After Mercedes going green with its all electric and ditching petroleum technology its now BMW that’s keen on turning the humble Mini into an all electric car. BMW is testing electric powertrains and is using a fleet of several hundred Minis to experiment with electric drive systems and determine the alternative drive of the future.
Hyundai is all set to launch its Elantra LPI HEV hybrid vehicle based on its “Elantra,” in July 2009 in Korea. The vehicle employs the mild hybrid system that incorporates a Li-polymer secondary battery manufactured by LG Chem Ltd of Korea, a 1.6L LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) engine, a 15kW DC motor and a CVT (continuously variable transmission). The fuel cost of Elantra LPI HEV has been reduced by the adoption of a LPG engine. When fuel costs are compared based on the figures, the fuel cost of Elantra LPI HEV is 40% lower than that of other existing hybrid vehicles and 50% lower compared with the gasoline engine version of Elantra. The additional vehicle cost paid for a hybrid vehicle will be offset by the difference in fuel costs in about two years. The CO2 emission is 103g/km, which is 90% less than a gasoline engine.
Mercedes may be name of true luxury, safety and class, now it will be the name for green too. It is planning to eradicate petroleum powered vehicles from its own line up of vehicles by the year 2015. It will now be putting its best brains into building electric, fuel cell, and biofuel vehicles; the company is revving up research in alternative fuel sources and efficiency. From what we know Mercedes well they really do one of the best research in the field of automotive engineering, so nothing less than perfect is expected off a green Merc. The Mercedes facility in Spain has one vehicle the F700, powered by a DiesOtto engine that combines HCCI and spark ignition to get nearly the same efficiency as diesel, but minus the expensive after-treatment systems. Mercedes is looking into electric vehicles, both battery-powered and fuel-cell powered. Not only are models in development, but we’ve also seen the company making steps towards its zero-petroleum goal right now, from better cabs in London to li-ion battery improvements. The company also has about 100 Smart electric cars undergoing testing in London, with that favorite 2010 year as the projected market release date.
With the amount of new technology coming up in the field of alternate power for our vehicles, it seems to me that the future of driving isn’t so dark after all. A graduate student at the University of Delaware created an electric car that can go for 150 miles on a single recharge, and has prospects of the power company paying back to him instead of charging him. The students also created a “vehicle to grid” technology. When you plug the car in, it actually becomes a storage device for the power grid. The power company would actually pay you to store their power in your car until they need it. That could add up to about $2,500 to $5,000 a year the power company would pay the driver back. The $70,000 Scion that’s fully electric and goes about 3 cents to a mile, when compared with a gas vehicle that might go between 10 and 12 cents a mile, barely takes 2 hours of recharge time. The car is no a hybrid, it is all electric. It gets plugged into an outlet.
Just like the Th!nk OX that we covered a few days back, Toyota is planning to put solar panels on the roof of the high-end version of the Prius when it redesigns the gasoline-electric hybrid car early next year. The power generated by the system would be used for the air conditioning. Toyota plans to use solar panels made by Kyocera Corp, it has remodeled the Prius with an improved hybrid system in 2003 and is expected to launch a third-generation version by next year.
Some people simply rest on a futile argument; others travel the world to prove a point. A 69-year-old Japanese sailor Ken’ichi Horie has made a 6,400-kilometer (nearly 4,000 mi) journey from Hawaii to Japan in his wave-powered Suntory Mermaid II boat. The Suntory Mermaid II, a 9.5 meter (31 ft) long x 3.5 meter (11 ft) wide, 3-ton vessel made of recycled aluminum, does not use an engine for propulsion. Instead, it relies on a pair of fins under the bow that move up and down as the waves come in, propelling the boat forward.
The recent oil price surge has got the automobile manufacturers in a jiffy, GM has almost stopped production of its Hummer brand and is reworking on a new breed of vehicle. GM is thinking hard about bringing this 40mpg car on our roads as soon as possible. Looking slightly like the Daimler AG Smart car, The ‘Beat’ would come in at about 138 inches, 11.5 feet in length it would be longer than the smart and boast a mileage of 40Mpg without using hybrid engines.
Flying may soon become an everyday thing to do if the plans of CAFE Foundation take shape. CAFE is a nonprofit aiming to advance personal air travel, CAFE stands for Comparative Aircraft Flight Efficiency. The Electric Aircraft Symposium held in April in San Francisco was host to a crowd of several dozen engineers, venture capitalists, and members of clean-tech companies who plotted the potential of Electric flight. A Slovenian company called Pipistrel highlighted its newest model The Taurus Electro which can climb to 6,000 feet after taking off on a 30-kilowatt motor. Recharging the glider’s lithium-polymer battery is meant to take about as long as powering a cell phone. Depending upon the weather and skills of the pilot, the glider can travel 1,000 miles in a day. Pipistrel’s customers include Formula One driver Pedro de la Rosa. But even Google co-founder Larry Page, who attended the forum, might have to wait to purchase the electric Taurus if he were interested.
This fancy car is not even close to being a hybrid vehicle; rather it is fully electric car that runs on Lithium-ion batteries and can run for 125-155 miles on a single charge. It can go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in 8.5 seconds its batteries can be charged to 80% capacity in less than an hour. Solar panels on its roof power equipment such as the radio, navigation system, instrument panel, and air conditioning — even while parked with the car switched off. Now that is definitely a neat concept, we may probably be able to program our car to cool itself 5mins before 5pm so we have a cool car waiting at the parking lot without counting the pennies wasted in fuel costs.
Although they have been planning on a non-gasoline vehicle for some time now, but according to the news trickling in, Merc could be out with their electric Smart car in 2010. in a recent interview, Daimler’s chief executive was quoted as saying that an “electric Smart [was planned] for 2010,” and he also said that an electric Mercedes model would be arriving “the same year.” For the pricing details he said that the cost would depend greatly “on whether it sells the batteries or leases them.” There was even a mention of a fuel cell car in 2010.
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