Forums: Electric Car

'Social business' harnesses corporate brains to help poor BY HISASHI NAITO AND RYUICHIRO TAKESHITA THE ASAHI SHIMBUN 2010/07/23 Muhammad Yunus (THE ASAHI SHIMBUN) A new business model that blurs traditional distinctions between social activism and business is gaining converts in boardrooms of leading Japanese companies. "Social business," a concept pushed by Nobel Peace Prize winner, economist and banker Muhammad Yunus, uses traditional business structures and expertise but is focused on addressing social issues rather than making a profit for investors. Profits that are made are invested back into the ventures. At a news conference July 13, Yunus sat beside Tadashi...

Investors who bought Tesla Motors Inc.’s initial public stock offering last week thought they had a hot one. They did -- for a day and a half. But it has been all downhill since. Shares of the electric sports car maker plunged for a third straight session Tuesday as investors bailed out, pushing the stock below the IPO price of $17. Palo Alto-based Tesla closed down $3.09, or 16.1%, to $16.11. Despite the high hurdles facing the company’s bid to become commercially successful, the hype surrounding the IPO -- the first for an American carmaker since Ford Motor’s offering in...

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk seems to have it all. The electric-car entrepreneur is the toast of Silicon Valley, Sacramento, and Tokyo after unveiling a plan to revive Toyota’s shuttered NUMMI plant last week. And deal-hungry Wall Street bankers are angling to take his company public. He’s even a Hollywood star, with a cameo in the hit Iron Man 2 movie, said to be based on his life story. The one thing he doesn’t have, by his own admission, is money. “About four months ago, I ran out of cash,” he wrote in a court filing dated Feb. 23, reviewed...

If you aren't already on the list to purchase a 2011 Nissan Leaf, you're officially out of luck. During a speech to the Detroit Economic Club today, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn announced that the U.S. market allotment for the first year's production of Leafs is already sold out more than six months before the EV even goes on sale. Nissan has now received 13,000 orders for the $32,780 electric car – quite impressive for a vehicle almost no one's driven.

The federal government is rethinking the way to calculate fuel-efficiency ratings for electric vehicles, a move that will likely result in a significant reduction in the miles-per-gallon claims some auto makers have touted for the battery-powered cars they plan to launch later this year. Using a preliminary formula released by the Environmental Protection Agency, General Motors Co. last year announced its Chevy Volt would be rated at 230 miles per gallon in city driving, and Nissan Motor Co. said its Leaf electric car would get the equivalent of 367 mpg. But now the agency is in the midst of finalizing...