Green Options

Most odd stories relating to the environment tend to revolve around researchers and scientists and their slightly off the wall discoveries. But not so today. Today, in news of the weird – or at least slightly surreal – I bring you Daimler, the German automaker, who announced last week their very first hybrid car, the Mercedes Benz S Class. It’s a limousine.

Segway inventor Dean Kamen is developing a hybrid electric scooter that can run on almost anything that burns.

According to the patent, the bike has a small two-piston Stirling engine right under the seat. Though with an engine of that size, it really isn’t going to provide much juice - not much more than 5bhp.

A Stirling engine is based on tech which predates internal combustion engines by almost 100 years. It’s kinda like a steam engine in the sense that it uses external combustion. They use pistons for the crankshaft, but unlike the alternatives they have no valves for no gas ever enters or leaves the cylinders.

Is it the truth or just wishful thinking that British car company Jaguar is developing an electric luxury vehicle?

Jaguar has an electric vehicle, the XE roadster - a two-seat convertible, scheduled for introduction at the Geneva show in 2011. The XE roadster will come with an optional range-extended electric drive-train, which is similar to the Chevy Volt.

The roadster will receive an electric motor with an extended-range three-cylinder gas engine, which is being engineered for the new-age E-Type. It is uncertain whether this engine would come in addition to Jaguar’s conventional 5.0-liter and supercharged 5.0-liter V-8s.

For all intents and purposes, the automobile has remained largely unchanged in the past 100 years ever since the first Ford Model T started rolling off of assembly lines. Four wheels, an engine, transmission, and as the old saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But with summer around the corner, so are high gas prices (which have shot up 20% in the month of May alone) and some people are taking another approach to personal mobility, such as an 8th grade project dubbed the Solar Human Hybrid Vehicle.

A few years ago, retro was all the rage, with car designers and marketing teams recalling American nostalgia for the days when flashly muscle cars were common and gas cost but a strawpenny a gallon. But even back then, there were a few forward thinkers at General Motors who had at least a passing concern for gas mileage and pollutant control. The Stir-Lec 1 was a hybrid-electric car based on an Opel Kadett, with a small petrol motor recharging 14 acid-lead batteries which in turn powered an electric motor that drove the car. Wild stuff, huh?

I was in Miami recently and had the opportunity to rent a Toyota Prius. I’ve never driven a Prius before and once I actualy figured out how to drive it, it was quite fun. But as gas prices continue to climb in the wake of Memorial Day, I was most impressed with the gas mileage. So when I saw the new Jetta TDI commerical this weekend where the car is compared to a Prius I found it quite amusing.

The Jetta TDI claims that it gets 58 miles per gallon (mpg), breaking the record for all current “gasoline” fueled cars, even beating the Toyota Prius - a hybrid. I might have grown skeptical in my old age, but I’m having a hard time swallowing this claim to fuel economy. What, were they driving 20 mph on the highway and never stopping?

What’s wrong with wind power and solar energy and right with coal?

Well, coal can burn around the clock, as long as you have enough of it. But the wind doesn’t blow all the time and the sun doesn’t shine all the time. Sure, you can store power in batteries, but how much?

How about enough to power an LED streetlight, without wires, that is sure to turn on every night?

There’s a French company called Windela that has crossed a streetlight with a vertical-axis wind turbine and a solar panel. It charges up during the day, when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. At night, it shines.

It also can work as a Wi-Fi relay, similar to a solar streetlight known as Starsight. Imagine it: Wi-Fi, light at night, no coal required.

The domestic auto industry may be in turmoil, but for at least one of the Big Three things are starting to look up. Ford Motor Company, the only American auto company not to take government aid, has been moving forward full speed with their green car initiatives, and as such has been awarded the Green Choice Award by Natural Health magazine. Ford has expanded in every direction by trying to become a more green car company, building on the success of its Ford Escape Hybrid SUV by introducing the Ford Fusion Hybrid, which gets 41mpg in the city and 36 on the highway, besting Toyota’s Camry and equaling its initial quality, according to recent surveys.

Kelly Blue Book Video Review of the Ford Focus

Earlier this week, Ford announced that they are retooling their manufacturing facility in Michigan, which previously built SUVs, to now produce the small and fuel-efficient Ford Focus in 2010, and the battery-electric Ford Focus by 2011.

With this investment of $550 million worth, Ford continues the track to deliver its promise to bring four new electric vehicles to the U.S. by 2012 and will support approximately 3,200 jobs.

The Inspired Economist interviewed Jennifer Moore, Corporate News Manager at Ford.  Here’s what she had to say.

IE: Why is Ford making over an SUV facility to manufacture the Ford Focus?  Will Ford completely halt….or merely downsize its production of SUVs and Lincoln Navigators?

JM: The retooling of this facility to make small cars and the battery electric vehicle is a part of our overall transformation plan to convert some of our truck plants to small car facilities, leverage our global assets and produce smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles for our customers.

We have not halted production of the Lincoln Navigator and Ford Expedition - production was transferred to our Kentucky Truck plant. We still believe there is a market for large SUVs for customers who desire the size and capability of the vehicles, but we recognize that market will clearly be smaller than it was in the past.  As part of our transformation, we are balancing our product portfolio and that is the reason we are retooling the Michigan Assembly Plant.

While domestic manufacturers have in recent years returned to the “retro” look, reigniting the nation’s passion for the muscle cars of yesteryear, the rest of the world has been giddy on egg-shaped hybrids and fuel efficiency vs horsepower.

There is an understandably large gap between the fuel-conscious and horsepower heavy crowds, but Popular Mechanics has undertaken a project to bridge that with their Eco+Muscle hybrid Dodge Challenger.

Sometimes when looking forward, you have to look back to really get inspired.

110 years ago electric cars were at their peak, representing over a quarter of all cars on the road in America, but Henry Ford and the mass-production gas motor changed all that. And while most of us have gotten used to the idea of an engine under the hood, a transmission, and sometimes a driveshaft as integral to our cars, Volvo is taking a nod from the first electric carriages and putting their motors where they are most needed: the wheels. The Volvo ReCharge is a plug-in hybrid concept that relys on four indepedant electric motors, one in each wheel, to move and power the C30-based concept.