Kia is joining the electric car game, at least in Korea. Kia will build 2500 of the all-electric Ray EV for the Korean government. As of now, there aren’t any plans to sell the Ray EV to the public. My guess would be that this is a test run to get their feet wet. Using the government as a guinea pig is a much safer bet than using the general public.

The Ray is a small boxy type vehicle – similar to the Soul or Nissan Cube. Here are some quick specs:

• 86 mile driving range
• 16.4 kWh lithium-ion battery pack
• 50 kW electric motor
• 0-62 MPH in 15.9 seconds1
• 123 lb-ft of torque
• Fast charge in 25 minutes

Nothing ground breaking here. As planned, the Ray would not work in the United States. However, I see now reason why it couldn’t work elsewhere, giving Kia some experience with electric vehicles. If we’ve learned anything, it’s that Kia learns quickly.

Kia Ray EV Gallery

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The Honda Fit has long been a popular choice in the subcompact world. It offers flexible seating, decent styling, reasonable-ish pricing, good fuel economy, and respectable performance. It doesn’t excel in any one area, but it’s a pretty balanced competitor. Honda decided to ratchet up the fuel economy part in a big way – by creating a Fit EV.

Similar to the Nissan Leaf, the 2013 Fit EV is full electric – there is no gas engine to be found. Honda expect the EPA to rate the Fit EV for 76 (combined) miles per charge. That’s three miles more than the Leaf is rated, by the way.

2013 Honda Fit Quick Specs

• 20 kWh Lithium Ion battery pack
• 92 kW electric motor
• Full charge on 240 volts in 3 hours 1
• Seating for five.

The Fit EV will launch slowly, in selected markets, just like the Volt and Leaf. The introductory lease special will be about $399 per month, with an unspecific amount down. Buyers will also need to have a 240 volt charger installed, which adds to the setup costs. Fortunately, the chargers are standard, and all current electric cars use the same charger port.

Here’s the problem

Honda plans to produce just 1,100 Fit EV’s. Ever. Perhaps they aren’t sure how to make money on an EV quite yet. I don’t know either, but I know that scale is required. They are going to lose quite a bit of money on this project by keeping the volume so low. Perhaps it’s just a ploy to get their CAFE numbers up.

2013 Honda Fit EV Gallery

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People have been riding the Nissan Leaf ever since it came out for it’s steep price tag. No more. The 2012 Ford Focus Electric makes the Leaf look downright affordable. At a base price of $39,995, you’ll have to spend four thousand dollars more to get the Focus than the Leaf. Ouch.

The price isn’t the whole story of course. Let’s talk about specs. What, exactly, is so great about the Focus Electric?

2012 Ford Focus Electric Quick Specs

• Estimated 70 mile range
• 23 kWh Lithium ion battery
• 123 HP electric motor

The Focus Electric will start rolling out in limited quantities later this year. The real question, though, is will there be any buyers? The traditional Focus is quite efficient, even though it burns dinosaur juice… and it costs $20k less. 1 Double the price of a gas Focus, $4k more than a Leaf… I love to recommend that people Buy American… but it just doesn’t make sense on this one.

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Disappointed by the Fisker Karma‘s 20 MPG fuel economy rating? Me too. Car and Driver, too. So much so, that they had to crunch the numbers to see what was going on. Turns out the answer is actually quite simple. By the time you add up the Fisker’s seating for 5, turbocharged gas engine, 20 kWh lithium-ion battery pack, and two large electric motors, you are looking at a 5300 lb sedan.

So, yeah. That’s it. Any way you slice it, 5300 lbs is a *lot* of weight to move around, and it’s going to use a ton of fuel.

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It feels like it’s been forever, but the Fisker Karma is coming. The EPA got their hands on one, and we finally have official fuel efficiency numbers. In traditional confusing fashion, the Fisker Karma is rated at 52 MPGe. Now, that’s “miles per gallon equivalent,” which is the best that the EPA could manage to rate cars like this. I’m not knocking the EPA here – this is a notoriously tricky thing to figure out. Let’s dig a little deeper into the Karma’s numbers.

The 20 kWh lithium-ion battery pack will allow the Karma to travel up to 32 miles on a single charge. This is where the MPGe rating comes into play. The EPA is trying to best translate electricity usage into gasoline usage, so would-be buyers have a prayer of understand how efficient a particular vehicle is.

Once the battery is depleted, the Karma’s gasoline engine kicks in to charge the battery, which powers the motors. This setup may remind of of the Chevy Volt. In the Karma’s case, there are two 201 HP motors in place, for a reported output of 403 HP / 981 lb-ft of torque. These numbers aren’t yet final, however. Fisker is expecting to net a 20 MPG range for after the battery is depleted.

While not exactly green, did you see the 981 lb-ft of torque rating? My goodness. Ridiculous power and electric range combined in one car? I think the world has room for something like this.

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Nissan’s all-electric Leaf is going to be even more expensive than it already is. The base SV model price will increase from $33,630 to $36,050. The higher SL jumps even more, from $34,570 to $38,100. (These price all include the destination charge.)

That’s a $2420 increase for the SV, and a whopping $3530 increase for the SL. This is not peanuts we’re talking about… especially in an already pricing vehicle. That said, demand for the Leaf has far oustripped supply, so this probably makes sense from Nissan’s view.

To cushion the price hikes somewhat, Nissan is offering an extra package on each trim. The SV gets the cold-weather package standard, and the SL gets the quick cahrge port. Neither of these packages is worth the extra cost, but such is life.

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Every time someone sees a Smart car for the first time, their reaction seems to be “Oh that’s the new electric car.” At least every time I’m with someone who sees one for the first time. I’m tasked with breaking the bad news that no, in fact, that’s not an electric car. It uses gas, and it’s not even that great on gas.

Smart has now delivered their first ForTwo Electric Drive here in the states. Mindy Kimball of Silver Spring, MD is the lucky buyer. In fact, Smart is only delivering fifty of these vehicles to regular folks – the rest are for fleet sales.

With the absurd pricing of $2400 down and $599/ month for a least… it’s probably not a bad thing that supply is so limited. One can lease a much larger, more comfortable, better equipped Nissan Leaf for $2,000 down and $349 per month. Besides those buying for the novelty, where’s the market for the outrageously priced Smart ForTwo Electric Drive?

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Chevy is finally building production Volts. To celebrate, they’re going to auction off the very first Volt, and donate all proceeds to the Detroit Public Schools.

(General Motors North America President Mark) Reuss announced the auction during an event at Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly, where the Volt is assembled. At the event, Reuss announced the first Volt built during regular production will be retained by Chevrolet in recognition of the team’s efforts to bring the revolutionary car from concept to reality. The first Volt   bearing the vehicle identification number ending in BU100002 – will be auctioned with all proceeds benefitting the Detroit Public Schools Foundation.

The starting bid is just $50,000. If you have some spare change, and would like to help GM give back to the city that’s they call home, head on over to http://www.bidonthevolt.com and bid away.

**Update** Bidding has reached a stunning $180,000. There are still two weeks left, so there’s no telling how high it will go.

Source: GM

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Honda is a little late to the EV game, but they’re getting ready to jump in. Their first entry will be the 2012 Fit EV. Rather than build an EV from scratch like the Nissan Leaf, Honda is playing it a bit safer by modifying the already existing Fit. The Fit is small, lightweight, and in gas form quite fuel efficient… so this is probably as good a starting place as any.

Honda expects the Fit EV to get up to 100 miles per charge, which puts it on par with the Leaf. To get this range, Honda is using a lithium-ion battery – standard fare for today’s EV’s. Charging time will range from 6 hours with a specialized charger, to 12 hours on a standard 120V wall outlet. I’m thinking that many folks will be able to get away with just using the regular outlet, and skipping the expensive 240V charger altogether. Everyone will have different driving needs, of course.

2012 Honda Fit EV Gallery

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We all have high hopes for the Volt. GM is banking on it to be awesome, so interest in electric cars remains high. Would-be buyers are hoping that it will fulfill their dreams of a gas-free commute to work, while still giving them the range they need on the weekends.

Popular Mechanics just completed the first (as far as I know) unsupervised third-party test of the Volt. What did they find? An average of 33 miles of EV range, which is 17% short of the 40 mile target. Once the battery was depleted, they managed an average 32 MPG in the city and 36 MPG on the highway.

Color me unimpressed. What happened to the 50 MPG post-battery goal that was floating around? It’s likely that the Volt’s portly (and newly discovered) 3800 lb curb weight has a little something to do with that. It sounds like the drivers at Pop Mechanics were a little aggressive too – mentions of 78 MPH on the highway during the EV test.

Can the Volt deliver 40+ miles of EV range and 40-50 MPG post-EV with careful driving? I hope so. We’ll need some more tests to find out for sure.

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