Green Options » Ford

How To Charge Up Your Hybrid

Joshua S Hill — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:43:24 +0000

Though they may be a little expensive to some of us out there, hybrids are really beginning to flood the market. The darling of them all, the Prius, is finally getting some competition. But what if you wanted to extend the miles per gallon ratio even further, what would you do?

You would follow in the steps of all the nerds and mechanics that came before you, and “do it yourself.”

Plug-In Hybrid kits are becoming more and more prevalent and, as such, a little less expensive (emphasis on the little). Depending on the choice of battery you want to boost your mileage, and reduce your dependency on the fuel in your car, you can pay anywhere between $6,000 and $30,000 and up.

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Ford Promises 30% Better Mileage Using Ethanol Injection

Nick Chambers — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:08:25 +0000

Ford says the next generation of their Ecoboost engine technology, codenamed Bobcat, will provide 30% more fuel efficiency than a traditional gasoline combustion engine by directly injecting ethanol into the gas/air mixture prior to detonation.

Although Ford’s first generation Ecoboost engines start hitting the market next year — promising a 20% gain in fuel economy over traditional engines — Ford is already tweaking their new Bobcat technology to squeeze out even more fuel efficiency from the direct ethanol injection system.

The technology works by merging a turbocharger with a high compression ratio in the same engine. Combining these two features normally results in an incompatible and disastrous mix which causes premature detonation of the fuel/air mixture — referred to as engine knock.

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EcoDriving: The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturerers Gift to the Masses (Opinion)

Anthony Cefali — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:57:16 +0000

You look west to see a barren landscape, tumbleweed breezing lazily through the charred remains of a forest. The rust laden skeleton of what used to be a city echoes the promise of a future long gone. You are fighting out your days amidst gunfire and tribal warfare in armor composed of animal fur and long deserted hockey pads. Ironically water isn’t the most important liquid on the planet that spins where the Earth once spun. You begin to wash the grease smears off your face in a shallow pool…

…oh wait, am I jumping the gun here?

While our gas crises hasn’t quite reached ‘Mad Max’ proportions yet, things are close enough that the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers will make this September “Green Check-Up Month.” After countless years of making oversized and inefficient autos, Ford and Chevy are now going to tell us how to save gas.

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Ford’s Greening Plan: Will It Be Successful?

Ariel Schwartz — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 00:41:40 +0000

Part 2: Green Building Materials

Earlier this week, I wrote about my experience at Ford headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan. Specifically, I discussed the Ford Escape Hybrid. While I was in Dearborn, I also had the chance to check out some of the “green” materials that Ford is currently using/plans to use in their vehicles.

One of these materials is soy-based foam, which is present in the 2008 Mustang, the F-150, the Expedition, the Navigator, and the Focus. The foam is made by crushing soybeans to get oil, which is then turned into soy polyol. According to Ford, the foam reduces CO2 emissions by 5 million pounds annually. Soy proteins are also eventually going to be used in rubber parts.

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Ford’s Greening Plan: Will It Be Successful?

Ariel Schwartz — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 23:38:01 +0000

Part 1: The Hybrid

Last week, I had the chance to visit Ford’s headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan. I test drove a variety of vehicles while I was there, including the Ford Escape Hybrid. I’ll admit that I was a bit skeptical of the SUV at first—after all, if you’re going to go the extra mile to drive a hybrid, why wouldn’t you buy a smaller car? But overall, I was impressed with the new Escape model.

According to Ford, the hybrid delivers 34 MPG in the city and 31 MPG on the highway—an improvement over last year’s model and an achievement that makes the Escape the most fuel-efficient SUV on the market. One Ford employee told me that he had heard of people getting up to 42 MPG, though that is obviously not the norm.

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Plug-in Hybrid Drivers are Charged Up

John Addison — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:27:17 +0000

This is a guest post by John Addison, publisher of the Clean Fleet Report.

In 1971, a bright engineer, Dr. Andy Frank, was looking to the future. He knew that oil production had peaked in the U.S. and that cheap oil would later peak globally. He calculated how to get 100 miles per gallon, and then he built a hybrid-electric car.

Andy Frank was all smiles as a crowd of 600 applauded at the Plug-in 2008 Conference in San Jose, California, last week. Many in the crowd now drive plug-in hybrids as part of their fleet demonstration programs. A number in the crowd had converted their personal Toyota Priuses or Ford Escape Hybrids. This was a crowd of plug-in converts.

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Startup Converting Ford F-150s Into 41 MPG Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles

Clayton B. Cornell — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 22:01:51 +0000

The 16 MPG F-150 is one of the most ubiquitous vehicles on the road today. What if you could convert them all to get 41 MPG?

The Illinois Institute of Technology’s masters program has spun-off a start-up with big plans for our aging fleet of big trucks. The company, called Hybrid Electric Vehicle Technology (HEVT), has built a bolt-on module that will convert a standard F-150 into a 41 MPG plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV).

HEVT demo’d their first prototype at the Plug-In 2008 conference in San Jose earlier in the month. The suddenly attractive F-150 PHEV (which is not the 1994 model depicted above) gets 15 miles of emissions-free driving on electricity before it switches over to gas/electric hybrid mode, where it will continue to get an impressive 41 MPG for a typical day’s worth of driving.

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Like GM, Ford Decides They’d Better Start Producing Smaller, More Fuel-Efficient Cars

Clayton B. Cornell — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 22:26:42 +0000

Gas Prices are Killing Large Cars and Trucks

Ford Motor Company announced today it will be scrambling to realign its North American Manufacturing operation with the realities of consumer needs today.

With gas prices above $4 / gallon, most Americans are shying away from giant gas-guzzling vehicles in favor of smaller fuel efficient models. Starting in December, Ford said it will accelerate production of new fuel efficiency technology, double their hybrid production and lineup, and downsize vehicles across the board. By 2010, Ford says 2/3 of its spending will be on small cars and crossovers, and it will pull six small European models to the US by 2012.

“While we have no intention of giving up our longtime truck leadership, we are creating a new Ford in North America on a foundation of small, fuel-efficient cars and crossovers that will set new standards for quality, fuel economy, product features and refinement,” said Mark Fields, Ford president of The Americas.
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Prototype Ford Escape Plug-in Hybrid: 88 MPG on 85% Ethanol

Nick Chambers — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:10:06 +0000

First Flex-Fuel Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle

As part of a push by the US Department of Energy (DOE) to make plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) cost competitive with other cars by 2014, Ford has delivered a plug-in hybrid electric flex-fuel Escape to the DOE to join its test fleet of other PHEVs currently undergoing research and testing.

The vehicle is equipped with a 10 kilowatt lithium ion battery that can take it up to 30 miles at speeds under 40 mph before needing to fire up its fuel-fed hybrid-electric engine. After that, the hybrid-electric engine kicks in and can deliver a fuel economy of 88 mpg in the city and 50 mpg on the highway when using E85 (85% ethanol/15% gasoline blend).

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Think Electric Cars are Expensive? Try Ford’s F-250 Full-Sized Truck

Clayton B. Cornell — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 17:36:05 +0000

Think paying $100,000 for an electric car is obscene? How about $100K for an F-250?

As much was we covet electric cars like the Tesla Roadster, most of us balk at the $100,000 sticker price. But with gas prices at or above $4 / gallon, the cost difference isn’t as dramatic as you might imagine.

The NYTimes reported last week that if you account for total ownership of a full-sized truck, including insurance, interest, repairs, taxes, and gasoline, a big vehicle like Ford’s F-250 will now set you back $100,000 in the first five years of ownership. Five years is the average amount of time an owner keeps one of these trucks.

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Goodbye Trucks and SUVs; Hello Gas Saving… Geo Metro?

Nick Chambers — Tue, 27 May 2008 22:09:39 +0000

Could it be that Americans are finally warming up to the idea that life doesn’t revolve around how good your car looks and that putting food on the table is more important than driving an SUV? I mean really, it’s about time, no? The pundits have been saying it for the past year, but it looks like the prediction that the average American would rather eat than spend money on fuel is finally coming true. Not only that, it’s coming in droves.

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Clean Diesel Cars Coming to US This Fall: 2008-2010 Timeline

Clayton B. Cornell — Wed, 21 May 2008 11:32:01 +0000

New diesels will get better mileage and have cleaner emissions than your average car. Pictured above: 2009 Jetta SportWagen 2L TDI Clean Diesel.

Later this year (see the timeline below), we will finally begin to see an influx of new model diesels in the United States. While diesels make up 50% of the market share of vehicles in Europe, they’re still trying to shrug off the stigma of being dirty, noisy beasts here in the US. So what changed?

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Ford Ditches Petroleum-Based Seats For Soy; Green Production Cuts 600,000 lbs. of CO2

Clayton B. Cornell — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 22:36:31 +0000

Ford Motor Company will be replacing up to 40% of their petroleum-based seat cushions with a new material made from soybean oil. “Soy foam” costs roughly the same to manufacture as traditional petroleum derivatives, but requires less energy to produce and may reduce environmental impacts by 75%.

The new material was developed by Ford’s own researchers, and made its debut in the 2008 Ford Mustang. Soy foam has also already been incorporated into the seat cushions of Ford F-150 pickups, Expeditions, and Lincoln Navigator SUV’s. By the end the year, Ford says it will have 45,500 soy-foam vehicles on the road.

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Google To Spend $10 Million on Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicle Project

Clayton B. Cornell — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:36:15 +0000

As usual, Google is at the forefront of, well, everything. But this one is a little surprising: their philanthropic branch, Google.org, is putting $10 million into plug-in electric hybrid research and real-world testing. If you’ve been reading Gas 2.0 lately, you already know that’s as much as will be rewarded to the winners of the 2010 Automotive X Prize for revolutionary green car technology.

Last September, Google offered up the $10 million in a formal Request For Proposals (RFP), saying they wanted to invest in any company that would “accelerate the commercialization of alternative transportation that reduces vehicle fossil fuel use and climate emissions.” In other words, getting plug-in hybrids, fully electric vehicles, vehicle-to-grid capabilities, and batteries and other storage technologies on the market.

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Car and Driver Increase Pinto Fuel Economy with $11 of Ecomods

Benjamin Jones — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 01:06:59 +0000

Recently Darin at EcoModder dug up a Car and Driver article from the middle of the US gas crisis in 1974. It may be a little dated, but considering recent gas price increases these kinds of DIY hacks are becoming relevant once again.

The material prices may be a little different, the cars may be a lot different, but surprisingly little has changed in terms of fuel economy and gas prices. The Car and Driver article is interesting because not only is it old, but it’s still relevant today.

As someone who has been around ecomodding for a while, I can vouch for the efficacy of many of these modifications, and have done some of them myself. So, if you’re really interested, I encourage you to get out there and do some yourself. None of them are engine modifications, or particularly difficult, so don’t feel intimidated by them. Some of the biggest fuel economy gains can come through aerodynamics and rolling resistance modifications.

Read about the modifications after the break.

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