The latest news about Optimal Energy, Joule - The electric car

If you were fortunate enough to be in Cape Town in the last week you may have noticed that the city was dressed in yellow. You may also have seen that Table Mountain was also illuminated by a yellow glow at night rather than the usual white lighting. If you were thinking that it is the latest advertising campaign by a big cellular service provider, you would be wrong. This was all done as part of Cape Town’s bid to become the World Design Capital for 2014.

The issue surrounding the use of coal-generated power to charge electric vehicles, and the net pollution effect of this, is by no means a new topic in the environmental debate. As South Africa is almost completely reliant on coal to generate electricity, the use of an electric vehicle that emits zero emissions from charge to end of use becomes nearly impossible.

It can be no fun being a CEO of a global corporation, what with consumers dictating greener products and processes, but shareholders demanding profits, at all costs.  Just ask Tony Hayward, former BP Group Chief Executive, who was asked to step down in July 2010 after the Deepwater Horizon Incident. 

If you thought electric vehicles are slow, think again. The electric Bluebird is currently the fastest electric vehicle in Europe, not the world, only Europe. Although a Tesla roadster without an electronic limit would kick its butt, the Bluebird, which holds the UK land speed record for electric vehicles at 220kph (137mph), actually achieved this milestone in August 2000 in Wales, UK., and nobody has taken this title from them formally yet.

The propulsion debate has  been highly emotional part of the automotive industry ever since Karl Benz argued that his internal combustion engine was more efficient than a horse. For decades we had the petrol vs. diesel debate and now its electric vs. hybrid.
On one hand there are companies such as that argue in favour of electric/ICE hybrids and others arguing in favour of pure electric. Chris Moerdyk digs deeper…