You haven't heard from us because I've been overloaded and under the
weather. (Thanks for those of you who missed our news and asked!)

Here's a start at clearing up the backlog, including the most
important upcoming events and some of the recent media coverage,
including excerpts:

EVENTS

ALTERNATIVE CAR AND TRANSPORTATION EXPO
OCT. 19-20 (SANTA MONICA, CA)
http://www.altcarexpo.com/
This Friday and Saturday, CalCars partners with Plug-In Partners to
show a PHEV at this second annual show, which last year attracted
broad interest among Southern California media, environmentalists and
celebrities. Again this year it features a high-powered series of
talks and panels.


MAKER FAIRE,
OCT 20-21 (AUSTIN, TX)
http://makerfaire.com/austin/2007/
This Saturday and Sunday, join tens of thousands of people at this
first out-of-the-SF-Bay-Area Maker Faire. You'll see how our "Do It
Yourself" Project is almost ready for prime-time, as several new
small companies join in to facilitate this open-source project. If
you're interested in the technical specifics see
http://www.priusplus.org -- and discussions are mirrored at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eaa-phev


PHEV2007, "WHERE THE GRID MEETS THE ROAD"
NOVEMBER 1-2 (WINNIPEG, MANITOBA, CA)
http://www.pluginhighway.ca/index.php
By far the most substantial conference yet on PHEVs -- two solid days
of policy and technical events. We think you'll be amazed if you look
at the "Program/Technical sessions" and "Keynotes" schedules online.
This event could help Canada move to the lead in the
government/institution race to promote and incentivize PHEVs.


EVS-23, INTERNATIONAL EV SYMPOSIUM AND EXPOSITION
DEC 2-5, (ANAHEIM, CA)
http://www.electricdrive.org/evs23
Early Bird Registration ends this Fridady, Oct 19 for this global
event for the electric vehicle industry, by the Electric Drive
Transportation Association. CalCars will partner with Plug-In
Partners to show a PHEV.


NEWS COVERAGE


WALL STREET JOURNAL: EYES ON THE ROAD
By JOSEPH B. WHITE October 15, 2007
Electric Car Maker Aims For the Top With Sports Car: Tesla Readies
$98,000 Roadster And Looks to Expand Downward
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119220246200657368.html
The WSJ's Detroit Bureau Chief has been warming up to plug-in hybrids
and electric vehicles. His latest story about the Tesla Roadster is
relatively positive.

Two points worth noting (it's just as much fun reading tea leaves
from small companies!):
* Last May, Mr. Eberhard told a Senate committee that the company's
second model would be a $50,000 sedan built in New Mexico, followed
by an even more affordable car. Now, Mr. Eberhard is cagier about
exactly what Tesla's "White Star" model line will be, and exactly
when it will appear. "We are deep, deep into that," he says. "We are
planning on building (cars) in Albuquerque. It's possible we might
want to do something different." [This echoes the story in Business
Week July 30 when Eberhard said the the third generation car could
be a PHEV: 'If necessary, the company would be willing to use a small
gas engine to boost Blue Star's range and broaden its appeal."]
* What will define success for Tesla? Big car makers have tools,
capital and experience in dealing with the harsh environment of the
global auto market that Silicon Valley doesn't possess, even with its
abundance of rich, smart technology visionaries and venture-capital
firms. Mr. Eberhard says selling out isn't the plan, even though
"we've been approached by many, many car companies."


TIME MAGAZINE
http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1669723_1669725_1670578,0\
0.html
Thursday, Oct. 11, 2007
Green Motors
A two-page story on General Motors begins with filmmaker Chris Paine
("Who Killed the Electric Car?") saying "They were a technological
leader, and they fumbled that leadership away," Paine says. Ask him
about the U.S. carmaker now, though, and Paine sounds almost
admiring. "Their new hybrids are making a difference, and their
plug-in technology is a real advance," he says. "GM is making some
really good moves now."
The story goes on tell how GM missed out on hybrids: "GM took a
gamble that hybrids weren't going to be important," says Eric Noble,
president of Car Labs, an auto consulting firm. "That turned out to
be a very bad bet."
It ends with GM's Volt as a "green leap forward" (along with what we
believe is its increasingly vestigial fuel cell program), and
speculates that GM could be the hero of Paine's sequel, "Who Saved
the Electric Car?"


BUSINESS 2.0 CLOSES
Seven years ago, this magazine (then called E-Company) wrote about
Felix Kramer's Internet startup. Now this Time Inc. title has closed,
and many of its staffers have moved over to Fortune. Its final
October issue is the greenest yet. Two stories in particular:

Green power
How California's PG&E is transforming itself into the very model of a
modern utility company.
http://money.cnn.com/2007/09/25/technology/green_power.biz2/index.htm
By Katherine Ellison, Business 2.0 Magazine
September 26 2007: 9:59 AM EDT
In short, PG&E is turning itself into a role model for 21st-century
utilities. That means making money by transmitting renewable energy
wherever it may be generated - from the water flowing under the
Golden Gate Bridge to the batteries of hybrid electric cars - all
while managing an interactive power grid. Peter Darbee, CEO and
chairman of PG&E Corp., the company that owns Pacific Gas & Electric,
describes the sophisticated network that will hold it all together as
the energy equivalent of the Internet.
Perhaps just as important as where PG&E gets its power - where the
wind blows, where the waves crash, where the sun shines, where the
cows poop - is how it plans to share it. Instead of generating
electricity in colossal centralized power plants and pushing
electrons into homes and businesses, energy distribution in the
future may be more a matter of give and take, of energy managed over
a web that draws electricity from wherever it's abundant and sends it
wherever it's needed.
[Later in the story, a section on PG&E and PHEVs, Google, and Vehicle-To-Grid.]

The startup king's new gig
By Erick Schonfeld, Business 2.0 editor-at-large
September 26 2007: 2:43 PM EDT
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2007/10/01/toc.html
This story profiles entrepreneur Bill Gross, founder of Idealab, the
startup incubator in Pasadena, Calif, and says:
His track record includes both winners (CitySearch, Cooking.com,
NetZero/United Online) and losers (eToys, Eve.com, Free-PC). But he's
best known for inventing the pay-per-click advertising model behind
Overture Services (formerly GoTo.com), the pioneering search engine
he sold to Yahoo! in 2003 for $1.6 billion. Now, after more than a
decade of launching dotcoms, Gross has rediscovered the pleasures -
and profitability - of the physical world. Idealab's current lineup
is crowded with companies that make actual products: robots, 3-D
printers, electric cars, rooftop solar collectors. As Gross puts it,
he's much more interested today in "atoms businesses" than "bits
businesses." [The interview includes his discussion of Energy
Innovations, his concentrating solar company; he is also involved
with PHEV startup Aptera and with Stirling Engine technologies.]


P.S. TWO FEATURES ON SOLAR ENERGY INCLUDE PHEVS

FORTUNE MAGAZINE October 3, 2007
"For solar power, the future looks bright"
http://money.cnn.com/2007/10/03/news/companies/sunpower_solar.fortune/index.htm
Fortune has a six-page story by Marc Gunther on the history and
prospects of SunPower, the Silicon Valley photovoltaic panel maker.
It quotes CEO Tom Werner as saying the company expects get the price
of its panels down to 12 cents/kWh in five years.
An accompanying story by Todd Woody (from the just-closed Business
2.0 magazine and the Green Wombat blog, which continues)
"This old solar-optimized house"
http://money.cnn.com/2007/10/03/technology/solar_house.fortune/index.htm
says ""When plug-in hybird and all-electric cars arrive in a few
years, your solar panels may even supply you with free fuel."


BUSINESS WEEK October 15, 2007
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_42/b4054053.htm
OCTOBER 15, 2007
SPECIAL REPORT
Solar's Day In The Sun by John Carey
This seven-page report brings to public attention Ausra, the
solar-thermal company recently transplanted from Australia to Silicon
Valley that has gained the backing of Kleiner Perkins and Vinod
Khosla. Ausra says that it can scale up now to deliver electricity at
10 cents/kWh, which will compete with new coal or natural gas. In a
key early paragraph in the story, Ausra CEO John O'Donnell links
solar thermal and PHEVs:
He's convinced he has found that something. The idea is to slow
global warming and cure the planet's energy woes, not with plasma or
windmills or "clean" coal smoke, but with mirrors. Miles and miles of
mirrors, to be exact, focusing the rays of the sun onto pipes to heat
water to run hulking steam turbines. This so-called solar thermal
approach would mean no emissions that cause global warming. No
worries about radioactive waste. No need for coal power, which faces
increasingly hostile scrutiny. Not even much need for oil, if plug-in
hybrid cars like the Chevrolet Volt start to replace gasoline
burners. "I want people to have it in their heads that there is a
solution--and it doesn't even mean raising their electric bills," he says.


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Felix Kramer fkramer@...
Founder California Cars Initiative
http://www.calcars.org
http://www.calcars.org/news-archive.html
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