As Tesla Dreams, ZAP! Delivers Literally
December 19th, 2007
Photos courtesy of ZAP! Electric Vehicles.
Time to Fill up the MetroCards
December 19th, 2007
Photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Nissan Forum Isn’t a Minivan–Really! But It’s Got a Microwave
December 18th, 2007
yesterday between Nissan and Chrysler for producing their cars under an O.E.M. agreement. Nissan is interested in Chrysler”s trucks and minivans. Chrysler is eyeing Nissan”s subcompacts.
In any case, the Forum features a two-seat second-row bench seat with motorized swiveling that can face forward or turn to face the third-row seats. When you open the doors at the rear–instant tailgate party! The rear hatch creates an exterior sound system. Cameras mounted in the headliner give the driver a view of the second- and third-row seats on the dash-mounted screen so as to monitor squabbling children or overly affectionate adolescents. And there”s a microwave in the center console, which is at least big enough to cook a bag of popcorn.
This is clearly a vehicle designed for people who live on streets called Live Oak Terrace and Deer Field Way. Nissan”s track record for minivans has been hit and miss. The vehicle category, whatever you call it, still has plenty of viability.
Source: AutoWeek
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These Are Bad Days to Nay-Say Ethanol
December 18th, 2007
Food prices are already rising and livestock farmers are simmering over the soaring costs of feed. No matter: the energy bill making its way to President Bush”s desk will tie up millions of acres of crop land for raising fuel.
No one knows the ramifications. The ethanol mandate tucked into the bill just passed by Congress is that many of its effects won”t be felt for years as major parts of the economy shift to raise fuel. In the short term, however, it”s almost certainly going to mean higher costs for food items that range from milk to beef to bread to beer. To be sure, those prices have been rising anyway–thanks, ironically, to higher fuel costs. Ethanol should help reduce U.S. dependency on foreign oil. Whether or not it will bring down the price of fuel will depend greatly on tax-payer subsidies to farmers and producers in the short term. Over the long haul, it will depend on how quickly other, more efficient forms of biofuels can reach commercial production. And this is only one way that ethanol will become a political football.
What are the politics of corn? Read after the jump.
Presidential hopefuls are working crowds in corn-state Iowa even as the energy bill marches forward. You won”t hear a discouraging word about ethanol from either party. But yesterday the World Trade Organization dropped a little bomb on farmers by opening an investigation into trade-distorting handouts to American producers of corn, among other crops.
Fights over tax-payer subsidies will only grow noiser as the industry reaches (or tries to reach) its Congressional mandates of 21 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2022. And then come the water fights. Corn is a thirsty crop and ethanol distillers, which are typically built on the edges of corn country, also use prodigious amounts of water. Depleted aquifers and other water sources are already a source of political contention in Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and other corn states. You can expect those fights to get much nastier.
Higher food prices hit even harder. But so do the buisness opportunities of raising fuel for export to America. One worry is that farmers in developing nations will stop raising food for local consumption because exports are more lucrative.
Sources: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, BBC
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New York City Orders 850 Hybrid Transit Buses
December 18th, 2007
The largest transit agency in North America has ordered 850 diesel-electric buses and will have the world”s largest fleet of hybrids when the vehicles hit the streets of New York in 2010.
The systems once the vehicles are delivered, officials said.
Daimler said the buses use about 30 percent less fuel than conventional models. The Orion VII is a series hybrid, meaning it is powered entirely by an electric motor. The small diesel engine runs a generator that charges the vehicle”s lithium-ion battery. The buses also use regenerative braking in which braking forces produce current to charge the batteries. Daimler claims the Orion VII emits 90 percent less soot than conventional buses because the diesel engine runs at a nearly constant speed.
Transit systems around the world are increasingly turning to hybrids to reduce pollution and fuel costs. Daimler said of Ottawa ordered 202 Orion VII buses on Monday, bringing to 2,600 the number of Orion buses ordered since it launched the hybrid model four years ago.
in Seattle uses were 15 percent less than conventional buses.
buses - beginning in 2012, a move officials said would cut carbon dioxide emissions by 200,000 tons annually.
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For Chrysler This Year, a Lump of Coal
December 18th, 2007
for the year, no shocker there. What”s caught many auto analysts off guard is the magic that private equity was supposed to confer on the company looks like its biggest liability going forward.
Cerberus has made all the right moves to give it advantage over its publicly held competitors. Days after concluding a sweeheart labor deal, it announced the to jointly supply automobiles in a cost-cutting move.
So what went wrong? Read after the jump.
Unfortunately, Chrysler has crashed into the subprime housing catastrophe. American consumers, feeling poorer and unable to tap easy money for car loans, are scaling back car purchases. This has hurt all automakers, however. But Cerberus has gotten hit both ways. It”s going to need piles of cash if it hopes to turn Chrysler around. That money is evaporating because of the credit crunch resulting from the housing crisis. And Cerberus is up to its woo-woo in other sour deals.
Private-equity dogmatists had cheered Cerberus”s buyout of Chrysler because of the ruthless turnaround tactics that are difficult to pull off in publicly held companies. But the truth is that Cerberus managers are just flip artists. The strategy has backfired. And Cerberus will either have to dig in for the long haul in managing a car company–or pay someone, as Daimler did, to tow Chrysler away.
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Electric Dragster Sets New Speed Record: 8.10 Seconds @ 153.6 mph
December 17th, 2007
The man often called "the Thomas Edison of electric drag racing" has shattered his own top speed record by more than half a second, tearing through the quarter mile at 8.10 seconds and soundly spanking more than a few fossil-fueled cars.
Dennis "Kilowatt" Berube made five runs in his latest rail, ago in Sacramento. But it was his last run of the day that really got everyone”s attention as he accelerated almost silently to 153.6 mph to set the National Hot Rod Association“s Super Pro world speed record for electric dragsters.
"People think of electric vehicles as golf carts, but as Dennis” new world record shows, electric vehicles are extremely powerful and capable of impressive speeds," said Alan Gotcher, president and CEO of Altair Nanontechnologies, which produces the lithium titanate batteries Berube uses.
Berube is a pioneer in electric drag racer with more than 4,700 runs to his credit, and he routinely beats conventional gasoline- and alcohol-fueled dragsters in the Super Pro class. There”s a good profile of him over at Megawatt Motorworks.
The title of fastest electric vehicle still belongs to KillaCycle, an electric motorcycle that made at the Pomona dragstrip last month.
Bolt-on Kit Converts Common Fleet Vehicles to Ethanol
December 17th, 2007
A company located in the heart of corn country has developed what it calls the first bolt-on kit that safely and easily converts the most common fleet vehicles to ethanol, and it could offer kits for more popular cars and trucks by the end of next year.
The Flex-Box Smart Kit from by the Environmental Protection Agency, meaning it meets all emissions regulations and won”t void the manufacturer”s warranty.
So far it only works on the Ford and Lincoln Town Car. Flex Fuel says it started with those models because they are the most common passenger vehicles used in police, taxi and municipal fleets.
"Many government, city, state and federal and chauffeured fleets are major oil consumers, so our goal is to help this country save taxpayers money, wean itself off foreign oil and support our local farmers and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions," said Chris Disher, the company”s chief financial officer.
While automakers offer a of flex fuel vehicles and about 6 million vehicles on the road can burn E85, the Flex-Box Smart Kit allows older cars to be retrofitted. It works with existing fuel tanks, fuel injectors and other equipment, and a computer mounted under the hood continuously monitors the engine management and emissions systems to deliver supplemental fuel injection as needed.
than gasoline - and an 85 drop reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Critics of ethanol note that it takes more energy to produce and transport the stuff than is generated by burning it, and vehicles that run on ethanol often get worse fuel economy than those burning gasoline. It can also be hard to find E85 outside of the midwest, as there are of Representatives calling for a five-fold increase in the production of ethanol and other renewable fuels by 2022, ethanol supporters say the fuel is here to stay.
The Flex-Box kit costs about $1,200 when installed by AAMCO Transmissions. Flex Fuel U.S. is developing kits for the Dodge Charger, Chrysler 300, Ford Mustang and Ford F-150 pickup and hopes to have them available by late next year.
Dash Navigation GPS System Goes on Presale Today
December 17th, 2007
for $600, which includes three months of service. Monthly fees are $13.00, or $11 if you sign up for a year. The company said they”ll start shipping in February.
Representatives from the company visited Wired on Friday and gave us a little demo — and I have to say I totally want one.
The nice part is there”s one monthly fee for all of the devices many features — no various levels of membership. Everyone gets the Yahoo! Local search, the real time traffic reports (it”s the first system to use peer-to-peer technology to gather traffic data), and gas station locations with current prices. Plus, unlike typical GPS systems, none of the information gets outdated as long as the online services stay current.
Another feature they might add in the future is a link with So if you drive by a house that”s for sale and you want to know the price, you can just punch in the address. But probably a good idea to pull over first. It”s not illegal in California to manipulate a GPS device like it soon will be to dial a phone, but the company doesn”t recommend Dashing and driving.
Women Who Find Ferrari Drivers Sexy Contribute to Global Warming?
December 17th, 2007
We doubt this came up last week at the United Nation”s conference on global warming in Bali, but Britain”s top government scientist says the best thing women can do to ease global warming is “stop admiring young men in Ferraris.”
Yes, you read that right. Sir David King, a chemist at the University of Cambridge, says the world would be a greener place if only women didn”t find men in exotic cars so sexy. Taken at face value, it seems outlandish - and some would argue chauvinistic - but King raises a valid point, even if it is obscured by the “sports cars and the women who love men who drive them are bad” tenor of his argument.
King, the UK”s chief scientific advisor, told the there”s only so much governments can do to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, and real progress will come only through cultural change. People, he said, must take a greater personal role in addressing the issue. He singled out women who find drivers of expensive sports cars “sexy” and said they should instead focus their affection on men in more eco-friendly autos:
“I was asked at a lecture by a young woman about what she could do and I told her stop admiring young men in Ferraris. What I was saying is you have got to admire people who are conserving energy and not those willfully using it.”
King”s comments, as you might expect, brought a sharp rebuke from Ferrari owners…
with pushing the issue to the top of the British government”s agenda. He is known for controversial comments, perhaps most famously his claim three years ago that global warming poses a greater threat than terrorism. King played a key role in pushing the U.K. to go beyond the emissions reductions outlined in the Kyoto Protocol, but tells the Telegraph:
“Government has so many levers it can pull - when it comes to the business sector, it is quite effective. As soon as you come to individuals, however, they will buy a Ferrari, not because it is cheap to run or has low carbon dioxide emissions, but because young women think it is sexy to see men driving Ferraris. That is the area where a culture change is needed.”
Peter Everingham, secretary of the Ferrari Owners Club, tells the Telegraph “nearly 90 percent” of Ferrari owners are married and so “are not looking to impress women.” It also should be noted that Ferrari is aware of its contribution, whatever it may be, to carbon dioxide emissions and vows to produce greener, more fuel efficient cars.
King claims he wasn”t condemning Ferraris or those who might find their drivers sexy, but offering an example of the cultural shift that must occur if we are to seriously address global climate change.
It”s a valid point. A found roughly three in four Americans believe global warming is real, but just 47 percent believe human activity - i.e. burning fossil fuels - is to blame. What”s more, most Americans don”t consider it a pressing issue. Another survey, by AC Nielsen, places the U.S. toward the bottom of 46 nations with regard to its attitudes on the issue.
Perhaps more telling, a recent found 37 percent of respondents believed their actions were responsible for global warming, but only 20 percent thought they bear any responsibility to do something about it.
Most felt the problem should be addressed by the business and government sectors.
