If a $2,500 car from India isn't enough for automakers to worry about, Tata Motors now says it will develop an all-electric vehicle to compete in the upcoming automotive X-Prize competition.

The contest, underwritten by Progressive Insurance, is offering a $10 million purse to contestants who can come up with a new car that is suitable for mass production and can achieve fuel economy equivalent to 100 miles per gallon or better. Entrants also have to have a business plan for making and marketing their vehicle.

Organizers hope the competition will showcase viable alternatives to the internal combustion engine as well as technologies that improve ICE performance and reduce emissions.

Tata, best known for the four-seat Nano "people's car" that it introduced at the New Dehli auto show earlier this year and has said will sell for the equivalent of $2,500, actually plans to enter two vehicles in the Progressive Insurance Automotive X-Prize competition, the Santa Monica-based X-Prize Foundation said this morning.

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We don't intend to make a habit of writing about every twist and turn in the Tesla vs. Fisker trade secrets lawsuit, but because of the high level of interest in both of the electric car companies thought we ought to let you know that Fisker is seeking to toss the whole thing into arbitration.

That would take the case out of the courtroom, limit public access and likely result in a sealed settlement. It also could save both sides considerable time and, possibly, money.

Tesla would not comment when contacted today.

Southern California-based Fisker Automotive filed its arbitration request Tuesday in a Northern California court, near Tesla Motors Co. headquarters.

A court hearing has been scheduled for June 11.

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Electric car maker Tesla Motors Co. , already eyeing a public offering, said it has appointed a prominent Silicon Valley business attorney to its board.

The new Tesla director, Larry Sonsini, was involved in the initial public offering of Google and the merger of Hewlett-Packard with Compaq.

Tesla executives have said that the company, supported so far by private investment capital, is likely to float a public offering this year or next. Tesla Chairman Elon Musk also has talked about forming a strategic alliance with a major automaker to help facilitate development of a compact, affordable electric or hybrid-electric sedan.

The Northern California company is noted for designing and recently launching production of the $100,000 Tesla Roadster, a battery-powered electric sports car. It also has announced plans to launch a $50,000 electric or hybrid-electric sedan, code-named the White Star, in 2010, with the third vehicle, the compact car, to follow.

All of that takes cash, lots of it.

With the U.S. economy faltering, Tesla has speeded up plans to introduce its roadster in the European market. While the company says that its first year of production for the U.S. is sold out, it is looking ahead and, apparently, hoping demand in Europe will either add profitable new volume or offset any future slackening of U.S. demand.

John O'Dell, Senior Editor

Big news on the Volt front.

GM's Bob Lutz has told Edmunds.com's Michelle Krebs that on-street testing of the series hybrid powertrain for the much-anticipated Chevrolet Volt has finally begun and that the Volt team is now aiming at a November, 2010, launch for the game-changing vehicle.

Lutz also said that in the test mule – a modified Chevy Malibu – the gas-electric plug-in powertrain is hitting GM's goal of providing 40 miles of all-electric travel before the gasoline-burning internal combustion engine kicks in to do its job of generating more electricity to keep the Volt running at full power.

The Volt, first introduced as a concept at the 2007 Detroit Auto Show, will use a lithium ion battery pack to store and provide juice for the electric drive motor. The gas engine is there only to generate electricity when the initial battery charge – obtained by plugging-in to the commercial electrical grid overnight – is depleted. 

There still are challenges to overcome, many of them linked to integrating the battery and gas generator for the smoothest and most sensible operating profile.

But Lutz said that despite concerns rival Toyota Motor Corp. and others in the industry have voiced about the reliability and safety of lithium ion batteries in automotive use, GM's engineers have overcome thermal issues. Now, he said, "I can almost say that the battery is the least of our concerns."

He wouldn't tell Michelle which of the battery systems being developed for the Volt by various contractors is being used in the test mule that took to the pubic streets Tuesday around GM's Milford proving grounds.

But his assurances that most battery issues have been resolved are good news in the global hunt for alternatives to cars and trucks that require fossil fuels.

You can read her exclusive interview with Lutz, GM's vice chairman and global product guru, at Edmunds AutoObserver.

John O'Dell, Senior Editor

A lightly "disguised" Karma on the test track, in photo provided by the company.

Prototype models of the Fisker Karma plug-in hybrid have exceeded performance expectations in early testing, the companies behind the car said Tuesday.

Fisker Automotive and Quantum Technologies, both located in Irvine, Calif., said that three Karma prototypes have been built and are undergoing electric-powertrain testing at an undisclosed Southern California track that appears to be a leased test site at the former El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

"The vehicle dynamics and fuel economy have performed better than expected and we remain on target for our fourth quarter 2009 initial delivery," Henrik Fisker, CEO of Fisker Automotive, said in a prepared statement.

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Gorton Vallely stands with his company's prototype battery-electric, medium-duty truck at Alternative Fuel Vehicles show.

LAS VEGAS, Nevada --The Detroit Auto Show this year had a herd of diesel concepts, a few hybrids and a host of muscle cars, typical fare these days for a mainstream auto show.

Absent was much of anything to do about other "today" alternatives to gasoline, leading people who are concerned about the auto, the energy sector and the environment to wonder what the automakers are up to and why they aren't moving faster to throw off the yolk of demon oil.

Can't answer that question. If I could I'd be out making millions as a highly paid consultant and seer instead of sitting in front of my computer in a 'Vegas hotel room overlooking the scenic roof of the power plant that keeps the casino chilled.

But I can suggest that for every innovation we don't see coming from our mass market automakers there's a small business out there somewhere hoping to offer up a solution.

Many of them are serving the fleet business – the trucking, bus and taxi companies that buy lots of relatively expensive equipment, are subject to strenuous emissions regulation in most states and bleed profits every time the price of gasoline or diesel goes up even a penny a gallon.

Walk around the showroom floor at the annual Alternative Fuel Vehicles national conference here this week and you see that can do spirit everywhere.

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Audi sees "great opportunities" in electric vehicles and will offer battery-electric automobiles with no exhaust emissions within ten years, its top executive told a German weekly.
 
Chairman Rupert Stadler, in an interview with Welt am Sonntag published Sunday, said he expects diesel and battery technology to be a dominate force the automotive market in five to ten years.

"By then we will offer cars without exhaust emissions," Stadler said.

Asked if Audi was trailing domestic rivals Mercedes-Benz and BMW in the development of  batteries to power electric vehicles,  Stadler replied that he wasn't worried, that Audi's research capabilities are larger than those of its competitors.

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French automotive executive Carlos Ghosn told reporters attending a product review in Portugal today that automakers Renault and Nissan are talking with a Gulf region country abut participating in a bold electric car project that already has been adopted by Israel.

"We are negotiating to launch an electric car with a Gulf state," Ghosn told a news conference in the coastal resort of Cascais, near Lisbon.

Renault and Nissan, which have operated as an alliance since the French company took control of the Japanese automaker in 1999, plan to put an electric-powered car on the road by 2010.

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Tesla says facility isn't showroom so much as gathering spot for  "members."

By Joanne Helperin, Senior Features Editor

Tesla Motors opened its first U.S. retail outlet this week, on the upscale west side of Los Angeles, home to many of the celebrities, politicos and wealthy greenies who have plunked down a $60,000 deposit for one of the approximately 300 all-electric Tesla roadsters the company says it will produce this year.

Note, please, I didn't call it a call it a dealership – Tesla says it isn't.

"It's a company-owned store, like the Apple store," said General Manager Tom O'Leary.

"In a traditional dealership, there's a clear wall of separation between sales and service. It's a "front of the house, back of the house" thing. It's out of style, like the mullet. We're unifying those two functions."

I'll say. The interior of the service bay, which has three lifts, faces busy Santa Monica Boulevard and can be seen clearly from the street through plate glass windows.

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 After a speech Thursday at San Francisco's Commonwealth Club, General Motors Chairman Rick Wagoner was asked if the Chevrolet Volt -- still two-plus years away but already starring in the automaker's TV ads -- would be GM's Prius.

The high-mileage, gas-electric car from Toyota Motor Corp. still dominates hybrid sales nearly a decade after it first went on sale in the U.S.

 "We think it could be a big game-changer.," said Wagoner, an executive not prone to over-statement.

"When we get it to the market, we'll see. If we deliver on what we have on the drawing board, I think it's going to show a lot of people that we've got great technology at GM and we can compete with anybody in that field."

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