On the subject of e-cars: We’ve had back to back to back news, so I thought it good to let the topic bake for a bit while we wait for the public reception of the Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf, and others.

But”¦

This is way too cool to pass up. Just in from the Great Green North: an e-car made of pot! (Well, hemp, but you know the drill. Hemp, pot, same diff when it comes to headlines!)

Says CBC News (and, of course, 420 Magazine), the car, which will be made into a prototype this month by Calgary-based Motive Industries, is called the Kestrel and is doubling down on the green factor. Its body will be comprised of “impact-resistant composite material” made from mats of hemp – which, by the way, will be locally harvested in Vegreville, Alberta. (Gotta love the homegrown.) The car will be a compact designed for four dudes/dudettes, including the driver, and will top out at just over 55 mph. Its range will vary from 25 miles to 100 miles, depending on the type of battery.

The Kestrel is part of Project Eve, a Canadian non-profit collaboration aimed at increasing that country’s production of electric vehicles and components. And guess who’s gonna be helping out with the pot car? College kids! Students at polytechnic schools in Alberta, Quebec and Toronto will help roll these babies out the door and into the hands of parktakers sometime next year when the first twenty are due to be dealt.

Using hemp to build a car is “not an original idea,” says Motive Industries President Nathan Armstrong. Henry Ford, in fact, experimented with the not-so-evil weed in 1941 when he created a hemp-bodied car. The vehicle – pictured below – was fueled on the stuff, too. CarDomain has a video of the indestructo-prototype.

Today, however, with a renewed emphasis on reducing weight while not giving up on strength, hemp makes sense. It doesn’t take a lot of energy to make (sunshine, soil and a little love, bra) and isn’t as fancy pants as fibreglass and carbon-fiber-based racecar material, which requires all kinds of heat and chemical wizardry to produce.

“As a structural material, hemp is about the best,” says Armstrong. The CBC notes: “It [hemp] has about twice the strength of other plant fibres. It doesn’t require much water or pesticide use, and grows well in Canada, providing a high yield per hectare.”

“Plus,” says Armstrong, showing some true patriot love, “it’s illegal to grow it in the U.S., so it actually gives Canada a bit of a market advantage!”

Yeah, well, I live in Northern Cali, man. You wanna talk advantage?

Images: dwhartwig and Hugo90

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Momentum seems to be mounting toward what may be a sea change in the automobile market – and hopefully the beginning of a fundamental downshift in what we do to the air every time we hit the road. In just the last two weeks, we told you about the Nissan Leaf selling out pre-orders, the Mercedes and BMW jumping into the e-market in the not-too-distant future, new electric highways and other infrastructure plans, and how the announcement of an eight-year/100,000-mile warranty on the Chevy Volt is making this whole e-car business finally begin to seem real. Adding to this, yesterday’s latest show-us-the-money puzzle piece in the emerging picture: the 2011 Chevy Volt will start at $41,000.

The Volt is an electric vehicle that can drive 40 miles on batteries before a gasoline engine kicks in to extend its range another 300 miles. The $41K price tag, announced by GM yesterday at the Plug-In 2010 conference in San Jose, CA, includes a $720 destination fee. A $7,500 federal tax credit brings the net purchase price down to $33,500.

As reported by CNET, GM hopes to sell 10,000 cars in the first year and 30,000 more in 2012. The base model will have a number of features, including Bluetooth connectivity, a navigation screen, and five years of GM’s OnStar service. Four premium options are also available, including leather seats and steering wheel, rear camera and parking sensors, polished wheels, and one of three premium paints. If you want to throw down big, the fully loaded Volt will set you back $44,600, or $37,100 after the tax credit. (Some states may also offer credits on top of the Federal deal. California will rebate $5,000 for the Nissan’s all-electric Leaf, but that won’t apply to the Volt.)

The Leaf, by the way, is also due out this year and has an anticipated MSRP of $33,000. While the list price of the Bolt is higher, GM also unveiled a three-year $350-a-month lease, with a $2,500 down payment. Says GreenCarReports, “That’s only a dollar higher than the lease for the 2011 Nissan Leaf electric car, despite the Volt’s much higher purchase price.” GM says it’s doing this based on its strong belief in the car’s residual value.

The first Volts will arrive at Chevrolet dealers in November, first in California, followed by the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut area, then Washington, D.C., followed by Michigan, and finally Texas.

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I enjoyed going to annual auto shows when I was a kid, checking out the concept cars, getting that special “glimpse of the future.” But there was always this hollow undercurrent as I’d realize just how far away the future really was. It went something like, “Awesome – but it’ll never see the light of day. It’s just too crazy, sexy, cool to ever become real.” I had that same feeling when I saw the first electric car prototypes, my cynicism compounded by the knowledge that Big Oil and the Big Three would be dragging their feet Big Time. I wondered: “What’s it going to take to put Detroit’s back against the wall on this stuff?”

So there was something special about reading late last week that GM had released details on the warranty for the Chevy Volt, its electric-vehicle entry that’s due out in November. Indeed, in recent months there have been ongoing and accelerating signs that the next (first real?) phase of the electric-car era is about to become reality. Right here at EcoSalon, in fact, we’ve written about the Volt’s progress toward hitting the road, Nissan selling out pre-orders for the Leaf, and other car makers jumping into the electric game with both feet.

But this warranty news hits a particular nerve, striking me as something especially real – the sales details/fine print behind these things somehow gives the sense that all systems are go; they’re guaranteed now, ok to buy, ok to drive, ok to use like you would any other product. Maybe it’s that I’m “Old School Detroit,” but where I come from, warranties are a big deal, and this one means that a mass-produced electric GM vehicle is no longer an experiment. (Though, of course, it remains to be seen how the public will take to the $35,000ish car, which still faces some challenges on the electric highways, byways and general infrastructure front.)

The details of the warranty sound an awful lot like warranties for “regular” cars. In fact, they’re a little better: the Volt’s LG Chem lithium-manganese battery will be guaranteed for up to eight years or 100,000 miles, and is transferable to future owners. As reported in the New York Times: “The warranty will cover all 161 battery components – as well as other electric-drive components – and the battery’s liquid thermal management system, which heats or cools the battery while charging in a variety of weather conditions.”

The rest of the warranty looks like this: 100,000 mile/five-year transferable Engine Limited Warranty (for the Range Extender); 100,000 mile/five-year 24/7 Roadside Assistance Program; 100,000 mile/five-year 24/7 Courtesy Transportation Program; 36,000 mile/three-year no-deductible bumper-to-bumper transferable warranty; and 100,000 mile/six-year corrosion protection.

Nissan has yet to announce its coverage plans for the Leaf but, says Autoblog, the automaker is now reaching out to prospective customers (including some of those who made deposits to reserve the right to purchase the all-electric vehicle) to find out what they’re looking for in such a warranty.

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