By Andrew Williams •
August 25, 2009
London Mayor Boris Johnson has announced plans to create Britain’s first “hydrogen highway” by building a network of hydrogen filling stations throughout the capital.
As part of the scheme, a pilot fleet of around 150 hydrogen cars, five buses and 20 black taxis will be assembled in the run-up to the 2012 London Olympics.
The flamboyant mayor has gone on record as saying that he wants Britain to become a world leader in fuel cell technology and his team have made the ambitious claim that, within twenty years, up to one in three of the 31m cars in Britain could be fuelled by hydrogen.
By Jo Borras •
August 24, 2009
EV manufacturer Wheego has placed the ad above in this month’s issue of Scoot! Magazine, asking “the scootering community” to weigh-in on the concept of an electric Lambretta GP under the tagline “Brilliance or Sacrilege?”
You’ve seen the title, so you know my vote already - but there’s more to it than that. My top 5 reasons a new electric GP200 from Wheego would be the brilliant-est EV ambassador since Tesla’s Roadster after the jump.
By Jo Borras •
August 24, 2009
GM’s recent “230″ PR campaign (previously covered HERE and HERE) has certainly caused a lot of controversy, most of it centered on the fact that the EPA initially “backed away” from the automaker’s optimistic (?) Chevy Volt mileage claims.
Despite the fact that the 230 mpg rating will likely stand (once GM gets a final-production Volt into the hands of the EPA, that is), so much attention has been paid to the matter that the good in charge at Progressive’s Automotive X PRIZE decided it was time to chime in, asking “Is MPG still relevant?”
Short answer: No.
Read the X Prize group’s long(er) answer, and learn about their proposed MPGe rating system, after the jump.
If you’ve kept an eye on the federal government’s “Cash for Clunkers” program (which will end on Monday), you know that it’s been a huge success on a number of fronts: hundreds of thousands of people have traded in older, less fuel-efficient vehicles for new models with better gas mileage, and some auto manufacturers are even rehiring. Of course, the program’s had its downsides, also: dealers have complained about slow reimbursements, and some environmentalists have worried that the fuel economy requirements weren’t quite stringent enough.
Portland, Oregon-based businessman Joe Doebele has another complaint about the program: there’s nothing in it to get commuters to shift from four wheels to two. Rather than just throw stones, though, Doeble decided to do something about this shortcoming: he’s started his own “cash for clunkers” program at his cargo bike shop Joe Bike.
By Joanna Schroeder •
August 20, 2009
After several set backs last week, yesterday the British Steam Car Team unofficially broke the 103 year-old world
steam-powered land
speed record. The
speed record has been held for more than a century by American Fred Marriott, who in 1906, drove a “Stanley Steamer” car 127 miles per hour (mph). The teams own calibrated equipment measured the two way average of 137.14 mph and a 48 min, 52 second turn-around.
At the wheel will be tri-national Charles Burnett III, a multimillionaire born in England to a Canadian mother and American father. The car, which looks like an over sized rocket on wheels, is nicknamed the “fastest kettle in the world”.
By Joanna Schroeder •
August 18, 2009
A few weeks ago I met Todd Mouw with
Roush Manufacturing (many of you may know the company from its work in motorsports) who was displaying a Ford F250 converted to run on propane. I talked him into letting me take it for a spin through Ft. Worth, Texas.
From there, I convinced him to let me take a liquid propane injection (LPJ) F150, model year 2007, across the country (I’m technically on vacation). I know that propane is not a new technology -it’s been used as a fuel since the 1930s- but in America, it is rarely used in vehicles outside of fleets, but is gaining momentum and can now be used in applications such as lawn mowers.
Now here are the selling points from companies such as Roush that are producing LPJ vehicles:
- 97 percent of propane is produced in North America
- Reduces greenhouse gas emissions by up to 18 percent
- No loss of horsepower, torque or towing capacity
- Up to $5,000 federal tax credit available
- Tax credit of 50 cents per gallon (not always passed to the consumer)
- Significantly reduces operating costs
By Keith Rockmael •
August 18, 2009
It was a one in 20 chance encounter. I felt like a paparazzi who got a chance to spy a celebrity but in this instance my camera caught a shot of the Tango, the car that makes look the Smart Car look like a Lincoln Continental. Only about 10-20 Tangos exists which makes the sighting more special. Actually my neighbor (a solar guy who already drives an EV-4) had the thing in his driveway in the Lower Haight and a crowd of passersby, tourists, and green auto enthusiasts formed around this electric only car.
As they say, looks can be deceiving. My neighbor said that the Tango can beat a Tesla in terms of acceleration. The Tango can accelerate from zero to over 130 mph in one gear. It accelerates from zero to 60 mph in about 4 seconds. We say Zoom to that.
By Joe Walsh •
August 13, 2009
In their rush to get an extra $2 billion out the door, Congress overlooked several possible tweaks that might have made the Cash for Clunkers program a more sustainable economic stimulant and a “greener” environmental program.
By Felix Kramer •
August 10, 2009
Entrepreneurs have begun to retrofit ordinary combustion vehicles into all-electrics or plug-in hybrids. Here’s why this could be the “big fix” that the auto-industry needs.
Are we stuck with our oil addiction? What if millions of our middle-aged vehicles could be reincarnated as superior versions of their youthful selves, while developing new revenue streams for Detroit? What if that “fix” could start reducing the billion a day we spend on imported oil, while creating tens of thousands of local jobs in communities and cutting greenhouse gases from fossil fuels?
Automakers could do all this—by thinking of vehicles as upgradable high-tech products. For example: A pioneering Chicago startup makes a prototype Ford F-150 pickup with an all-electric range of 30 miles per charge. After that it’s a hybrid, boosting the best-selling truck’s 15 city miles per gallon to 21.
By Ruedigar Matthes •
August 5, 2009
You’re waiting at a red light, your engine idling lightly. You check the crosswalk signal: 20 seconds, you have some time. You turn your classical music up a notch to the perfect volume and you close your eyes, relaxing on your way home from work. But your moment of relaxation is interrupted by the thump thump of bass coming from the car next to you. You look over at the car, the tinted windows keep you from seeing the driver. [...]
Panasonic Corporation just announced that it will sponsor Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Solar Electric Vehicle Team (SEVT). The team will be competing in the upcoming Global Green Challenge (GCG) to be held in October of this year in Australia. As part of the sponsorship, Panasonic will provide the team with its a high-capacity (2.9 Ah) lithium-ion batteries.
The MIT SEVT student team will compete in the World Solar Challenge with a solar powered car using Panasonic lithium-ion batteries to store its solar generated power. Separately, Panasonic will provide the same high-capacity, lithium-ion batteries to a team from Japan’s Tokai University which is also competing in the same category.
