Australia, location for the classic film "Kangaroo Jack", is building over 600,000 electric car stations. This gigantic ongoing infrastructure project won’t be done until 2012, at which time Australia will point and laugh at us Americans as we wait angrily at ever-increasing gas lines. Don’t worry, we’ll deserve it.

Most of the stations will be spread out to Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. A paltry 150 stations will be spread out to outlying areas of the country. The outback may produce great steaks, but your car will run out of juice there.

There will also be battery swap stations scattered about, where drivers can trade junked juice for the new stuff.

This is pretty great news for the land downunder. However, it’s not all rosy. The government is suggesting contracts to use the stations be instituted. These contracts resemble cell phone plans. Don’t they know not to make Australians angry? Come on, we’ve all seen Crocodile Dundee 2 haven’t we?

Click the link for the AP article.

It’s easy to imagine electric Honda Civics or Chevy Malibus, but electricity powering the creme de la creme of automobiles? A bit harder to imagine. Not for long, says Rolls Royce CEO Tom Purves. The bigwig has been considering making some batteries very, very happy by including them in the Phantom line. He says "many of its customers do small mileages exclusively in the city," and for these customers, "an electric Rolls-Royce would be ideal."

He didn’t give a release date or price but don’t worry, the latter is probably out of your reach. If it’s not, shoot me an email. I have a business proposition I’d like to go over with you. (Cue evil laugh.)

Click the link for more information, Richie Rich.

Well, they’ve gone and done it now. The kind folks over at NXP Semiconductor and BMW decided it a good idea to integrate a car key with a contact-less payment system. The prototype key features NXP’s SmartMX security chip, which is the same exact chip in e-passports. This makes it possible to pay for fuel, tolls and just about anything else just by flashing that fancy key.

Another "benefit" to the key is that it holds all of your personal security information. The press release says this is useful because car rental and other companies can access your information and automatically note your vehicle color preferences, mirror and seat adjustments and even what crappy radio stations you like. Sounds kind of fishy to me. No, not the tech. But, who listens to the radio anymore? Didn’t MP3 players end that noise years ago? I got my eye on you BMW!

BMW is readying the all-electric MINI E automobile. The motor offers 204 hp of pure electric power. The auto boasts a 150 mile range off of it’s 35 kWh lithium-ion battery pack. It can hit 62 mph in 8.5 seconds and completes a full charge in just 2.5 hours. In other words, it’s perfect.

BMW plans on leasing 500 of these bad boys in California, New York and New jersey sometime in 2009. We should wait in line like it’s 1985 and we are trying to snag some Cabbage Patch Dolls.

Sources indicate that the car may get a public unveiling at the upcoming LA Auto Show next month.

George Jettson eat your heart out! Behold the Alé, a three-wheeled single-seat vehicle using special fuel vapor technology that its maker says gets 92 miles per gallon. Are you kidding me?! I would love this car! Not only does it get great mileage – this speedster still zips from zero to 60 in five seconds. Oh, and did I mention it runs on vapor? yeah that’s right vapor, the specifics of how it works are beyond me, so if you want to read the full article here it is.