We Obsessively Cover the Green Scene…

It's hard to get sympathy when you have the funds to lay out north of $100,000 for a car, but for those Fisker Karma owners feeling blue, Hybrid Support Solutions (HSS) is there for you. For $3,995, of course.

Karma owners can pay $3,995 for a subscription that gives them a chance to get service consulting for a car whose maker is a little too busy with Congressional hearings (and, likely, a looming bankruptcy). This fee will allow personal repair help from HSS staff, up to and including battery replacement. Or, at least, information on battery replacement. "Parts and special operations are not covered but our time, advice, recommendations; access to our knowledge library and catalogs is available 24/7," HSS says on its website. HSS is also working on an "inexpensive tool" that will allow drivers to figure out what their Karmas are telling them via trouble codes and check engine lights. HSS says, "This will be an improved and more functional (and far less expensive) tool than the $4000.00 original manufacturer specified tool of which is no longer available."

We're not sure who's behind HSS, but we do know it's based in Long Beach, CA (Fisker Automotive is based in nearby Anaheim) and the website says it's the "original and only Karma support team" and boasts 10 "members that have the knowledge on the inner workings of the Karma" who "have been there since the beginning." So, perhaps, that knowledge library runs deep. We've included the HSS FAQ below.

Of course, Leo and the rest of the Karma owners, who are likely feeling the pinch of a crashing used-car market for the vehicles, could save themselves any plug-in trouble by ditching their electric powertrain altogether in favor of a VL Productions Destino, which pulls the powertrail out of the Karma and replaces it from a General Motors-made 556-horsepower V8.

Any old codger wondering if our future's in good hands should check out what Juan Ehringeras is doing with his Honda S2000. The high school senior is rebuilding the two-seater as an all-electric vehicle, and seems to be having fun with the process, according to Motor Authority.

Ehringeras, who chose the car because it was cheap (hey, it was damaged) and lightweight, has built his own battery packs and has gone genius on a bunch of other little features for his new ride. Ehringeras didn't talk single-charge range but did say the electric motor will be able to deliver about 780 horsepower. You read that right. For a kid in a two-seater.

The student appears to be continuing a tradition of young gearheads putting their own spin on the modern EV. West Philadelphia High School made news a couple of years back with its entrees in the Automotive X-Prize alt-fuel vehicle competition. And way back in early 2008, we reported on then-high schooler Andrew Angellotti turning his 1988 Mazda B2200 pickup truck into an all-electric green machine. Check out a short video of the S2000's test drive below. Yes, youth is served.

Honda once told Americans to "respect the van" in its effort to sell its Odyssey minivans. Now, BMW CEO Norbert Reithofer is telling his fellow Germans to "embrace the plug."

Reithofer cited "German angst" to explain a potential sales roadblock for the German automaker's new "i" sub-brand, which officially debuts later this year with the i3 battery-electric vehicle, Bloomberg News reports. Reithofer says Bimmer has taken a leap of faith of sorts by investing in plug-in drivetrain technology, and now needs to encourage the German public to do the same. BMW will also start selling its i8 plug-in hybrid next year.

Whether Germans will follow suit remains in question. Stefan Bratzel, director of the Center of Automotive Management at Germany's University of Applied Sciences, tells Bloomberg that plug-ins may account for as much as three percent of Germany's new-vehicle market by the end of the decade, and says Germans remain in a "phase of disenchantment" when it comes to plug-in technology.

Reithofer has previously made a different type of appeal, recently calling European emissions standards for 2020 "impossible to meet" and lobbying for funding from the German government to help with the necessary technological improvements.

For anyone wanting to get a clearer view of the "us vs. them" environment dividing electric-vehicle advocates and everyone else, Plug In Cars' take on Car and Driver's recent review of the Honda Fit EV is instructive.

The innocuous-looking Honda triggered some "anti-EV vitriol" Car and Driver readers. It's not a huge surprise that C&D bashed the model for its high price, tight quarters, limited (compared to the gas model) range and, of course, sub-par road performance. It's one writer's opinion, and that's that. What's more illuminating, though, are the comments from Car and Driver readers, which get into politics, elitism and, yes, Leonardo De Caprio. Oh, what fun. It's a bit of a rabbit hole, but here are a few examples:

• "[EVs] are for self-hating RICH people who the liberals have made ASHAMED to flaunt their wealth. If I had that kind of money, I'd drive around in a Lamborghini or Veyron. Even now, when people hear my engine and ask how many miles do I get per gallon, I proudly say "10.1"."
• "EVs are NOT improvements over gas powere vehicles. You have a very short leash on the car and have an extremely long recharge time. You can quick charge the batteries but at the cost of killing their longevity. You may not be spewing fumes outside a tail pipe but you are adding to the energy consumed by power plants. Don't even start with the ridiculous solar panel chargers since it would literally take you a week to get a full charge from the solar panels on tops of an average family home. God help you if you are in an apartment."

In the end, as Plug In Cars says, "anti-EV vitriol is alive and well," and you can read the rest here. For those curious, the Car and Driver review and comments are here. Our own Fit review is here.

We'll forgive Nissan for gloating a bit, now that the Japanese automaker has surpassed the 25,000- sales threshold for the Leaf EV in the US.

Coming off two of its best months domestically, the all-electric Leaf has complemented its sales on the West Coast with more recent demand increases in markets such as Atlanta, Dallas and Chicago. All told, Nissan, which recently started producing US Leafs at its Tennessee plant, has sold 62,000 Leafs globally.

With production moving stateside, Nissan was able to cut the price of the 2013 Leaf by $6,400 to a base of $28,800, and that's before the $7,500 federal tax credit kicks in. Through April, Nissan more than doubled year-earlier Leaf sales to 5,476 units. And the model recently received an additional boost when the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) confirmed its new fuel economy rating for the Leaf at 115 miles per gallon equivalent, up from 99 MPGe. Check out Nissan's press release below.

Is there a plethora of big rigs in the Gem State? Results of a US Energy Information Administration (EIA) report tracking state-by-state energy-related carbon dioxide emission makes that question worth asking, as Idaho was the state with the highest percentage of emissions stemming from the transportation sector.

A whopping 58 percent of the Spud State's energy-related emissions in 2010 (the most recent year tracked) came solely from transportation, narrowly beating out California, New Jersey and Oregon in that department. On the other end of the spectrum, just 13 percent of North Dakota's energy-related emissions came from transportation, while Indiana checked in at 19 percent. Click here (PDF) for the 21-page EIA report.

Naturally (or not so naturally, in this case), California in 2010 had both the largest amount of transportation-related emissions (Texas was a close second) and most total energy-related emissions, belching 370 million metric tons of CO2 into the golden sky. Optimists will point out that that figure is down 11 percent from a decade earlier. So we have that going for us.

The news keeps getting better for Nissan and its efforts to boost sales of its all-electric Leaf: the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ahs confirmed that the EV's range is about 15 percent better than it used to be.

The EPA finalized its 2013 Leaf numbers, confirming a miles per gallon-equivalent rating of 115, up from 99 MPGe. And while the single-charge range distance is only up two miles – to 75 – it's apples to oranges because the current number stems from about a 90 percent charge whereas the old number is from a full charge (details here). The new Leaf also gets 129 city mpge and 102 mpge on the highway.

Nissan estimated the EPA numbers back in February, but the confirmation is the latest bit of good news for the Leaf, whose sales through the first four months of the year more than doubled from a year earlier to 5,476 units. Additionally, the Leaf was given the top safety rating by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) earlier this month.

North Carolina is the latest state to line up against Tesla Motors by proposing a bill that would bar direct automaker-to-customer sales within the state, the Raleigh News & Observer reports. Still, Tesla says plans to open a showroom there and has sold about 80 cars to North Carolina residents, with reservations for about 60 more.

According to Slate, a bill pushed by the state's Senate Commerce Committee – and backed, of course, by the North Carolina Automobile Dealers Association (NCADA) – would not only prevent Tesla from opening a showroom in North Carolina, it would go as far as banning Internet vehicle sales in the Tar Heel state. We're not sure how that would be enforced, but it would certainly crimp the success Tesla has had without using the traditional industry dealer distribution model. The bill is sponsored by state Sen. Tom Apodaca (R), who claims the goal is to stop unfair competition between manufacturers and dealers (as Slate notes, Apodaca also received $8,000 from the NCADA last year, the most allowed by law). Tesla's vice president for corporate and business development, Diarmuid O'Connell, argues that the bill is "a protectionist move to lock down the market so we have to go through the middleman – the dealer – to sell our cars."

Texas, Massachusetts, Minnesota and New York are among states that have so far taken issue with Tesla's dealer-free distribution model, prompting Musk to say last month that he'd consider going to Congress to try and get factory-to-customer sales legalized throughout the country. Musk is likely emboldened by the fact that Tesla earned its first quarterly profit this year and sold more of its Model S electric vehicles than General Motors and Nissan did of their Chevrolet Volt extended-range plug-in and Leaf EV, respectively.

For Toyota and the new version of its Auris Hybrid that goes on sale starting next month, less is more. In this case, the Auris Hybrid will get an engine that cuts emissions by more than three percent from the current version.

The Auris Hybrid that goes on sale next month will emit just 84 grams of CO2 per kilometer, down from 87 in the previous model. The Touring Sports version of the Auris Hybrid, which was first shown off in Geneva earlier this year was, in Toyota's words, the "first full hybrid estate car," and emits 85 g/km. For comparison, the European Prius emits 91 g/km in combined driving conditions.

First-quarter Auris Hybrid sales in Europe surged 69 percent from a year earlier. There are no plans to bring the model stateside. Read Toyota's press release below.

Ford figures that 11,000 electric-vehicle driving homeowners can't be wrong. The US automaker has tapped AeroVironment as its official vendor for Level 2 home-charging systems.

AeroVironment is offering one-day installations of 240-volt systems at the homes of Ford C-Max, Fusion plug-in and Focus Electric drivers. With the Level 2 systems, the plug-in hybrids can be fully recharged in under three hours, while the Focus EV can be juiced up in less than four hours.

Through April, Ford sold almost 3,000 plug-ins vehicles, more than half of which are C-Max Energi PHEVs. By comparison, Nissan has sold almost 5,500 Leafs, while General Motors has moved 5,550 Chevrolet Volt extended-range plug-ins.

Last fall, AeroVironment crossed the 10,000-station installation threshold in North America. The company was named the preferred home-charger-installation vendor of Nissan way back in 2010. Check out AeroVironment's press release below.

After sending the all-electric eO beast to the Dakar Rally – where it became the first electric vehicle to finish that event – Latvia's OSCar is readying a new racer for the Pikes Pike International Hill Climb in Colorado next month.

The eO PP01 supercar boasts a lightweight, tubular carbon-fiber frame with an electric engine that peaks at 536 horsepower. The company says an EV is at an advantage at the 14,000-foot altitude of the race because, unlike conventional gas engines, electric engines don't lose power at high altitudes. OSCar admits, "so far no electric car has won [Pikes Peak] outright," but EV's "are becoming a force to be reckoned with." Other electric entrants this year include Toyota's TMG EV P002 and the Monster Sport E-Runner.

The eO has raced more than 11,000 miles worth of competitions across three continents. OSCar first made news on the green-car front when it entered a plug-in hybrid in the 2011 Dakar Rally. That model, which included a Nissan-built gas-powered range-extender, had 422 horsepower as well as a 190-mile single-charge range. eO hasn't put up any videos of the PP01 yet, but you can see a video of the Electric OSCar eO in the AutoEuro 6h Cup in 2012 below and check out eO's blog on the Pikes Peak car here.

Tessa Baughman didn't exactly set any speed records on a recent visit to her Arkansas family from Michigan, unless you factor in the time saved on not filling up a few times.

The energy engineer for the Chevy Cruze Diesel, interviewed in a short General Motors video (available below), said she was able to go 900 miles on a single tank during the first leg of the drive. The catch is that she drove "five below speed limit" the whole way down, but she certainly more than backed up the EPA's Cruze Diesel fuel-economy rating of 46 miles per gallon, the best of any non-hybrid vehicle. Heck, that's a well-north-of-50 mpg pace for the model, which comes equipped with low rolling-resistance tires, a six-speed automatic transmission, tire deflectors and other fuel-saving features.

Baughman went at a slightly brisker pace on the way back, i.e. with the flow of traffic, but was still able to wring 800 miles between fill-ups. We're guessing there were no speeding tickets involved, either.

With US monthly sale figures headed back towards the double-digit range, Mitsubishi is once again trying to goose sales of its i electric vehicle (also known as the i-MiEV) with some heavy-duty rebates. The Japanese automaker enacted a $10,000 rebate towards the end of last month and is apparently doing so again, this time offering the rebate until the end of July. That means folks can get an i – dealer willing – for a smidgen under $20,000 before the $7,500 federal tax rebate kicks in.

Mitsubishi sold 588 units of the all-electric model last year and appeared to get a little momentum earlier this year, moving 594 i EVs through February. That may have been helped by lease deals for as low as $69 a month, and sales plummeted to 31 units in March and 127 vehicles in April.

We've asked Mitsubishi for more details on the new $10,000 promotion, but have not yet heard back. We will update this post if we get any more information.

*UPDATE: We heard back from Mitsubishi's Dan Irvin, who said there is no such national deal available (and the original source has taken the information down). Irvin wrote, "The fact is MMNA has no national rebate or i-MiEV price discount, however, some individual Mitsubishi dealers across the country are currently offering extremely attractive incentives to customers to buy or lease an
i-MiEV. Customers should check with their local dealer to see what they're offering."

Mitsubishi is looking to make up for lost ground from some fire-related issues by doubling production of its Outlander Plug-in Hybrid vehicle (PHEV) in Japan, Green Car Reports says.

The Japanese automaker will ramp up to 4,000 Outlander PHEVs a month, up from the 2,000-unit target it set last September. Mitsubishi will consolidate the Outlander PHEV motor and battery installation operations to help speed things up.

The company plans to start selling the Outlander PHEV in the US next year. In March, the company halted Outlander PHEV production because of a melted battery at a Yokohama dealership. Mitsubishi since discovered that the batteries, which are produced by Lithium Energy Japan, are short circuiting from a screening process (since discontinued) that infected the batteries with contaminants.

Lithium Energy Japan is a Mitsubishi joint-venture with GS Yuasa, which makes batteries for the Boeing Dreamliner. That airline model was recently affected by a number of fires recently.