Sometimes, even electric vehicles aren’t good enough for the die-hard green car set.

An electric car advocacy group on Tuesday criticized California’s influential air quality regulator, the California Air Resources Board, for allowing BMW’s one-year pilot program of electric Mini Coopers to earn the same credit towards the state’s clean vehicle program as standard production cars.

California is requiring that automakers, collectively, put 7,500 zero-emissions vehicles, or ZEVs, on its roads.

But Plug In America on Tuesday said there is a “gaping loophole” in the program that “could deal a blow to the proliferation of plug-in vehicles.”

Specifically, the group targeted BMW’s leasing program of 500 electric Mini Coopers, which it calls MINI Es.

“CARB is allowing BMW to game the system by accruing the maximum number of ZEV credits with the least amount of effort,” Plug In America legislative director Jay Friedland said in a statement. “In order to receive full credit, these vehicles must be offered for sale.”

CARB plans to revisit the regulation next year and will be looking at ways to accelerate the commercialization of electric vehicles, according to spokesman Dimitri Stanich.

In the meantime, “we’ve urged BMW to consider extending that one-year lease,” Stanich said.

BMW officials were not available for comment.

With highly touted plans for a new electric car in jeopardy, an overseas investor steps in to provide new capital and a much-needed endorsement.

GM? No, Tesla.

Remarkably, the terms of German automaker Daimler AG's 10-percent stake in Tesla may have also helped the Silicon Valley electric-car start-up inch closer to GM in value.

Daimler's vague disclosure of its purchase price as  "double digit million dollar" means Tesla is valued at a minimum of $100 million.
That would make Tesla, which was founded nearly six years ago, about one-eighth the size of 100-year-old GM.

A world away in Detroit, GM has seen its share price spiral downward to near $1.  That the price may fall to near zero if the automaker files for bankruptcy as is widely expected. It would be worth less than 2 cents if GM proceeds with plans to issue a flood of new shares to pay off creditors.

GM was worth around $768 million, making it by far the smallest component in the Dow Jones industrial average judged by market cap.

A bankruptcy judge would also cast doubts on the 2010 launch plans for GM's Volt plug-in range-extended hybrid while Tesla's all-electric and pricey Roadster is already on the road.

Tesla chief executive, financial backer and tech entrepreneur Elon Musk and GM executives have traded barbs in the past.

GM's flamboyant former product chief Bob Lutz has described San Carlos, California-based Tesla as a "little West Coast outfit" that was stitching together laptop batteries together.

Musk, meanwhile, has shot back that GM's range-extender technology in its still-in-development Volt was "neither fish nor fowl."

Late last year, Musk, who also founded PayPal, couldn't resist a dig when asked why GM, an early proponent of electric car technology,  had not bought his company. "I'm not sure they can afford Tesla right now," Musk said.

This portable electric recharging device could be a lifesaver if you break you leg on a windswept mountaintop in the middle of the night and find that your mobile phone battery is dead when you try to call for help.

Of course that’s vanishingly unlikely (and not part of the official sales pitch) but the K3 is an interesting example of “tribrid” technology - using three sources of power. You can plug it into the mains electricity, it has tiny solar panels and a micro wind turbine … Going on sale in June for $99.95, it can charge cell phones, iPods or other electronic devices.

“The K3 allows anyone to charge their devices at any time, anywhere in the world,” said Tod Wagenhals, president of makers Kinesis Industries in Arizona.

Hybrid technologies - for instance cars using both gasoline and another power such as an electric motor - have taken off in recent years as part of efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

So maybe tribrid cars are the next generation? You can bolt solar panels to the roof, for instance.

Add a small windmill or two and you have a “quadbrid” (or perhaps it might be called a ”tetra-brid”?) - see this link for an picture of a converted quadbrid Ford Escort.

So will tribrid or quadbrid technology catch on? Or is it just a complicated gimmick?

(Pictures: Top Left: the K3 ’tribrid’ charger - courtesy Kinesis Industries LLC. Above right: Electric cars are connected to a charge spot in central London April 16, 2009. Motorists are to be offered up to 5,000 pounds (about $7500) to encourage them to buy electric or hybrid cars under a new government plan. REUTERS/Stefan Wermuth)

Since the days of Thomas Edison, finding a way to effectively store electricity has been one of the “Holy Grails” for power companies.

While it won’t be an overnight revolution for electricity, eventually plug-in electric cars and trucks will be a step toward the elusive goal, said Ted Craver, chief executive officer of Edison International.

Edison International is the parent of Southern California Edison (SCE), which is the biggest utilty in the United States in terms of power delivered to customers.

 ”They are effectively storage units on wheels,” Craver said of electric cars and trucks.

Vehicles batteries charged during off-peak periods could feed power back to the grid during periods of peak demand, said Craver in a telephone interview on Thursday.

California like other states requires that power utilities have enough power plant generation to serve the highest demand day of the year. This means that more than half of the state’s power generation sits unused most of the time.

“Our electricity system is about 49-percent utilized,” said Craver. “If we had a reasonably modest introduction of electric vehicles into the system, we could change that 49 percent to 55 or 56 percent.”

So in addition to having the ability to propel cars without creating carbon dioxide emissions — outside of the power plants that must run to serve them — electric vehicles may one day help keep utilities from building as many power plants.

Craver’s interview came minutes after he hosted President Barack Obama’s visit to SCE’s electic Vehicle Technical Center in Pamona, California to promote green jobs are green technology.

Obama said that by 2015 there will be a million plug-in hybrid vehicles on U.S. roads.

Obama also announed $2.4 billion in grants for work on plug-in hybrid vehicles and batteries to run them, as well as a $7,500 tax credit for owners of plug-in vehicles.

SCE has more than 300 cars and trucks that run on electricity, the largest U.S. fleet of electric vehicles, Craver said.

Volkswagen’s U.S. chief ruffled some entrepreneurial feathers on Thursday when he told a group of business school students at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management that  it will be 35 years before electric cars make up a significant portion of the world’s auto market.

During his prepared remarks, Volkswagen Group of America CEO Stefan Jacoby outlined the German automaker’s view that fossil fuels and traditional combustion engines will be with us for many years to come. VW, however, is committed to making them vastly more fuel efficient. The company is also investing heavily in so-called clean diesel technology, which reduces tailpipe emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases while still giving cars their “fun-to-drive” pep.

“At Volkswagen we are taking a long-term and a short-term approach, and the short-term approach is not electric vehicles,” Jacoby said. “We can have cars on the road that have fuel consumption of 50, 60, 70 miles per gallon. That can happen in the next ten years.”

For electric cars to make economic sense now, gas prices would have to be about $10 a gallon, Jacoby said, attempting to underscore the high cost of electric vehicle technology.

“May I ask how many of you guys can afford a Tesla?” Jacoby asked, referring to the company behind the $109,000 electric Roadster sports car.

During the Q&A session, Jacoby was taken to task for his position on electric cars by some of the audience members, particularly a man who said he drives an EV that is partially powered by the sun.

Jacoby didn’t back down, but he did encourage the audience to take a longer view.

“I’m not saying that the final solution couldn’t be electric cars,” he said. “What I want to bring over to you guys is please, lower your expecations. There are a lot of improvements we can do with less money than putting all our available investment money into one solution.”

Photo credit: Reuters/Fred Prouser (Jacoby talks at the Los Angeles Auto Show in 2008)

Last week, we paid a visit to startup car company Aptera at its headquarters in Vista, California, just north of San Diego. Aside from talking to company executives, we also got to take a ride in the ultra-efficient, spaceage vehicle. Check out our complete coverage of Aptera here.

To say that the egg-shaped car, which the company will begin shipping to customers later this year, stands out on the road is a major understatement. Take a look for yourself in the video below, and let us know what you think.

Would you buy a car like this? The final price for the two-seater is expected to run between $25,000 and $40,000, and the all-electric version gets a 100 mile range per charge.

 The car is king in Southern California, so what better place for stressed out auto executives to blow off some steam and take a break from their considerable recent troubles?

That’s exactly what they did this week at the Los Angeles auto show, where many car manufacturers laid out plans for electric, fuel cell and diesel cars that they say are key to reviving the ailing industry.

Volkswagen’s clean diesel Jetta TDI made the biggest splash, taking home the coveted “Green Car of the Year” award. It was the first time a diesel car has taken home the industry’s top environmental prize.

“It’s no longer an option for automakers to address the efficiency and environmental impact of new models – it’s an imperative,” Ron Cogan, editor of Green Car Journal, the trade magazine that awards the “Green Car of they Year” prize, said at the show. “It’s easy and justifiable to point the finger at the auto industry, but it’s also time for us to take responsibility for the choices we make as consumers.”

Among the other clean, green cars on display at the show were BMW’s all-electric Mini E, General Motors’ plug-in Chevrolet Volt and Hyundai’s Sonata hybrid sedan.

Which one is your favorite?