Gas 2.0

Fuel efficient and alternative fuel vehicles are just one part of the solution to our future transportation problems. US highways and our transportation infrastructure are both sorely outdated, and few advancements have been made to improve the actual driving experience.

One idea we covered some months ago was the Solar Roadway, which would replace traditional asphalt roads with a grid of solar-powered, self-heating roadways. These roadways would merge utility poles, plowing, road signs and warnings into a single dynamic unit. Solar Roadways has completed their first 12′ x12′ section of road, and it looks like it works!

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Could GM one day stand for “Green Motors”?

According to a recent Associated Press piece, the soon-to-retire Bob Lutz said that GM needs to hybridize its fleet to keep up with increasing fuel economy standards. This we already know, and there are plans in the works for hybrid rear-wheel drive vehicles, as well as the upcoming Volt.

But Lutz also let slip that GM was working on a line of all-electric vehicles, something the General hasn’t openly committed to yet, despite having more experience than other companies thanks to the short-lived EV1 program. Lutz’s statement seems to corroborate a recent remark by GM’s North American President that the Volt is a stepping stone to all-electric cars.

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The Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor has become synonymous in this country with law enforcement. Based on the ancient Panther platform, departments across the country loved the Crown Vic for its price, frame-on-body construction, and all around toughness. Fuel economy? Not so much.

Last Friday Ford introduced a new Police Interceptor, based on the 2010 Taurus D3 platform. In addition to improved safety and a better looking car, Ford promised the new Police Interceptor would have more horsepower and better fuel economy than the outgoing Crown Victoria.

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When we last brought you news about Firefly nearly two years ago, it was of a more hopeful nature: I had a chance to sit down with the company’s then-Senior Vice President, Mil Ovan, and discuss Firefly’s future.

At the time, Firefly seemed like it was set to take off. With lucrative military and private contracts to change out those institutions’ old hat lead-acid batteries with new ones that were supposed to provide much higher durability, longer charge capacity, and less sensitivity to temperature changes in a lighter and more compact package.

Well, that future is no more. Firefly has officially closed up shop and filed for bankruptcy. Chapter 7 to be exact. The one where all that’s left of the company is liquidated in a fire sale. Read the rest of this entry »

Peugeot and Mitsubishi have some ’splainin to do.

Mitsubishi plans to start selling their i-MiEV electric car in Europe later this year. In partnership with Mitsubishi, the i-MiEV will also be sold in Europe as the Peugeot iOn and the Citroen C-Zero.

The problem: Mitsu has said the i-MiEV will have a street price of 48,000 euros before any tax breaks and credits (roughly $66,000 US), whereas Peugeot and Citroen have said their versions of the i-MiEV will sell for less than 35,000 euros before tax breaks (about $48,000 US).

That’s a whopping price differential of 13,000 euros ($18,000 US) — for the same car! Read the rest of this entry »

Chrysler is hurting. Bad. Of the Big Three, it is in the worst shape, and its product portfolio is woefully out of date.

Their new “Italian Overlords” at Fiat are injecting some much-needed modernity into the lineup, including the very popular (in Europe) Fiat 500. Fiat even teased us with an electric Fiat 500 at the Detroit Auto Show… but no word on whether or not such a model is planned for production. So Atomik Cars beat Fiat to the punch, taking the much-lauded 500 Abarth Edition and turning it into an electric supercar.

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Is the Golden State getting ahead of itself?

Starting today, the Clean Vehicle Rebate Project will offer financial incentives of up to $20,000 towards the purchase of a new, zero-emissions and plug-in hybrid vehicles. Cars like the all-electric Tesla Roadster qualify for a $5,000 rebate, and the money can be applied towards passenger cars, commercial vehicles, and neighborhood-electric cars. But are there really enough such vehicles to justify the $4.1 million program at a time when many state governments are tightening the fiscal belt?

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As we get close to the American Le Mans series opener at Sebring, the racing news is getting piled on. So, just one more Le Mans post today, I swear!

The American Le Mans Series bills itself as “The Global Leader of Green Racing,” and they’ve got a good bit of street cred to back that up. Some of their teams now use biodegradable motor oil, and the series already has four alternatives to pure petrol power: E-85, E-10, low-sulfur diesel, and hybrid-electric. Well now you can add isobutanol to that last, as it will be running in the Dyson-Mazda Lola prototype cars this weekend.

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Like it or not, we are still stuck with the internal combustion engine for some years to come. That means in addition to gas, we need lots and lots of engine oil to keep our metal bits well lubed. As someone who changes his own oil, I’ve had my fair share of grimy, oily messes to clean up, and I know it is no good for myself or the environment.

But a new meat fat-based bio-oil could soon replace that black stuff we pump up from the ground so vigorously. Called G-Oil, it will make its racing debut at the 12 Hours of Sebring race this coming weekend as the official motor oil of the American Le Mans Series.

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Over the past three years, the idea of using silicon in lithium-ion batteries to greatly increase energy storage capacity has been an on-again, off-again proposition. But some new announcements by different groups of researchers working on silicon-based lithium-ion batteries indicate that silicon may well be a viable charge-holding battery material.

If so, electric cars with a thousand miles of range are in striking distance.

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Earlier this month, Chris brought you the official Geneva Auto Show unveiling of the Ferrari 599 HY-KERS hybrid show car. Although not as breathtaking or groundbreaking as the Porsche 918 Spyder plug-in hybrid unveiled at the same show (Ferrari must have been cursing under their breath at having the limelight stolen), the 599 HY-KERS is also an impressive work of engineering.

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Just a few weeks ago I brought you word that more than a half dozen of California’s largest and most influential police, safety and transportation associations had serious issues with California’s “Cool Cars” law because of concerns about everything from tracking of GPS braceleted criminals, to the ability of those EZ Pass tollbooths to operate, to the functioning of cell phones in emergencies.

Those associations wrote letters to the California Air Resources Board (CARB) explaining their positions and imploring CARB to reconsider. The “Cool Cars” rules are set to be finalized on May 7, making the last ditch effort by these associations even more interesting. It now appears that CARB has taken the warning seriously, and will be amending the rules in some major way to address the concerns prior to the May 7 deadline.

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I’ve had my fair share of trucks. I know they need to put up with a lot of abuse and neglect. These things are built to be used. Electric cars are coming, and soon, but it might take trucks a bit longer to catch on. Ford is taking a stab at it with its electric Transit Connect van, and Nissan is talking about an electric NV200. But neither is a pickup, and I haven’t seen too many electric trucks demonstrated. There aren’t even any truly viable hybrid pickups.

ALTe has a clever solution that sounds promising. At the World Truck Show, they unveiled an F-150 plug-in hybrid demonstration pickup with a 4-cylinder engine and a 25 kWh battery pack that they make some impressive claims about. For starters, a 52-mile all-electric range, and better gas mileage than most diesels.

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Recently, President Obama announced the first round of funding to get high-speed rail developed here in the United States. The total investment came to about $8 billion, spread out across the country from the Northeast to California. It is really nothing but a drop in the bucket when you tally the total required investment; California’s proposed high-speed rail alone could cost $40 billion or more.

Over in the UK though, the government has proposed to drop a whooping £30 Billion (about $45 billion US) into developing high-speed rail across the country. And if anyplace needs high-speed rail, it is definitely the UK.

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In an interview with the Dallas Morning News, Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, said that he doesn’t think using compressed natural gas (CNG) in vehicles makes much sense.

While he sees a dramatically increasing demand for CNG in other applications such as centralized power generation, he said that it takes such a huge investment to convert fueling stations and cars (especially long haul trucks) over to CNG, that it just doesn’t pencil out.

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