Indiana-based Bright Automotive has released some pretty impressive performance figures for its technically (and aerodynamically!) slick new IDEA cargo van. Aimed primarily at delivery fleets and in-town rental companies, the freshly-upgraded guppy promises to shave operating costs by thousands of dollars per year, per van.
More pictures, an official company press release, and my own opinions (that nobody asked for) after the jump.
This is actually old news that recently resurfaced, and as a lifelong Cougar aficionado I can’t pass it up. In actuality, the Mercury Cougar was a refined, “gentleman’s muscle car” based on the 1st generation Mustang. It came standard with a number of gas-guzzling V8 motors including the epic “Boss” 302.
But the pristine-looking 1967 Cougar pictured here has done away with those gas hogs in favor of a Mercedes turbodiesel motor that runs on, you guessed it, biodiesel.
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.
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?
Road testing at Vermont’s Green Mountain College on a pair of souped-up plug-in Toyota Prius hybrids has found the cars returning better than 100 miles per gallon in daily commuting. At times, one car topped 140 MPG.
Steven Letendre (pictured above), economics professor and research scientist at GMC, monitored the travels of his colleague James Harding as he drove a plug-in Prius nine miles each way between the college’s campus in Poultney and his home in Middletown Springs during the fall semester. Letendre said he was “amazed” by Harding’s results.
The problems of the US auto manufacturing industry have been widely reported in recent weeks.The big surprise is that to many, this actually came as a surprise.
But is it really surprising that the industry is in a state of collapse considering they continue to make cars that are increasingly irrelevant to the needs of the rest of the world?
This issue is no better demonstrated than by the US Government’s introduction last year of average fuel consumption targets. The legislation mandates a national passenger car fleet average consumption of 32 mpg by 2015, and 35 mpg by 2020.
Is this progress, or is it too little too late?
According to a recent report the fleet average for Europe was 34.4 mpg in 2007. Putting Europeans practically 14 years ahead of the game. Other major auto markets are similarly ahead.
Who hasn’t been enraged to read about how Ford and G.M. can make perfectly good little gas sippers in Europe, but just can’t bring themselves to make a fuel efficient car for us back home?
Well, now that they need some funding from us, here’s an idea. Let’s fund Detroit just to set up their efficient European car factories — back here, where they are really needed. Let’s get some better gas mileage out of their money troubles.
Apparently, it only costs $75 million to completely retool a plant, to produce an efficient little car instead of the gas-guzzling behemoth they were fobbing off on us fools all these years.
Just weeks before the 2008 LA Auto Show, hybrid car and powertrain maker AFS Trinity is pulling out after saying that show management “muzzled” them by disallowing claims that their highly modified Saturn Vue plug-in hybrids can achieve 150 mpg.
In a statement, AFS Trinity said that “carmakers continue to seek tens of billions of taxpayer dollars, ostensibly to develop fuel-efficient vehicle technologies, but their conduct is evidence they are reluctant to embrace solutions they didn’t invent.”
While the company has plans for a hyper-efficient plug-in version of the Prius by 2011, the standard model will make relatively few upgrades to its environmentally-friendly features. “It will be cleaner, with CO2 emissions below 100gm per kilometer,” said Miguel Fonseca, a Toyota managing director. “We could have gone lower but, instead, we have chosen to give the Prius better performance.”
Flamboyant Key West is going green with hybrid taxis…not just any taxis, but the famous pink taxis! Five 6’s Taxi Company president Jan Doelman says the hybrid pink taxis “will reduce our emissions factor by 80%,” improving the existing pink fleets mileage from 12 mpg to 35 mpg.
