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Chevy Volts invade NYC police fleet, give cops all new ways to taze bros
New York's boys in blue will soon be able to creep up on evildoers with even more subtlety, thanks to some new electrified vehicles the city unveiled yesterday. As part of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's environmentally-friendly PlaNYC initiative, 70 new EVs have been added to the city's fleet of public cars, in the hopes of lowering emissions and creating a "greener, greater New York City." Joining the force are ten Ford Transit Connect cargo vans, ten Navi-star E-star trucks and a full 50 Chevy Volts -- some of which will be used as NYPD squad cars. These newcomers will be shared among nine different departments, joining 360 other city plug-ins already purring their way across the five boroughs. Bloomberg is also working toward adding EVs to New York's army of 13,000 taxis -- which we're totally cool with, as long as they're not minivans. Zip past the break for a rather Homeric press release.
Coulomb partners with Ford, Chevy, Smart to deliver 4,600 free EV charging stations in US
Looks like Australia and Poland were just the beginning: Coulomb Technologies is looking to roll out nearly 5,000 electric vehicle charging stations in the US, effective immediately. If one of those cherry-red push pins is pointed at your neighborhood, you'll likely see the stations popping up at local businesses soon, and if you're looking to purchase a Chevy Volt, Tesla-powered Smart or one of Ford's two new EVs, you can even qualify to have a free station installed in your home. Partially paid for by a $15 million grant from the Department of Energy, the ChargePoint America program won't necessarily give you free electricity to go with it -- that "charge" in ChargePoint has a double meaning, after all -- but we're happy to see the zero-emissions future is finally on a roll. PR after the break.
Ford's electric Transit Connect has the power to move you -- and all your stuff
Electric vehicles are great, but they tend to be tiny, cute, and generally rather useless for people who have things that need to be taken places. That's not the case with Ford's distinctively non-cute Transit Connect, a van of the type you typically see shuttling flowers and other small goods around urban streets. This one, however, runs entirely on battery power (a first for Ford) despite being able to haul 1,760 pounds of cargo to a maximum range of 100 miles -- on the high side for your average EV but perhaps not enough for a day's worth of deliveries. No word in pricing, but expect these to start showing up at Ford dealerships sometime next year, frequently in white.Update: Commenter ericlmccormic clued us in to the earlier Ford Ranger EV that was offered up until 2002 -- before being summarily recalled and destroyed. Big Oil conspiracy theorists take note!Update 2: A few commenters mentioned that not all the Ranger EVs were decommissioned; some lived out their days well past 2002, happily delivering smiles to children and in no way taking part in any fuel-based schemes.
