Danbury, Connecticut in the Northeastern Region of the US has been named by Money Magazine in the late 2000s as one of the Top 25 Best Small Cities for Jobs and Business in America. Since 1988, the city has continued to appear on one or another of Money’s “Best” lists. Danbury is in Fairfield County with a population of about 79,000 people. It was named for the city in England from which its original settlers traveled - Danbury in Essex, England. The American city has also been called Hat City, especially during the years 1800 - 1930, because it was the hub for hat design and manufacture, especially of extravagant women's hats. Settled by English immigrants in 1685, the town consisted of only 8 families at first, but it grew quickly. The incoming settlers built many homes in the flatland called Pahquioque by the Munsee and Quiripi Nations in the southeast corner of Connecticut. It is reported that four men purchased the land from the Native Americans, rather than confiscating it and the settlers renamed their land Swampfield.
Community government leaders decided on Danbury, a more sophisticated name, in just a year or so. During the American Revolution, the city was burned to the ground by the British military, but the residents of the town successfully rebuilt it. As elsewhere in the Northeastern US, the railroad industry grew in response to the demand for transportation during the American Civil War and thereafter for reasons of commerce. A local railroad museum commemorates that mode of transport. Danbury was a famous place known for its lawsuits in the hat industry involving union contracts. Loewe v. Lawlor, 208 U.S. 274 (1908), 235 U.S. In 1902, hatter Dietrich Loewe refused to recognize the hatters’ union in his hat manufacturing plant. The majority of his workers then struck for high union wages. Mr. Loewe hired a crew of non-union workers ("scabs"), resulting in a boycott organized by his former employees. The boycott spread to most or all of the states that featured Loewe hat plants or shops that sold them. Loewe sued for 6 years in US Federal courts, ending up in the U.S. Supreme Court in 1908. The highest court found in favor of Loewe and 7 years later, upheld a lower court's ruling to allow damages. Since the striking workers felt they would lose their homes in the suit, the hatters union sponsored one "Hatters’ Day" to collect one hour’s pay from each of its members to pay the damages. Mad Hatters' Day is October 6th each year.
The Volkswagen e-Golf, e-Up! Up Lite will join the Detroit auto show festivities, with the Golf BEV debuting its all-new battery and powertrains in 2015 production form. Featured in the cover image is the Frankfurt e-Co-Motion van concept. The newest is the Up! Lite, which appears to bring some of the cool tech and style of the XL1 exotic prototype. I called it the e-Up! Lite before by mistake, the up! Lite appears to be a PHEV of some kind. The 2015 VW e-Golf is a fully electric vehicle, evolving and refining some of the components previewed under the Blue-e-motion concept name. Lucky for everyone, e-Golf rolls off the tongue much more easily. VW’s aim for the e-Golf is not actually part of the company’s world domination plan - at least in the short term. The e-Golf will follow the e-Up supermini as the first limited-production EVs offered for sale to the public.
If imported to America, the e-Golf will be destined for proven west-coast EV markets like California, Oregon and Washington. VW has been running around with super efficient Golf concepts since at least 2007 under a variety of names. The overall campaign is called ’Think Blue’ and the range of models varies from a tall-gear and aero optimized Golf BlueMotion concepts all the way to this pure EV version. In Europe, a variety of ’BlueMotion Technology’ and other badges denote high efficiency on standard VW’s like the Passat and Polo. This BEV is already well on the way to production and may even join the standard MkVII Golf when it arrives in the U.S. 2014. The battery EV market is quite disjointed at the moment, with record sales of the Tesla Model S on the high end, but faltering momentum for the pioneering Nissan Leaf. Delaying the launch to coincide with the latest MkVII Golf both allowed technology refinements, reliability testing and also a sleeker aero and electronic package to lighten battery loads.
