Test your knowledge of electric vehicles with our quiz
By MARA LEMOS STEIN for the Wall Street Journal, February 22, 2010
Some of the first plug-in electric passenger vehicles are slated to roll onto U.S. streets later this year. Are you ready? Test your knowledge with this Wall Street Journal quiz.
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1. For all the fanfare, sales of electric cars are currently negligible (outside of golf courses, that is). How many plug-in electric vehicles does President Barack Obama wish to see on U.S. roads by 2015?
A. Five million
B. Two million
C. One million
D. 250,000
Answer: C. The president is hoping to use incentives to get one million plug-in hybrid vehicles to consumers by 2015. Plug-in hybrids differ from hybrids on the road today in that they can go longer distances on battery power and can be recharged via electrical outlets.
2. Which electric-car developer counts former U. S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson as an investor?
A. Bright Automotive
B. Coda Automotive
C. Tesla Motors
D. Fisker Automotive
Answer: B. Coda popped onto the electric-vehicle stage in June 2009 as an offshoot of Miles Electric Vehicles, a maker of electric light trucks in China. In addition to Mr. Paulson, Coda’s founder Miles Rubin has attracted investments from other well-connected individuals, including Thomas “Mack” McLarty, former chief of staff for President Clinton.
3. Coda isn’t alone in attracting heavyweight investors to its ranks. Connect the investor to the electric-vehicle developer:
A. Fisker Automotive
B. BYD Co.
C. Tesla Motor
D. Bright Automotive
1. Reuben Munger
2. Sergey Brin and Larry Page
3. Al Gore
4. Warren Buffett
Answer: Al Gore is an investor in Fisker through venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Warren Buffett is an investor in China’s BYD, which is making a compact fully electric vehicle to be sold in China later this year. Google Inc. co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page have invested in Tesla. And Reuben Munger, former managing partner at investment firm Baupost Group LLC, is a founder and chairman of Bright, which developed a fully electric delivery van called Idea.
4. Some of the most talked-about electric vehicles are slated to debut later this year and can travel at least 100 miles on a single charge (even if some of them run on an auxiliary gasoline engine when the battery runs low). Match the auto maker with its electric car:
A. Tesla Motors
B. Nissan
C. Fisker Automotive
D. General Motors
1. Karma
2. Volt
3. Roadster
4. Leaf
Answer: Tesla already is making the fully electric sports luxury Roadster; Nissan will manufacture the five-passenger all-electric Leaf from late 2010; Fisker will make the first deliveries of its luxury Karma later this year; and GM’s Chevrolet Volt is a four-passenger hatchback due at some dealerships later this year. These vehicles are expected to range in price from about $40,000 to more than $100,000. All will qualify for a $7,500 federal tax credit.
5. Then there are a slew of fully electric small vehicles that are pinning their hopes on eco-conscious city dwellers who may not want to spend much more than $25,000 on a new technology. Which has the longest range?
A: Think Global’s Think City
B: Wheego Electric Cars’ Whip
C: Reva Electric Car’s Revai
D: Myers Motors’ NmG
Answer: A. The Think City, a two-seater with optional back seats for children, can travel at speeds of up to 60 miles per hour and go as far as 100 miles per charge, but it is also the most expensive, at about $37,500 before a tax credit. The Whip is a two-seater that can travel at a top speed of 35 mph for 40 miles per charge; it sells for around $19,000. The top speed of the Revai, sold as the G-Wiz in the U.K., is 50 mph and its nominal range is 50 miles; it retails for about $12,000. Myers’s NmG—or no more gas—is a three-wheel, one-seat vehicle that can travel up to 75 mph and as far as 50 miles in its lithium-battery model. It costs about $30,000.
6. New vehicle technology comes with an alphabet soup of new abbreviations. Which one applies to the Chevy Volt, to be introduced later this year by GM?
A. PHEV
B. EREV
C. NEV
D. V2G
Answer: B. GM calls the Volt an extended-range electric vehicle, or EREV. It is powered by a battery pack that when fully charged has a range of up to 40 miles; it also has a small gas engine that turns a generator that charges the battery once it is depleted. It is different from a plug-in hybrid, or PHEV, which runs on both battery power and gasoline. NEV stands for neighborhood electric vehicle, which can travel at a top speed of 25 mph. V2G stands for “vehicle-to-grid,” a technology system being developed to enable electric cars to store power and sell it back to the grid.
7. The Society of Automotive Engineers International recently published guidelines to standardize the shape of the plug and sockets for safely powering up electric vehicles. What will it look like?
A. Smiley face
B. Hat and straight line
C. Five pins
D. Two fat fingers
Answer: C. The J1772 connector is a five-pin device heavier than the nozzle on a gas pump that enables charging at 120 or 240 volts.
— Ms. Lemos Stein is a reporter for Dow Jones Clean Technology Insight, a publication based in New York. She can be reached at mara.lemos-stein@dowjones.com.
