You know, I’ve got nothing against electric vehicles, conceptually speaking. I don’t care how I get down the road, just as long as I can do it quickly, with as much style as doesn’t get in the way. Gasoline fueled or EV, don’t make that much difference to me.

But honestly guys, if you green car makers, EV proponents et al want to be taken seriously by me (and, by extension, other gearheads out there) you have GOT TO STOP MAKING THINGS LIKE THIS!!! Seriously. For the love of Vishnu, what are you thinking? John Waters would drive a “car” this dorky.

The Re-Volt is being constructed in, and sold only in the Polish market at the moment (thankfully). The thing will set you back 60,200 Polish zlotych, which is around $20,780, or about 14,000 Euros. Which, is about $19,000 too much, but that’s just my opinion. For that many zlotych, you’ll get a 7 kWh Kokam lithium ion battery as well as an on-board charger, electric locks and a heater.

For what is described as a “reasonable” number of more zlotychs you can upgrade to a Blaupunkt, get heated seats, a reverse camera with LCD display and alloy wheels. The range is said to me around 60 miles i.e. 100 km and the Re-Volt will top out at a leisurely 55 mph.

Braking-wise the Re-Volt has a two-stage brake regeneration system. Lift your foot off the “gas” and the Re-Volt applies a little of the regenerative braking system, and then will bring in full braking regeneration when you get fully on the stop pedal.

So, in a bunch of ways, it’s pretty standard for an electric “car”… but did they have to make it look like that? And did the have to paint it that color?

Source: AutoBlogGreen

Before now though, we never were sure of the company’s exact intention for the future though. With a name like Lightning, you might think they intended to remain a sports car-only company. Not so!

While the actual car hasn’t gone into production, in many ways they have moved at a quicker pace than Tesla. Tesla has been around for a few years and seen quite a few delays. It remains to see if Lightning will do the same, but regardless the Lightning GT as a product is much more impressive then the Roadster in looks and appointments, etc. It really is a true British GT that just also happens to be electric. What an impressive thing to be able to pull off!

Lightning’s Chairman says the GT is just the beginning; future models he is planning for the company include ” a limo-sized model” that is high-end and “…chauffeur-driven”. Other possibilities are for a SUV and a smaller sports car, he says. It seems as if a sedan is the next step for the company, much like Tesla. Tesla definitely has a head-start for now, but if I were them I’d be watching Lightning closely. The Lightning GT is very impressive to say the least!

The company has developed a quick-charge technology that promises a lot for the future of electric vehicles. As recently as a few months ago, Toshiba was able to recharge their SCiB lithium batteries (Toshiba’s name) to 90% capacity in as little as 5 minutes. Now, they’ve announced their ability to reduce that time to an incredible 90 seconds. 90% in 90 seconds. To me that seems just unbelievable if Toshiba can really deliver on that.

The news about the technology was reported by Business Green via Japanese financial paper Nikkei. First of all it remains to be seen if these claims will pan out in the real-world. Second of all, I think it goes without saying that to achieve anything near that time, it will require an power source of extremely high voltage. Not the ability to do that at home, but you can’t refill you car at home either, can you?

If a technology like this really made it to production, it could be used in hybrids and range-extended electric vehicles as well as pure EVs. An infrastructure of charging stations could be built similar to the gas station network we have right now. 90 second recharges would be absolutely amazing, and would afford electric vehicles with the same convenience as gas ones.

The SCiB batteries would render battery-swapping as unneeded. Why need to swap for a fully-charged pack when you can just recharge in 90 seconds? Better Place certainly has the right idea and business plan though as it is developing a network of battery swap and charging stations as well. Good things are happening in the alternative fuels world, I look forward to the advances we’ll be seeing in the area over the next few years!