Category Archives: Transport
If many wondered why there wasn’t an electric motor bike after the electric car, can sit back and keep their mind at rest. There is this new Enertia electric motorcycle that will be launched at five West Coast Best Buy stores in May this year. This is being promoted by two companies Brammo and Best Buy. First they will launch a few to see how it goes with people and then they will try and sell it in all their stores. Maybe someone should give them a bit of advice that the only way this thing is going to work is having Baywatch female stars endorse it. Or maybe pretty oriental boys.
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The Sunseeker II is a hybrid plane that would need batteries to take off and climb, but then could maintain flight on solar power and could also be flown as a glider, with the prop stowed away. The battery pack is small and allows only 90 minutes of soaring on a full battery. Since the unused solar power is channeled into the batteries, climbing is again possible under power. With current generation of batteries, the Sunseeker II is never forced to land before late afternoon. Under direct solar power, the plane can fly at a speed of 40 miles an hour. After shutting down the motor, it takes hours to glide down and normally airbrakes have to be used to get down before dark.
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Pac Car II was invented from the project of Switzerland students to develop the world’s most economic car. This car is a Guinness Book Record holder, is 10 kg heavy, having on-board electronics with fiber-optical communications and tank to wheel efficiency. The record held by the car is for the distance travelled. It covered 5,385 kilometers with hydrogen equivalent of 1 liter of gasoline! Now that is super-efficiency in terms of fuel consumption!
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Toyota is planning for a greener future with dreams of an ultralight, superefficient plug-in hybrid with a bio-plastic body made of seaweed that could be in showrooms within 15 years. The kelp car would build upon the already hypergreen 1/X plug-in hybrid concept, which weighs 926 pounds, by replacing its carbon-fiber body with plastic derived from seaweed. A kelp car is not far-fetched as it might sound. Bioplastics are being used for almost everything ranging from greeting cards to cellphone cases. Oakridge National Laboratory has explored the possibility of producing carbon fiber from wood pulp.
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Bentley’s new model, Continental Supersports, will be the first Bentley that will be capable of running on both gasoline and biofuel, pioneering the use of FlexFuel technology in high end cars. The car comes with a 6 liter W12 twin-turbocharged engine producing a massive 612 HP and a top speed of 204 mph even on the E85. The car can go 0-60 in 3.7 seconds and 0-100 in 8.9 seconds. All the power gets backed up with gigantic ceramic brakes and weight reduction which trims off 243 lbs off the curb weight. It comes with automatic transmission. Roll over for more images…..
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Jaguar, the name synonymous to luxury till now will hence forth also be synonymous with eco-friendly. The auto-maker is gearing up to spice the world of green vehicles with three concepts. Based on Jaguar’s XJ luxury sedan, Limo Green is the first of the lot. It is supposed to use a series hybrid system, whose combustion engine never directly power the wheels. It works like this – the engine powers a generator, which in turn charges a battery, which powers an electric motor, which moves the vehicle. The Limo Green is estimated to zoom off from 0mph to 62mph in 7.1 seconds with well over 1,000 miles on a single tank of petrol.
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As so many eco-friendly on-shelf products and concepts emerge each day, the future promises to be green. In a bid to undo and halt the damage done to our environment, industries are rolling out earth-friendly stuff to lure eco-conscious consumers. Latest entrant is the Aventos concept vehicle. Apt for urban set up, this compact green car is ideally meant for serious business. Though it can serve as a personal car, it is primarily conceptualized for transporting goods around the city. Aventos also helps to promote car pooling. A detachable module at the rear also plays the role of nomadic shop. With such roomy green vehicles, the future generations can reloatcate to newer places without having the need to resort to movers and packers too. Featuring all these multi-purpose roles, Aventos concept will help to reduce the carbon footprint. Hey, but what about the engine? No word on the core power supply or the material used to shape up the body of this futuristic green metro-vehicle.
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It is all about the environment now. Mercedes on their part is releasing their first passenger car model with a hybrid drive system this summer. The Mercedes S 400 BlueHYBRID, the first car to have a patented integration of a lithium-ion battery, will have a modified V6 engine and a compact hybrid module and is claimed to have the lowest CO2 emissions in its performance class, 190grams per kilometer. This also has a start/stop function which switches the engine off when the car is at standstill and when it has to move again the electric motor restarts the main power unit. The person driving the car can also monitor the status of the hybrid drive system.
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If you are green at heart but dare to challenge the speed then Rinspeed iChange is the car for you. Garnering attention as the world’s first adaptive car-body, this speed devil can convert from a single seater into a three seater spacious car. And to do this, the driver doesn’t need to break in to sweat. Just a push of button is all that will enable the driver to pop out the rear end of the tear-drop shaped vehicle in order to accommodate two more passengers. The iCharge runs on an electric motor along with lithium-ion batteries in two different stack configurations, for short and long-distance. This innovative concept of the pop-up rear end was conceived to account for the sizeable effect aerodynamics play in fuel consumption. The green heart, a.k.a. electric motor of the “iChange” produces 150kW, capable of propelling the car to a top speed of 220 km/h. The sprint from rest to 100 km/h takes just slightly over four seconds. It is also reported that the key and other control functions are replaced by an Apple iPhone!
More images after the jump…….
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And the next time you are traveling via rail through Britain, you will have to sleep on scrap and plastic! Hey allow me to finish my line before you jump to any irrational accusations. Network Rail is going green by befitting the long distance trains with eco-friendly sleepers. About 250 of traditional timber sleepers will be swapped with the ones made of old auto bumpers and discarded plastic bottles. Approximately 60 kilograms of recycled plastic will go into shaping these sleepers. The company behind this green change is Halifax based i-plas, a plastic waste recycling company. By changing over to such earth-friendly raw materials, the railways are helping to save our forests too. Not to forget the lessened burden on landfills. Though these sleepers are still undergoing checks, I am sure the outcome of such a trial will be uber-green. Opting for rail over air transport is green and now it gets greener with recycled plastic sleepers.
[Guardian]
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