Green Options

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Over the last few months, several big car makers, including Nissan, Subaru and Mitsubishi, have announced plans to produce all-electric cars before the end of the decade, or soon after. Now Daimler has announced that it to plans to jump on the growing EV bandwagon, with plans to roll-out a Mercedes-Benz electric car in 2010. According to Chief Executive Dieter Zetsche, the company also plans to offer an electric Smart car in the same year.

At this stage, it’s unclear whether the cars will be based on an existing model, or on a completely new platform. If the former, it’s likely that the Mercedes EV will be based on either an A-Class or B-Class, as is the case with their fuel-cell prototype (pictured below).

Norwegian company Th!nk is hoping to kick start the market for electric cars with its upcoming five-seater, the Ox.

Although an Ox is not what I’d call a particularly stylish or intelligent animal, don’t let the name confuse you — the Th!nk Ox could be about the most attractive and functional electric car ever designed. Before the debate starts over that claim, note the all-important “and” between the words attractive and functional.

Due out in 2010/2011, the Ox is about the size of a Toyota Prius. It can go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in 8.5 seconds, travel between 125 and 155 miles on a single charge, and its lithium-ion batteries can be charged to 80% capacity in less than an hour.

A team at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have revealed a potential revolution in hydrogen cars, after driving 650 miles on one tank of liquid hydrogen. In a recent test, the scientists set a new world record after they installed a super-insulated hydrogen gas tank in a standard Prius hybrid that was able to keep a full load of the liquid without evaporating for six days.

The tank, weighing in at around 300 pounds, removes a heck of a lot of obstacles to the advancement of hydrogen-powered cars. Current versions, such as the fleet of hydrogen-electric Toyota Prius’s used by various city governments across Southern California, run on compressed hydrogen gas, and have a limited range of around 80 miles between refuels. Even a pretty unambitious three-gallon tank fills the entire trunk of a Prius, yet still only enables a range of approximately 200 miles, not really enough to compete with gasoline-only vehicles.

2009 Jetta TDI Clean Diesel Sedan

VW announced the pricing of the 2009 Jetta and SportWagen yesterday, along with a new fuel economy certification from the third-party certifier AMCI. It seems that VW wasn’t particularly impressed with the EPA’s 29 mpg city / 40 mpg hwy estimation, and wanted a second opinion.

There has been some general confusion circulating about fuel economy estimates for the new Jetta (which will be available in August) ever since VW’s Director of Powertrain Development announced the car could get up to 60 mpg.

In what some called a crazy stint, this April the LA crew of riders who call themselves the Crimanimalz hit the highway to make a statement in a city renowned for its hours and hours of commuter traffic. The ride through the city’s Friday commuter traffic jam, also dubbed the “If You Rode a Bike You’d be Home by Now Ride,” is now a monthly event. Check out images of [...]

I’m eagerly awaiting the 4-door, family-sized EV sedan rumored to be in the pipeline from the Canadian-based ZENN Motor Company (they already make a great 2-door model that’s even affordable to us non-celebrity types, picture above). I’d like to avoid going to the gas station at all when going to an Energy Fair or Green Festival. While our VW Jetta TDI gets more than 40 mpg, these days the cost for diesel (and biodiesel when I can get it) is quite a bit more than gasoline, and rising faster than gas.

For now, we’re moving around locally in a funky-looking, all-electric CitiCar, made in 1974. Our CitiCar is restored to roughly original condition (except for the wear and tear on the body itself) with the expert help of our neighbor who found two more after we found ours. It’s hard to go anywhere without people cutting me off — not out of rage — but curiosity or with a smile on their face. Sometimes getting a “head turner” doesn’t need to come at a huge price.

New car industry start-up Mindset, has announced plans to sell a gasoline-electric hybrid next year. The 2+2-seater hybrid, called the Six50, boasts an electric-only range of 100km (62 miles) via a built-in Li-Ion battery. A two-cylinder gasoline motor, which kicks in as a generator as required, boosts the range to 800km (496 miles). Battery charging is further assisted by integrated roof-top solar panels.

The Six50 tag hints at the target weight of 650kg (1430 lbs). However, according to recent reports, the prototype, composed of a plastic body built around an aluminum frame, tips the scales at a still fairly lightweight 800kg. According to Mindset, this means the car can achieve decent levels of performance. The 70kw (95hp) motor should enable speeds of up to 140km/h (75mph) and acceleration from 0-100km/h (0-60mph) in under six seconds.

The company was established by Marat Gunak, former head of design at Volkswagen, with backing from Swiss billionaire Lorenzo Schmid. According to Gunak, most cars are currently “too big, too heavy, too expensive,” a trend that he hopes to help overturn with the Six50.

Honda has started rolling the first US specification FCX Clarity hydrogen fuel cell sedans off a production line in Japan to be delivered to a small group of hand-picked high-profile California test customers. Leases to these customers, including Jamie Lee Curtis, are scheduled to begin in July.

The combined sales plan for the US and Japan calls for a few dozen to be leased the first year with about 200 total units leased over the next three years.

My first post on green walking provided some hopefully handy tips for you to go walkabout, to get out in nature and do some green walking. In the age where any travel that is not sustainable is terribly costly in many, many ways, it is more imperative than ever for each of us to become a peripatetic.

But here is the good news: Green walking is not just “nature walking” per se, not just walkabout. Green walking is also ideal for city travel…helping cut down on many kinds of pollution, smog that obscures the lovely natural views everywhere, travel expenses, resource consumption, and driver rage, just to name a few things.

In order to facilitate your transition from commuter to sustainable commuter, from walker to green walker, I offer here a few more tips on green walking in a city environment…on going urban walkabout.

1. Like walkabouts in nature, urban walkabouts should be as sensual as possible. Although some urban settings have been deliberately “greened up” with strategic flowerbeds, parks, and eco-friendly architecture, many cities are truly urban jungles–forests of concrete. But even here you can listen to the cooing of pigeons or find some green things struggling for life in the cracks of sidewalks. And there are often flower shops, produce stands, and pets to be encountered. So enjoy these instances of nature-here-and-now whenever you can. Of course, the sun is almost always shining–or if not, then rain is falling or wind is blowing–so you still can likely get some sensual stimulation on your urban walkabout if you pay attention.

How would you like to drive an all-electric Mini? An EV Smart Car? A PT Cruiser? With the help of Hybrid Technologies, you can. They’ve taken many familiar vehicles, ripped out their engines, and replaced them with lithium batteries and electric motors.

On the surface it makes great sense and it seems there would be a huge demand for this sort of thing. Electric cars are nearly maintenance free. They don’t need oil changes and they have 90% fewer parts than gas cars. Plus, these EVs look like the normal cars that are already popular with many folks.

There was a time when commercial shipping was an emissions free transportation mode that required little or no fuel. Inventors, craftsmen, and engineers all worked to refine the hulls, sails and control systems and skilled people spent their entire careers figuring out weather patterns, determining efficient loading schemes, and recognizing opportunities for transporting goods with a long shelf life. When things went well, owning sailing ships was a lucrative investment.

Of course, there were some limitations of that technology that encouraged a number of very smart, number crunching businessmen and engineers to look for a better way. Sailing ship limitations included time consuming voyages, space and weight constraints, inability to maintain a schedule, dependence on poorly paid or forced labor, vulnerability to numerous natural hazards, and a high mortality rate caused by lack of good nutrition and clean water.