Solar Powered Rickshaws ready for the streets of India

Posted by Bradley Wint on January 11th, 2010 at 11:07 am

If you thought only car makers were finding new ways to power vehicles, the Indian Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has developed an electric/human-powered hybrid Rickshaw to help drivers get to their destinations faster. On top of that, they are also promoting zero-emissions transport by ditching the regular fuel supplies such as petrol or diesel.

The Soleckshaws are battery powered and can reach speeds up to 9 mph with a distance of about 25 miles per charge. The good thing about this is that drivers won’t have to plug their vehicles into a wall socket and wait for it to recharge. Instead they can head to assigned stations, exchange the drained battery for a new and fully charged cell for a small fee, thus saving them on lost trips. Also, the Council was in favor of electric power to help drivers reduce their pedalling time. According to them, an average drivers gets only 1600 calories a day due to the constant pedaling, which is well below the 4,000 calories needed. This puts them at risk of getting TB due to malnutrition. With battery power, they can more easily retain those needed calories.

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Mercedes S-Class Hybrid Electric model coming soon

Posted by Bradley Wint on January 5th, 2010 at 9:00 am

Mercedes R&D execs have stated that customers should except a hybrid S-Class when the new model is introduced.

The model which is powered by both a battery and petrol engine, is expected to do about 80 mpg and is expected to chug out less then 100 g/km, which works well for the EU emissions policies implemented. They have increased the aerodynamics and reduced some of the weight making it much more efficient. However, there is not going to be a fully electric model, simply because today’s batteries are still not able to keep up with what they need to power.

There will be other 6 and 8 cylinder petrol models that will be made available.

[Via: AutoCar | Image]

Porsche to create lower emissions Boxster

Posted by Bradley Wint on January 4th, 2010 at 10:03 am

A spokesman at Porsche has confirmed that they may most likely include a lower-end Porsche Boxster model that would be more in keeping with EU’s CO2 emission laws.

As a result, customers may expect either a regular 4-cylinder or a 3-cylinder turbocharged engine. They expect it to pump out just 180 g/km of CO2 with power ranging between 180-200bhp. The company has decided to start on the project from now because of pending complications with regards to VW’s ownership of the company.
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Thailand Gov’t aiming to double ethanol usage by 2011

Posted by Bradley Wint on January 3rd, 2010 at 11:00 am

With the price of regular gasoline/petrol still at high rates, people are turning to alternative methods of fuel to power their cars, even going out of their ways to get new and more compatible vehicles.

The government of Thailand has promoted the use of Ethanol fuel over the past few years by currently offering E10 and E20 blends of fuel. As a result, there has been a rapid increase in the sale of E20 and E85 compatible vehicles. Presently, the country sells about 1.5 million liters of Ethanol fuel mixes, and they hope to push that figure to 2 million in 2010 and then up to 3 million by 2011.

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Chevy Volt to be built in Detroit

Posted by Bradley Wint on December 8th, 2009 at 9:44 am

Chevrolet has announced that they will be building their 2010 Volt at the Hamtramck plant in Detroit, Michigan.

The car will be manufactured on existing lines, while some of the newer components are set to be produced elsewhere and then shipped to the plant for assembly. Prototype production will begin in the spring of 2010 and full scale production will initiate later down in the year. The Euro brother to the Volt, the Vauxhall/Opel Amperas will also initially be built at the Detroit plant before they move over to the European plant.

“The Detroit-Hamtramck plant is expected to be the first facility in the US owned by a major auto maker to produce an electric car.

“With GM at the lead, electric vehicle development is creating entire new industries. This includes battery developers, builders of home and commercial charging stations, and power control and electric motor suppliers.” – Jon Lauckner, Vice President of Global Product Planning, GM

[Via: GM]

Mercedes AMG Diesels in the future?

Posted by Bradley Wint on November 30th, 2009 at 8:00 am

With rising economic costs, diesel has been quite a desired alternative fuel source to the regular petrol our V8s and V12s guzzle up. Racing teams are using it now with great success. In the Le Mans Endurance series, Audi has been raking up victories with their R10 TDi and SEAT it taking home victories in WTCC with their Leon TDi. These are just the few teams that are making diesel work for them.

Mercedes’ AMG line may now be considering diesel technology to power their souped-up sports cars. According a report posted by Whatcar, AMG’s C-Class, E-Class, SLK and SL-Class Product Manager Oliver Wiech did not exclude the possibilities of diesel-powered engines in their future models.

“We are taking an open view and looking at lots of options, but if you look at our announcement on the electric SLS, you can see what is in the future.” – Oliver Wiech

Diesel seems to be a possibility and electric power is a definite in the future for AMG.

[Via: WCF | Image: Daimler Press]

Saving the environment can be fun

Posted by Bradley Wint on October 14th, 2009 at 5:05 pm

VW has come up with an extremely innovative campaign called “The Fun Theory” where they attempt to convince ordinary and unsuspecting citizens to try out some cost saving techniques without them even realizing it. The first video (above) shows them converting a subway staircase into a huge piano. Each step represents a key that makes an actual piano noise/tone when people walk upon it. It was made to encourage folks to use the staircase rather than the electric escalator.

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CARB’s Cool Car tech puts Soft Top Vehicles at risk of extinction?

Posted by Bradley Wint on October 13th, 2009 at 12:52 pm

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) recently implemented a new regulation called “Cool Car” which states that car windows need to be specially glazed to cut out 60% of the sun’s rays by the year 2016. As a result of this new glass technology, the soft top Jeep Wrangler may no longer be able to be sold in the California region due to the restriction.

The glass will have microscopic pieces of metal oxide embedded within the sheet that will help in reflecting the sun’s rays. This would reduce the heat inside the car and basically assisting in lowering the required energy to cool the car. As a result, there would be a significant fuel savings, since the air condition system pulls a lot of electricity.

However, the side effects of this metallic technology is that it will most likely affect GPS systems, garage openers, cell phones and other devices that use wave technology (due to the high concentration of metal). Also vehicles that have soft tops with plastic back windows would be in a predicament if the CARB board want all the windows to be made of this new material. The Wrangler would be one of the more popular Cali vehicles to suffer from this new regulation.

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Mercedes Blue-Zero E-Cell Information

Posted by Ilia Lou on August 19th, 2009 at 4:29 pm

During the Detroit Auto Show in 2009, Mercedes introduced a new concept for the future, called the Mercedes-Benz Blue-Zero E-Cell. It’s not the prettiest car ever, but it’s definitely beneficial to the environment.

The car has the same engine as you get in a Smart ForTwo, a turbocharged 3 cylinder, along with batteries which can  power the car for a whole 62 miles. With a full tank of gas and fully charged batteries, the car will go 373 miles before stopping. Like in most hybrids, the batteries can be charged during braking. In the E-Cell however, the engine itself is also used for powering the batteries, and if needed it drives the wheels. You can’t really expect much performance out of this car, but Mercedes say it will go from 0-60 in 11 seconds, which is…well let’s just say it’s a bit faster then what I was expecting.

Via: Detroit Auto Show

Nissan fires back at Volt with its Leaf 367mpg rating

Posted by Bradley Wint on August 12th, 2009 at 12:19 pm

After the recent announcement that Chevy’s Volt could do 230 miles per gallon, Nissan has lashed back by saying their green electric can do up to 367mpg. They even took a stab at the pricing strategy of both cars.

“Nissan Leaf = 367 mpg, no tailpipe, and no gas required. Oh yeah, and it’ll be affordable too!” – Nissan EV Twitter page

Now here is the catch22 here. The leaf is a totally electric car. It doesn’t use any form of gasoline at all, so the question is… how did they come up with 367 miles per gallon when no gas is being used? Are they some how calculating how much gas was used to make the amount of electricity to charge the car? Who knows.

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