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The Supervisory Board at Porsche this week gave the green light for series development of the 918 Spyder, the 718-horsepower all-wheel-drive hybrid sports car with outstanding fuel economy and claimed 3.2-seconds 0-62 mph quickness.

Taken from drawing to 2010 Geneva Auto Show in less than five months, the 918 Spyder mixes a 500-hp, 9,200-rpm, 3.4-liter gasoline V8 with two electric motors for a combined 718 hp. Porsche has calculated that it could be quicker than the old Carrera GT around the Nordschleife.

The 918 Spyder, one of three hybrid models Porsche presented in Geneva, can go up to 25 kilometers (15 miles) on electric power. The two-seater reportedly limits gasoline consumption to three liters per 100 kilometers (78.4 miles per gallon) and emits just 70 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer.

No time line has been given for when the car  will be ready for the road, but Green Car Advisor doesn't expect the first production models before the spring of 2012. Pricing has not been announced, but Bloomberg news service has reported it could cost $630,000. Porsche said more details will be disclosed in coming weeks.

General Motors told Green Car Advisor this morning that the 1.4-liter gasoline engine aboard the Chevy Volt extended-range plug-in hybrid will require premium gas, which currently costs consumers 10 percent more than regular.

"Premium gasoline ensures that the customer gets maximum fuel economy when driving in extended-range mode," Dave Barthmuss, group manager for GM Western Region Communications, said in an email exchange.

"We don't anticipate that Volt drivers will use a lot of gas, but when it's needed using premium fuel increases fuel efficiency by five percent or greater over the use of regular fuel. Simply put, premium fuel optimizes this engine's characteristics."

The Volt hybrid uses a 111-kilowatt electric motor as its primary propulsion system. When the lithium-ion battery pack is depleted - typically after about 40 miles - the 80-horsepower gasoline engine kicks to generate electricity to the motor and battery pack, extending the vehicle's effective range about 300 miles.
 
The average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline today in the U.S. is $2.74, according to the national AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report. The current average price for a gallon of premium gasoline is $3.01, or 10 percent higher than the price of regular.
 
Still unknown: The Volt's fuel economy. GM is no longer giving estimated mileage numbers, nor is it disclosing the size of the Volt's gas tank, which would allow us to deduce how many miles per gallon the vehicle achieves.

Premium manufacturer's suggested retail price. Very attractive leasing terms. Now, the premium-gas requirement. When it comes to the Chevy Volt, which goes on sale later this year, GM's been full of surprises this week.

Scott Doggett, Contributing Editor

Nissan has detailed the U.S. rollout plan for its all-electric Leaf, which has attracted almost 17,000 reservations from potential buyers.

• The company said the Leaf will be available in California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona and Tennessee in December 2010; Texas and Hawaii in January 2011; and North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Washington D.C., Virginia, Maryland, South Carolina and Alabama in April 2011.
• The five-seat EV will be available in the rest of the country by the end of 2011.
• Addtionally, Nissan reported, more than 30 percent of potential Leaf customers have ordered the car in blue, while 26 percent have picked silver, and about three-quarters have picked the SL trim level that includes a rearview monitor and a solar-panel spoiler.

The federal Energy Department signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the U.S. Defense Department to speed up clean-energy initiatives.

• The MOU doesn't lay out specific timelines or numbers, but includes initiatives such as more alternative-fueled vehicles and better fueling infrastructure for  the military.
• The agreement is part of a broader effort by both departments to boost energy security while cutting emissions.

Quantum Technologies, whose products include the electric drive system and photovoltaic roof module for the upcoming Fisker Karma, raised $10.9 million in a private stock offering and said the funds will be used for general operating purposes.

Capstone Turbine Corp. has begun a range-extender demonstration project for heavy-duty trucks:

• Capstone is working with a U.S. manufacturer of Class 5 to Class 8 heavy-duty trucks (all trucks that weigh more than 16,000 pounds) on what it says is the first hybrid-electric range-extender of its kind, using a microturbine to generate power to run an electric drive system.
• Capstone microturbines can run on diesel and biodiesel as well as natural gas.

Motorists in the United Kingdom will get up to 5,000 British pounds ($7,805 at today's exchange rate) from the government if they buy an all-electric car or an ultra-low-carbon hybrid starting in January, U.K.'s new Conservative-led Coalition government announced today, but the number of grants has actually been sharply reduced from earlier plans.

The subsidy was announced by the Labour government in 2009 but placed on hold by the Coalition until the autumn spending review.

From January, any motorist buying a new-generation electric vehicle or an ultra-low carbon hybrid will get 25 percent off of the price of the vehicle, up to a maximum 5,000 pounds ($7,805).

However, the number of grants that had been proposed by the Labour government has been slashed from a minimum of 46,000 to as few as 8,600 as a 250-million pounds ($389-million) government plan designed to promote environmentally-friendly transport came under attack from multiple parties in the recession-gripped U.K.

The grants will be available just in time for the U.K. launch of the Nissan Leaf battery-electric vehicle (pictured), the first major all-electric rival to the globally successful Toyota Prius hybrid.

Nissan's Sunderland, England, factory will assemble future Leafs, meaning Britain will from 2013 be the company's third-biggest global electric car base.

Nissan itself received grants from the British government to build the Leaf in Sunderland, where the workforce of 4,100 built 338,000 Qashqai, Note and Micra models in 2008.

Toyota's U.S. marketing arm is celebrating the 10th anniversary this month of the U.S. launch of the Prius.

The introduction here of what has become the world's best-selling hybrid is certanly worth noting, but we'd be remiss if we didn't don our cloak of historical accuracy and point out that the Prius actually is 13 years old. 

It made its world debut in Japan in 1997 - the first modern hybrid in the world.

To date, more than 1.8 million have been sold globally, about half of them in the U.S.

Although Honda actually beat the Prius here with the December 1999 U.S. launch of the original Insight hybrid, the Toyota gang was a lot better at marketing. To many, "Prius" is just another word for "hybrid." 

So we add our voice to the chorus - Happy (U.S.) Birthday, Prius.

Oilman-turned-natural-gas-promoter T. Boone Pickens seems to have a lot of friends, or at least a few powerful ones, in Congress.

Despite a presidentially expressed desire to see at least 1 million plug-in electric vehicles on the road by the end of 2015, Senate Democrats in their latest attempt at an energy bill that can get past Republican opposition have included just $400 million for further EV program development versus $4 billion for natural gas vehicles and fuel programs.

Early rumors had the bill eliminating any new funding for electric cars after last year's $2.4 billion appropriation for EV and advanced battery development, so $400 million is something. But at a 10:1 ratio to natural gas promotion??? 

By Danny King, Contributor

Don't bother calling Bob Barker, because as far as the Chevrolet Volt is concerned, the Price May Be Wrong.

That's the general consensus of automotive-industry analysts, who say General Motors may have ensured that the first batch of its extended-range plug-in electric vehicles will be predominantly leased, as opposed to purchased outright, because of a base, pre-incentives sticker price of $41,000 that may appear extravagant for a Chevrolet sedan, new technology or not.

With less than 40 percent of U.S. vehicles priced at more than $40,000, GM, which has invested about $750 million developing the Volt, may alienate potential buyers who see a car that looks somewhat like a Chevrolet Malibu within the price range of German sports sedans or GM's Cadillac luxury badge, albeit with a $7,500 federal tax credit that brings the base price of the car down to $33,500, said Edmunds.com industry analyst Jessica Caldwell.

"If GM had launched the Volt when they started teasing us years ago, it could have successfully commanded a hefty price tag," Caldwell said, noting that there now are a wider range of vehicles in the Volt's price range with improved powertrain technology and packaging. "Tesla's Model S will start at $8,000 more and is better targeted at people who can afford to pay $40,000-plus on a vehicle."

That sticker price may not be that relevant, though, because of the Volt's limited production for the first calendar year - 10,000 vehicles - and a lease price analysts say may be far more palatable to potential customers.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car announced today that it will offer battery-electric vehicles for rent in selected U.S. cities starting next year and, to that end, take delivery of 500 Nissan Leaf BEVs beginning in January and continuing throughout 2011.

Enterprise said it will initially make the Leaf available to customers in eight cities starting next year: Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle, Phoenix, Tucson, Knoxville, Nashville, and Portland, Oregon.

Charging stations will be installed at 100 Enterprise rental locations beginning in November.

The cost of renting the Leaf, which runs about 100 miles on a full charge of its lithium-ion battery, hasn't been determined yet. But, like the hybrid vehicles that Enterprise rents to customers, the rental price is likely to be higher than its gasoline-powered cars.

In addition to the Leaf, Enterprise said it will offer customers electric vehicles from other manufacturers as they become available.

The Leaf will be Nissan's first fully electric vehicle and is one of several battery-powered cars hitting the market over the next several years.

Nissan is currently taking reservations for the Leaf and will start deliveries of the hatchback to customers in select markets in December. The vehicle will have a base price of $32,780 in the U.S., but that will be brought down by a $7,500 tax credit to $25,280 - the same price Enterprise is paying for the vehicles.

Nissan said 17,000 people have placed orders for the Leaf so far in the U.S. Buyers in California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona and Tennessee will receive the first deliveries in December. The Leaf will go on sale in other markets over the course of the year, becoming available nationwide by the end of 2011.

San Jose, Calif. - Only hours after General Motors executives partly justified the significantly higher price of the Chevy Volt extended-range plug-in hybrid over the Nissan Leaf due to the fact that the Japanese automaker hadn't yet announced a warranty for the lithium-ion battery pack in its all-electric model, Nissan stated today it would carry an eight-year or 100,000-mile warranty, whichever comes first - same as the Volt's.

So much for GM's hope that a lack of warranty information regarding the Leaf's battery pack (pictured) would raise concerns about its reliability.

GM announced last night that the Volt will carry a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $41,000. That does not compare favorably with the Leaf's base price of $32,780. Both prices do not include government incentives. Both models will go on sale in the U.S. later this year.

The automakers made their announcements at Plug-In 2010, an electric-vehicle convention taking place in San Jose this week.

Granted, the Volt and the Leaf are very different vehicles. For starters, the Volt can travel approximately 340 miles between refueling (40 miles on electricity off the grid and 300 miles on electricity produced by an on-board gasoline-powered generator). The Leaf can go approximately 100 miles per charge before it needs to be plugged in.

Still, in justifying the price difference between the Volt and the Leaf,  Volt Vehicle Line Director Tony L. Posawatz said last night: "I just want to know who's going to pay for the Leaf battery when it needs to be replaced. Is that in the price or not? I don't know how long those batteries are going to last and you've got to factor that in."

No one member of the general public knows how long either of the battery packs - the Volt's and the Leaf's - will last. To use journalists' favorite expression: Only time will tell. But we now know - or can at least assume - that Nissan has enough confidence in the reliability of its Leaf battery pack to match the warranty Chevy offers for the Volt battery.

Scott Doggett, Contributing Editor

By Scott Doggett and John O'Dell

San Jose, Calif. - After months of suspense and speculation - most of it wrong, it turns out - General Motors finally has let the cat out of the bag: The 2011 Chevrolet Volt extended range plug-in hybrid will carry a base price of $41,000.

There had been plenty of guesstimating that the General, faced with a weak economy and competition from Nissan's battery-electric 2011 Leaf for at least some Volt shoppers, would bring the Volt in at around $35,000 before any federal, state or local incentives.

The Leaf, which seats five versus the Volt's four-occupant capacity, carries a base price of $32,780, jumping to $33,720 for the upgraded SE model, before any incentives.

GM executives, meeting with select automotive writers last night, said there will be three trim levels for the Volt, with prices ranging from $41,000 to $44,600 before incentives, but they emphasized that even the base model would be packed with amenities worth thousands of dollars and typically offered as extra-cost upgrades.

GM's strategy is a bold one that will reward the company if it works because it means the Volt likely will be sold for something close to what it costs to build and won't be straining GM's red-ink supply.

If consumers reject the idea of a $41,000 Chevrolet four-seater - even one with stellar fuel efficiency and next-generation powertrain technology - GM will have spent more than $750 million (that's the development cost it gave Congress in is post-bankruptcy business plan) on a losing bet.

The failure would damage its reputation and endanger its financial future by putting it years behind the competition in coming up with a marketable fuel-efficiency play.

General Motors, however, says that it doesn't consider the Leaf, with its 100-mile range on a battery pack that must then be recharged - a process that can take from four to 10 hours, depending on the voltage available - to be any competition for the Volt.

Feds say they don't believe the Chinese carmaker benefited from the stolen hybrid technology.

By Scott Doggett, Contributing Editor

When it comes to industrial espionage, it used to be that America's intelligence agencies primarily feared Russian and Chinese spies (Industrial espionage.doc). Today, they see a much greater threat in crooked insiders.

Among the latest in a long list of allegedly crooked insiders accused of stealing a company's valuable trade secrets are former General Motors engineer Shannon Du, 51, and her husband, Yu Qin, 49, both U.S. citizens.

The Troy, Michigan, couple was charged in a seven-count indictment in federal court in Detroit last week for, among other things, conspiring to steal secrets from GM relating to hybrid technology and sell those secrets - worth on estimated $40 million - to Chinese automaker Chery Automobile.

According to the indictment, from December 2003 and continuing through May 2006, the couple conspired to possess GM trade secrets relating to hybrid vehicles, knowing that the information had been stolen, converted or obtained without authorization.

The indictment alleges that Du, while employed with GM, provided those trade secrets to her husband for his benefit and for the benefit of a company, Millennium Technology International Inc., that the defendants owned and operated.

Approximately five days after Du was offered a severance agreement by GM in January 2005, she allegedly copied thousands of GM documents, including many containing trade secrets, to an external computer hard drive used for MTI business.

General Motors, which will introduce the fuel-efficient Chevrolet Cruze to the U.S. in the fourth quarter, sold 140,000 of the economy cars worldwide during the first six months of the year and has boosted unit sales by 18 percent a month, the automaker said today.

GM also said the Eco version of the Cruze, which will get a claimed 40 miles per gallon on the highway, will be able to go from 0-60 miles per hour in about 9 seconds with an automatic transmission.

Some 270,000 units of the Cruze, which is available in more than 60 countries, have sold  since its spring 2009 introduction in Europe, GM said in a statement. Daewoo and Holden have sold an additional 70,000 units of their own versions of the Cruze in South Korea and Australia.

Additionally, the Cruze Eco, which has a 1.4-liter turbocharged engine, will have a 0-60 mph time of about 9 seconds with a six-speed automatic transmission, and about 10 seconds in manual, GM said in a separate statement. The stick version of the Cruze Eco will get 40 miles per gallon on the highway, according to GM, which hasn't released city fuel-economy figures.

Along with the Chevrolet Volt extended-range plug-in electric vehicle, the Cruze is part of GM's efforts to boost sales and meet progressively more stringent U.S. fuel economy standards by building and selling more fuel-efficient cars.
 
"The Cruze Eco delivers hybrid-like efficiency without the price tag," Jim Campbell, Chevy's U.S. vice president for marketing, said in a statement. "Along with the Volt electric vehicle with extended range, it demonstrates how Chevrolet is working to bring new products to market that range from gas-friendly to gas-free."

While the EPA hasn't put a fuel-economy rating on the Volt, which will also debut later this year, the EREV will be able to go about 40 miles in electric-only mode before a fuel-powered combustion engine kicks in as an on-board generator to give the car another 300 miles of range.

GM is pricing the base-version Cruze LS at $16,995, the Eco at $18,895 and the top of the line LTZ at $22,695. The company hasn't yet priced the Volt.

Danny King, Contributor

Porsche, which now offers a Cayenne S Hybrid and has produced a 911 GT3R hybrid racer and plug-in hybrid 918 Spyder concept, today announced its first dive into pure electric vehicles with a trio of experimental battery-electric Boxsters.

The Stuttgart automaker said in a statement that "these three electric Boxsters are to provide an initial first important insight into new electric drive components and battery systems for all-electric vehicle drive."

The "field test," slated to start early next year, is intended to also provide further findings on the infrastructure required for electromobility, user behavior and the demands made of future products, the automaker said.

CEO Michael Macht said in the statement that Porsche "will definitely be offering an electric sports car in future. But such a concept only makes sense if it offers product qualities typical of a Porsche."

Does that sound definite to you? "No" is the correct answer.

In addition to the Cayenne S Hybrid, starting next year Porsche will offer a Panamera S Hybrid.

Coulomb Technologies today announced the availability of its residential charging stations for electric vehicles.

The Campbell, Calif., company's new CT500 Level II (208-240 volts at 30 amps) ChargePoint Networked Charging Stations are designed for home and light commercial use.

The announcement expands Coulomb's spectrum of products for EVs from home to Level III fast charging stations. Pricing of the CT500 charging station starts at $2,500 excluding installation, Coulomb spokeswoman Anne Smith told Green Car Advisor.

The ChargePoint Network is based on an open interface, standards-based architecture that provides station owners with a complete set of business applications to market and bill for electric transportation fueling services, and provides drivers with EV charging applications to make fueling easy.
 
The CT500 charging station is a 7.2-kilowatt single output station designed for residential and light commercial applications. It is compatible with plug-in electric vehicles that comply with the SAE J1772 plug-in electric vehicle-charging standard.

Companies participating in or supporting the SAE J1772 standard include General Motors, Chrysler, Ford, Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Tesla. The charging station is compatible with the Nissan Leaf battery-electric car and Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid, available later this year.

Other companies that are working on or have developed EV chargers compatible with SAE J1772 include AeroVironment, ClipperCreek, General Electric, GoSmart Technologies and Leviton. Competing standards exist in Europe and Japan.

The CT500 is compatible with Leviton's recently announced innovative Evr-Green EVSE installation system. This industry-first prewire mounting system provides for simple plug-in installation for new charging stations.  
 
Coulomb's ChargePoint Network is open to all drivers of plug-in vehicles and provides authentication, management and real-time control for the networked electric vehicle charging stations.

The network of electric vehicle charging stations is accessible to all plug-in drivers by making a toll free call to the 24/7 number on each charging station, or signing up for a ChargePoint Network monthly access plan and obtaining a ChargePoint ChargePass smart card.

Scott Doggett, Contributing Editor

By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

Last time I sat behind the wheel of a Think City EV was in 2001, when Ford Motor Co. owned the brand and was trying to figure out what to do with a tiny battery powered, plastic-bodied, two-seat commuter car from Norway.

It used nickle-cadmium (NiCd) batteries, had 50 miles of range on a good day, a top speed of 55 mpg and could usually get you across the intersection before the light changed from green to yellow.
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The Think City is made for cities: Its small size makes for easy parking while its plastic body sheds parking lot dings like a duck sheds...well, you know.
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Ford couldn't figure out how to sell it - or didn't want to at the time - and dumped the brand in 2002, subjecting Think to a glum few years of insolvency and near collapse before its present ownership team, led by U.S. battery maker Ener1, took the reins last year.

Now Think is back, selling cars in Europe and planning a U.S. factory in Elkhart, Ind. (with the help of a hoped-for federal loan guarantee that's still in the application process), and a retail launch here in the late third quarter of 2011, with Los Angeles, New York and EV-friendly Portland, Ore. as the initial major target cities, we're told.

As the company has promoted itself here, we've been bugging the U.S. team for a car to test and earlier this week we finally got one.

It even looks nice in the country! Think assures us the retail models won't carry all the decals, but the matte black finish is one of the colors molded into the plastic body.

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It was an older European model but represented - except for the creaks and rattles caused by lots of previous testing use over there - pretty much what we'll be getting in the U.S. model.

And by a nice stroke of luck, we got one of the first to come to the U.S. with the new 25 kilowatt-hour lithium-manganese battery pack from Ener1's Indiana-based battery unit, EnerDel, replacing the German-made MES-DEA Zebra sodium battery Think had been using.

(CORRECTON, 7/27/10: This article originally incorrectly referred to propane as liquefied natural gas (LNG). Propane is actually liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), which is stored at higher pressure and has different properties than LNG.)By Danny King, Contributor

Natural gas as an automotive fuel has been in the news lately as the U.S. searches for a way to reduce use of imported oil, but when talk turns to natural gas it is usually about the compressed version, or CNG.
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Hard to find: There are about 2,400 commercial propane pumps in the U.S., versus 164,000 gasoline pumps.
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But propane, otherwise known as liquefied natural gas, or LNG LPG, is making a comeback and as a vehicle fuel could not only help cut oil use but would help improve air quality, researchers say.

A variety of government agencies and commercial fueling collectives are likely over the next dozen years or so to reverse the decade-long decline in the use of LNG LPG for fleet vehicles as more manufacturers develop engines that can run on propane and governments extend tax incentives, according to a new report from Argonne National Laboratory.

Additionally, stricter heavy-duty vehicle emission standards and the higher costs of complying with such regulations related to diesel engines may encourage more vehicle makers to pursue natural-gas alternatives for trucks and other fleets, according to the report.

Propane use by taxis, school buses and other vehicles may increase as much as 15 percent per year through 2020, according to the report, which cited consultant ICF International. Annual propane production will have increased 35 percent to about 270 million tons between 2000 and 2012.

Such increases would help cut foreign-oil dependency because about 60 percent of U.S. propane comes from natural gas - and that percentage is expected to increase. The U.S. and Canada account for about a quarter of the global propane supply, according to the report.

"Enough propane to fuel targeted fleet vehicles appears to be available, with expansion opportunities apparent in the school bus, taxicab, police, and paratransit markets," the report said.

Japanese electronics giant Hitachi says it expects global sales of hybrids and electric-drive vehicles to quintuple by the end of 2020 and thatit is looking at building lithium-ion battery factories outside of Japan to help handle what it expects to be a crush or orders from various automakers.

Hitachi isn't alone:

• South Korea's LG Chem said it is considering adding lithium-ion battery manufacturing capacity in China and Europe to help it meet anticipate demand from EV makers. The expansion could begin as early as 2013, company CEO Kim Bahn-suk told a reporter from the Korea Herald.

• Another South Korea battery company, SK Energy, said it has entered a deal to supply rechargeable batteries to the Hyundai-Kia automotive group for the Hyundai i10 EV that's slated to begin production by the end of the year and for additional Hyundai and Kia EVs that would begin hitting the market at the end of 2011.

On the commercial diesel front, the federal EPA has announced $5.6 million in clean diesel grants in Texas, Washington  and California:

• Puget Sound Clean Air Agency got $1.2 million for a seawater scrubber that removes pollution from large ship engines.
• The University of Houston got $1 million for NOx reduction systems for school buses.
• Southern California's South Coast Air Quality Management District received $1.5 million for a device that captures diesel exhaust fumes from ships in port.
• The California Air Resources Board got almost $1.2 million for a NOx reducing device for locomotive engines.
•  And the Los Angeles Harbor Department received $731,000 for a hybrid diesel-electric crane to be used at the Port of Los Angeles.

We're not sure if it is nervousness about the competition or a refreshingly real interest in what customers want, but Nissan is surveying more than 10,000 people who've signed up to get info about the Leaf EV to find out what kind of battery warranty would satisfy them.

The survey was e-mailed just after General Motors announced that its extended-range electric-drive Volt would carry an 8-year, 100,000-mile warranty on its lithium-ion battery pack.

From the wording of the Nissan battery survey - and from comments some executives have made about the pace of battery development - it appears the company initially was thinking of  5-year, 60,000 warranty on the Leaf battery pack.

The survey - actually a batch of battery warranty questions embedded in a longer survey that includes questions about potential buyers' vehicle use patterns and seriousness of intent to acquire a Leaf - seems aimed at finding out the minimum warranty that would satisfy people and how much folks would be willing to pay for an optional extension to go beyond that.

Questions weren't couched in terms of what kind of warranty would make people happy. Rather, Nissan asked before listing a bunch of warranty choices, "at what point will you not consider the Nissan Leaf as your next vehicle?"

The choices ran from 3 years or 36,000 miles all the way to 10 years or 200,000 miles.

Subsequent questions honed in on the 5-year, 100,000 mile option and asked people for input on whether that would switch off their interest in the Leaf and what they'd be willing to pay for an optional extension.

By John O'Dell, Senior Editor

Selling electric cars is one way for a small auto company to make money, selling the brains that make them work is another and in the short term is potentially more profitable.

That seems to be the thinking behind the decision by Japanese trading company Itochu Corp. to take an equity stake in Norwegian EV-maker Think and to begin selling Think's EV control system to other companies.

The controller, called the G4 EV Drive Controller, is the electronic "brain" that links batteries, motors, regenerative braking and all the other parts of an EV system into a cohesive unit.

Think, which has been around for almost two decades, is now on the fourth generation of the brain box - hence the "G4" designation - and already has been purchased by Mazda,  for use in an upcoming fleet of Mazda2-based EV prototypes, and by the Japanese postal service for use in converting postal vans to electric drive.

Think CEO Richard Canny told Green Car Advisor in a telephone interview that he sees sales of the controller as a valuable income stream while Think ratchets up sales of its urban EV, the two-seat Think City, and begins developing new models and planning for the brand's introduction in the U.S. late next year.

Neither company is saying how much Itochu, a $130-billion global giant, invested in Think.

The two companies have had a strategic alliance since last year, when Itochu signed on to market the Think City in Asia.

The 150-year-old trading company also is a minority stakeholder in lithium-ion battery company EnerDel, which supplies Think's batteries and whose parent, New York-based Ener1, is Think's controlling shareholder after helping pull the car maker out of bankruptcy last year.

You probably know them from their electrical outlets and switches - just about every home in the country has something from Leviton in it -  and now the company is using its electrical prowess as a wedge into the EV market.

Leviton plans to unveil a portfolio of "Evr-Green" home charging products for electric-drive vehicles (battery EVs and plug-in hybrids) at the Plug In 2010 Conference in San Jose, Calif., next week.

The company also said that it has signed a marketing alliance agreement with Coulomb Technologies which will link Leviton EV chargers into Coulomb's ChargePoint network.

The lineup includes a 110-volt Level 1 portable charging cord system, a fixed Level 1 cord station and a 240-volt Level 2 station.

The company says that it also has developed a wiring system for Level 2 chargers that enables EV owners to get their garages (or carports or parking spaces) ready for a Leviton charger that can then be installed "without any tools."

A company spokeswoman told us that prices for the wiring systems start at "under $200." But that doesn't include installation, which requires the services of a Leviton-certified electrician.

Pricing for the chargers hasn't been disclosed although we're hoping to hear more from Leviton later today and prices are on our list of questions, along with the compatibility of the pre-installation wiring system with chargers made by other companies.

Both the Level 1 cord set and the Level 1 and 2 fixed stations from Leviton will use the North American standard J1772 connector, the company said.

By working with Coulomb, Leviton can provide its EV charger owners access to public  ChargePoint stations and to a range of smart phone applications that provide notification when charging is completed, locations of ChargePoint network chargers and integration, where and when possible, with so-called Smart Grid functions system to set up preferred pricing or "time-of day" charging timers.