By Josie Garthwaite November 5th, 2009
A relative newcomer to the U.S. market, Electric Vehicles International, has just moved to Stockton, Calif., from its former Toluca, Mexico, headquarters and office in Texas.
The company has some new friends in California. As the LA Times’ Up to Speed blog reports, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and other politicians were on hand yesterday for the unveiling of EVI’s new headquarters - the latest addition to the electric vehicle manufacturing industry in which California hopes to have a growing role.
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Posted 4 months ago at
6:01 am.
Tuesday, 03 November 2009
Results Show Consistent 22% Average Reduction of CO2 Emissions & Equally Impressive Mileage Improvement
an H2GO retrofit - good for all the diesel guzzlers already on the road - till more hybrid electrics come along. 
AUSTIN, TX--(Marketwire) - Ronn Motor Company (maker of a 40 mpg supercar) announced today that the results for the over-the-road field trials have been finalized for the big-rig, diesel powered Volvo fleet trucks.
With more than 100,000 miles of on-road field trials completed, operating under various vehicle load factors and diverse driving conditions, H2GO has once again proven its durability and functionality on late model, big-rig Volvo fleet trucks. The H2GO systems have been functioning as anticipated, delivering anywhere from 18% to 40% reduction in CO2 gases, as well as an equally impressive mileage improvement. Throughout the duration of this field trial, H2GO has been consistent, providing an overall 22% average improvement.
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Posted 4 months ago at
7:43 am.
Jay Leno's 1964 Chrysler Turbine car * Jay's Jet
Mopar Action mag. Feb. 2010 (10-27-2009)
After World War II, Chrysler launched whole hog into the field of automotive turbines. They hired as many technological experts as they could find - metallurgists, mechanics, engineers, turbine specialists and started refining the technology to put a jet engine into a car and make it practical for everyday use. That required making the engines smaller, Inexpensive, more efficient and, let's face it, idiot-proof. Have you ever seen the cockpit of a Boeing 727? Could you toss the airliner keys to an average American driver and say, "Hey, drive this thing around the tarmac for a while"?
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Posted 4 months, 1 week ago at
11:18 am.
If you are using your own windows computer to browse the Internet, take defensive action
Microsoft is putting you at risk, not only with Internet Explorer but now, they are putting their malware into Firefox.
from daniweb.com, Oct 18th, 2009, by Davey Winder
"Microsoft installed without permission a hard-to-remove Firefox extension"
Odd, [sinister], is't it; how Microsoft kicked up a fuss when Google announced the Chrome plugin for Internet Explorer on the [false] grounds that it could make the browser more insecure. Yet, amazingly, Microsoft sees no such problem with installing a plugin into the Firefox browser. What's more it is installed without asking the permission of the user and, he says with more than a hint of irony, it left Firefox vulnerable to a drive-by exploit.
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Posted 4 months, 3 weeks ago at
10:59 am.
Oct 17th, 2009
Good! Now, tell the same truth about the oil industry and global warming
Earlier this week, the health insurance lobby AHIP (America's Health Insurance Plans) issued a false and dishonest report claiming that the Baucus health care bill would increase health care costs. Even the firm hired to do the analysis -- PriceWaterhouseCoopers -- denied the report's conclusions. The insurance lobby's strategy backfired as it appeared to alienate Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), who voted with the Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee. But Republicans dutifully peddled the study to try to sink health reform. In his weekly address, President Obama struck back at the insurance lobby, calling them out for their deception and deceit:
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Posted 4 months, 3 weeks ago at
5:47 pm.
Most Arctic sea ice "gone in decade"
By Tom Lowe, Press Association - Thursday, 15 October 2009 Arctic-shipping-no-ice.jpg
The Arctic Ocean will be an "open sea" almost entirely free from ice within a decade, the latest data released today indicates. "The ice in summer will be shrinking back to it's last bastion north of Greenland and Ellesmere Island, so within a decade we will see a largely ice-free Arctic Ocean in summer.
Drilling and observation figures obtained during a 450km route across the northern part of the Beaufort Sea suggest the area is almost entirely made up of young, "first-year" ice, whereas the region traditionally consists of older, thicker "multi-year" ice.
Furthermore, ice cover during the summer months will have entirely disappeared within 20 years, but most of the decrease will happen before 2020, leaving the Arctic Ocean clear for even the largest ships. {no ice breakers needed!}.
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Posted 4 months, 3 weeks ago at
3:45 pm.
10-10-2009 The Electric Tesla Acid Test
Automoblie mag.; by Jason Cammisa, photos by Brian Konoske
"we had to live with one, make it part of the family, treat it like any enthusiast car, and plug it in at night."
The assignment was simple, or so it seemed. I'd spend a week driving the Tesla Roadster, using it as I would any other car, to see if it was compatible with the lifestyle of someone who has gasoline running through his veins and whose entire identity hangs on the cars he drives.
I will admit to having preconceived notions of how this would work out. I figured that, after the Tesla was flatbedded a few times due to running out of juice, electrical fires, or general mechanical malaise, I would decree the Roadster to be nothing but hype, a pretend green statement for passionless, soulless people who never exceed the speed limit.
But I was completely wrong.
I'm breaking every speed limit in the county ** it explodes off the line ** like a small jet plane ** all of the power is available instantly ** such instantaneous potential to tear a hole in traffic ** this is the world's fastest car. It's like driving a Lamborghini with a big V-12 revved over 6000 rpm at all times, waiting to pounce - without the noise, vibration, or misdemeanor arrest for disturbing the peace ** Every other car on the road suddenly seems so old tech
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Posted 4 months, 4 weeks ago at
7:23 am.
Car Magazine, 10-10-2009. by Phil McNamara and Ben Pulman at the Frankfurt Motor Show, Tuesday Sept. 15th 2009;
The world switches on to electric cars
THE ELECTRIC CAR'S time has come. Zero-emission supercars, battery-powered city cars, plug-in hybrids and diesel hybrids: cars with electric drive dominated this month's Frankfurt motor show like never before. This time, they were production-ready cars with on-sale dates in 2010 and 2011, not far-flung concepts. Plenty of those too, mind.
By 2015, Renault predicts EVs will account for 30% of its sales; by 2020, Ghosn estimates 10% of all car sales could be purely electric. The buzz isn't just surrounding utility vans and family cars: Mercedes-Benz's Frankfurt centrepiece was a four-wheel drive electric version of its SLS AMG. With its gullwing doors and 4sec 0-62mph sprint, it was every inch a supercar - except it traded profligate mpg and C02 for zero emissions, and a V8's glorious bellow for hollow silence.
Other countries are further ahead. The entrepreneurial Better Place will provide 500,000 charging points in Israel by 2011, while EDF Energy will develop France's network. Denmark, Portugal, Switzerland, Ireland, Monaco, China and some key US states have forged EV partnerships with Renault-Nissan.
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Posted 4 months, 4 weeks ago at
8:49 am.
hybrid powerplant standard equipment in the next-generation of the S-Class, due in 2014.
the entire Mercedes lineup will soon be hybrids
Mercedes has built a Mercedes S Class that can average 73 mpg!
Some recent plug-in hybrid prototypes have been pretty spartan affairs. Little, frugal-looking cars. Perfect utilitarian transport. Perfect cars for a downsize life.
Now comes just the opposite: Mercedes-Benz's big plug-in S-Class beast. The Vision S500 plug-in hybrid that will be shown in Frankfurt next week is a hunking monster of a car. Big to start with, Mercedes adds about 900 pounds of lithium-ion battery and electrical equipment.
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Posted 4 months, 4 weeks ago at
8:13 am.
By Patrick Hong; Road And Track magazine; OCT. 11, 2009
62 mpg; recharge in 44 minutes; travel 31 mi. on batteries alone; and, a top speed of 155 mph.
As a plug-in full hybrid with a turbodiesel engine, upward-pivoting doors and radical styling, BMW's 4-seat Vision Efficient-Dynamics concept car -- now on display at the Frankfurt auto show -- is packed with technology enabling it to be both frugal and fast.
The Vision concept is powered by three sources: two electric motors (one at each axle, giving the car all-wheel drive in electric mode) and a turbodiesel engine (in front of the rear axle). The synchronous electric motor in front can provide a continuous output of 80 horsepower and peak torque of 162 lb.-ft. via a two-stage, single-speed reduction gearbox. For that extra kick needed when passing, the same motor can deliver 112 hp for up to 30 sec., and up to 139 hp for 10 sec.
In back, the second electric motor resides between the mid-mounted turbodiesel and BMW's 6-speed DCT twin-clutch gearbox driving the rear axle. It is rated to serve up 33 hp continuously (51 hp peak) and maximum torque of 214 lb.-ft. Combined, the two electric motors can carry double duty in propelling the car, or serve as regenerative powerplants to recharge the onboard lithium-polymer batteries.
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Posted 4 months, 4 weeks ago at
7:27 am.
10-10-2009 Car magazine Nov. 2009 page 29 * By Ben Oliver
If it clears the final hurdles before production begins in 2012, you're looking at the future's most important family car.
ENGINE : AC electric motor, 150bhp, 2721b ft ** TRANSMISSION : Single-speed reduction gear, front-wheel drive ** PERFORMANCE 19.0sec 0-60mph, 100mph, 176mpg, 40g/km ** WEIGHT : 1600kg (est) ** ON SALE : 2012
THE NEW VAUXHALL Ampera - also known as the Chevy Volt - has had probably the most prolonged, public gestation of any car in history. Journalists have been given almost unrestricted access to the project since it was no more than a glimmer in Bob Lutz's gimlet eye. I first found out about it in the basement room of a London hotel in December 2006, when the father of the Volt, GM engineer Jon Lauckner, [that makes Martin Eberhart, at Tesla Motors the grandfather, see above] flew in to brief us on the concept they planned to launch at the Detroit show that January. It was so important to General Motors - and so radical - that it couldn't risk us idiot hacks missing or misunderstanding it in the melee of a motor show.
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Posted 4 months, 4 weeks ago at
6:53 am.
9:04 p.m. Oct. 9, 2009, By MARK PHELAN
The Chevrolet Volt moved significantly closer to America's driveways as the last pre-production version of the extended-range electric vehicle rolled out of General Motors' test-assembly facility in Warren Friday.
Gliding so silently through the factory aisles that quality auditor Shelia Asunto beeped a discreet pedestrian-alert horn to let workers know it was coming, the Volt's next stop is GM's Milford proving ground and a career in hostile environments to make sure its electric drivetrain functions in extreme temperatures.
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Posted 5 months ago at
4:13 pm.
4:00AM Saturday Oct 10, 2009
TOKYO - It's Hyundai rather than the up-and-coming Chinese or the leaner meaner Americans that has the Japanese seriously worried. Talk to any Japanese motor company executive and he is likely to say the South Korean car company is rapidly emerging as the most feared competitor to Japan's world-leading car companies.
Hyundai, which has Kia as an affiliate, recently grabbed a 5 per cent global market share for the first time, despite a declining global market. These days, Hyundai and Kia form the world's fifth-largest automotive group and have seen sales surge in the United States and Europe, with only Toyota, the world's biggest carmaker, outselling it among the Japanese.
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Posted 5 months ago at
10:44 am.
By Alan Ohnsman, Bloomberg; Saturday, October 10, 2009
Oil Co's, General Motors Co., Toyota Motor Corp. and other automakers want to sell consumers electric cars powered by hydrogen within six years. Their plans clash with the U.S. government’s infrastructure priorities.
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Posted 5 months ago at
7:05 am.
Saturday, 10 October 2009 13:02 UK; By Richard Black; Environment correspondent, BBC News website
A new historical record of carbon dioxide levels suggests current political targets on climate may be "playing with fire", scientists say.
Researchers used ocean sediments to plot CO2 levels back 20 million years.
Levels similar to those now commonly regarded as adequate to tackle climate change were associated with sea levels 80 feet to 130 feet higher than today!
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Posted 5 months ago at
6:52 am.
Mercedes S-Class Gets a Hybrid
The stunningly quiet 2010 Mercedes S400 hybrid produces 295 hp and gets 33 mpg on the highway.
By Wes Raynal of AutoWeek
Mercedes-Benz has been busy. Having just introduced a new E-class, it now presents the 2010 S-class. The lineup includes the S400 hybrid, and the first production Mercedes hybrid is aimed squarely at Lexus's LS 600h.
The S-class hybrid, based on the long-wheelbase S-class, was introduced at the Shanghai motor show. The car is powered by the 3.5-liter Mercedes V6 gasoline engine. The engine will be familiar to C-Class and E-class owners, though it's not exactly the same, because in the hybrid, the V6 has new cylinder heads, pistons and camshafts. Combined with the hybrid system, the engine produces 295 hp and 284 lb-ft of torque and is mated to the Mercedes seven-speed automatic transmission. The small lithium-ion battery-hybrid system is neatly integrated, and the battery - the first lithium-ion used in a production car - is guaranteed for the life of the car. The hybrid system adds 165 pounds.
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Posted 5 months ago at
8:19 pm.
Filed under:
NEWS,
Peak Oil
Warning over global oil decline
02:50 GMT, Thursday, 8 October 2009 03:50 UK, BBC News
There is a "significant risk" that global production of conventional oil could "peak" and decline by 2020, a report has warned.
The report's authors also state that
the 10 largest oil producing fields in the world are all in decline.
The UK Energy Research Council study says there is a general consensus that the era of cheap oil is at an end. But it warns that most governments, including the UK's, exhibit little concern about oil depletion.
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Posted 5 months ago at
11:31 am.
Reuters, Wednesday, 30 September 2009 [image: of Tesla Roadster all electric sports car]
Google is in the early stages of looking at ways to write software that would fully integrate plug-in hybrid vehicles to the power grid, minimize strain on the grid and help utilities manage vehicle charging load.
"We are doing some preliminary work," said Dan Reicher, Google's director of Climate Change and Energy Initiatives. "We have begun some work on smart charging of electric vehicles and how you would integrate large number of electric vehicles into the grid successfully."
"We have done a little bit of work on the software side looking at how you would write a computer code to manage this sort of charging infrastructure," he said in an interview on the sidelines of an industry conference.
Google, known for its Internet search engine, in 2007 announced a program to test Toyota Prius and Ford Escape gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles that were converted to rechargeable plug-in hybrids that run mostly on electricity.
One of the experimental technologies that was being tested by the Web search giant allowed parked plug-ins to transfer stored energy back to the electric grid, opening a potential back-up source of power for the system in peak hours.
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Posted 5 months, 1 week ago at
10:40 am.
Europe Backs Off Diesels, EVs Dominate Frankfurt
Autoline Daily for Tuesday, September 15, 2009 ... Sep 21st 2009 at 7:27PM
"lithium battery prices have come down a third since last Christmas," - Volvo engineers Sept. 2009
Korea’s Hyundai Motor Company is already establishing itself as the company with perhaps the boldest vision for a green car future. The list of Hyundai and Kia eco-models - one of the strongest hybrid showings in Frankfurt - provides mounting evidence that the company will deliver on promises to lead the world in fuel efficiency.
Vehicles with Hyundai and Kia badges on display in Frankfurt will include hybrid city cars, a hybrid crossover SUV concept, an all-electric city car, a plug-in hybrid, diesel vehicles with micro-hybrid stop-start technology, and mid-size lithium-battery-powered sedans running on liquid petroleum gas.
Last November, when we spoke with John Krafcik, CEO of Hyundai Motor America, he said, “We’re taking fuel efficiency higher and faster than any other carmaker. We’re going to pass Toyota and Honda by 2015.” He spoke like a man on a mission, promising that Hyundai Motor America will achieve a US fleet average of 35 miles per gallon by 2015, a year ahead of the timetable for new fuel economy regulations. The concepts on display in Frankfurt give some hints how Hyundai will achieve that goal, and reach its target of selling 500,000 hybrids annually by 2018.
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Posted 5 months, 2 weeks ago at
8:54 am.
By Kate Sheppard, September 22, 2009 9pm
"For the last few months I have been very concerned by the slow pace of the global negotiations," said Ban. "But I listened carefully to the discussions today and I sensed that something that has been missing for the past few months has returned. It is a sense of optimism, urgency, and hope that governments are determined to seal a deal in Copenhagen."
But, if anything, the public-facing side of the summit didn't offer much hope. Barack Obama's speech offered nothing in the way of specific policy directives and did little to put pressure on Congress to deliver him a bill that he can take to Copenhagen. And there were no major breakthroughs on agreements between leaders.
For those determined to find signs of progress, one might have been the speech by Chinese President Hu Jintao. His promise that the country would reduce greenhouse emissions by a "notable margin" below 2005 levels within a decade was hailed as a breakthrough -- though he didn't clarify whether that would be a binding goal. Chinese leaders said they are still discussing what the actual target will be.
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Posted 5 months, 2 weeks ago at
10:00 am.
Volatile energy costs could prompt next crisis, says Bank of England policymaker
There were similar warnings from the oil industry itself yesterday. Christophe de Margerie, chief executive of the French energy giant Total, said oil is set to move back above $100 and warned that if recession-hit oil producers continue to delay investment the world faces shortages by 2015.
By Sarah Arnott Tuesday, 22 September 2009
Soaring energy prices could fuel inflation and derail economic recovery, one of the Bank of England's most senior policymakers warned yesterday. "The oil price is already unusually high" "We need to be looking carefully to see where the next big global shock might be coming from," Andrew Sentance, who sits on the Bank's Monetary Policy Committee, told a London conference. "And the energy market is one of the prime candidates we need to keep an eye on."
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Posted 5 months, 2 weeks ago at
10:36 pm.
UN hopeful that Beijing initiative will kick-start talks on deal to curb emissions
By David Usborne US Editor, in New York, Tuesday, 22 September 2009
Beijing will raise the stakes in the race to agree a global climate change treaty by using a summit of world leaders in New York today to announce that China, the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, is ready to take new measures to cut pollution.
Although more than 100 leaders will attend today's conference, the focus will be on China's premier, Hu Jintao, and US President Barack Obama, who together may hold the fate of the treaty in their hands.
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Posted 5 months, 2 weeks ago at
8:33 pm.
Former Interior Secretary Gale Norton is focus of corruption probe
The Justice Department investigation centers on a 2006 decision to award oil shale leases in Colorado to a Royal Dutch Shell subsidiary. Months later, the oil giant hired Norton as a legal counsel.
By Jim Tankersley and Josh Meyer, L.A. Times; September 17, 2009
Reporting from Washington - The Justice Department is investigating whether former Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton illegally used her position to benefit Royal Dutch Shell PLC, the company that later hired her, according to officials in federal law enforcement and the Interior Department.
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Posted 5 months, 3 weeks ago at
10:23 pm.
"Negligent Homicide" : 15+ deaths reported
British trading giant agrees to pay millions to victims maimed and scarred by dumping of polluted sludge
By Cahal Milmo, Chief Reporter Thursday, 17 September 2009
Thousands of west Africans besieged local hospitals in 2006, and a number died, after the dumping of hundreds of tonnes of highly toxic oil waste around the country's capital, Abidjan. Official local autopsy reports on 12 alleged victims appeared to show fatal levels of the poisonous gas hydrogen sulphide, one of the waste's lethal byproducts.
Trafigura has been publicly insisting for three years that its waste was routine and harmless. It claims it was "absolutely not dangerous". -- Greenpeace
A British oil trading giant has agreed to a multimillion-pound payout to settle a huge damages claim from thousands of Africans who fell ill from tonnes of toxic waste dumped illegally in one of the worst pollution incidents in decades.
Trafigura, a London-based company which bills itself as one of the world's largest oil traders, said it was in talks to reach a "global settlement" to the claim by 30,000 people from Ivory Coast, who brought Britain's largest-ever lawsuit after contaminated sludge from a tanker ship was fly-tipped under cover of darkness in August 2006.
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Posted 5 months, 3 weeks ago at
10:54 am.
Bank urges climate 'action now' Tuesday, 15 September 2009
By Richard Black, Environment correspondent, BBC News website
Climate change will be a serious barrier to growth in poorer nations and must be curbed, says the World Bank. The bank's World Development Report (WDR) urges a rapid scaling-up of spending on clean energy research and protection for poorer countries. Even a warming of 2C (3.6F) - the G8's target - could reduce GDP in poor nations, the report concludes.
The bank urges governments to conclude an "equitable deal" at December's UN climate summit in Copenhagen. That "equitable deal" should involve industrialised countries paying for the damage that their historical emissions have caused and will cause in poorer parts of the world, it suggests.
"Developing countries are disproportionately affected by climate change - a crisis that is not of their making and for which they are the least prepared," said World Bank president Robert Zoellick. "For that reason, an equitable deal in Copenhagen is vitally important." Part of that deal, the report says, involves industrialised countries making rapid cuts in their greenhouse gas output, creating "emissions space" to allow for rising fossil fuel use in poorer societies.
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Posted 5 months, 3 weeks ago at
8:30 pm.
