Green Options

Last week I talked about how fast is fast enough, and that one of the easiest ways to save fuel was by simply going slower. Well rejoice! Apparently all of America heeded my advice, and American drivers, on average, drive below the posted speed limit.

Ok, obviously this has nothing to do with me. According to Tele Atlas, the mapping unit of GPS maker TomTom, anonymously collected data from millions of GPS devices shows that most Americans are driving under the speed limit. So why don’t I get that feeling when I am on the highway?

According to an Autocar UK story, Tele Atlas says that no state tops 70 mph as an average highway speed. The fastest highway in the country is the stretch of I-15 between Utah and Nevada, with average speeds of 77.67 mph, even though the speed limit is 80 mph. This baffles me. I-15 is a road that pretty much runs through mostly desert. Why wouldn’t you go the speed limit?

Hyundai/Kia is one of my favorite automakers right now, probably because they used to be one of my most hated. But both brands have come a long way in terms of style and quality, and are now poised to take a bigger role on the world automotive stage.

Kia in particular seems to be branding itself the more thrilling cousin of Hyundai, as some of their recent concept cars have shown. This latest teaser of the plug-in hybrid “Ray”, as it is being called, doesn’t reveal much, but certainly makes me want to see more.

I loved LEGOS back in “the day”. I would spend hours upon hours building and looking for just the right pieces to complete my architectural nightmare. Then I would always knock it down in my terrifying rendition of Godzilla, just ’cause. LEGOS are still awesome, but you can’t exactly live in a house made of them as James May of Top Gear proved.

Anyway, the whole LEGOS analogy is the first thing I thought of when I read about the Trexa EV platform. It is basically a completely integrated, all-wheel drive electric skateboard that you can build your own kind of car upon. Pretty freakin’ cool, right?

I’m going to answer my own question and say both.

It’s true. According to Kelley Blue Book’s list of most searched cars, perennial favorites the Honda Civic and Accord topped the list. The Prius came in at #8, within spitting distance of the Camaro which came in at #12. In fact, if you look at the different lists from websites across the web, muscle cars are pretty consistently high on the search lists, as are hybrids and fuel efficient models like the Smart ForTwo.

So can America have its cake and eat it too?

Mass transit is often associated with limitations. People have to plan when they leave based on when their bus, streetcar, light-rail, or commuter rail line leaves. They don’t have the ‘pleasure’ of circling around a parking lot trying to find the spot closest to the front door. They can’t easily stop off at McDonald’s for a healthy bite to eat. And so on.

Well, those things may provide a little bit of limitation, but there are other factors that can give you more freedom as well.

For example, the average transit rider in the US now saves $9,242 a year by riding transit (approximately $770 a month). I could think of at least a few things to do with $9,242! Things I couldn’t do without it.

In New York, you can actually save about $1,147 a month or $13,765 a year. The top 20 US cities in average savings are listed below.

But there are more benefits to riding transit, too.

For 33 consecutive years, the Ford F-150 has been America’s best selling vehicle-car, truck, SUV, basically anything with a motor that movies. Moving more than 500,000 units in an average year, the F-150 is just a sales beast, and it is only getting better.

A report by PickupTrucks.com is saying that the F-150 will be getting the new Twin Independent Variable Camshaft Timing (Ti-VCT) 3.7 liter V6 in the near future. This is the same engine that delivers 305 horsepower and 30 MPG in the 2011 Mustang.

This is Part Two of a three part interview with Jay Rogers, CEO of Local Motors. They recently displayed their Rally Fighter at the 2009 SEMA show and look to change the way cars are designed, and built. Read Part One here and Part Two here.

In the previous two installments of my interview with Jay, we discussed how he turned to an entire community of car designers to decide which car to build, and how to build it. Truth be told, Jay was asking a lot from this community of car fans. They have spent countless hours designing, redesigning, and re-re-redesigning their sketches and ideas in hopes of one day seeing their cars brought to life (as well as winning a small cash prize). How could Jay repay such die-hard dedication?

The answer is pretty simple. He was going to take the typical car buying experience, and turn it on its head. Find out how after the jump.

4 million fewer vehicles. This is the first year there was such a large decline in automobile ownership since the US Department of Transportation (DOT) began modern recordkeeping in 1960.

How did this come about? What were the main causes?

This is Part Two of a three part interview with Jay Rogers, CEO of Local Motors. They recently displayed their Rally Fighter at the 2009 SEMA show and look to change the way cars are designed, and built. Read Part One here.

On Monday we covered how Jay Rogers, CEO of Local Motors, had a vision for a new kind of car company. He wanted the people to design and vote on the car they wanted. That is how the Rally Fighter came to be.

Of course, drawing a car is a lot easier than building one. This is the same reason concept cars rarely make it into production unscathed. The Rally Fighter evolved substantially from Sangho Kim’s first rendering, though the resemblance to the famous World War II P-51 fighter plane (where the Ford Mustang also got its name, before going to the equine imagery) remained intact. What came next was actually building a car, based on Sangho’s design, without the benefit of a factory or an army of robots.

This meant it was time to make some hard decisions. But Jay would get help from his community of designers for that too.

If there is any single success story of 2009 in the automotive world, it is Hyundai. They have really stepped it up a notch across their lineup, and cars like the Genesis sedan and coupe have been universally hailed for both their quality and value. Hard to believe this is even the same company. Yet for all their progress, Hyundai is a bit behind other manufacturers in the hybrid game. Their first hybrid, the Sonata, won’t hit showrooms until later this year.

But Hyundai’s engineers have been hard at work, and the fruits of their labor are quite good looking indeed. The Blue-Will plug-in hybrid concept car will make its North American debut at the Detroit International Auto Show next week. Is that a menacing grin or what?

This is Part One of a three part interview with Jay Rogers, CEO of Local Motors. They recently displayed their Rally Fighter at the 2009 SEMA show and look to change the way cars are designed, and built.

Next week the Detroit Auto Show will kick off the North American International Auto Show circuit. Over 700 cars will be on display, including several concepts such as an electric Fiat 500 (which will share booth space with Maserati and Ferrari). Only a handful of these cars will make it to production as companies go back to the drawing board to come up with a “winner” they hope the public will buy.

Jay Rogers, CEO of Local Motors, is trying to change all that. Instead of designing a car he hopes people will buy, he is gathering a community of enthusiasts to design a car they want to buy. The result is the Rally Fighter, an off-road car/truck (cruck? trar?) that can get over 30 mpg with 425 ft-lbs of torque that sets a new standard for car design.