EVUK recognition: over 50,000 websites/pages now link to/like EVUK.co.uk. Check current count.
December-January, 2011-2012(2 minutes to midnight) DBM's Vision - "will be realized in the near future".
So one very sorely needed revolutionary resolution for the New Year (and another EVUK English exclusive)
 V for Vision, V for Vindication, V for Victory ?
As opposed to V for Vengeance, V for Vendetta - or even R for Revenge ...
Whilst it's still too early to celebrate victory or revel in revenge - the gauntlet has been cast down by three serious contenders(not pretenders) and the world's automakers(the 100 mile-per-charge brigade) will find it difficult to ignore DBM's, Bolloré's and BYD's genuinely long-range EV technology for yet another year.
But ironically, DBM's uniquely reassuring and recently revised Vision (under)statement is easily ignored since it is NOT visible or directly displayed on its website's homepage(take a look - click on "Unternehmen" to reveal a tiny-fonted, low-key link to the half-hidden "Vision")
And given that this revelatory, confirmatory and coolly matter-of-fact text remains largely unseen and unreported - even in Germany - we'd like to take this opportunity to bring it to the full attention of the English-speaking world as economically vision-less 2011 draws to a close - and yet another year of austerity for the many & prosperity for the few fades into the next..
So here's our in-house translation of two Vision extracts:
"It is our stated aim to deliver a key gateway technology with our Kolibri AlphaPolymer technology - which was developed and produced in Germany - and to do so in such a way that the realisation of our vision of a clean energy future is achieved in the near future("zeitnah") and in a focused, targeted fashion.
DBM Energy is committed to promoting/advancing the marketing of the Kolibri technology from Germany and in Germany.
Fundamental core research is complete and products in the areas of Transport, Logistics and Renewable Energy are now available on the market.
In the next few years DBM will establish itself as one of the largest producers of high capacity energy storage systems in its market sector and Germany will thus become a leading producer of high-performance energy storage technology."
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Reading between the lines, you could perhaps populistically paraphrase this for das Volk(and for all would-be arsonists, saboteurs and spoilers) as :
"We're coming - whether you like it or not! DBM's products will speak louder than words, PR or press release hype. You ain't seen nothin' yet!"
Read DBM's Vision in original German - and here's the passable Google translation. (Note: Google's German translation tool has noticeably improved since our blistering-blitz attack last June on its miserable mangling of the Frankfurter Rundschau DBM/Hannemann interview )
And now - why not follow up that Vision statement with this equally unique and inspiring Chinese television report - in English and introduced by an Australian newsreader - in which even Germany's post-attack ADAC(cf.RAC/AA) has something positive to say about DBM and EV's..
(NB. To clarify - this was most definitely not a collaboration between Audi and DBM Energy ! )
Click any image below to watch TV Report(NDTV):
 
 
Ah yes,
New Tang Dynasty TV - funny how an obscure but highly professional and polished Chinese TV company can do what UK/US/EU/Western broadcasters so adamantly refuse to do - despite the distance that separates China from Germany and despite the fact that DBM will compete head-to-head with China's own dream battery builder - BYD.
An illuminating lesson in free speech(TV) and free market capitalism from China.
So - Happy New Year & Hogmanay, Guys, Folks.
Click exploding Midnight Big Ben to watch fawking fabulous firework fusillade ..
Finale: the EV Revolution is coming. Ready or not. And whether the usual suspects like it or not. The Knives & Fawkes are out. Ignore us at your peril. The little people - and smaller companies - are revolting.
In the guise - most noteably - of Mirko Hannemann & his humongous Hummingbird.
Verily - all Ye xenophobic Little Englanders - Germany's done it again !
Can canny Scotland's revolutionary rivals at St. Andrews - catch up, close the gap, overtake ? Will the university's 1000 miles-per-charge lithium air researchers now feel impelled or pressured to redouble their efforts and leap into the fast lane...at a 1000 miles an hour ? Let's hope so ..
But for now DBM Energy quietly leads("Leitproduzenten") the charge, the pack, the ReVolt - but don't expect a dozen DBM press releases a month ...and don't expect this ReVolt to be televised(except perhaps on China's New Tang TV) - unless audiences open their eyes wide and vote en masse with their remotes.(Or with their sharpened Knives & Fawkes ..)
(By sheer coincidence - whilst typing this piece in an "Irish" bar the author overheard this sobering little gem from a few tables away (quote):
"..don't forget - 'Remember, Remember the 5th of December' "
So is/was the glass half full or half empty? Are the customers half asleep or half awake ?)
*******
Compare & Contrast :
Two trailblazing trailers: Revenge & Vendetta
This Guy - plus smoke & mirrors - feature in both films
See : Open Your Eyes & Look in the Mirror
Postscript: sundry bright sparks have suggested that this 'guy' may be Robespierre not Fawkes. Frankly, who cares / why split hairs ? Similar guys, same guise, different demise ..
Click above/below for Before & After pics/clips
*******
December, 2011 Radical Redefined: Get It Done !/Stop the BS ! speech
(Anjali A,Durban, DN! December 9,2011)
Talking the talk, walking the walk..and e-biking..on treacherous, deadly ground.
Watch both classy classic clips in tandem - for maximum, stereotype-confounding, X-demographic, beyond-the-choir impact.
But for the record and in the name of balance, here's the alternative, equally popular perspective - ie. down the pub and as viewed, brewed and skewed by Britain's gutter-sewer-cesspit press and by almost everyone infected by it - including tribal armies of BBC Clarkson clones and Hammond/May/Murdoch mutants:
"b****y eco-freaks.. bunch of overgrown b****y students, wussies, peaceniks, politically correct b****y do-gooders.. make ya sick...gotta live in the real world, kiddo...get a proper job, ya dunno what real work is, b****y PC brigade and their b****y global warming conspiracies - get a life.."
(so that's Seagal sorted then..)
And on the same wavelength - savour this toxically tasty US Senatorial Video Nasty(scratched & half-rapped - with viral potential ?) -
- "Durban: You are Being Ignored !" :
 
- click Sen Inhofe or Deadly Caine to experience the message & the mantra from Washington, Big Oil and most of the world's media re: this month's Durban Climate Summit and for that matter re: any transformative, revolutionary green technology or innovator or initiative that threatens to seriously disrupt the fossil-fuelled status quo(eg. long-range, low-cost EV's, ultra-low-cost/energy 60 year £2 LED's, low-cost, low-electricity-bill eco-homes, low cost, 94 mpg, 4-seat & fast Fiat Ecobasics etc etc)
Democracy Now - watch full "Get It Done/You Are Being Ignored" Durban broadcast(Fri,Dec 9,2011) - which also includes an impressively impromptu corridor Q&A with suddenly green Greek ex-PM Papandreou(out of office & out of the closet)
December, 2011 DBM - a non-anonymous post-award posting :
Berlin-Bound or Gagged ? Is the DBM Berlin Wall of Silence about to crumble ?
Battering or (better)battery-rammed into EV history ?
Sadly no - although Hannemann himself has just(28. Nov) broken his own latest media silence - and at some length in the German Auto Gazette's "Electric Mobility" section : here's the English version traduced by Google's new and now slightly improved Deutsch-Englisch translation tool. (Again - thanks to Pressw0rds for the unique heads-up)
 
Well - as in 1989 it is of course ultimately up/down to the people, das Volk(as opposed to Volkswagen & Co.) to storm the barricades and tear down those walls(cf. the ongoing Siege of Wall St. ).
This time round and in the context of a green, EV-driven revolution/revolt - it should theoretically at least - thanks to the internet, the blogosphere and social aka surveillance networks be happening far more rapidly than was the case in web-less 1989 and that other Fall of a Wall. (So much for theory, freedom of speech and web-empowerment ..)
A little (a)side note: in 1989 EVUK's own pimpernel-provocateur Paul G - the Royal We if you will - was gainfully freelancing in Germany amongst German-only fellow employees - most with car-crazy East German relatives - and 'we' have to tell you that at that time - with the Wall's Fall imminent - the day-to-day revolutionary Office, Stammtisch and Canteen Conversation on both sides of the Deutschland-Divide was dominated not by 'intangibles' such as freedom and democracy - but by constant car-talk and the words "Mercedes", "BMW", "Opel" ...and "Trabi/Trabant". It was - on the ground - as much a car-driven materialistic, media-enabled revolt as a political/idealistic one(a lesson/truth not lost on Chinese leaders of course):
- the Burning Berlin question now is - can electric cars, das Volk and disruptive upstart-startups like DBM Energy help drive the next political, material, ethical-capitalist Green Revolution/ReVolt - despite the media's Wall of Silence ?
As for last Monday's eagerly anticipated Roland Gutsch award ceremony and, alas, damp squib Fish Bowl forum - well the Royal Editorial We has decided in its not infinitesimal Wisdom that.. we will post up our award/forum highlights when and only when our mainstream, same-stream, tame-stream, lame-stream media finally breaks its ongoing post-ADAC-attack silence - or to spell it out and specifically shame tame names: when any two of the following self-censoring yet still widely respected media outlets finally begin to (re-)acknowledge the existence and persistence of DBM Energy and its award-winning, record-breaking, transformative Kolibri cells - then and only then will "we" give out our version of what did or didn't transpire on Montag 28. November at the ceremonial "Berlin Bowl".
Again - it is ultimately up to the people, das Volk - to bombard or battering-ram mainstream media outlets with "end the silence" emails, tweets, blog comment and good old-fashioned Letters to the Editor. Call us 'sanctimonious'(à la Al Gore press-assassination..) - but silent Shoulder Shrugging and hoping that others will rise up from their car-cushioned rear-ends to demand change is a strategy that didn't work in 1989 in Berlin and, Mensch, it sure as hell won't work now.
So to repeat - just as soon as any TWO of the following self-gagging news providers break their self-imposed sheep-ish (2011) silence we'll carry on where we left off (ie. see DBM/GPM pre-award piece below). So here's the "we're waiting" list:
J.Clarkson's BBC, Channel 4 TV, CNN, the Guardian, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, The (fairly)Independent, Murdoch's Tarnished Times and clouded Sky News...and Germany's very own state-funded, silent 3Sat TV, ZDF, ARD/Das Erste  (click any of the above to see/search 'total' DBM coverage by each to date ..). For slightly less in-action - watch this similarly barren Tumbleweed animation.
Finally - let's see if we can topically connect Berlin to Brighton via BBC bigotry, hypocrisy, cowardice :
Nov 16, BBC News: Breaking News in Brighton - new EV charge-points installed !
Hmm, vaguely newsworthy perhaps - but surely far less remarkable than the fact that if DBM's record-breaking Audi A2 were to compete in the annual 53 mile Brighton to London Eco Rally it could comfortably cruise from the beach to London and back 3-4 times with no need for a single charge-point pit-stop - though it would almost certainly grind to a halt and/or  mysteriously burst into flames after just 50 miles if driven by the BBC's / auto-industry's / fossil-fuel fraternity's favourite Egotist-Bigot Jeremy Clarkson.
Amusing, is it not, that the BBC 's Jonathan Ross was fired for offending just one person - yet when the oh-sooo adorably, heroically, manfully, sexily and (so far) un-sackably un-PC £million-a-year Clarkson 'jokingly' insults millions of public sector workers("line 'em up, execute 'em, shoot 'em in front of their families etc" Youtube) - it is the BBC who obsequiously apologize on his behalf.
So there you have it: connecting Berlin..via Brighton..to the shell-shocked, Shell-sponsored BBC's bigotry, hypocrisy and corporate cowardice: the fact is that most unprotected journalists would now face the firing squad, the axe, the chop or career suicide for just daring to join such dissident, disparate dots as we've just joined ...
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Q for the Ladies: a tricky little teaser for the girls, las chicas, las señoritas ..
(Click pics for a little pre-decision revision)
- if forced to choose between:
a) a simple walk on the beach, stroll in the park, bike ride with Oscar-winner Javier Bardem(doesn't drive, hates cars, has no driving licence..)
OR
b) a jaunt in a Jag and a politically/terrifically incorrect tête-à-tête with "Babe Magnet" and corporate media-darling Jeremy Clarkson - who would it have to be ?
Q 2: who most deserves the sack ?
Q 3: Corporate Incorrectness(Bardem) v Political Incorrectness(Clarkson) - which really requires the greater courage/cojones/chutzpah ?
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November, 2011 Six 'o' the Best: Q's for DBM Energy Award "Fish Bowl" forum(Mon, 28 Nov, Berlin)
EVUK Anonymous/Incognito : EVUK's PG or MG may or may not be attending the Roland Gutsch award event Berlin this coming Montag, 28 November.
But(sssh!) we may know someone who is...
So - here're six non-FAQ questions for the elusive-reclusive mysterious Mirko Hannemann that we - or an anonymous EVUK stand-in or surrogate - may or may not be pitching :
1) Samsung would surely not have offered you 600 million Euros unless they had thoroughly tested the Kolibri technology and verified your performance claims - esp. as regards 5000 charge cycles and of course range/energy density.
So are you able to confirm that Samsung did indeed test the Kolibri cells - if not, on what evidence or basis did they make that extraordinary offer ?
Or was it a conditional/provisional offer that you turned down - ie. made along these lines:
"If our tests confirm your performance, charge cycle, range claims we would be prepared to pay 600 million for the patents, intellectual property rights etc.." ?
On the same Samsung theme - are you confident Samsung were acting alone and not perhaps as part of a consortium of €-contributing companies or vested interests(the usual prime suspects) hoping to buy up and bury the technology or shelve it indefinitely in order to protect existing product lines and said vested interests ?
2) Following the ADAC & arson attacks the German and international media is steadfastly refusing to report or reference DBM Energy at all (with very few exceptions - most notably the Frankfurter Rundschau and more recently the Wall street Daily).
DBM Energy has become what we have called the invisible charging elephant in the room.
Have for example any German* or global TV networks covered ongoing DBM-related developments since the start of this year ? (*Correction - see rare, obscure, fluffy 2-Part Berlin TV interview, May 2011, I & II)
3) For a while BYD were claiming 6000 charge cycles for the e6's batteries - they have since quietly cut these claims to 2000 - but that still gives a potential life expectancy of around 373,000 miles. Can you confirm again the Kolibri's 5000 charge cycles and describe how you yourselves have proven that capability ?
3000 charge cycles would be more than ample for most of us - for a car with a range of around 200 miles, for instance, 600,000 miles seems sensational enough.(And again - did Samsung test, confirm, prove the 5000 charge cycle capability ? If so - how ?)
4) In your Frankfurter Rundschau interview you said:
"I do get a kick from making people feel nervous. Nervousness is a sign that something isn't right, isn't as it should be.."
Do you feel nervous, intimidated - especially following the arson attack ? Do you fear for your personal safety at all ?
5) As far as we can tell, ADAC have not had the good grace to applaud your unexpectedly robust one-two punch response to their not unwarranted criticism of the Munich-Berlin record run. In retrospect the BAM & Dekra tests are probably more convincing from an engineering perspective than a Guinness World Record Book entry - though BAM, Dekra and Guinness would arguably have been the tastiest mix. So the question is: have ADAC been in touch or made any comment anywhere - congratulatory or otherwise - regarding the successful BAM / Dekra tests ?
6) Your own DBM Energy website has also failed to report most company-related news and developments this year apart from the BAM/Dekra test results. For example - the intriguing high-profile appointments to the Kolibri board, the testing of three shortish-range Audi A2's by Next Energy and even this Roland Gutsch award itself - none of these newsworthy stories have been reported/mentioned on your own website ! Could you please explain the silence ! (eg. "We'll let actions speak louder than words or hype or PR.." perhaps ?)
Obviously - our own six questions aside - DBM FAQ Nr.1 continues to be "Mass production - when/wann ?"
- but unless we know or at least ask why journalists(and therefore investors) are not flocking to Berlin and why the charging Kolibri elephant is still being internationally ignored we can't possibly understand what needs to happen, what needs to be done in order to break the silence, the roadblock, the deadlock - and help get DBM factories financed and built and Kolibri production lines rolling..
GIGA OM(Nov 23): "25 battery breakthroughs for gadgets, electric cars & the grid
"
- the latest in a long line of "we need a battery breakthrough" reports that completely ignore DBM's record-breaking and now award-winning Kolibri cells.
November, 2011 DBM's Hannemann to receive top Project Management award (2009 winner: the German-Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System - GITEWS)
Berlin: 28 November - all interested parties are invited to attend: gpm-hauptstadtbuero@gpm-ipma.de. See below or click here for exclusive EVUK English translation of GPM's press release and impressive Pressw0rds pressing Nov News Alert.
 
Elon laughs at BYD on Bloomberg TV - but would a question re award-winning, record-breaking DBM Energy have wiped the slightly smug smile from Musk's face, Betty Lu ?(Click Musk or Lu for our cropped clip. Or watch full Bloomberg TV interview.
Google all "Elon Laughed At Reporter" articles.
Mirko's Mirth - the laughter's contagious..
 
Be there ! Jump in a jet !(Elon, Betty Lu, Buffett, Bloomberg ?)
DBM Energy's elusive-reclusive Mirko Hannemann & Co will reportedly be happy to take your "Fish Bowl" questions(28. Nov, Berlin, GPM Award ceremony)
GPM/DBM - please post up video of the EVent - esp. the Fish Bowl Q&A !
6-5-4-3-2 degrees of separation - let's try once more to join the dots and draw a few lines - laughter lines, fault lines, knock-out punch-lines - between long-range lithium leaders Tesla, BYD and award-winning, record-breaking, independently/govt-validated and outrageously un(der)-reported DBM Energy/Kolibri.
And let's not forget or leave out, last-and-least, the LEAF:
- just 8 months ago BYD were pitching the long-range e6 against the short-range Nissan ...not the Tesla Model S..see links and comment below.
- BYD's e6 technology is "not very strong" guffaws Musk...but,um,er, what's with battery life expectancy Elon, Betty Lu, Bloomberg et al ?
How many charge cycles can we expect from the top three leaders in the current long-range lithium race ?
Yes - forget range anxiety for a moment - what about lithium "life expectancy anxiety" ?
"End-of-life anxiety" ? "Depreciation anxiety" ?
Who will get the last laugh - a million miles or so down the road ?
Here's the relative & rough break-down/low-down:
- DBM: 5000 charge cycles/1,250,000 miles(projected, independently verified)
- BYD: 2000 charge cycles/373,000 miles(projected, not yet verified)
- Tesla: 500 charge cycles/150,000 miles(projected, not yet verified)
That's right - only DBM's Kolibri cells have been independently & rigorously tested by state-certified technicians and only DBM's cells are being rigorously, ridiculously, laughably ignored by 99.999% of old/new media outlets..
A few more seismic fault lines, laughter lines, punch lines to chuckle over:
- BYD e6 v Nissan Leaf v Tesla Model S(continued) : as recently as January of this year(2011) BYD were wisely pitching the taxingly-tested 187 miles/charge 5-seater e6 pricewise & otherwise against the now significantly less expensive 100 miles/charge, competitively crushable Nissan Leaf - NOT as now against the 7-seat extravagantly/deliciously ostentatious Tesla Model S(an ideal televisual VIP luxury limo for image-conscious politicians forever gathering at ski & sea-resort summits to impose austerity measures on the rest of us - green PR not greed PR you understand..)
Here's what BYD's Michael Austin told Brad Berman of Plug In Cars in January this year ("BYD Announces Breakthrough U.S. Pricing for Chinese Long-Range Electric Cars") :
"BYD's all-electric e6 sedan with a huge 60 kWh battery pack will sell in the United States for $35,000 before incentives(..) On the eve of the 2011 Detroit auto show, Michael Austin, the Chicago-based BYD vice president of marketing and public relations duties, confirmed these prices and told me that BYD will sell 'tens of thousands' of both models in the United States by 2012."
$35,000 / $27,500 for the BYD e6 just 10 months ago - that is/was
$200 less than the short-range Nissan Leaf which is/was priced at $35,200...$27,700(confirmed still at Nissan USA.com )
So why has BYD now quietly decided to up the price and pitch the e6 up-up-up against the Tesla sedan - not the Leaf ? And why are commentators failing to mention those lower, Leaf-focused e6 price pledges ?
- Musk tells Bloomberg's Betty Lu that Tesla isn't sourcing components from 'expensive' China.
But will Musk confirm that the Model S's next generation Panasonic batteries won't in fact be Made in China for Panasonic ?
We all know how unusual it is to find any non-antique Panasonic or Japanese-branded electrical item that doesn't bear the small-print "Made in China" tell-tale tag. And given current trends the odds must surely be that by 2012-2015 Panasonic will be sorely tempted to go that extra mile and shift, outsource, sub-contract production from China to even cheaper Vietnam/Indonesia. So Elon - please precisely define the words "not sourced from China", "country of origin" etc
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Courtesy
Pressw0rds Award Alert - EVUK exclusive English-language translation:
"Mirko Hannemann of DBM Energy is to receive the 4th Roland Gutsch Project Management(GPM) Award in Berlin on the 28.11.2011 - the GPM's 9th Parliamentary Evening."
"GPM is honouring Mirko Hannemann as head of this Research & Development project in recognition of the innovative nature of the work, the observable/visible achievement of ambitious goals in a short time-period and in view of the not untroubled but ultimately successful and sustained commitment to real world viability. With his EV single-charge world record trip from Munich to Berlin in October 2010 the prize winner has proven that battery research here(in Germany) is on an encouraging path."
The award will be presented by parliamentary State Secretary Hans-Joachim Otto(German Ministry of the Economy/Wirtschaft - BMWi - not to be easily confused obviously with BMW's "i" EV concepts the i3, i8 etc)
The presentation will be followed by an open forum "Fishbowl" discussion with Hannemann and a range of experts and specialists from the world of politics, economics and EV battery development(..)
All interested parties are invited to attend - contact:
gpm-hauptstadtbuero@gpm-ipma.de
Note: Hannemann finds himself in unusually exalted, ethical company: in 2009 the GPM Award went to Dr. Jorn Lauterjung and Dr. Sri Woro Harijono, project leaders of the joint German-Indonesian Tsunami Early Warning System - GITEWS.
But will even that be enough to break the deafening media silence ?
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"Anxiety" footnote - fuel cost "anxiety":
The E6 will cost $672 a year in power bills, compared with $1,571 in fuel costs for an equivalent family sedan that runs on gasoline, according to BYD projections based on annual mileage of 15,000 miles. BYD's self-developed iron-phosphate battery takes 40 minutes to fully charge at public stations and as long as six hours when plugged in at home.
Similar low-anxiety running costs can be expected from almost any EV of course - Tesla Model S's and DBM Audi A2's included. But imagine the sheer Absence of Angst if your batteries deliver a million miles..of EV Smiles(smugness optional).
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Official 454 - 714 km range: 2011 DBM Audi A2 BAM/DEKRA pdf test summary
Frankfurter Rundschau interview with DBM's Hannemann - exclusive EVUK English translation: Samsung's 600 million offer..decoding battery DNA, mass production possible within a year etc
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October/November, 2011
Bardem - Bond Villain Elect has
- no Licence to Drive
- no car
...but gives TWO contradictory explanations (ie "I'm ethical" v "I'm frightened")
..depending on the demographic/dumb-ographic of his audience.
- So to pre-empt the tabloid take - we ask:
Bardem - is he green or just plain yellow ?
So which is it Javier ? Ecological/political Big Oil concerns(Charlie Rose interview) or "Fear ..of other drivers"(Jay Leno) ?
Click image to watch our combined clips(Rose-Leno, 3 mins)
Type-casting - or (mis)judging a bloke by his cover ?
Bardem, a fuzzily anti-car, car-dependent non-driver(no real hardship in major cities like Madrid, Berlin, London, New York) has been cast once again - twice again - as the Evil Villain of the piece:
Firstly as Bond's next nemesis: an intriguing choice now that Bond movies so often resemble Top Gear product placement specials - vroom vroom - with fossil-fuelled espionage sub-plots.
Secondly as the voice of "El Macho" in the animated
"Biutiful Me 2" - sorry, make that "Despicable Me 2".
Q: You may be asking "Why does Bardem matter..what's this got to do with EV's ? Is it news or even EV newsworthy ?
A: Again it's tempting to say "the dots join themselves...draw your own pictures & conclusions"
- but here's our point: like most activist-led campaigns - the campaign to get real, long-range EV's into showrooms and onto streets has been perhaps primarily about demolishing stereotypes, shattering silences, exploding media-fed myths, redefining and finding role models, redefining or un-defining what our same-stream media promotes/prescribes as "normal" -
- nonetheless, like it or not, the masculinity, virility, normality of non-driving, EV-driving, cycling(as transport-not-sport) males is still seriously doubted by the easily manipulated masses - male and sadly female(ah yes - so much for Nature/Nurture/Earth Mother/Mother Earth/My Kids' Kids etc)
But Bardem smoothly shatters almost every stereotype - and is surely just a nudge and a nod away(in LA ..with Jay) from full-blown EV conversion / liberation(not least from - to use his words to Rose - "Big Oil Empires" ).
And if El Macho makes the switch, millions more males may plug in - on both sides of the pond and way beyond China & Chile.
My Car is My Manhood ?
- The following Bardem & Bicycle clips should puncture those tiresome macho preconceptions for good:
- Bardem family bicycle trailer ..
- La Bicicleta : beautiful, 'biutiful' 2006 film homage to bicycles and lives without cars - starring(relatively speaking..) Javier's brother Carlos and mother Pilar. Watch trailer & read reviews.
But ex-Spanish national rugby team player Javier himself does not feature. (The Ox-like Bardem on a bicycle - a bison on a bike ? Even in "Eat Pray(Pedal?) Love" it's only Julia Roberts - not Bardem - who rediscovers cycling karma: watch trailer)
- Bicycle Race : Freddie Mercury - another macho-softie illusionist - subversively singing and ring-a-ding-dinging "I want to ride my bicycle".
It's Queen's most political jingle: Nixon's Vietnam, pro-war John Wayne, Watergate are fleetingly slammed. But even Queen rarely risked playing this live - audiences simply prefer the strutting Mercurial Macho ..
Back to car-less, car-dependent Bardem & Cruz in LA ...
- Let's see if we can once again anticipate, pre-sense and perhaps even influence EVents and EV developments and help create or precipitate a Hollywood headline or two - 3-6 months or so down the road.
In the form of a few hopeful, hypothetical headlines that are surely begging to be written now that BYD have opened an HQ in LA - and given California's / LA's erstwhile status as pioneering EV capital of the world.
Come on Jay & Javier - the novelty of the "I don't drive" confession is wearing thin - think of the talk-show mileage that could be squeezed from Bardem bombshells like these:
"Bardem Buys BYD e6 Taxi - Engages Driving Safety Instructor as Chauffeur"
"Bardem & Leno Create EV-based Car-Pool"
"Revenge's 'Gadget' Guy to Build Bardem EV"
"Bardem Buys eBox EV" (Watch Tom Hanks in his eBox )
In other words - Bardem/Cruz championing genuinely oil/gasoline-free alternatives to petrol-car-sharing. Infinitely more convincing, positive and practical than their hush-hush LA reliance on chums' cars(incl.SUV's), studio limos and taxi cabs:
Click inconvenient "in-car" images of Bardem/Cruz - for stories and talking-points that Leno and Rose chose not to probe..
No (EU) Country for Bold Men - or women :
- One final Q for U - or one more question you won't hear in any Pub Quiz/TV Quiz(ie. where all things green are taboo):
- Please name one British or European showbiz celebrity who has ever dared to come out as an EV believer, EV driver, Tesla-owner etc ? (Postscript! Victoria Wood Nov News )
A: Um. Well Clooney has a house and a Tesla near Lake Como..and Schwarzenegger's still Austrian at heart - do they count ?
But seriously - just where are 'green' Europe's answers(m/f) to Tom Hanks, George Clooney, Tim Robbins et al?
¡Vamos Javier y Cruz ! What are you waiting for ? A word in the ear of Queen Sofia perhaps - your country's most illustrious EVangelist ?
Leno at (premature ?) premiere of "Revenge of..".
Sadly no sign of 'vengeful villain' Bardem - who cites and indicts 'Big Oil Empires' - but never refers to EV's - and is never asked to by the likes of Leno & Rose(video).
October,2011 EV TV ads: e6 / EV1 / Bulli / RAV4
- the best, worst, old, new, now ..
Plus: how Enemy of the State's EV ad got Lost in (German) Translation
Zukunftsmusik ('Future Music') - the German word for innovation, inventions, ideas that are constantly trumpeted but rarely delivered ... or to put it another way :
Muzak to our ears...
VW Bulli etc - Watch English version above - Spanish below,,,
- Bulli: odd that VW is still(October) running its Bulli-bragging Think Blue(not green ?) Symphony spot in Spain and several other Spanish-speaking countries. (Watch English & Spanish versions).
Note the irony-free opening line of its butchered Beach Boys soundtrack:
"VWouldn't it be nice if VWe VWere older / Then VWe Vwouldn't have to VWait so long"
No VW ! Time travel and wishing to be 5-10 years older so as not to have to wait for you to deliver on your countless concept PRomises isn't, hasn't been and "VWouldn't be nice"...
So what's the score ? Has VW changed its tune re the electric Beach Boyish Bulli ? As mentioned in our earlier piece - recent reliable rumours report only that a petrol-powered(yawn) version of the Bulli might possibly be produced in Mexico - exclusively for the US market(double yawn) - so why then is the company currently running this Bulli-boasting ad on primetime
TV in Spain, Europe, S. America ?
Is this just another blue-rinsed greenwash PR offensive(two words that sit so well together..) - or is VW at last for once(to re-quote Edmonds.com's Alistair Weaver) considering "putting its money where its mouth is" and delivering on its exceptionally well-received, unconventional Geneva concept - the long-range li-ion 6-8 seater Bulli Car-or-Van / Campervan ?
All we can do of course is keep up the collective pressure and pray figuratively for EV Deliverance or Delivery.
So click here : www.volkswagen.es/thinkblue -
but NOT here: www.volkswagen.es/thinkgreen
Music to our Ears...
 
- Above left video: BYD e6 TV ad - with Taylor Swift soundtrack "Fearless" and the refrain "I don't know how it gets better than this.." (cf. VW's lame lamentable lyrics..)
- Above right video: BYD e6 on Chilean TV in Spanish - from "China to Chile"(to cite our reply to the BBC's Tim J. re EV's in Spain)
- Verdad: this is without doubt one of the best and most fearless TV EV reports we've ever seen - focusing on the e6 and BYD Chile.
In contrast to the self-censoring, formulaic EV narrative and e6 silence now in force almost everywhere else, this primetime Chilean TV report freely explores all of the many advantages and benefits of long-range EV's in general and of the trailblazing BYD e6 in particular.
Compare & contrast: in Britain, Europe and the US, EV reports invariably focus almost exclusively on
a) petrol/gas prices and b) CO2 emissions
- whereas these Chilean free-speech champions have happily ditched the script - eagerly EVoking and applauding the EV-enabling elimination of (local) air pollution/traffic stench and noise (which most in-denial drivers are oblivious to and insulated from) - whilst fearlessly highlighting both the e6's low-running and maintenance cost as well as the recyclability and relative low-cost of the car's ferrous lithium battery packs. In short - a breath of very rare fresh air-time ...we sure "don't know how it gets better than this".
So why is this report important and worth highlighting ? Well - let's not forget that Spanish is spoken, twittered, texted in and between 18 countries and throughout California, Texas and many other US states - which makes it the second most widely used and potentially the second most influential language globally.
And quite simply: we know of no other TV EV/e6 report in any language to rival or trump this one in terms of free-wheeling, spin-free, fearless honesty - Spaniards, Brits, Europeans should ask themselves why they are being denied their own BYD Spain, BYD UK, BYD Europe - with free-speaking Chilean-style TV EV/e6 media coverage to boot. As we recently told Michigan journalist Garret Ellison("What Does The EV Industry Need To Succeed") - it's not range anxiety that's stalling EV's in the UK, US, EU ... but long range reporting anxiety. (BYD e6, DBM/Kolibri's Audi A2 now - the RAV4 EV, Solectria Sunrise then..)
Fearless journalism, Garret, is what the EV industry AND, for that matter, the global economy both urgently "need to succeed"..
BYD Chile-China latest: e6 & e-Bus agreements signed with much fanfare - but even BYD Chile is still not selling EV's of any description...
Taxi tip: why not begin by creating a fledgeling fleet of e6 taxis à la Shenzhen in order to rapidly maximize EV visibility, accessibility, public awareness ?
"Enemy of the State", Staatsfeind Nr.1 - the film's TV EV ad gets lost in translation(German version) ...
Click for cropped clip : "The Electric Car is Here" - but scandalously NOT in the German version of the film !
- EV1 TV commercial - the electric car - the GM EV1 - that was quietly Lost in (German etc) Translation - from Enemy of the State" aka "Staatsfeind Nr. 1" (Will Smith/Hackman,Voight).
Yes, that's right - this ever popular, ahead-of-its-time Hollywood classic may well have been made 14 years ago(1997) but 
this long overdue EVUK exclusive rEVelation will still come as silence-Breaking News to all but a tiny handful of forensically-informed film-buffs(English or German-speaking). So brace yourselves - please put away those reflex "conspiracy nut/wacko" put-downs - and at least try to swallow and digest yet another awesome EV truth :
- Recall or picture the scene, 18 minutes into the film: birdwatcher & activist Daniel Zavitz sits at his computer in his apartment.
On his TV a car's headlights briefly appear, a male & female voiceover is clearly heard but not seen.
In fact the film's EV TV ad is directly drawn from an original 1996 GM EV1 commercial(Watch, Youtube) - with the keep-it-simple strapline "The electric car is here".
And here's the key English film transcript extract - followed by the 100% EV/EV1-less German rewrite:
***
"All new, designed for today. The electric car is here. A sedan for you."
German lost in translation rewrite - Staatsfeind Nr.1 :
"Der N-Trigue - die neue Definition der Sport Limousine. Der Wagen fuer die aktiven Fahrer."
(= "The N-Trigue - the new definition of the sport limousine. The car for active drivers".)
***
- Ironic, nicht wahr, that German censors and synchron studio (self-)censors had no problems at all with the other hotly controversial themes and content of the film ie. the semi-secret surveillance techniques/technologies employed by the NSA/CIA etc - yet they clearly did shudder at the idea that German cinemagoers and subsequently endless TV audiences could be suddenly and repeatedly awoken from a carefully maintained state of EV ignorance & incuriosity ...
A shout-out to owners of French, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Swahili etc versions of "Enemy of the State": please let us know if the electric car was likewise lost in your translation ..
New: Watch our freshly Youtube'd snip-clip - English version - straight to Zavitz's apartment..)
 
Left: EV headlights - in "Enemy" and original EV1 TV ad.
Right: EV1 in original TV ad. Click images to run "Enemy" or original ad
NB: There is/was no lip-synch imperative or requirement or excuse here - ie. the words 'electric car' etc are spoken by unseen off-screen male/female TV ad voiceover artists
NB 2: no 'product placement' excuse - ie. no company name, no vehicle name or product/brand name etc is specified in the film's EV TV ad - what's more the car is glimpsed only once - 100% unrecognizably eclipsed behind the glare of its own headlights - see image / clip above left. No - it is clearly 'idea placement' - generic electric cars per se - that German censors, self-censors and the usual corporate suspects so strongly and scandalously objected to. German audiences - and the film's producers/director for that matter - should even now be outraged - and demanding that the EV ad and the words 'electric car' be reinstated 14 years on .. let's just call it Revenge of the Electric Car - Enemy of the State-style.
Base Notes: 
- Fact not fiction: in 2005 US EV owner and activist Josh Connole was wrongfully arrested, jailed, chained to the floor, acquitted and eventually awarded $100,000 in compensation/damages. See EVUK report and Grist Magazine's : "Electric Car Driver was not an Eco-terrorist, FBI Admits"
(More Grist/Connole reports here).
See & hear Gene Hackman('Brill') re conspiracy fact
- Toyota RAV4 EV commercial(Watch,Youtube). But no record of where or how many times this ad was actually aired on TV screens - or cinema screens. (Never in the UK/EU - or Jersey ie. UK Channel Islands of course !)
********
Postscript - a month on - to our critical BYD content/comment above & below: BYD opens HQ in US - but still no EV's/e6's for sale(only buses!!!!)
..and now by sheer "post-EVUK" coincidence - this:
"BYD Starts Sales of E6 Electric Car to Individuals in China" (Bloomberg online - not TV) &
"Buffett-backed BYD shuns electric vehicle sales to consumers"(USA Today)
September, 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show no-Shows: BYD, DBM, VW Bulli
Plus: German TV tests & confirms BYD taxis' 305+ km range - with air-con full on !
(ironically they flew from Frankfurt to China to do it - video below)
Update : BYD trip clip(7 mins) now Youtube'd - see below
The most taxing test of all - 24/7 ..
Click pics to view exclusive blue BYD e6 scenic taxi trip(Youtube - 7 mins -Hi Res version here). 305 km covered comfortably on single charge with air-con full-on.
(Note the e6 taxi paintjob/respray from stressful red-eye'd red to tranquil sky blue. As of Sept 2011 we can find no other images - let alone video - of the new cool blue e6 taxis in action..so another virtual global EVUK exclusive)
Just Juxtapose:
A few barely reported dots to join:
- Sept 16th: German TV's 3Sat Nano/Hitec renowned innovation-tech shows confirm BYD E6 taxis' 305+ km range in special report from Shenzhen, China. (Play key BYD trip clip excerpt or click here for full 28 minute 3Sat video)
- in the same breath-of-fresh-air broadcast BYD's head of Export & Marketing Paul Lin tells 3Sat that BYD will be exporting to Europe "sooner than you might think" (hmm- sorry BYD - but we'd like to know - after 3-4 years of highly-Buffetted EV hype and this 2010 "BYD HQ in Germany" PRomise - why you are not already exporting the 300+ km taxi-tested E6 to Europe and the US - why just the 75 vehicles to Rotterdam ??
Big Auto bullies shutting you out ? Making offers that can't be refused ? Surely not !
The demand is clearly there when awareness is - so where's the "free market" supply ?
And just as importantly - why are (motoring) journalists not flocking to easily-reachable Rotterdam to test-drive and rave-review the subversively, disruptively long-range BYD E6 ?
As so often: Mum's the Word.
Don't Ask - Don't Tell - Don't Sell. A shameful rerun in-the-making of the continuing decade-old "RAV4 EV in Jersey" reporting blackout & burial..)
Alistair Weaver(Edmunds.com,clip) :
"VW has a history of showing us fantastic-looking concepts and then never ever putting them into production - so please VW for once put your money where your mouth is.." (Amen Alistair!)
- VW Bulli: Déjà VWu & Boy Cried VWolf .. from Wolfsburg. Yes, it's just 6 months since the capacious, versatile, retro-stylish 6-seater VW Bulli Car-or-Van / Campervan / Microbus was presented and universally applauded at the Geneva Motor Show(Edmunds, Youtube).
But how has VW all-too predictably responded to that popular demand and acclaim? Well, with the absolute antithesis of the pluralistic, beach-party-packing Bulli - the single-seater "NILS" - an extraordinary, entirely unsolicited, unwished-for single-digit gesture to the global EV community. "NILS" - yet another last-ditch attempt to revive that age-old, divisive EV comedy staple and cliché - the archetypal "Nerdy Introvert Loner Stereotype".
Or: Back to Square One - albeit on Steroids. Another segway to nowhere..
- ex-VW design chief Murat Gunak bullishly presents the latest version(on sale now, above right) of the MIA Microbus in Frankfurt(debut near VW Bulli microbus in Geneva, Youtube).
- A valiant, heroic effort by yet another disillusioned Big Auto defector - but the MIA's acceleration, range and unsubsidized price still leave a lot to be desired - we'd all surely prefer the (claimed) 186 miles/charge li-ion VW Bulli - "The People's Car-or-Van".(To add further insult to injury, VW are vaguely promising/threatening to produce - by unpopular demand - a petrol-powered version only...for the N.American market.)
- e-WOLF - continuing the Wolf/Wolfsburg theme: the impressive lightweight li-ion e-Wolf(not a VWolf !) is also appearing at the Frankfurt show
- DBM Energy - for several months the company's website has indicated DBM's intended presence at the Frankfurt IAA Show.
But they've not shown up(or are appearing safely incognito). And frankly - who cares and who can blame them ?(Tesla and BYD are similarly shunning the show ..)
In any EVent(so to speak) the key message to the media is clear: for inconvenient real-world EV/e6 truth why not take a leaf(confused ?) out of 3Sat TV's book ie. flee Frankfurt and race to Rotterdam or Shenzhen.
 
 
BYD blues: when will the taxi show up - in Frankfurt, Barcelona, Athens, Rome.. Croydon..?
Note the e6 taxi paintjob/respray from stressful red-eye'd red to tranquil sky blue. As of Sept 2011 we can find no other images eg. Google - let alone video - of the new cool blue e6 taxis in action..so another virtual global EVUK exclusive(courtesy 3Sat)
Two other key points mentioned in 3Sat's BYD taxi and Shenzhen HQ report:
1) the e6 taxi is by far the most popular attraction amongst public visitors to the BYD HQ
2) the e6 car itself costs the same in China as an equivalent gasoline-powered car - with government subsidies
September, 2011 Red Hot: Wall Street Daily(not Journal!) breaks English-language DBM/range silence
"This Breakthrough Will Soon Slash EV Prices Drastically"
(so no - please don't confuse the Wall Street Daily with - disgraced & discredited - Murdoch's Wall Street Journal..)
..as stated below - EVerything else - EVery other truth-avoiding, water-treading, corporately correct EV-related PR ess release and news item - is as significant as synchronized swimming...
- Thanks, Danke and Big Up etc to Pressw0rds(who else, wer sonst!?) for the this all-eclipsing, wickedly subversive, almost exclusive little heads-up...
In case you still haven't heard:
Official 454 - 714 km range: 2011 DBM Audi A2 BAM/DEKRA pdf test summary
(Compare & contrast: Motor Show con-cept EV's - the range/performance claims made by major carmakers are rarely if ever officially tested or verified by the likes of BAM or DEKRA or any independent third party - yet 1000's of old/new media outlets readily & uncritically report them to the world ...)
August, 2011 Who's rEVolting now ?
Gaddafi's 160 miles/charge li-ion Fiat 500 seized by rebels
 Click for all Google News reports
So - not just another oil grab after all..
Interesting to note how many copycat news sources are describing Gaddafi's choice of car as "eccentric" or "weird": just how many pundits we wonder have ever risked using those pejoratives to deride the fleets of extravagant, ostentatious, exorbitantly expensive custom-cars owned by so many Saudi playboy princes ?
- And talking of unelected super-rich dictators, monarchs, fascistas and despots - what about all those unaccountable bailed-out, bonus-bloated gangster bankers, financial fraudsters, debt & derivative speculators who have us all so tightly squeezed by the b*lls('a' & 'i') ?
When will any media outlet - Daily Tel/Mail/Express/BBC/Sky-News-of-the-Sun - all now so bold re Gaddafi - have the cojones and credibility to take a fearlessly close, year-round, email-hacking, phone-tapping, fly-on-the-wall look at the eccentric/weird/outrageous/perverse collections of cars, yachts, Caribbean call-girl cruise crews and gold-plated faucets/shower-curtains that these high-living low-lifes, looters and offshored tax-dodgers so regularly splash out on - courtesy of the UK/EU/US taxpayer?
Have any of them ever splurged on an iON ?
Or hedged a loan on a LEAF ?
Ponied up for a Tesla ?
Or ever chosen green over greed ?
In fact - has any mainstream (motoring) journalist anywhere on Planet Earth ever dared label the likes of the $2m Bugatti Veyron or $1m McLaren F1 as "eccentric" or "egocentric" or "weird" or "as Wacko as Jacko" ?
Even more un-eccentrically and disruptively impressive of course is the fact that this EV-truth-exposing, auto-industry-shaming(yet again..) flick-of-the-wrist FIAT conversion also
boasts a 10 minute fast-charge capability. (Oh - and if you want 0-60 mph in under 3.5 secs the guys behind the Black Current or the likes of Rod Wilde of EV Parts - or scores of EV custom converters worldwide - will rip it for ya in less than a week ie. without 5 years of Motor Show mularky and PRess release PRomises ..)
And according to Smartplanet and their source - the Italian Corriere Della Sera newspaper - the luxurious lithium FIAT cost a mere €100,000 - so roughly fifteen long range, cheap-to-run & maintain, sumptuously personalized green(and gold if desired) FIAT EV's for the price of just one extraordinarily,er,eccentric and bizarre Bugatti Veyron ...
See our May 2011 piece comparing the much-hyped, far-from-frugal 40 mpg petrol-powered FIAT 500 to the possibly promised 2012 electric version of the car - note especially PG's not inauspicious, pre-Gaddafiat, pre-revolt plea:
"let's expect or demand at least 150 miles per charge from the 2012 Fiat 500 EV..."
August, 2011 (Another Spanish lesson ?)
Peugeot-Iberdrola: IBE-creator SEAT snubbed ..
Iberdrola(contrast Barcelona-Honda - see below) recently announced a joint Green Mobility venture with Peugeot - ie. conspicuously NOT with Spain's own SEAT(VW-owned) - creators of the car-show-concept IBE EV and the world's eighth largest car producer, based near Barcelona in Martorell.
SEAT S.A. & the SEAT IBE - Iberdrola's logical, natural Iberian first choice, right ? Wrong ! Why ?
Here's the first clue:
"VW Named as Europe's Least Green Car Maker" - Independent, June 2011.
As usual we've plenty of dots to join, bullet points to load up and blanks to blast through - but ahead of that..the BBC World Service's Timothy J. has emailed us with this pertinent comment/query :
"Do you have any contacts for electric car users or advocates in Spain? We want to see if or why the electric car revolution is stumbling at the moment there.
I'd be grateful for any help you can give me.
With best wishes, Tim J*****s "
Here's an extended and updated version of our reply to Tim J. :
- there are three perennial reasons for the public's "lack of interest" in electric cars - applicable from China to Chile and almost everywhere in between :
1) a corporate keep-em-clueless media(esp. TV/tabloid) that sells the status quo , promotes business-as-usual and ignores transformative/disruptive green innovation 99.9% of the time. Electric cars - ditto climate change and green issues generally - have been driven or pushed off a cliff - with Al Gore and the IPCC asleep or anaesthetized at the wheel: as a result green is barely registering on the me-now consumer radar in most countries. An eco-hostile or at best eco-agnostic education system and curriculum is equally to blame.
In Spain Zapatero has thrown in the presidential towel - and his rock-solid Proyecto Movele EV initiatives appear fated to fade away too. Many suspect that the same fate awaits SEAT-VW's IBE especially if Spain elects an Aznar MK II.
Similarly, SEAT's - the German-parented company's - PRofessed profound commitment to electrification and to nearby Barcelona's clouded green vision will also likely EVaporate like so much hot-aired greenwash: the IBE put on ICE, literally. PRototypes PRroudly paraded from Motor Show to Motor Show - the IBE II, IBE III...IBE V(with 2 extra cup-holders ?) ...
Time to reload that lethal bullet:
- "VW Named as Europe's Least Green Car Maker" - Independent, June 2011.
"Volkswagen" = "The People's Car"
Re-translated:
"Volkswagen" - "The People's Carbon"
Watch SEAT-VW's IBE/Barcelona etc PR video - a very stilted, self-inflated, hollow-sounding PR package - esp. when compared to Iberdrola's plain, simple, practical, gently EVangelical Green Mobility pages - all in perfect non-PR English (..another EV Spanish lesson)..
And so to more pointing of bullets & blasting of blanks:
- Why are there still no SEAT EV's on the streets, in showrooms(cf. iON, iMiEV,Leaf) ?
- Why no mention of or links to all things IBE at www.seat.es or www.seat.com ?
- and is it really too early to conclude that Barcelona's bureaucrats - unlike IBE-free Iberdrola - have been hoodwinked by SEAT-VW and had by Honda(scooters half the range of Peugeot's) ?
- it is surely abundantly clear that VW has been the reluctant partner or parent here - Spanish SEAT would almost certainly prefer to move beyond Motor-Show Make-BeliEVe and keep pace with Peugeot, Mitsubishi, Nissan. But VW and the German auto establishment still doggedly refuse to out-grow grandstanding, EV tokenism, prototype-procrastination, the concept-car carousel: ie. not so much trailblazing as trialblazing.
Reload - more bullets:
- DBM's Mirko Hannemann has repeated several times that German carmakers have shown little interest in the record-breaking Kolibri cells.
- a fact confirmed by the actions of two clearly disillusioned corporate ship-jumpers: Richard Gaul and Helmuth von Grolman have respectively quit BMW(think i3, i8, iwait & iwait ..) and deserted Daimler Benz(think original/taboo 1995 Swatch-Smart electric or hybrid concept) - and joined the board of DBM spin-off Kolibri AG.
- VW, BMW and Mercedes still clearly prefer to look the Kolibri / Hummingbird gift-horse in the mouth and ignore the elephant in the room. To put it another way - the menacing metaphorical menagerie's imaginary to this pack of tigers & leopards who just can't change their stripes or their spots...(ditto the world's tame, lame, mute media)
(returning to our updated reply to the BBC's Tim J*****s)....
2) EV prices are unjustifiably high
3) Battery range is unjustifiably low.
And it's also of course as clear and true as it ever was that the longer the range - the more charging will occur at home : ideally from a mix of green, decentralized/centralized energy sources.
This "at home" flexibility & freedom has always been at the heart of the EV dream. (and the worst nightmare of so many fossilized vested interests...not to mention charge-pod/port opportunists)
Truth Exposure Made Simple - Lessons One, Two & Three : as previously pointed out - if SEAT, FIAT, Peugeot et al were genuinely committed to moving EV's beyond niche they could quite simply revive, recraft and electrify a car like the ultra-lightweight, ultra-low-cost, ultra-disruptive 94 mpg, 4-seater, award-winning, TUV-tested Ecobasic(anno 2001):
- slightly Italo-restyle and streamline it, incorporate today's even smarter lighter materials to easily ensure an anxiety-free, niche-nixing 150-200 mile range ...dump the deliberately dishwater-dull & divisive descriptives "Basic" and "Eco"(likewise avoid "Bio" , "Veggie" ..and "Halo" etc), call it instead the Fiat Fizz or the SEAT SEVI or the Peugeot Pizazz, or the VW WattSit / Watt-EV(er), or the VW VIBE - and price it below €12000 (ie. sub-10k with govt subsidies) which is still twice the original promised price of the ditched diesel Ecobasic. Finally - sign up Rafael Nadal, Ronaldo, Javier Bardem(doesn't drive, has no driving licence) to head up a full-on, full-throttle TV advertising campaign. In other words, get serious - get sincere!
Failing that: legacy-less, liberated, transformative Tesla and Elon "Jobs" Musk probably are our best hope (see Forbes' The Tech Trade, Eric Savitz, Aug 10 "Is Elon the Next Steve").
Of course if Tesla were to go that extra mile(or 50-100) and announce a long-term, long-range li-ion liaison with DBM-Kolibri we really would have one Almighty Mother of an auto tech-revolution on our hands - and a seismic share-price shake-up/shake-down to boot..
More bullets, more blood..
- Volkswagen & Union officials in bribery & brothels scandal(2008). Just a little track-record recap vis-a-vis VW's corporate governance, credibility, integrity - and the reputed inability of tigers & leopards to change their stripes/spots. A little
"VW BRIBE" anyone ?
- VW Lupo 1.2 TDI (+Tiptronic) Diesel, 1999-2005. 70-100+ mpg.  See also 83 mpg VW Ecoracer article+video and VW 1 Litre / 100km Concept. All of these & more either dumped or endlessly dangled and never delivered to showrooms by Volkswagen.
- Worth reloading & re-firing: "VW Named as Europe's Least Green Car Maker" - Independent, June 2011.
Re-translated:
"Volkswagen" - "The People's Carbon"
This Just In !(in EVUK's Inbox, to be precise):
Within minutes of crafting this draft, an email - as yet unopened - from Sender "Tesla Motors" has unusually, spookily landed in our Inbox.(ie. see our Elon "Jobs"/Steve/Tesla Forbes link above). Could this be a long-awaited dream EV job-offer from the man himself - Elon "Jobs" Musk ? A dare-to-dream email perhaps ? :
"Hi EVUK !
- To quote you guys on "re-inventing the car and un-inventing/re-inventing PR": how would you like to help Tesla do just that in Europe ? In Germany - the Belly of Beast ? How does 100k a year + bullet/bomb/arson-proof company car(EV) sound ? Bodyguards, food-tasters and generous life insurance package all included !
- Best Wishes & Wishful Thinking etc, Elon "Dream Jobs" Musk "
Hmm - let's leave that timely, tantalizing Tesla email unopened for a while ...and stretch, elongate the dream a little ..
- Postscript: Steve Jobs resigned 9 days after we posted up the above piece..
**************
Tesla: Is Elon The Next Steve? Merrill Launches With Buy Aug. 8 2011
By ERIC SAVITZ(Forbes "The Tech Trade" )
Here's a bold idea: Is Tesla Motors founder and CEO Elon Musk (who happens also to be the founder of the rocket company SpaceX), the most promising tech CEO since Steve Jobs?
Merrill Lynch analyst Steve Milunovich raised that notion this morning in a research report in which he launched coverage of the electric car company with a Buy rating and $34 target price. The stock closed last week at $24.24.
"Tesla designs, manufactures, and sells high-performance electric vehicles and electric vehicle power-train components," he writes in the report. "The auto industry might change more in the next 10 years than the last 100. Electric vehicles represent a new category that Tesla could lead given that new entrants tend to win when disruptive technologies emerge. In our view, CEO Elon Musk may be similar to Steve Jobs in being a technology visionary also able to manage and create shareholder value."
Milunovich sees risks in the stock, but finds them to outweighed by the company's potential to be a significant player in the auto market.
EVUK Ed: both Savitz & Merrill Lynch's Milunovich predictably fail to mention the crucial, all-eclipsing, make-or-break role played by the media - especially TV.
Apple and Steve Jobs - in polar-opposite contrast to Tesla, Musk and real EV's - pose no threat to an existing entrenched Old Order. The corporate media - not least CNBC and Bloomberg TV - would eagerly and fearlessly drop everything and jump every time Jobs took to the stage. The resulting all-important, absurdly OTT hype and cult of personality etc were never opposed, asphyxiated, snuffed out by legions of lobbyists and fossil-fuelled, crank'n'piston hit-squads - or by the media's fear of or loyalty to the latter.
**************
August, 2011 Tip: Pressw0rds - impresses whilst most suppress, depress...
..and Britain misses the (charge) point(as ever..)
Pressw0rds & Cleanthinking ask: will Swiss Mindset EV be DBM lithium-powered ? Probably not - but who really needs another expensive short-lived, long-range 2-seater Boy's Toy ? Tzero, Tesla Roadster, Venturi Fetish(all 200-300 miles/charge) - been there, done that, point proven ..
To quote Pressw0rds: "To bridge the gaps between DBM Energy news updates" we recommend the following fulsome DBM-related link listing plus "The Secret Ingredient" (strictly for those not waiting with bated breath for the latest breaking news re charge pods in Newport Pagnell/Staines etc)
Click here (or see One Click perma-link, left) for the latest, sharpest, smartest DBM Energy news & comment from Presswords & Cleanthinking. Both fundamentally agree that...
It's all about range - long range.
Maximum miles/km per charge.
Maximum charge cycles.
Everything else is treading water ..as significant as synchronized swimming..
Yet British pundits, opportunists, PR-EVaricators and countless self-described "stakeholders" continue to divert & decoy-distract with their perpetual premature PRattling about ..charge points, charge ports, charge pods, public charging networks, charging stations, charging infrastructure.
You see: "EV's are by definition short range, don't you know - so you obviously need charge points/pods/ports everywhere now, right ? Put the electric cart before the horse, right ? And no - we've still never heard of DBM Energy..or inductive charging ...and we just refuse to see white elephants or charging elephants - even when we're sharing a room with 'em."
To put it another way...
"All we hear is Radio ga ga, Media goo goo, PR Déjà VooDoo(twist, skewer,kill the truth..)".
OK - it ain't Quite Queen but the tune hasn't changed, the song's still the same(Youtube, Live Aid) and the EV record's been stuck in the same no-move groove for well over a decade.
So come on everyone - We Want It All and We Want It Now.
Let's please stop deliberately missing the (charge) point - it's time to change your tune, rewrite the lyrics and hopefully sack the songwriters.
As we first observed in 1999 - it's all about long range and changing the game. It always has been - or should have been.
And in the sci-fi = sci-fact year of 2011 - August - that means just one thing :
DBM Energy. 200-400 Govt-validated miles per charge.
Failing that - a lithium air and/or nanowire-nanotube-graphene etc rEVvvolution must, could, should surely by now be just around the next corner.
Ditto wireless drive-thru inductive charging.
EV's v Mobile Phones ..another Compare & Contrast eye-opener/no-brainer factoid for you to chew thru(if you haven't already):
Odd - is it not - how, in the innocent Nineties, we thankfully heard not a hint of the following corporate chorus consensus:
"Mobile phones have such limited talk-time - so let's focus fixedly & forever on the urgent need for mobile phone charge points, mobile phone charge pods, public charging networks, charging infrastructure, mobile phone charging initiatives.."
No - everyone naturally and fully understood that the(any) technology's initial short-falls and failings are ironed out over time as consumer take-up takes off.
And most pundits & commentators have always
privately/hypocritically understood that this truism would and should equally apply to EV's and EV lithium batteries.
Base Note:
"Electric Highway Policy Marks Latest Coalition U-Turn"(Guardian)
Over the last 4-5 years EVUK has been constantly contacted by a wide variety of government agencies, public/private EV "stakeholders", charge-point startups etc asking for our views on the charge point issue: this article indicates that the government(DfT) have eagerly/selectively listened to one half of our recommendations - but, like the media, are still steadfastly & scandalously refusing to talk at all about long range - and the urgent need to fast-track game-changing 200+ miles/charge lithium tech à la DBM Energy.
Synch or Swim ? Tread water - or go the distance ?
*****************************
Lost in Translation(German) footnote: Pressw0rds & Cleanthinking..it's all Greek to me - if the news from Germany is important enough even Google's translation tools cannot entirely distort or bury the message. And it surely beats the alternative ie. a near-total consensual/collective English-language silence ..
*****************************
July, 2011 EVWorld - Echoing EVUK on DBM truth translation
"Is it OK if we reproduce your exclusive translation of the Frankfurter Rundschau interview with DBM's Mirko Hannemann ?"
- EVWorld stalwart Bill Moore didn't need to ask twice of course.
- So - as of July 2011 - a mere 99.9998% (approx) of all English-speaking old/new media & propaganda sources are ignoring, pretending not to see, the DBM charging elephant in the room. Ah yes, 'free' speech and 'free' market capitalism/competition, innovation - don't ya just love it ?
JD Power - one of the worst and most expert black-out exponents/offenders are still(July 10) opting to have no knowledge whatsoever of DBM Energy, BAM & DEKRA official tests, Audi A2 600km record runs etc.
Here they are quoted in a typically, jaw-droppingly, wilfully comatose/Omotoso July 10 news piece(Mercury News, Google) titled "Future of Electric Cars Hinges on Better Batteries":
"If you could go 300 miles on a charge, you'd see significant growth in electric vehicles," said Michael Omotoso, an auto analyst with JD Power and Associates."
We'll just leave you with that thought - and your jaws - hanging...
Stop the Press:
It turns out that EVWorld decided after all to play safe, err on the side of silence..and further marginalize truth-tellers
Erring, Silence, Playing Safe have never been EVUK's thing, thang or "Ding"(to quote Hannemann again)
We've exchanged curious emails with Bill on this - but thus far we've been left to read between the non-existent lines.
EVWorld's last entry re DBM Energy is the (unusually) irrationally dismissive and negative piece by Jim Motavalli. Sorry Jim - but the BAM & DEKRA tests ARE persuasive(cf. 'official' petrol-diesel mpg/fuel economy claims)
So: Patrioti$m Trump$ Truth & Planet yet again:
USA! USA! USA! Imagine the stateside & global response - the contrast - if DBM Energy were an American startup ...founded by a "Mirko" Agassi(then again would they have turned down Samsung's 600 million..?)
To repeat - the DEKRA tests verified: "a range of 454.83 km with the 62,928 kWh LMP battery. Adjusted for the battery capacity of 98 kWh at the time of the worldwide
range record, the range would have been 714 km."
So Jim/Bill - 3-4 times the range of the 100 mpc Nissan Leaf - with up to 5000 charge cycles. Tested and proven by top-rated German engineers. So what is the problem ?
July, 2011 Long range taboo touches 2 wheels too -
Barcelona: 30 km Honda EV Neo vs. 60+ km Peugeot
e-Vivacity(both circa 4000 euros)
  
Peugeot e-Vivacity & Honda EV Neo: often pictures don't speak a 1000 words(so read our 500 ..and reach Miss Peugeot)
Another EVUK 'intervention' - just to break yet another total, across-the-board, old/new media silence - and for those 'intellectual' early adopters and long-suffering EVUK'ers who - by definition - can by now effortlessly see where the truth lies and happily join the dots themselves(without the need for luminous glove-puppets, Sooty - or even scooter pics ) ...
The (latest..) inconvenient question that no-one's asking:
Q: Just why has Barcelona City Council / Ayuntamiento - as recently widely reported - opted to test the Honda EV-Neo electric scooter (30 km range, 4000+ euros) and not the
Peugeot e-Vivacity(60-100 km range, 4000+ euros) ??
Why would anyone logically, rationally, freely choose the short range(18-21 miles) Honda EV-Neo over the e-Vivacity.. ?
And in Barcelona too - an EU city which, the last time we looked, Sooty(right), lies just 100 km south of the very EU country of France, home of Peugeot(cf. non-EU Japan, home of Honda, 10,000 important km away..)
In fact a lightweight e-Vivacity rider could quite conceivably - with a south-blowing wind - breeze the trip from the French Peugeot-Pyrenees border all the way down - and downhill - to Barcelona the Catalonian capital on a single 40 cent battery charge.
Q: So why choose to trial 25 Hondas ? Why not, at the very least, a dozen of each ? Compare and contrast, short v long range, identical price tag ?
Or is this just the latest all-too familiar example of premeditated "EV Road Kill" - ie. set 'em up...then knock 'em down ? With all of the inEVitably fatal hype and wype impact of the mainstream media spotlight?
As in "Oh no - almost no-one seems to want high-priced, low range electric cars / scooters ! What on earth can the reason be ?
Ah well - it's back to good ole 'low cost' petrol power once again !"(Cepsa and Repsol rejoice ! Piaggio, Vespa, Suzuki - celebrate ..and snigger up your sleeves at yet another EV hit'n'run hatchet job.. )
But let's end on a thematic slam-dunk - a waspish little sting in the tail(-pipe) for Vespa & Co: it obviously goes without saying (but why take that risk..?) that a DBM/Kolibri-powered e-Vivacity scooter would not only have the legs(click Miss Peugeot) to achieve 100 km/charge with less weight - it could also be recharged up to 5000(not 1000) times. (and with no wind-assist needed for that scoot to Barcelona ..)
E-Vivacity homepage - très animated et avec un soundtrack très funky ...
June 24, 2011 RED HOT English exclusive:
23 June: DBM / Kolibri poised to go public(ie. list on German stock market: "die Umwandlung in eine Aktiengesellschaft laeuft derzeit auf Hochtouren".. )
- two former high-ranking auto establishment execs (ex-Daimler Benz & BMW) have joined the Kolibri board
Let's hope they're genuine rEVolutionaries...and not Trojan Horse place-men, infiltrators, sleepers - whose real aim or endgame is to quietly grab the reins from Hannemann and slow down the galloping Rennpferd/racehorse ..
(ie. fears that would be confirmed if it's soon announced for example that DBM/Kolibri are to initially focus on fork-lift trucks and industrial non-automotive applications ...or that the next few years will be spent testing and trialling or DTM / DBM racing etc )
Indeed it has to be asked (though no-one is asking-talking-tweeting) :
- who was responsible for the absurd 600-to-200 km Next Energy not-long-range climb-down & countdown ? Was it possibly ex-BMW - now Kolibri - PR guy/spin-meister Richard Gaul ? It certainly has all the hall & trade-marks of traditional, intelligence-insulting corporate PR ...
- Are we already witnessing the dreaded
Invasion of the Battery Snatchers ?
- Who's really in charge at Kolibri / DBM ?
(Mirko - a little friendly, humble advice: fire the PR guys, the (self-)confidence tricksters, call in pest-control, fumigate thoroughly, use flame-throwers and/or exorcists if necessary - and do the communicating yourself. You're infinitely more credible and convincing. You're reinventing the car - why not reinvent or un-invent PR at the same time ?)
Very latest German-only details & names etc at Presswords & Cleanthinking
- You're definitely hearing this here first ..
Remember: 190 mile per charge EV's - 5000 recharge cycles(do the math - batteries that could outlive both car & driver..) ..for the same price as a conventional petrol/diesel car. Again - be amazed/amused at the deafening silence:
- it's 'Déjà RAV4 / Solectria' all over again - again - folks/Leute !
(Compare and contrast the aeons and acres of media time+space dedicated over the past few years to Shai Agassi's white-elephant-in-waiting, Israel-enabled Better Place venture(cell-swapping) - CNBC couldn't get enough..and even Bloomberg TV's kinda cultivated Charlie Rose devoted 30 minutes to the Shai guy ..)
But if this latest Kolibri / DBM news ain't worth reporting or tweeting - nothing is..
(ie. if you're 'against' wars/conflicts/dubious alliances that are mostly about oil, if you do 'give a damn' - cue M.Jackson:
Earth Song - about the planet that your kids' kids and their kids' pets etc will inherit & inhabit ..)
Finally to anyone thinking "Stock market? Who cares? This is just dull, drab, dry business news, I'm just a party animal etc.."
- please think again! As a listed company Kolibri Power Systems AG will be under considerable pressure to deliver product, profit and performance sooner rather than later ...and unlike major carmakers KPS(?) AG will not be able to ride a perpetual greenwash wave whilst selling core crank'n'piston product by the shipload to the Chinese ...
A good point at which to quote back Mirko Hannemann(June 14, FR interview):
"I do get a kick from making people feel nervous. Nervousness is a sign that something isn't right, isn't as it should be"
('make people feel nervous' - something that sadly so few 'journalists' still choose to do, nicht wahr DBM, BMW, VW et al..?)
June, 2011
June 14: Worldwide (English) Exclusive - Samsung's 600 Million Euro Offer to DBM Energy etc, interview, Frankfurter Rundschau, full, free translation
..and yes - it was arson
A remarkable, revealing & rare (Frankfurter Rundschau - famed international and regional green top newspaper..) interview with DBM's elusive Mirko Hannemann titled "500 km Is No Big Deal" ("500 km sind eigentlich kein Ding").
Here's the original German version from www.fr-online.de :
And here's the inevitably absurd, ludicrous
Google/Giggle translation - whence this highlight: "So it was us but never did. As the ride, we put up with the electric car world record, was planned." Clearly not all Google staff deserve $200,000+ a year + perks..)
EVUK Translation - Part I :
Frankfurter Rundschau intro: "Mirko Hannemann has such confidence in his idea that he turned down an offer of over 600 million Euros..."
Interview
FR: Samsung is said to have offered you 600 million Euros for your battery technology - is that true ?
MH: Yes
FR: But that's an offer you can't refuse
MH: But we did
FR: Now we can't wait to know the reason
MH: We don't want anyone to use our technology for just one application - thereby blocking it or limiting to just that one area. Be it from the chemical industry or from an energy provider. We've had various offers
FR: That's very honourable. But you could have yourself a very nice life ..(ie. with the 600 million )
MH: That's not the cloth I'm cut from. I could already afford to do nothing anyway as it is
FR: How did you finance the development work ?
MH: From my own pocket
FR: Can you reveal the amount?
MH: Around 15 million
FR: And so you're the rich toff who steps up to take on the auto industry ?
MH: Or rather someone who succeeded in preventing the autoindustry from being able to claim that all-electric cars aren't viable/available because the batteries aren't up to the job
FR: You really have shown an entire industry(a thing or two)
MH: That was never what it was about. When the record-breaking trip was planned I did have reservations. I said "Guys - what if I drive from Munich to Berlin, recharge the batteries and drive back ?"
Well everyone more or less dismissed the idea. "Try it" was the response. No-one believed that I'd make it. That was what motivated me. I knew that 500 km was actually no big deal.
FR: Do you enjoy the role of agent provocateur ?
MH: No, but I do get a kick from making people feel nervous. Nervousness is a sign that something isn't right, isn't as it should be
FR: And what is it that isn't right ?
MH: I don't know. The industry is aiming to supply batteries by 2015 that can run for 200-300 km under normal day-to-day conditions. We've proven that that much - and more - is already possible today.
FR: You make a great secret out of your technology. Did you turn down the 600 million Euros so that you would then have to 'take the drug/doping test' ?
MH: That's not the problem. If we're cautious then it's because we're afraid of being ripped off due to our inferior negotiating power
FR: Have there been other reactions ?
MH: Absolutely. The response from outside Germany has been far more positive. Especially in the US. We've just had visitors here from the US who're involved in promoting economic development - they made it clear to us that our future isn't in Germany
FR: Has your relationship with the German auto industry now changed ?
MH: It's more relaxed since DEKRA and BAM confirmed the performance and safety of our batteries. And meanwhile Daimler's head of research has invited me to take part in the national E-Mobility forum(platform)
FR: How did you actually discover your battery technology ?
MH: It began with the development of a process to measure chemical battery storage. With that we succeeded in decoding "battery DNA" and found out which of the 1500 parameters we had to influence in order to achieve precisely defined results/outcomes. That was in 2006. We had no intention of inventing a Super Battery
FR: Is it a Super Battery ?
MH: As far as size, performance, stability and load-bearing capacity are concerned our batteries are better than anything currently in use
FR: But one-off production isn't particularly helpful. Can you guarantee mass production capability and supply larger volumes ?
MH: We would need nine months to a year to set up production lines. At that point an electric car with 300 km of range should cost no more than a conventional car
***********
Trusting the Translation/Translator - EVUK's Paul G is an Oxbridge(St.John's/Bridge of Sighs/River Cam) & council estate/grammar school-educated, wordy, worthy linguist who for many years honed his language skills - by sheer coincidence - in and around Frankfurt am Main as a freelance IBM Systems Analyst - and earlier as a (TEFL) English teacher(Frankfurt, Kaiserstrasse...). In other words: trust this translator - or weep/Giggle Aghast & Agog at the Genius of Google ..
Note: Translation Part II coming soon .. possibly .. depending on prevailing levels of public/media apathy/eco-hostility/Me-Now cluelessness/cowardice/truth aversion/fact avoidance/silence ...
But as of June 21 no English-language old/new media outlet has mentioned this remarkable June 14th Frankfurter Rundschau interview. No tweets, no chitter-chatter - gar nix !
June, 2011 Audi,media,public ignore DBM..DBM conforms to norm(ie. 200 km/125 miles max range -temporarily, tactically, diplomatically ?)
Timeline: June 1st - DBM announce - again NOT on their own website - that Next Energy is to road-test three DBM Kolibri-powered Audi A2 EV's - but(you cannot be serious, guys!!) all three will,er, boast(not!) a radically and indefensibly reduced, '97 RAV4 EV official range of just 200 km/ 125 miles. This comes just a week or so after VW-Audi re-confirmed its wholehearted, highly inventive commitment to endless EV PR-EVarication and PR-ocrastination(aka kicking the car-can down the road..till 2015 with all-new Audi A2 EV PRomises)
Sorry - but it is impossible to imagine any credible technical research rationale for this pitifully predictable DBM climb-down - on the contrary it would incontrovertibly be far better - for comparative research purposes - to fit the three cars with varying range capabilities eg. 350km, 250 km, 200 km.
Strangely and self-contradictingly Next Energy spokeswoman Dr. Bettina Lenz herself comments that:
"The long range(!!! EVUK Ed.) is ideal for our research project since our aim is to investigate the practical day-to-day performance of electric cars beyond the city".
(EVUK free translation of original: "Die grosse Reichweite ist ideal fuer unser Forschungsprojekt, schliesslich wollen wir Erkenntnisse ueber die Alltagstauglichkeit von Elektrofahrzeugen ausserhalb der Staedte gewinnen" )
"Long range"!! 200 km / 125 miles ? In vehicles otherwise identical to the Audi A2 that recorded over 600 km on its Munich-Berlin run and proved a rolling-road 714 km capability on a DEKRA rolling road ?
Sorry Dr.Lenz - but no "Dr" title or doctorate is - or has ever been - needed to instantly grasp what the patently obvious advantages of long range are - this is as abundantly clear now as it was when the 200 km/charge RAV4 EV was launched 14 years ago and 15 years ago when the 4-seat Solectria Sunrise recorded 600+ km on a single charge. No - just one burning question needs thorough investigation Dr.Lenz et al :
ie. Where (and why..) exactly were you and the German automotive/political/media establishment hiding, sleeping and pretending not to notice for 12-15 years ?!
Inaudible Truth & Invisible Charging Elephants:
See Auto Express, May 31st "Reborn Audi A2 Is Ready to Charge In" (er,by 2015 that is!!)
For all those who may have missed it - here's a very fair, slightly satirical synopsis of the latest VW-Audi divert & distract EV PRomise:
"We're gonna build an all-new, all-electric lightweight A2 EV from the ground up - so (phew!) it can't possibly be in showrooms until 2015-ish. Oh - and we've (still) never heard of DBM Energy ..and neither have our employees who are also very keen indeed to wait until 2015. Meanwhile we hope - like so many other major automakers - to sell 100's of thousands more petrol/diesel cars over the next 4 years - esp. to the Chinese - whilst riding the perpetual greenwash-wave of EV PRomises, PRocrastination & jam tomorrow ...."
And of course - no reference anywhere to any trailblazing 600 km/charge Audi A2's - either by VW-Audi or by any of the PRoxy-pundits/PR parrots lining up to so eagerly and word-perfectly report the company's latest wondrously well-timed, DBM-snubbing mañana-manoEVre ....
But according to Auto Express's "insiders", Audi's own employees are terrifically excited by the company's latest
car-can-kicking announcement - and would thus appear to have no access to Google/Bing etc and - ergo - no knowledge of DBM's ready-to-roll Kolibri lithium cells...
2015 ? No audience plaudits from us guys - this is once again much more about kicking cans down the road and into the
long grass from the grassy 'ground up' - than any genuine fast-track, asap commitment to Vorsprung durch E-Technik.
Excerpt from Auto Express(who've also apparently ,um,never heard of DBM Energy ...) :
"An insider told us: "It will only be an electric car. Most battery models are compromised as they are built on rehashed architecture, but the A2 will be built from the ground up as a pure electric machine."
"The idea is so popular [at Audi] that it could even spawn a family of A2 electric models and become almost a standalone brand...The new model is scheduled to reach dealers by 2015, and spearhead Audi's electric car drive"".
See also:
Next Energy - re DBM, A2 EV's x 3 and the (oxy)moronic "125 miles = long range" etc...
Clean Thinking "DBM Energy Supplies Kolibri Batteries for Research Centre" ("DBM Energy liefert Kolibri Akkus fr Forschungszentrum")
IWR(Business Network): "E-Mobility: NEXT ENERGY Begins Rural Field Tests" ("Elektromobilitaet: NEXT ENERGY startet Feldtest im laendlichen Raum")
DIY Electric Car(English !) - Wow - a grand total of two DBM-Next Energy-related Google Search comments in English - including "I wish there were more English-language news outlets covering this"(EV understatement of the decade ?).
Incredible ! In no area of technology/energy/energy storage/transport/industry/the economy/ecology could the stakes be higher, the silence more shameful, the truth more inaudible..
May, 2011 German Gov't tests(BAM,DEKRA) prove DBM Energy's 600+ km range / 5000 recharges / safety claims
- so why are automakers AND EV reporters still ignoring this genuine & giant lithium leap ?
(Full EVUK piece probably pending: watch this space - or click here to fill it yourselves ..)
 Remember: DBM Energy insist - logically and understandably unless you distrust top-rated German Govt test officials - that their now proven lithium technology is ready to roll now - not mañana-mañana-mañana - or 3-5-7-10-n years from
The Day After Mañana...
So exactly what are BMW and VW-SEAT-Audi and the world's media waiting for ? Where's that legendary Need For Speed ?
IBE, i3, i8 .. i-wait and i-wait and i-wait and i-wait...
(..and get more and more i-rate ?)
Full speed ahead - vroom vroom and pedal-to-the-metal, right guys?
Carpe DIEM, Carpe DBM - and grab that competitive, innovative edge - that vital Vorsprung durch E-Technik..
Essential (proof-)reading :
In plain English: summary of Govt/BAM/DEKRA Performance & Safety test results. Passed "with flying colours" ..
Excerpt:
"...the KOLIBRI technology was subjected to an independent range test by German certification institute DEKRA at its test
center at the Lausitz EuroSpeedway racetrack in Klettwitz, Germany.(..) The required condition of covering a distance of
300 km within 7 days was met in one session on a roller dynamometer,
indicating a range of 454.83 kilometers with the 62,928 kWh LMP battery.Adjusted for the battery capacity of 98 kWh at the time of the worldwide
range record, the range would have been 714 km."
May, 2011 Illuminati Seven - 207 MPGe, 0-60: 8 secs, 130 mph, 4 seats - in SF style(video)
Aerodynamic for range, speed and head-turning(though not for 3-point turning or city parking..)
Illuminati Motor Works home
But - as always - let's benchmark and measure this against the scandalously unreported(UK/EU etc) and underreported(US) 1996 600 km, 4-seater Solectria Sunrise -what a long way we haven't come(?)
Watch extremely rare video(only one known to us) of Solectria Sunrise being driven in this Trans2 "not a golf cart" promo.
Note: the Solectria - bearing the number "63" - appears twice: at 26 secs & 46 secs.
Wiki note: we're flattered/honoured/right chuffed to see that much of Wikipedia's Solectria Sunrise entry has been freely lifted from our own(EVUK) May 2007 Solectria piece ..although Wikipedians have yet to include the pièce de résistance - ie. the outrageously - yet all-too predictably - rare video footage of this potentially transformative, dangerously disruptive, range record-breaking/holding EV in motion.
Note to all head-shakingly appalled alien visitors / intelligent (ex)terrestrial life-forms: that's right..10000's of Youtube clips of cats & prats prat-falling, monkeys on roller skates etc - but just one solitary semi-clandestine clip of the Solectria Sunrise - a vehicle that promised/threatened to change almost EVerything.
Explanation ? Excuses ? Solutions ? Antidotes ? Desperate measures ?
"SOS - Help Us Out. Send Us An Angel !"
was Will.i.am's Live Earth appeal (video) - but the angel angle alone might not suffice - maybe what we urgently now need is a 100% benign AIDS-like virus(Earth Aid, spread via wind and/or sex, no downside) that significantly enhances not just "intellectual" brain-power - but also dramatically and permanently expands, enriches and excites those cerebral regions where conscience, vision, imagination etc reside. So guys - intelligent human or alien altruists, EThical ET's etc - if you could cook that up that contagion for us..aid us, Save Our Species - rather than perhaps contemplating destroying humanity or waiting for us to destroy ourselves, the planet's ecosystem and a few thousand more endangered species - we'd sure appreciate the generous gesture...
Q: is it more far-fetched, fanciful, delusional to believe in the power of politicians to work miracles or to do the right thing - than in the existence/omnipotence of:
a) aliens
b) angels ?
Discuss! (Down the pub, on yer death-bed, at the water-cooler, in the corridors..of power ...)
EV Range - Postscript News(May):
SIM Drive(Japan) claim 207 mile range for 4-seat EV(Discovery)
BMW i3 to have 160 mile range - or should that be 160 km / 100 miles ? Do the math, the research - and the wishful-thinking. Ooops.
"BMW i3 to have 160 mile range"(MotorAuthority,May,2011)
"BMW i3 to have 100 mile range"(MotorAuthority,May,2011)
"BMW i3 to have 160 mile range"(Autoguide,May 2011)
"BMW i3 to have 100 mile range"(AllCarsElectric,May 2011)
"BMW i3 to have 160 mile range"(THeEEStory,May 2011)
Let's insist on at least 160 miles(not km).
May, 2011 Fiat 500(40 mpg - woah!) v Fiat Ecobasic(94 mpg, €5000 - proven and promised over a decade ago..) v Fiat 500 EV
Yep, 94 mpg, 160 km/h, 76g CO2/km, €5000...(see video below)
So much for the corporate media's beloved eco-deterrent refrain:
"Are consumers willing to pay to go green ?"
"Are consumers willing to pay to go green ?"
"Are consumers willing to pay to go green ?"
Hmm - when what they should be asking of course is:
- do we in the media have the requisite will, independence and all-round cojones to pressure, cajole, embarrass major corporations into selling energy-saving or fuel-efficient next generation green technologies at low or competitive prices ?
So - do you belong to that 99% of 'consumers' and compliant-silent commentators who've apparently no recollection at all of the 94+ mpg(German TUV-validated),
4-seater, European award-winning, promised-but-not-delivered, Fiat Ecobasic ?
What's your excuse for amnesia/ignorance this time around?
Are you loaded down and bristling with all the very latest and smartest, i-Googling, i-Twittering, 3G- , 3D- , Wi-Fi-enabled,
Me-Now gadgetry that money can buy - but still lacking
the ability, the will - the independent, intellectual spark of curiosity - to seek out or recall/retain the truth and the facts
- to fill in the abysmal blanks ?
Then why not consider a career in corporate or political PR ? Or mainstream journalism ?
Mocking birds...
 
Watch Fiat's "hand-picked" and usefully clueless Laura Soave(above,left) on Bloomberg TV recently raving about the tiny Fiat 500's..er..incredible 40 mpg fuel "economy" :
"Soave Says Fiat's Raised Chrysler Stake Part of Original Plan" Soave also says she's keen to avoid a green image - unlike the plumaged parrot(above,right),
Then read this superb Ecobasic review from CarDesign,anno 2000(..hand-picked above-left Laura clearly hasn't) :
"Fiat Unveils Its 3L/100 km Concept Car...."
A poultry - sorry - paltry 40 mpg for a car as small as the Fiat 500 in the year 2011 ?!
Fiat's Sergio Marchionne and his faithful flock of chirpily bird-brained US PR-parrots should be hiding their heads in shame and embarrassment - as should all those equally wired-yet-clueless trendy New Yorkers who've apparently so eagerly swallowed the spin..
(Yikes, Sergio - are we risking waking up one day soon to find a horse's head on our pillow? Or a bird's brain - possibly from a dead/deceased parrot ??)
Ecobasic - click for unsurprisingly rare, on-the-road video of one of the most important truth-exposing, myth-busting, price-busting(5000 Euros !) fuel-efficient, disruptive, transformative 4-seater cars never made...
Back to Ecobasics - Back to the...Future Fiat 500 EV - if modelled and based on Ecobasic principles and materials we would expect a battery range of at least 150 miles...
Yes,sure - the Fiat Ecobasic was SOA diesel-powered - but this should account for a maximum 50% - not 230% - mpg advantage over the latest Fiat 500. Bear in mind too that the Ecobasic achieved 94+ mpg despite being substantially longer/larger/taller than the Fiat 500... what's more the Ecobasic's *duck-billed platypus "aerodynamics"(not!) make the Fiat 500 petrol or EV versions look like sleek, slippery, streamlined dolphins...ergo: let's expect or demand at least 150 miles per charge from the 2012 Fiat 500 EV.
(*Apologies to duck-billed platypuses everywhere who - despite their negative duck-out-of-water press - are in fact very slinkily, silkily smooth swimmers(Youtube): high time obviously for an electrified amphibious Ecobasic à la Rinspeed sQuba..)
April, 2011 Newsworthy: anti-nuclear, green Germany leads European recovery
Spot the difference: CNBC USA discusses Pringles crackers...
(Click for clips/chips)
...whilst German TV's DAF business channel(the perfectly clinical Astra Sat antidote) focuses on global, distributed, decentralized and centralized renewable energy/energy conservation investment opportunities(Lyxor New Energy Fund, WAEX/World Alternative Energy Index)
Amusing, is it not, how our corporate media, most politicians - including the confidently hapless Obama - and most blokes down the pub seem so woefully unwilling to join the dots and draw the obvious conclusions from the literally shining example being set by Germany.
The lesson of course is as clear as sunlight - do we really need to spell it out or reach for the glove-puppets?
Yet for every 10000 hours(approx) that our utterly, irreversibly, discredited US-UK business broadcasters(aka the Laughing Stock) spend focusing on - or obediently targeting - the EU's weaker victim economies - Portugal, Spain, Greece, Ireland(Italy conspicuously less so...) we are - surprise surprise - treated to at best just a few nanoseconds of airtime covering the increasingly green and rosy political and economic landscape of Germany - aka the economic and ecological powerhouse of Europe in 2011.(Countless EU countries are also turning green - but mostly with envy)
Question(to most blokes & Daily Males down-the-pub) :
- given a choice, guys, where would you honestly now invest your life savings: in oil & gas-rich, nuke-amnesiac Russia, Atom-ized Albania for instance - or in Germany's DAX, TecDAX stock markets and in its high yield, high return, high dividend intellectual capital and resources ?
Or mit anderen Worten: Who ya gonna side with - Homer Simpson, Mr. Burns, the IAEA, pint-sized Sarkozy and Ahmadinejad (with their shared, suspiciously Napoleonic/Freudian nuclear power & prowess fixations) - or with the German Aerospace Center and the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment & Energy ?
Most Germans now understand that nuclear power is not just unnecessary but is seriously hindering the rapid adoption and roll-out of smart, green, sustainable - and in the mid-to-long term - cheaper alternatives.
"We can shut down all nuclear power plants within a few years, without major costs, and without suffering shortages" (Olav Hohmeyer, Professor of Energy Policy at the University of Flensburg, and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - see GlobalIssues.org, 01/04/2011)
And to all those countries, mis-leaders and shoulder-shrugging peoples of the world(..and Albania) who have been so easily duped and seduced by the perceived-yet-delusional political prestige and prowess of nuclear power - how could you have ignored and largely still be ignoring - the German lesson ? Could it be - in part at least - because our old-hat, old-school media has for so long refused to freely expose the dark side of nuclear(ie.waste,safety,cost) and to fully explore green alternatives ? Compare & contrast Japan and Germany: for the past decade or more the Japanese economy - despite and in part because of its creativity-stifling, job-killing nuclear myopia - has been going nowhere fast.
Similarly France's gastronomic and atomic economy would be substantially less viable and its nuclear industry's subsidies far less affordable without many billions a year in CAP subsidies. (see Reform the CAP)
FAQ / FMC: how on earth can any country possibly expect to achieve and sustain economic prosperity without nuclear power ?
Vorsprung  durch gruene Technik & gruene Politik
There we've spelled it out after all ...
Anyone still in need of a German lesson ? Here's one more:
DBM Energy appear to have learned from their many mistakes(but a "trust us" press release - dated April 1st !?).
And whilst they're learning by doing - we're all hoping and praying. Low cost, 200+ mile-per-charge EV's will change everything and help drive the smart, green, power-up, non-trickle-down economy that has been so long resisted and feared by the business-as-usual, boom & bust brigade.
Yes - it's officially official: DBM's Kolibri cells have now passed strenuous DEKRA and BAM tests and - not before time - the company has also launched a fully revamped, ready-for-business website(though still no English/international version)
But, as before, the jury is still out for the count on ...
a) the Guinness drought(we need records served up in black & white please) and
2) that warehouse fireball ..
What's more, the English-language media(web & old-hat) have at last broken their (Nov-March) silence re DBM's many mysterious mis-steps and mishaps ...
A little more Teutonic tuition:
Not In My Back Yard for much longer. The German political and economic landscape is changing fast thanks to green, blue-sky thinking..(Photo: picturesque church-tower and picturesque PV panels in picturesque Philippsburg, Germany)
PostScript: the Sunny Side/Sonnenseite on DAF TV...broadcast 72 hours after the posting up of above piece ..."Meltdown in Japan: Time to Bet on Solar Stocks"
(Or - slightly more ironically perhaps - on Ocean Current technology...)
Foresight footnote - EVUK(June 2010):
NuClear and Prescient Anger, NuClear and Present Danger, China/Japan/French Syndrome, politicians swallowing post-meltdown food/lies/half-truths, our "Don't Ask Don't Tell" consent-enabling, self-censoring corporate media, Jack Nicholson's "Can't Handle the Truth" etc etc etc....
So what is the Japanese for:
"Ya gotta live in the real world, mate" ?
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