TOYOTA TACKLES THE NURBURGRING TO CAPTURE THE EV SPEED RECORD

Toyota is taking to the Nurburging this week in an effort to capture the electric vehicle speed record. The current record is nine minutes, 1.388 seconds for the 12.9 miles of the Nordschleife course. Toyota's electric vehicle's power comes from two electric motors pushing it to a top speed of 174 MPH (260 kmph). These motors utilize lithium-ceramic batteries to help save weight.

The company hopes breaking the record will show racing fans just how far electric cars have come ,and help remove some of the stodgy plodding stigma, with GM Ludwig Zeller saying, "Many people are still dreaming of an electric future for motorsport; at TMG we believe this is much closer than some think."

GOOGLE SAYS IT HAS LARGEST CORPORATE EV CHARGING NETWORK IN THE US

Things are just getting greener and greener over at Google. Yesterday, the company triumphantly declared that its Mountain View campus now boasts the largest corporate EV charging network in the US, with some 200 chargers currently in place, plus an extra 250 that are on the way. It's all part of El Goog's RechargeIt sustainability initiative, launched in 2007, which has also given rise to the Gfleet, a set of company-owned plug-ins made available for employees.

Now that Google has purchased some extra Chevy Volts and Nissan Leafs, this Gfleet will eventually expand to include a total of 30 EVs, which explains the expansion of its ChargePoint Network. The ultimate goal is to have charging stations at five percent of Mountain View's parking spaces, all of which will be searchable on Google Maps, and available for employees to use for free. The company hopes this initiative will encourage more people to purchase EVs, and estimates that it'll eventually save a total of 5,400 tonnes of CO2 per year -- the equivalent to removing about 2,000 cars from the road.

CHEVY VOLT GETS MPG STICKER

Just days after the Nissan Leaf got its official MPGe (miles per gallon equivalent) sticker (99 MPGe), the much anticipated Chevy Volt has received its very own sticker. According to the EPA, the Volt will achieve 93 MPGe running on just batteries and 37 MPG on the gas engine. According to the EPA, the Volt will only be capable of cruising 35 miles on a full charge, but the overall range of 379 miles ain't too shabby for a car of this size. This was one of the last hurdles GM faced in getting the Volt into showrooms, so be on the lookout for this vehicle cruising down the roads very soon.  [Engadget]

NISSAN LEAF GETS 'EQUIVALENT' STICKER OF 99 MPG

Nissan's incoming Leaf has just nabbed an official EPA sticker, with a mind-melting 99MPG "equivalent" rating set to grace every single window. That'll undoubtedly catch eyes, but it's also likely to spur a huge debate on what "miles per gallon" truly means when you're throwing a battery into the mix. We actually had the pleasure of driving one ourselves late last month, but we weren't able to take off on any extended joyrides to really put MPG claims to the test. At any rate, the 99 rating breaks down to 106MPG in the city and 92MPG on the highway, but there's quite a bit of fuzzy math here that gas guzzlers aren't accustomed to considering. Nissan claims that the EPA uses a formula where 33.7 kWhs are equivalent to one gallon of gasoline energy, and that the entity also found the Leaf's efficiency to be 3.4 miles per kWh. Given that the car has a 24 kWh battery pack and can go 73 miles officially, then the EPA says it could theoretically go 99 miles if it had a 33.7 kWh pack. Still, the Leaf has to await its other label from the FTC, but it's apt to show a range of 96 to 110 miles of range. [Engadget]

DRIVERLESS VAN GOES 8,000 MILES FROM ITALY TO CHINA

The Visilab team left Italy back in July with an EV autonomous orange van.  They have arrived in China after going through places like Moscow and the Gobi Desert.  The EV van used an array of laser scanners, cameras and GPS to navigate with minimal human intervention.  Since the vehicles are EV they made the trip without having to stop for fuel, but the range was limited to four hours before they had to stop to recharge.  The trip was 8,078 miles (13,000km).  Pretty impressive! [Engadget]