I always find it exciting hearing of progress in the electric car market with small steps being made towards eliminating our need for fossil fuels and reducing our carbon footprint. At the same time though, it can be a little disappointing as a lot of the electric/hybrid cars tend to look pretty crap usually with some sort of interpretation of a boxy, futuristic spaceship. Why do they have to try and scream out ‘ECO VEHICLE’ in the design? I just want an electric car that looks cool!

Well MINI have come to the rescue (or at least are on their way) with the public field trial of the Mini E – A 100% electric, zero-emissions MINI. Approximately 500 MINI’s are being trialled across the United States for a 12 month period (beginning last November) to provide the BMW Group with data that will inform their development of future electric cars and electric car infrastructure.

100% charged!

Not only is the car itself cool – the MINI-E’s logo can hold it’s own too. It incorporates both the ‘E’ from MINI-E in the negative space of the logo and a symbol of an electricity socket in the positive space. Smart, clean, and simple.

There are still some considerable hurdles to clear before a car like the MINI-E will be ready for mass production. Issues such as limited driving ranges, battery technology costs, lengthy charging times and the lack of public and private charging infrastructure need to be sorted out before we will see electric cars taking over our roads. I’m hoping it won’t be too much longer though!

For more information visit the MINI-E website here.

Or follow some of the field trial participants at the MINI-E blog here.

“The DeLorean, the car from Back to the Future with the gull wing doors and gleaming stainless steel finish, has come back to the future, going into extremely limited production thanks to a group of greasemonkeys in Houston who like to refurbish cars. They have about 200 of the original DeLorean 2.8 L V-6 engines on hand, and have started making the cars from scratch this year.

 The last time a DeLorean was rolled off the assembly line was 1982, when the last model was built in DeLorean’s Northern Ireland plant.

This new car company, which actually acquired rights to the name DeLorean Motor Company, didn’t mention a specific price, but it’s currently selling its refurbished DeLoreans for $42,500.”

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Photo: Tom Fowlks

This was one of the coolest DeLorean images I could find. How good does the Stainless steel finish look? Check out Tom Fowlks’ website here. He’s a pretty awesome photographer.