VIDEO: How to charge your electric vehicle with home solar panels

Via EVPerspective / Los Angeles Times: Here's a video by LA Time's reporter Susan Carpenter on the equipment and costs involved with charging your electric car at home, using solar panels:

Read More

Who will struggle the most in 2011? Non-EV American drivers

A U.S.News & World Report article featured on Yahoo! Finance lists who will struggle the most in the aftermath of the recession in the US. Among the 15 million unemployed Americans, Government employees and homeowners, American gas guzzling car drivers are listed as one of the groups that will suffer the most in the following 12 months. Here’s why:

Gas prices have been drifting upward to nearly $3 per gallon, from about $2.62 a year ago. And energy analysts expect them to stay there or go higher in 2011, thanks to oil prices that are approaching $100 per barrel. And that's happening in a fairly soft global economy that has curtailed demand for oil in many countries, which means there could be a price spike if growth turns out to be stronger than expected.

Back in 2008, when pump prices topped $4 per gallon, drivers reacted by driving less and downsizing their wheels. But for many, the lesson was short-lived: Lower-mileage trucks and SUVs have been making a comeback, thanks partly to discounts designed to move slow-selling merchandise. That could make buyer's remorse a surprise theme of 2011.

Read more

Read More