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Recharge Wrap-up: EVs poll well in Portland, Tesla seeks office space

In a poll of drivers in Portland, more than 80 percent said they would be driving an EV in the next 10 years if they weren't already. The poll was small and not scientific, with just 218 votes cast, but it does reflect a slice of a certain population with changing attitudes toward electric mobility, and 80 percent is an impressive figure. Additionally, 43 percent of respondents planned to have an EV in the next five years, and only 18 percent said they prefer gasoline-powered vehicles. With EVs in many ways repeating the adoption process that hybrids went through a decade ago, the five- or ten-year timeframe for more widespread use seems only natural. Read more at the Portland Business Journal. San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee parks like an idiot, or rather, his security detail does. His Chevrolet Volt has been ticketed for parking six times since he took office. Granted, those street-sweeping signs are tough to keep track of, but his car has been photographed blocking at a bus stop while grabbing a burrito (who hasn't sinned in the name of a delicious burrito?), and was even caught parked in a crosswalk. The tickets were all dismissed. Read more from the SF Gate. Tesla is looking for office space in Silicon Valley. As the electric car company continues to search for a place to build its $4- to $5-billion battery Gigafactory, it also needs some real estate to expand its operations near its Palo Alto home. Tesla has expanded from 3,000 to 6,000 California-based employees since the end of 2012, and plans to add 500 more by the end of the year. It is currently looking for 200,000 to 300,000 square feet of office space close to its Fremont factory, according to sources in the real estate industry. Read more at the Silicon Valley Business Journal. Related Gallery 2014 Chevrolet Volt View 11 Photos News Source: Portland Business Journal, SF Gate, Silicon Valley Business JournalImage Credit: Paul Sakuma / AP Green Chevrolet Tesla Electric recharge wrapup portland silicon valley parking ticket

Fisker to unveil its all-electric EMotion at CES in January

Back from the brink, electric carmaker Fisker says it will debut its EMotion sedan at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January. The EMotion is notable for several reasons, including its promised 400-plus miles of range, the ability to charge to 125 miles of range in just 9 minutes and its lidar autonomous technology. The car will also feature four butterfly doors and will be built with carbon fiber rims and a mixture of carbon fiber and aluminum in the body to save on weight. It's also the second go at building an EV for Fisker, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2013 after the Fisker Karma luxury plug-in hybrid fell flat. Fisker was sold in 2014 to Chinese auto supplier Wanxiang Group for about $149 million. And the EMotion can be yours for a cool $129,000. In fact, the company started taking pre-orders in June with a $2,000 deposit, even though the car won't come out until 2019. The EMotion is seen as a rival to Tesla, but CEO Henrik Fisker tells The Street he sees room for competition in the EV segment. "I don't think anyone is out to kill anybody," Fisker said. "Tesla doesn't really have a competitor. It doesn't look like one is going to emerge. I think it's time to move to a next level of this technology and I believe that we have come up with some real breakthroughs." Fisker also told The Street the company is simultaneously developing an affordable version of the EMotion, aimed to be priced around $34,000, that's due out in 2020. That's just a hair under the $35,000 base price of the Tesla Model 3. The veteran car designer first revealed the EMotion via Twitter in June. He told Autoblog recently that he's looking to buy an existing factory to build the car but hadn't yet chosen one, saying "We don't have to make a decision until the end of the year." The EMotion will be powered by two electric motors giving it all-wheel drive, lithium-ion battery packs sourced from LG Chem with a cooling system designed by Fisker that increases energy density. Related Video: Featured Gallery Fisker EMotion View 14 Photos News Source: The Street Celebrities Green Plants/Manufacturing CES Fisker Tesla Green Automakers Technology Emerging Technologies Autonomous Vehicles Electric Sedan Henrik Fisker

Panasonic not sure about Tesla Gigafactory commitment; Texas dealers wary, too

Just about the entire US southwest is ready to jump into the financial bed with Tesla Motors as the electric-vehicle maker looks for a place to put its massive "gigafactory." But lithium-ion battery maker Panasonic? Not so much, says Bloomberg News. Panasonic President Kazuhiro Tsuga spoke to a group of reporters in Tokyo and said he strategically understood the need for Tesla to go large-scale with its factory production, especially as it prepares to debut an SUV as well as a model that will be priced at about half of what a Model S costs. But, he added cautiously, there will be significant risk involved in the investment and his company hasn't committed to its involvement just yet. Texas dealers are already sounding the alarm against changing franchise laws to woo the battery plant. Panasonic or not, Tesla is taking the "go big or go home" approach to a factory that it says will cost about $5 billion ($2 billion already committed from Tesla itself) and may support 6,500 jobs. That latter point has states such as Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas tripping over themselves to figure out the financial incentives necessary to be the further production base for California-based Tesla. Texas auto dealers are already sounding the alarm against changing the state's franchise laws to woo the automaker's battery plant. An open letter sent by the Texas Automobile Dealers Association says it does not believe, "that economic development efforts to bring any business to Texas should in any way be connected to changing established laws in Texas for the singular benefit of any one company. ... We believe this sets a bad precedent for future economic development efforts by linking them to special interest changes in law." Last fall, Tesla expanded its battery-production agreement with Panasonic, saying at the time that Panasonic would provide almost 2 million automotive-grade battery cells for the Model S and Model X during the next four years.