europe

Steam Whistle Brewing — Combination Of Classic Cars and Green Energy

Originally published on Gas2. By Zachary Coffey What do Canadian craft brews, classic American cars, and green energy have in common? Steam Whistle Brewing, a Toronto, Canada-based craft brewery that is an exemplary model of the green revolution infiltrating the brewing industry, combining our love of cool cars, green technology, and good beer into a

Steam Whistle Brewing — Combination Of Classic Cars and Green Energy was originally published on CleanTechnica.

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Political & Economic Consequences Of Imported Energy In Europe

Originally published on ABB. By Hannu Vaananen Europe needs to become more intelligent if it is to stop paying more than one billion USD every day for imported energy The share of imported energy in Europe is growing and every day it pays more than one billion USD for its energy dependency, one that also has

Political & Economic Consequences Of Imported Energy In Europe was originally published on CleanTechnica.

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Why The Oil & Gas Industry Makes Such A Big Deal Of The Shale (Retirement) Party

Originally posted on EnergyPost and Oilprice.com. By James Stafford How much faith can we put in our ability to decipher all the numbers out there telling us the US will soon be cornering the global oil market? There’s another side to the story of the relentless US shale boom, one that says that some of the

Why The Oil & Gas Industry Makes Such A Big Deal Of The Shale (Retirement) Party was originally published on CleanTechnica.

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Why Solar Isn’t Enough

By Vic Shao  The past few weeks of sunny weather have been paying off, literally, for California’s solar companies. On March 16th the state set a new record by drawing more than 16% of our energy use from solar energy. But even that isn’t enough for those of us that want to see our communities reach net

Why Solar Isn’t Enough was originally published on CleanTechnica.

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Poles Want To Switch To Renewable Energy Sources

Originally published on 350.org. Guest blog from Diana Maciąga, Global Power Shift participant and organiser for the Association Workshop for All Beings/ StopEP campaign The vast majority of Poles want their country to take strong action on climate change and shift to renewable energy. This is the result of a representative nationwide poll by TNS Polska in

Poles Want To Switch To Renewable Energy Sources was originally published on CleanTechnica.

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Ukraine Crisis Is Connected To Climate & Energy Policy

Originally published on EnergyPost.eu. By Sonja van Renssen Decisions on a new European climate and energy policy for 2030 are relegated to autumn as heads of state are caught up in the Ukraine crisis. At their spring summit in Brussels, EU leaders gave centre stage to energy dependence. First climate change, then competitiveness, now security of

Ukraine Crisis Is Connected To Climate & Energy Policy was originally published on CleanTechnica.

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Citroen Introduces New Pricing Plans For Millennials


Originally published on Gas2.

Citroen-C4-Cactus

Citroen’s solution to a lack of young buyers is an innovative pay-per-use plan based on mileage, offering access to new cars rather than outright ownership.

The plan is being rolled out in select European countries, and could offer Millennials all the benefits of car ownership without being tied to the vehicle. The plan is being rolled out on the new Citroen C4 Cactus crossover, which is being offered with two types of pricing plans. The traditional flat rate plan costs 199 euros per month for 36 months, and includes insurance, maintenance, and 45,000 kilometers, or about 30,000 miles of driving. Pretty standard stuff here, right? It’s a pretty good deal, wrapping maintenance and insurance up in the cost, but you’re still looking at about $275 a month.

That’s way more than even the most expensive cellphone plan, the payment many automakers want to emulate. You can usually get a brand new phone and a service contract for around $100 a month. While the Cactus comes in at a featherweight 2,100 pounds (!!) and uses a BlueHDi turbodiesel engine to achieve as much as 91 MPG, you’re still shelling out a lot of money for fairly basic transportation. How can automakers compete?

Citroen’s alternative to the traditional payment is a lower cost lease plan they say will save drivers money by changing them based on miles driven, rather than paying for thousands of miles up front. Basically, you pay a low flat monthly rate, and are given X-amount of miles to drive per month. Drive more than your allocated miles, you get charged more. Drive less, pay less. Don’t drive at all? Your only cost is the monthly “membership” fee. but you aren’t charged for any miles you didn’t drive. In fuel-obsessed Europe, every euro that isn’t fed into transportation is a blessing.

Citroen-C4-Cactus-2

Obviously aimed at city dwellers, this plan gives buyers unfettered access to a brand new Citroen at a much lower cost, tied to their driving habits. It’s the same way mobile phone companies have offered users access to the highest-quality phones for little or no cost, and would help avoid large payments for extra miles at the end of a lease. It’s a hybrid car-sharing plan and standard lease agreement, but minus the sharing and balloon payments, the worst parts of either plan.

For automakers, this plan might just be a way to get us Millennials into all of those new cars they’ve spent billions making and marketing.

Source: Automotive News

Citroen Introduces New Pricing Plans For Millennials was originally published on CleanTechnica. To read more from CleanTechnica, join over 50,000 other subscribers: Google+ | Email | Facebook | RSS | Twitter.

Top-Selling Electric Car In US & Europe In 2014 Will Be…

Results for my poll on what will be the “Top-Selling Electric Car In US & Europe In 2014″ are in. The winner for both locations isn’t a big surprise, but it’s interesting to see how the splits turned out, and the differences between the US & European results. Have a look: US Nissan Leaf 56.64%

Top-Selling Electric Car In US & Europe In 2014 Will Be… was originally published on CleanTechnica.

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Tesla Sales In China & Europe Expected To Be Double North American Sales


tesla model s

This was reported by Elon Musk on Tesla’s last financial call, but it seems to have slipped under the radar. Reuters recently ran a short article on the news, which made me think I should as well.

As Tesla moves into the European and Chinese markets more, the company is expecting to see about twice as many sales there as in the United States and Canada by the end of the year.

Tesla sold 22,477 cars in 2013, most of which went to the US market. European sales started in the Fall.

In China, Tesla is going against the tide. It isn’t jacking up its prices there to “rip off” customers and make a bigger profit. The price will be higher due to shipping costs, duties, taxes, etc, but Tesla doesn’t intend to make any more off of it there than in the US. (The same goes for Europe, by the way.) In a market so fond of exclusive, expensive, luxury vehicles, it’s unclear how that will turn out — but one would think it will turn out very well.

It’s all about doing what’s right, Elon said. However, he thinks it also makes good business sense.

While it’s going to take a few months to get vehicles over to China, sales should be big there once they are available. “Towards the end of the year, we expect sales in those regions combined to be almost twice that of North America,” Elon said.

European sales have been decent so far, but not sky high. They’ve been great in Norway, but not so hot in Germany, France, and the Netherlands. However, word on the street this weekend is that Tesla Model S prices in Europe are getting a big cut:

Tesla PR in America hasn’t responded to our request for confirmation, but online sources show the drops are fairly substantial. In Germany, for example, Tesla has dropped almost 7,000 euros ($9,700 US at today’s exchange rate) off the price, down to 65,300 euros ($90,600), while in Holland, the new price is down 4,000 ($5,500) euros to 66,200 ($91,900). No reason was given for these drops, but we can’t help but suspect that demand isn’t too strong at the moment.

Maybe this has been in the plans all along, as logistics got worked out and streamlined. Who knows?

Image Credit: Tesla

Tesla Sales In China & Europe Expected To Be Double North American Sales was originally posted on: PlanetSave. To read more from Planetsave, join thousands of others and subscribe to our free RSS feed, follow us on Facebook (also free), follow us on Twitter, or just visit our homepage.

Greenpeace Pushing For Pan-European Supergrid

A report released by Greenpeace on Thursday based on analysis done by consultants Energynautics has floated the idea of a need for a pan-European supergrid to help meet the ambitious target of at least 45% renewables by 2030. “Europe’s energy system is at a crossroads,” the authors of the report write, noting that the existing

Greenpeace Pushing For Pan-European Supergrid was originally published on CleanTechnica.

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