Green Options

MIT students are developing an electric car that could easily compete with petro-based vehicles.

Using a 2010 Mercury Milan hybrid and 7,905 lithium iron-phosphate batteries, the car fully charges in about 10 minutes. Whereas most EVs require overnight charging to reach full capacity, this is clearly a game changer.

A few months ago Cleantechnica reported on the new Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan’s graphical display known as SmartGauge. Now Ford has released a video showing the interactive display in action.

Probably the coolest part of the video is where it shows how the driver will get instantaneous driving habits feedback by displaying how efficiently he or she is driving. The gauge does this through a constantly changing display of green leaves — the more green leaves on the display, the better you’re driving. For the less creative among us, that same information can also be displayed in a history graph (fuel economy over the last ten minutes). This is a nice, non-intrusive way to help promote good driving habits and maximizing a driver’s fuel economy.

Video after the break (skip to minute 2 for hybrid-specific graphics and display).