Hybrid News

Filed under: Hydrogen, Kia

Kia is reportedly considering the use of ultra-capacitors to store electrical energy in the next generation version of its fuel cell vehicle. Ultra caps have an advantage over batteries in that they can absorb and release energy much more quickly. Unfortunately, they don’t have as much capacity and are currently much more expensive. There is a lot of work being done on capacitors and EEStor has made claims of tremendous progress. So far, though, EEStor has not publicly demonstrated any prototypes of its capacitors. In its current form, the Sportage FCEV has a range of 235 miles. Interestingly Honda has gone the opposite direction for its fuel cell vehicles. The previous-generation Honda FCX used ultra-caps but those have been replaced by a lithium ion battery in the FCX Clarity.

[Source: The Telegraph]

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Original post by Sam Abuelsamid

Filed under: Biodiesel, Vegetable Oil, USA

It’s no secret to the majority of our readers that it is possible to run many older diesel engines on nothing more than straight vegetable oil. In fact, the first diesel engine, invented by Rudolph Diesel, ran on peanut oil. This fact is also well known by the students at the Michigan Technical Academy who have converted their own school buses to run on waste vegetable oil. Garden Fresh Foods in Ferndale, Michigan is providing used veggie oil that was first used to fry tortilla chips for no charge. The total cost of the fuel for the two buses that are running on 100-percent veggie oil is estimated at about 80-cents a gallon. Other buses are running on a 10-percent blend of oil and diesel fuel. As the temps in Michigan go down, the blend will be adjusted, though the students are currently hard at work solving that problem with heaters. Great work.

[Source: The Detroit News]

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Original post by Jeremy Korzeniewski

Filed under: Hydrogen, Honda, USA

The very first set of keys for Honda’s brand new FCX Clarity have been delivered to film producer Ron Yerxa and Annette Ballester. The duo took delivery of their new hydrogen fuel cell-powered FCX Clarity on Friday, July 25, 2008 at Honda of Santa Monica. Now that the first production second-gen FCX has been delivered, we’d imagine that Jon Spallino, Jim Salomon, Laura Harris, and Jamie Lee Curtis will be getting phone calls of their own in no time at all. Mr. Spallino has actually been driving an FCX for the last three years, though it was one of Honda’s first generation efforts. The new car is worlds better, featuring a new vertical flow fuel cell stack delivering a 270 mile range.
Despite the fact that Honda has delivered its first set of FCX Clarity keys, don’t go rushing to your nearest Honda dealership to get your own. There are only three U.S. dealerships certified to lease hydrogen Hondas at the moment, and all of them are in the far-left state. So, if you want one… perhaps a move to Southern Cal. is in order.

[Source: Honda]

Continue reading First keys delivered to customer for Honda FCX Clarity

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Original post by Jeremy Korzeniewski

Filed under: EV/Plug-in

Click image for a hi-res gallery of the Lightning GT

We were starting to worry. It has been 9 months since we first heard about the all electric Lightning GT sports car from England. At the time there were photographs of a sleek blue sports car with lines and curves revealing an unmistakably British pedigree. There was talk of the incorporation of the latest technological breakthroughs from both Altairnano and PML Flightlink. There was boasting of Tesla Roadster-like performance and whispers of a Ferrari-like price tag.

Since then, nothing. Had it been a figment of our collective imagination? Had they shuffled off this mortal coil or were they merely just pining for the fjords? Unlike other companies in the process of developing electric cars, there have not been company blogs keeping everyone up to date on the latest technological development or thoughts and musings of its founders and monied investors. No daily avalanche of press releases, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. There hasn’t even been so much as a drizzle of debate on internet forums as to whether the company is legit or its product is vaporware. There has only been a kind of unsettling silence that has kept me repeatedly scurrying back to their website or doing the occasional Google news search for any signs of recent respiratory activity. That is, until now.

Now, not only is there a press release to confirm that The Lightning Car Company still lives but there are new photographs pictures revealing that the car has undergone a modernizing redesign. Have the in-wheel motors survived the redesign? How about the Nanosafe battery? Hit the jump to find out.

[Source: The Lightning Car Company via EV World]
Still with me? Good. So, are the fancy PML Flightlink Hi-Pa Drive[TM] in-wheel motors and the Altairnano NanoSafe[TM] rechargeable, nano titanate battery still part of the high performance equation? Yes and yes. Both are mentioned not only in the press release, but also throughout the newly updated website. Amber Composites, the company reported to be doing the Carbon fibre/Kevlar(R) composite bodywork incorporating the aluminum honeycomb crushable impact cells, is also still associated with the project. And what about that performance? Have they fudged on their original acceleration and range figures? No and no. They are still claiming a sub 4 second 0-60 time and a 250-mile range although, of course, the web site still states that they, “reserve the right to change the design and specification without prior notice.”

While the technology and performance expectations remain the same, the body design sure has changed. Goodbye Sean Connery. Hello Daniel Craig. The new look is sleeker and more powerful than the original yet still retains that sense of British class that makes it seem worth the £150,00 price tag. And not only has the skin changed, the chassis itself has been revised. Something to do, I’m sure, with a decisive move away from the petrol-engined origins of the original model.

Hopefully we’ll get more news from these blokes before another nine months rolls by. Lots more. And by “more,” I mean details from actual road testing as well as the extension of an invitation to this writer to grip its wheel and tromp on its go-fast pedal. Until then, head up, pip pip and all that.

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD Step behind the curtain at Ford Motor. Experience the documentary first-hand.

Original post by Domenick Yoney

Filed under: Etc., Green Daily

Lately, record oil prices have been a daily topic here on AutoblogGreen because every day the old record, set the previous day, is being beaten out by the day’s closing price. Guess what? We’re back at it today. That’s right, a barrel of oil passed the $110 plateau for the first time ever. This latest price increase comes despite there being a surplus of oil available, which caused a brief dip in oil trading prices early in the day, and the fact that the demand for gasoline has remained mostly flat as of late.

These high crude oil prices have led to the highest ever average price for a gallon of regular-grade gasoline at $3.246 a gallon. Many “analysts” are attributing the cost spike to the weak dollar, which is causing investors to buy commodities at a higher-than-normal rate. Whatever the reason, perhaps the situation will scare more consumers into taking fuel efficiency more seriously when considering their next automobile purchase. If it’s not time for a new car, there are always these tips to keep in mind.

[Source: CNN Money]

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Original post by Jeremy Korzeniewski

Filed under: Hybrid, GM

I missed covering this tidbit of information last week while I was traipsing through Europe, but some interesting information emerged when GM released their March sale results. GM has been making an awful lot of noise about their two-mode hybrid system with lots of announcements about all the vehicles the system will be installed in. What they aren’t bragging much about is sales. That’s because there isn’t much to brag about. In fact it appears that the sum total of hybrid sales for all models offered by GM in the first three months of 2008 was 843. That is not a typo, it’s 843. Unlike other manufacturers, GM has never broken out sales of hybrid models from conventional versions. Perhaps this is why.

During the same period Ford moved 5,225 Escape and Mariner Hybrids and Toyota sold…well let’s just say Toyota sold a whole lot more than that. While GM has made plenty of auto show announcements about hybrids and they run lots of print and TV ads promoting their green-ness, they haven’t really done a lot to promote hybrids on the lot. Perhaps they don’t actually want to sell that many because the cost is so much higher and they don’t want to lose all that money. Or perhaps customers just don’t really want a hybrid full-size truck. Perhaps, as Troy Clarke told us at the Chicago Auto Show, they were holding them back for captured fleet testing until they were sure everything was right. Have any of you readers actually tried to find a hybrid at a dealership or tried to buy one? Let us know about your experience.

[Source: The Truth About Cars]

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Original post by Sam Abuelsamid

Filed under: Hybrid, GM

I missed covering this tidbit of information last week while I was traipsing through Europe, but some interesting information emerged when GM released their March sale results. GM has been making an awful lot of noise about their two-mode hybrid system with lots of announcements about all the vehicles the system will be installed in. What they aren’t bragging much about is sales. That’s because there isn’t much to brag about. In fact it appears that the sum total of hybrid sales for all models offered by GM in the first three months of 2008 was 843. That is not a typo, it’s 843. Unlike other manufacturers, GM has never broken out sales of hybrid models from conventional versions. Perhaps this is why.

During the same period Ford moved 5,225 Escape and Mariner Hybrids and Toyota sold…well let’s just say Toyota sold a whole lot more than that. While GM has made plenty of auto show announcements about hybrids and they run lots of print and TV ads promoting their green-ness, they haven’t really done a lot to promote hybrids on the lot. Perhaps they don’t actually want to sell that many because the cost is so much higher and they don’t want to lose all that money. Or perhaps customers just don’t really want a hybrid full-size truck. Perhaps, as Troy Clarke told us at the Chicago Auto Show, they were holding them back for captured fleet testing until they were sure everything was right. Have any of you readers actually tried to find a hybrid at a dealership or tried to buy one? Let us know about your experience.

[Source: The Truth About Cars]

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Original post by Sam Abuelsamid

Filed under: Etc., Ford

For several years, Ford has been working to reduce waste, energy use and emissions generated by its manufacturing facilities around the world. Its latest step has been to join to the Climate Registry, a non-profit group that is developing standards for reporting greenhouse gas emissions. The idea is that emissions reporting is useless unless everyone uses the same criteria to determine and record the output. Most of the U.S. states, Canadian provinces and Mexican states have adopted these standards. Companies reporting their emissions can use the same methodology in all the regions that have adopted the TCR regime. To be a member of TCR, Ford (and all other member companies and agencies) will have to measure, independently audit and publicly report greenhouse gas emissions.

[Source: Ford]

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Original post by Sam Abuelsamid

Filed under: Etc., Hybrid, MPG, Toyota

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. One aspect of energy use that’s often overlooked when comparing cars is the total lifecycle consumption. Buying a new hybrid vehicle compared to a similar sized vehicle with a conventional powertrain can certainly help you reduce. However, it takes a lot of energy to to build a car. Creating a Prius consumes 113 million BTUs of energy. Similarly, energy is required to dispose of a used car. However, those are one-time uses of energy. Fuel consumption is an ongoing variable cost. The production and disposable energy must be spread over the life of the car. The longer a car is in service, the fewer number of production and disposal BTUs per mile.

This is where Reuse comes into play. Factoring in all this energy use it may actually be better to buy a higher mileage used car than a brand new hybrid. By keeping an existing car in service that has slightly lower efficiency than a brand new one the net energy use could still be lower. However, the equation is not even as simple as all that. A ten year old car that gets 30-40mpg may actually pollute a lot more than a new car. Emissions standards have tightened over the years. And, as a car wears, the emissions typically get worse. If you choose to go for a used car, make sure it has been well maintained and that the emissions control equipment is in proper working order.

[Source: Wired Blog]

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Original post by Sam Abuelsamid