energy is already 80% sustainable. Removing fossil fuel vehicles from the roads would make Iceland’s energy usage 98% sustainable and therefore the most sustainable country in the world. The conference was born out of that dream and with 3 conferences under our belts, it is beginning to happen. More importantly the issues and ideas discussed at the conference are catching on elsewhere.

This years conference resulted in identifying 5 areas that would reduce 55% of the oil used by vehicles today in 10 years through:

1. A set of clear goals of replacing oil with sustainable locally produced energy and fuels
2. Creating harmonized incentives that create a demand for low and zero emission vehicles
3. Developing new business models that lower the high capital costs of battery powered electric cars
4. Cooperation of key stakeholders
5. Public campaigns that alter the people’s travel behavior

It was also concluded that the best solutions for sustainable mobility in the next 3-5 years are:

1. The plug-in hybrid vehicles
2. Biogas vehicles
3. Electric vehicles
4. Mixed fuel vehicles
5. And continued lifestyle changes and better planning

Icelandic President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson

Dr. Anne Marie Sastry, Founder & CEO of Sakti3 / Professor University of Michigan

Carsten Beck, Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies

Jim Motavalli of the New York Times

Klaus Bondam, Mayor for the Technical and Environmental Administration, Copenhagen

Bradley Skaggs, Ichiro Fukue, Executive Vice President, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Japan, Teitur Thorkelsson, FTO and one sweet Tesla

The FTO Team after a great conference

Nordic and International Leaders in Green Mobility assemble in Reykjavík, Iceland Monday to discuss the latest developments in the field at third Driving Sustainability conference.

Nordic and International Leaders in Green Mobility assemble in Reykjavík, Iceland Monday to discuss the latest developments in the field at third Driving Sustainability conference.

Electricity and biofuels are quickly changing the way people power their cars in the Nordic countries and have a great potential for making the region more sustainable, save money and benefit the environment. The leadership role of the Nordic countries in renewable energy for transport will be highlighted at the third International Driving Sustainability conference held in Reykjavík September 14 and 15. The environmental and technical Mayor of Copenhagen, Biogas experts from Sweden, Head of E-Mobility Program at Vattenfall Group and the Chairman of the Norwegian EV Association NORSTART are among Nordic experts sharing their experiences at this event.

Two of the world’s largest automotive technology companies, Toyota and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries from Japan, along with China’s BYD Auto, will present their ongoing work and near term plans for producing low and zero emissions vehicles. Green car developments in the United States, under Barack Obama’s Presidency will be covered by advanced automotive battery developers and The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) of the U.S. Department of Energy.

Subjects covered include electric mobility, the future of biogas and energy efficiency in transport, along with the latest trends in urban planning, energy infrastructure and policy.

His Excellency, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, President of Iceland, opens the conference on the morning of Monday September14th and the Katrín Júlíusdóttir, the Icelandic Minister of Industry addresses the gathering on Tuesday morning. The conference concludes with a field trip to a geothermal power plant and a visit to the Blue Lagoon.

The two day conference will be immediately followed by the annual meeting of the World Energy Council (WEC), making for a full week of energy related events at the Hilton Reykjavik.

Driving Sustainability ´09 is one of the major events on the 2009 agenda of the Nordic Council of Ministers under the Icelandic chairmanship.

Japanese automakers Mitsubishi and Toyota along with the Chinese BYD Auto will be presenting their green car solutions in Iceland.

Japanese automakers Mitsubishi and Toyota along with the Chinese BYD Auto will be presenting their green car solutions in Iceland at the third annual Driving Sustainability international gathering of decision makers in Reykjavik September 14th and 15th.

Read the full article at eNewsWire.

Well, it's official: Iceland now has its first ever Tesla Roadster.

Well, its official: Iceland now has its first ever Tesla Roadster. Above is a snapshot from my iPhone taken this afternoon, when I met with Gisli Gislason, the proud owner fresh from the harbour outside the insurance company. Yes, one should better make sure this 100,000 USD car is insured before you take it out for a spin ;-)

Gisli and his company 2012 are planning to play a big part in the electrification of transport in Iceland and it will be interesting to see how their plans work out in the next few years. People say the same about them as about Better Place. It will either be a magnificent success or a great failure. I dare say it could also be somewhere in between.

The Tesla has a planned visit to the Icelandic Quartermile Saturday where it will face the gasoline machines there as summer in Iceland nears its end. As for Driving Sustainability ´09, Gisli has promised to have the Tesla Brabus there on show, and he sounds willing to give a selected few the chance to test drive it themselves.

I must admit, that from my experience this afternoon, it is quite something. I was a little afraid at first to hit the pedal to the metal, but after I had “acclimatized” to the car on the streets of Reykjavik I tried the acceleration of the electric drive. A silent hum of a whoooooommmm and a little rolling of tires is the only thing you hear. The feeling is all in your stomach and it reminds you of strange experiences from crazy roller coaster rides.

It actually felt a little bit like skydiving, the moment when you jump out of the plane and start falling towards the earth starting at 200km per hour.

Biogas production from waste is taking off in South Korea with the help of two Swedish companies at the forefront of the biogas industry.

Biogas production from waste is taking off in South Korea with the help of two Swedish companies at the forefront of the biogas industry. We follow biogas news from Sweden quite closely as that country is speeding ahead in the production and use of biogas for both heating and as a transportation fuel.

A good deal of taxis and also some busses already run on biogas in Sweden and several public transport companies are planning to convert their diesel powered fleets to run on liquid biogas. See a good story on the plans of Swedish public transportation authorities and bus companies right here.

The gas to be produced from food waste in South Korea will not be clean enough to use as a vehicle fuel. Instead it will be sold to an industrial user for internal heating. You can read more about the biogas plans in South Korea here. One of the Swedish companies operating in South Korea is Scandinavian Biogas. A related company, Scandinavian GTS, will be presenting at Driving Sustainability ‘09. Its CEO, Mr. Hans Kattström, will give a talk on liquid biogas as a vehicle fuel and how it will greatly increase the potential of biogas as fuel for trucks and busses. Some even say that biogas and liquid biogas will become the main fuel in Sweden in ten year’s time. This August we´ll see a ten year anniversary of the only Icelandic biogas company Metan that produces vehicle fuel from a waste landfill. There’s already a couple of busses, all the garbage trucks in Reykjavík and a little over 100 smaller cars running on this domestic fuel in Iceland today. A fuel that decreases the share of imported fossil fuels, and is both greener and considerable less expensive than oil and gasoline.

Toyota is expanding its focus from mostly hybrid vehicles to plug-in hybrids and electric cars.

Toyota is expanding its focus from mostly hybrid vehicles to plug-in hybrids and electric cars. The company has just announced that it will be leasing 500 lithium-ion plug-in hybrids globally (200 in Japan, 150 in the US, 150 in Europe) to government and corporate fleets starting by the end of this year. We are happy to announce that Toyota Motor Europe has just confirmed that they will be presenting at Driving Sustainability ´09 in Reykjavík in September.

Increased electrification of transport is swiftly moving up on the agenda in the Nordic countries and the world as a whole. It is therefore exceptionally good news that Toyota, the biggest car manufacturer in the world today, is stating that it “believes that, in response to the diversification of energy sources, plug-in hybrid vehicles are currently the most suitable environmentally considerate vehicles for widespread use.”

Mr. Ichiro Fukue, SVP of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, will share with the participants of Driving ´09, the latest news about the company’s most recent developments in electric vehicles and related infrastructure. We are also expecting some further news about the progress of the Mitsubishi-Icelandic Government agreement on EV fleet testing and service network signed at last year’s event.

Registration is now open here for Driving Sustainability ´09. We are looking forward to seeing you in Reykjavík in September.

Volvo Cars and Vattenfall, the largest energy provider in Sweden, are launching an industrial joint joint venture to introduce plug-in hybrids by 2012.

Volvo Cars and Vattenfall, the largest energy provider in Sweden, are launching an industrial joint venture to introduce plug-in hybrids by 2012. Three Volvo V70 Diesel Plug-in Hybrids hit the roads for testing already this summer.

Vattenfall is to develop and test different high speed charging systems, for private homes as well as charging facilities in public places. Vattenfall also plans to offer customers an agreement for renewable electricity sourced specifically from wind power or hydropower.

The Swedish power industry, vehicle industry, universities and governmental agencies have a vision of 600 000 Plug-in hybrids and Electric Vehicles in Sweden in 2020. If we scale that up to the Nordic level we are looking at 1,3 million PHEV’s and EV’s in the five Nordic countries by the year 2020.

But Volvo Cars are far from being alone in this game in Sweden. The bus and truck maker Scania is now starting full-scale operational trials with six ethanol-fuelled hybrid buses in Stockholm. The use of ethanol will reduce net carbon dioxide emissions by up to 90 percent compared to diesel busses and the hybrid technology reduces the fuel consumption by 25 percent.

According to Scania, the six buses are driven by an electrical motor that doubles as a generator when braking. Energy is stored in supercapacitors with considerably longer service life than today’s batteries.

We're pleased to announce the addition of Klaus Bondam, Mayor of Technical and Environmental Administration, Copenhagen to the Driving Sustainability Conference 2009.

We’re pleased to announce the addition of Klaus Bondam, Mayor of Technical and Environmental Administration, Copenhagen to the Driving Sustainability Conference 2009.

Klaus is reknown for his hard work on making Copenhagen an “Eco-Metropole”. In April 2009 he won TreeHugger’s Best of Green Award and Best Green City To Visit.

Stay tuned for more information on upcoming speakers and conference events.

The Nordic countries, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland, are taking leadership in eco-friendly transport when it comes to policy as well as technology.

The Nordic countries, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland, are taking leadership in eco-friendly transport when it comes to policy as well as technology. Future scenarios for sustainable transport systems in the Nordic countries will be presented at Driving Sustainability´09.

Iceland, with 75% of the population in and around Reykjavik and 100% of its electricity from renewable sources is the perfect place for electric cars and hopes are high that EV technology can be a key factor in system change in energy for transport in Iceland.

The agreement between Mitsubishi and the Icelandic Government signed at Driving Sustainability ´08 makes Iceland along with only a few other European nations into a priority market for the i-MiEV electric car from Mitsubishi in 2010. For more info click here. Having just met with a Mitsubishi delegation in Reykjavik today it is very clear that economic incentives from governments are critical in facilitating the transformation to CO2 free transport systems. A good example of this is a recent UK government announcement that purchasers of EV’s will get subsidies of up to £5,000 to encourage them to buy electric or plug-in hybrid cars.

Another example is the 2008 declaration of the Danish Government that EV´s will be exempt from the 180% car tax in that country at least until 2012, and not subject to any serious taxation until 2015. See some serious policy making right here.

This is exactly the role of government; create the economic environment to speed up the introduction of new technologies that will eventually benefit the national economy, a country’s natural environment and the purse of individuals and companies alike.

In my next blogs, I´ll post a few examples of Nordic leadership in the field of sustainable mobility. It is a region that is consistently ranked as the best place on earth to live in terms of education, health care and environment, and no doubt it will also be a leader in introducing the silent and non-polluting transport systems of the future.

Using biomass to generate electricity to power electric cars is more efficient than making biofuels for cars, according to a study published by the journal Science on May 7th.

Using biomass to generate electricity to power electric cars is more efficient than making biofuels for cars, according to a study published by the journal Science on May 7th. On the same day Shell CEO criticized electric cars as impractical and said “I want Shell to be really big in one renewable, and that will be biofuel,”. Shell did not mention hydrogen in this context, but during the very same week the U.S. Government decided to drop research on hydrogen fuel cell cars saying they would not be practical in the next 20 years.

The authors of the electricity-ethanol study, from the Carnegie Institution at Stanford and the University of California, Merced, calculated that generating electricity, by burning biomass in an efficient power station, delivered 80 per cent more mileage per acre of crops than conversion to ethanol for liquid fuel. It also doubled the greenhouse gas offsets to mitigate climate change. Of course, biofuels still give a driver more range than batteries, but the 80% difference in efficiency is by no means small. Read more about the findings here.

Royal Dutch Shell CEO, Jereoen van der Veer, was quick to react in Business Week saying that electric cars would need too much infrastructure but biofuels could use the existing infrastructure (of the oil companies of course). Van der Veer said Shell was not looking at wind or solar due to low returns on investment but would concentrate on biofuels as a renewable fuel. 1% of Shell’s investment last year was in biofuels.

Shell has been one of the open advocates of a hydrogen economy, but the Shell CEO did not mention that at all when talking about Shell’s plans for renewable fuels. Nothing much seems to be happening in hydrogen at Shell judging from the Shell Hydrogen website as the last thing to be posted there as “what’s new?” is more than one year old post.

U.S. Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, cut funding for hydrogen fuel cell cars from his budget for 2010 and seems to have angered proponents of hydrogen cars with the frequently heard comment that hydrogen is always at least 20 years away, whereas charging for plug-in electric vehicles can be done partly with the existing infrastructure and partly at special charging stations. “We asked ourselves,” Mr. Chu said, “‘Is it likely in the next 10 or 15, 20 years that we will convert to a hydrogen car economy?’ The answer, we felt, was ‘no.’” See a great blog by Jim Motavalli on The Fight for Hydrogen Funding.
To get out of the trenches I would like to make a personal comment at the end that as was the first conclusion at the Driving Sustainability ´07 conference we will not be seeing a silver bullet solution for sustainable mobility but a multi-energy society. Sustainable varieties of biofuels already exist, electric cars are coming in 2011-2013 but will at first be more expensive to buy then traditional cars and I agree that hydrogen for transport is still a long way out, but might be a part of the future mix.

This view was firmly backed by the world’s largest automakers a few days ago in Vancouver Canada who agreed that “No single technology will triumph in the pursuit of a “greener” auto industry. Instead, the future will include a mix of cars powered by electricity, hydrogen fuel cells and biofuels. I might add to this much greater efficiency of the internal combustion engine, lighter materials and of course a change in urban design and human behaviour.

Daimler, Mercedes Benz, and Silicon Valley based Tesla Motors, creators of the world’s most powerful electric sports car, join forces.

When Daimler, the German maker Mercedes Benz, and Silicon Valley based Tesla Motors, creators of the world’s most powerful electric sports car, join forces it can only be seen as a powerful sign of the dramatic shift taking place in the auto industry. When Volkswagen only a week later announces that it is exploring cooperation with BYD, the Chinese battery- and automaker, you realize that production of high quality electric cars are seriously on the industry’s agenda.

Daimler and Tesla already are already co-operating on electric versions of Daimler’s Smart and will now work together on batteries, electric drive systems and vehicle projects. Daimler has said that it aims to introduce next year the first battery-powered car under its Mercedes-Benz luxury brand. Read more about the Daimler-Tesla deal here.

Meanwhile, Volkswagen has said that it is exploring the possibility that Shenzhen-based BYD would supply a lithium-ion battery technology it developed for plug-in hybrid and all-electric battery-powered cars. BYD is one of the world’s biggest producers of cell phone batteries and a fast-rising auto-maker in China. The American investor Warren Buffet last winter bought a 10% share in the company that shortly after launched a plug-in car ahead of its international rivals. Read more about the VW-BYD co-operation here.

U.S. President Obama on May 19th – for the first time in history – set in motion a new national policy aimed at both increasing fuel economy and reducing greenhouse gas pollution for all new cars and trucks sold in the United States. With stricter emission rules are also on the horizon in the EU and around the world makers of turbochargers, advanced lithium-ion batteries, electric motors for cars and trucks and light materials such as aluminium and new plastics are set to benefit.

The new U.S. standards will cover model years 2012-2016, and will require an average fuel economy standard of 35.5 mpg (6.6 liters per 100km) in 2016 (39 mpg for cars (6 liters per 100km), 30 mpg for trucks (7.8 liters per 100km)), or approximately 250 grams CO2/mile (155 grams C02/km).

European Commission President, Jose Manuel Barroso, said a few days before the U.S. announcement that eradicating greenhouse gases from power stations and cars, trucks and aviation must be Europe’s next policy move to tackle climate change. “We need to come up with concrete policies to decarbonise our electricity supply and transport fuels and to transform the grid,”. See more on the EU plans here.

The overall development towards stricter emission standards are seen as favouring hybrid and electric vehicles and will likely cause increased demand for lighter materials such as aluminium and new plastics as well as turbochargers and electric motors for cars and trucks already under development. The producers of lithium—a mineral used in batteries that power new generation vehicles—could be the big winners according to this piece of news and this one.

Chris spoke at Driving Sustainability ‘08 and showed some clips from his first film and created a very enjoyable moment with the audience. There were also two public screenings of Chris’s film Who Killed The Electric Car in Reykjavik in conjunction with the conference. The second screening at Reykjavik University was so popular that people were sitting on the floor to see his film.

Finally, Chris interviewed a lot of speakers at Driving Sustainability ‘08, traveled around Iceland filming clean energy infrastructure, and interviewed the President of Iceland. He tells us that Iceland will play a big part in his upcoming film.

Elon Musk, entrepreneurial founder of Tesla Motors, SpaceX and early investor in PayPal, talking about the potential of electric cars on Letterman.

Elon Musk, entrepreneurial founder of Tesla Motors, SpaceX and early investor in PayPal, talking about the potential of electric cars on Letterman. David makes some great points about the current state of the US auto industry and other than the fact that he’s lost his voice, is very serious and up to speed with what is happening with EV technology. The piece ends with Musk showing off his new Model S in all its glory and Dave, being Dave.

Forget about the hybrid auto -- Shai Agassi says it's electric cars or bust if we want to impact emissions.

Forget about the hybrid auto—Shai Agassi says it’s electric cars or bust if we want to impact emissions. His company, Better Place, has a radical plan to take entire countries oil-free by 2020.

Chrysler has named U.S.-based A123 Systems as the supplier of batteries for its next-generation lithium-ion electric cars slated for debut in showrooms 2010.

Chrysler has named U.S.-based A123 Systems as the supplier of batteries for its next-generation lithium-ion electric cars slated for debut in showrooms 2010.

Unlike traditional hybrids such as Toyota Prius, Chrysler and other automakers are rushing to market cars designed to use a small fuel-powered engine only to recharge the battery. A123’s co-founder Yet-Ming Chiang spoke at Driving Sustainability ´08 on the coming electric vehicle revolution.

Renault and Nissan will supply electric cars to the Irish market within two years as part of a government plan to have 10 percent of vehicles in the country electric by 2020.

Renault and Nissan will supply electric cars to the Irish market within two years as part of a government plan to have 10 percent of vehicles in the country electric by 2020, Ireland’s Energy Minister, Eamon Ryan, announced Friday. “Today’s initiative will transform our streets, will cut carbon emissions and change the face of transport in Ireland”. The Irish government hopes to sign similar agreements with other auto manufacturers to ensure that around 230,000 electric vehicles are on Irish roads by 2020.

Chinese leaders have adopted a plan aimed at turning the country into one of the leading producers of hybrid and all-electric vehicles within three years.

Chinese leaders have adopted a plan aimed at turning the country into one of the leading producers of hybrid and all-electric vehicles within three years, and making it the world leader in electric cars and buses after that. Up to 8800 USD subsidies for EV’s will help China create a world-leading industry producing jobs and exports. The plan also reduces urban pollution and decreases China’s dependence on oil that has to be transported from the Mideast over sea routes controlled by the United States Navy.

It might be the worst economic times Iceland has seen for decades or more, but it is still the time for the best electric sports car ever made to make in roads to our little volcanic island.

It might be the worst economic times Iceland has seen for decades or more, but it is still the time for the best electric sports car ever made to make in roads to our little volcanic island. http://www.teslamotors.is/ is a part of an EV startup cluster http://www.nle.is/ sharing FTO’s goal of increased electrification of land transport in Iceland.

If the EV plans and announcements of most major auto makers become reality in the next three to five years, increased use of domestic C02 free electricity for transport in Iceland will have a tremendous beneficial impact on emissions, trade balance and people’s cost of running their cars.

These guys have now announced that they have an agreement with Tesla Motors to sell Tesla cars in Iceland and are working on obtaining similar deals with other niche EV manufacturers.

One can hardly expect dozens of the +100,000 USD sportscar to be sold during these hard times, but this entrepreneurial move should definitely be applauded. The FTO team wishes Tesla in Iceland the best of luck, and looks forward to see the car speed through the Icelandic lava fields this summer.

The next three years: interest for zero emission vehicles is not limited to eco-aware Northern Europeans.

The next three years Interest for zero emission vehicles is not limited to eco-aware Northern Europeans, as can be seen from this “Concept cars to flood the roads in three years” article in English daily of oil producing mini-state Qatar.

This article outlines the fuel efficiency plans of many automakers from the powerful Daimler-Mercedes to smaller independent manufacturers in North-America and Europe. It is clear that early adopters around the world can pay a hefty price for zero emission electric cars today or in the next year or two. It might also be good to keep in mind some German realism concerning production cost, or as described by VW CEO Martin Winterkorn “We are still a long way off from having the electric car for everybody that is affordable.”

VW says it is planning its first mass electric car in the Up! small car family in the next decade. Until then they will be presenting more traditional solutions for fuel efficiency such as the VW Golf TDI Hybrid with a consumption of 3.8 litres per 100 kilometres going on sale in 2010/2011.

The business research & consulting firm Frost & Sullivan announced during March that it estimates the electric and hybrid vehicle market to reach $2 billion by 2014. F&S expects the lithium-ion battery market to grow right along with it.

The debate on the most economical all electric range for plug in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) continues.

The debate on the most economical all electric range for plug in hybrid vehicles (PHEVs) continues. The battery is the most expensive part of an electric car today, so the size=price of the battery is an equally important decision for makers and buyers of such cars.

Engineers from Carnegie Mellon University have concluded that PHEVs like the GM Volt, using large, high-capacity battery packs to enable propulsion for comparatively long distances solely on electric power are not the most economically viable path to higher-efficiency vehicles. They say that more modest and less-costly battery capacity are the optimum approach. This would be in line with the plans of Toyota to who seem to plan only a 10-20 mile electric range of its Prius PHEV.

GM executives fight back here saying that the researchers are “ill-informed about the cost of new-age hybrid batteries” and don´t count into the equation a $7,500 tax incentive expected for Volt buyers.

At FTO we personally believe a 30-50 km all electric range of a PHEV would be a game-changer, but everything less is fine too. Driving patterns in USA and Iceland alike indicate that 80-90% of daily commutes are within 40-50 km. This means that 80-90% of all driving could be done on electricity if everyone had a plug-in hybrid vehicle with a 50 km range.

Now, that would save a lot of gas. But it will have to save the driver money too if this solution is going to take off. If 5-10years savings on fuel costs exceed the price of the battery we’ll be in good shape. The price of oil will rise according to most forecasts and battery cost is going down every year, so the question about a cost-effective plug-in hybrid seems to be not if they’ll come, but when.