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Plug In America asks Georgia to not reverse EV incentives

Like Ray Charles, Plug In America's Michael Thwaite has Georgia on his mind. Thwaite is putting out the call on behalf of the electric-vehicle advocacy group to get people to stop the state's plug-in vehicle incentives from going the way of Atlanta Flames. And he's using math that may or may not be funny. Thwaite's public enemy Number One is Chuck Martin (R-Alpharetta), who's pushing legislation (specifically, House Bill 122) to wipe out the $5,000 tax credit (one of the highest among US states). Martin is also said to have more than 60 state legislators backing him up. Thwaite says that the money is well spent, since each electric vehicle keeps more than $2,200 from being spent outside the state by getting folks to charge up through local utilities instead of paying for gas imported from those darned oil-rich nations. Last year, Martin proposed a bill (HB 257) that would cap incentive-generating EVs in the state at about 2,000 units a year, but state legislators ran out of time before taking a vote on it, so the issue got tabled for another year. And that year is almost up. The issue is far from academic, since Atlanta remains a city that generates some of the highest Nissan Leaf sales in the country – largely because of those state incentives. Check out Mr. Thwaite's note below. Don't Let Georgia State Incentives for Electric Vehicles Disappear The state of Georgia has enjoyed tremendous support for electric vehicle adoption from its legislators, but that is at risk. Georgia legislators need to hear your voice in favor of electric car incentives. Chuck Martin (R-Alpharetta) is introducing legislation (House Bill 122) to eliminate the state electric vehicle tax credits of $5,000. He has already amassed more that 60 legislators to support the bill. We need you to let them know that the public supports EVs! Georgia has become a beacon for electric vehicle sales. The tax credit has helped make Georgia the national leader in Nissan LEAF sales, an electric car built here in the US. Please take a moment to complete the action below to ensure that your representative hears your voice to maintain the EV incentives and defeat this bill. Georgia's Public Service Commission member Tim Echols argued passionately for keeping the credits. Aside from the environmental benefits and the positive message sent to millennials about the importance of moving away from polluting fossil fuels, he makes a powerful economic argument.

Convocation of eagles takes over bed of Nissan pickup

Let this be a lesson to those of you who plan to visit Unalaska, Alaska (yes, it's a real city on Unalaska Island in the Aleutian Islands): If you park at Safeway with a garbage bag full of fish fillets in your pickup's bed, the eagles will find you. That's what happened above when an unidentified man parked his Nissan and returned to find a convocation of bald eagles feasting on his fish.
Neither the man nor those parked near his truck could get to their cars for fear of getting a beatdown from The 'Murica Bird, and police were called to break it up, which they did with neither beast nor fowl injured in the process.
Other than being awesome watching, other things we can take away from this video are the question who comes up with bird gathering names (a "murmuration" of herons and an "unkindness" of ravens?), and the bounty of this comment left by user "Abraham" at the KUCB news report: "It's just that the luxury edition has so much more eagle, it saddens me to think of you missing out." See what caused it all in the video below.

Nissan applies for 'R-Hybrid' trademark, but what is it for?

Patent and trademark filings are sort of like tasseography for those of us in the auto industry. If you know where and how to look at something, there's a lot to be figured out. Take this trademark filing from Nissan - it's similar to the Pure Drive badge found on a Versa or Sentra, but the bottom half sports the phrase "R-Hybrid." This wouldn't be remarkable if the "R" in R-Hybrid weren't the same style as the "R" in the Nissan GT-R's badge, right down to the serifs.
While it's easy to see this as grasping at straws, it makes a fair degree of sense. The R35 GT-R may be a dominant performance machine, but it's been around since 2008, which is donkey years in the automotive industry. And based on the recent crop of hybridized hypercars and racecars, a hybrid GT-R doesn't seem like such a stretch.
As Car And Driver points out, figuring out that the GT-R will go hybrid isn't hard - figuring out when it will arrive, is. The buff book rightly points out that a new GT-R isn't expected until 2017, but that designing and trademarking a badge four years ahead of time is a bit odd. Car and Driver speculates that we could see a mildly hybridized R35, although the chances do seem remarkably low. Head over to C/D for a more thorough rundown on why this just might be a GT-R badge, including comparisons with other R-badged Nissans.